Note 432 — Chapter XIII

Baillie, writing to Mr. Spang, May 17th, 1644, (Letters, ii. 184,) says: "The Independents here, finding they have not the magistrate so obsequious as in New England, turn their pens, as you will see in M.S.," (which he had before identified as Goodwin's, of Coleman Street,) "to take from the magistrate all power of taking any coercive order with the vilest heretics. Not only they praise your magistrate who for policy gives some secret tolerance to diverse religions, wherein, as I conceive, your Divines preach against them as great sinners; but avows that by God's command the magistrate is discharged to put the least discourtesy on any man—Jew, Turk, Papist, Socinian, or whatever, for his religion." "The five will not say this, but M.S. is of as great authority here as any of them." Yet, though this sentiment is by Baillie confined to Goodwin, and expressly said not to be shared by the five, it has by some been put into the lips of Nye.