Note 181 — A REPLY TO THE AFORESAID ANSWER OF MR. COTTON, IN A CONFERENCE BETWEEN TRUTH AND PEACE. (continued 3)

[By the 35th of Elizabeth, all subjects of the realm above sixteen years of age, were compelled to attend church under the penalties of fine and imprisonment. Collier’s Eccles. Hist. vii. 163. The pilgrim fathers of New England adopted a similar obnoxious and persecuting law. In the year 1631, it was enacted by their general court, “that no one should enjoy the privileges of a freeman, unless he was a member of some church in the colony.” “Every inhabitant was compelled to contribute to the support of religion, and the magistrates insisted on the presence of every man at public worship.” Knowles’s Memoir of Roger Williams, p. 44. Bancroft’s Hist. of U. States, i. 369.]