Note 32 — PART II.

Cotton Mather relates that, taking the last look at his native shore, Higginson said, 'We will not say, as the Separatists say, "Farewell, Babylon; farewell, Rome;" but we will say, "Farewell, dear England; farewell, Church of God in England, and all the Christian friends there. We do not go to New England as separatists from the Church of England, though we cannot but separate from the corruptions of it. But we go to practise the positive part of Church reformation, and propagate the gospel in America.'"—Magnalia, Book III., Part II., Chap. i., quoted by Palfrey, Vol. I., p. 297, in a note.

"They were careful to distinguish themselves from the Brownist and other Separatists. Had they remained in England, and the Church been governed with the wisdom and moderation of the present day, they would have remained, to use their own expression, 'in the bosom of the Church where they had received their hopes of salvation.'"—Hutchinson's History of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I., p. 417.

Note by Mr. Hutchinson: "The son of one of the first ministers, in a preface to a sermon preached soon after the Revolution, remarks that 'if the bishops in the reign of King Charles the First had been of the same spirit as those in the reign of King William, there would have been no New England.'"