For my reverend and worthyly much esteemed friends Mr. Cotton and Mr. Wilson, preachers to the church which is at Boston in New-England, give this.
(2) Mr. Cotton's Answer to Sir Richard Saltonstall
... You thinke to compell all men in matter of worship is to make men sinne (according to Rom. 14. 23.). If the worship be lawfull in itselfe, the magistrate compelling him to come to it compelleth him not to sinne, but the sinne is in his will that needs to be compelled to a christian duty. Josiah compelled all Israel, or (which is all one) made to serve the Lord their God, 2 Chron. 34. 33. yet his act herein was not blamed but recorded amongst his virtuous actions. For a governour to suffer any within his gates to prophane the sabbath, is a sinne against the 4th commandment, both in the private householder and in the magistrate; and if he requires them to present themselves before the Lord, the magistrate sinneth not, nor doth the subject sinne so great a sinne as if he did refraine to come....
But (say you) it doth but make men hypocrites to compell men to conforme the outward man for feare of punishment. If it did so, yet better to be hypocrites than prophane persons. Hypocrites give God part of his due, the outward man, but the prophane person giveth God neither outward nor inward man....
What you wrote out of Holland to our then governor Mr. Dudley, in behalfe of Anabaptists, Antinomians, Seekers, and the like, it seemeth, mett with a short answer from him, but zealous; for zeal will not beare such mixtures as coldnesse or lukewarmenesse will, Revel. 2. 2. 14. 15. 20.
85. Criticism by a Moderate Episcopalian and Monarchist
Lechford's "Plaine Dealing" (1641), reprinted in Massachusetts Historical Society Collections, Third Series, III, 55 ff.
Thomas Lechford was in New England from 1637 to 1641. His point of view is not seriously unfriendly.
... And I doe not this, God knoweth, as delighting to lay open the infirmities of these well-affected men, many of them my friends,—but that it is necessary, at this time, for the whole Church of God, and themselves, as I take it. Besides, many of the things are not infirmities, but such as I am bound to protest against; yet I acknowledge there are some wise men among them who would help to mend things, if they were able. ... And I think that wiser men then they, going into a wildernesse to set up another strange government differing from the settled government here, might have falne into greater errors then they have done.