921.73 W589w.pdf - Mesa FamilySearch Library

Re_,. Samuel 14/hiLin_. 75
the mother Church, and the ministers generally
deemed it a sacred duty to set their heels upon
every sprout of episcopacy.
In any community where individuals were
subject to fines, imprisonment, or banishment,
or were liable to be put to death on account of
their religious opinions, where tolerance was
deemed a sin, and where a few laymen and
clergymen, though elected to clerical or political
offices by voices of church-members, sought and
obtained control of the spiritual and temporal
affairs of ahnost all persons within their juris-
diction, it is obvious that civil liberty could not
be preserved. The sudden, rapid, and fearful
descent of the colonial government from the
grandeur of a State founded on equal rights,
towards a theocracy based on hereditary aris-
tocracy, may be shown by reference to a few
laws passed by the General Court. In I636 it
was ordered " that a certain number of magis-
trates should be chosen for life." John Win-
throp and Thomas Dudley, in that year, and
John Endicott in I637, procured themselves to
be elected for life as members of the standing