Note 211 — Chapter VII

The platform of Church government which they settled was of the Congregational mode, connecting the several Churches together to a certain degree, and yet exempting each of them from any jurisdiction, by way of censure or any power extensive to their own.... No man could be qualified to elect or be elected to office who was not a Church member, and no Church could be formed but by a license from a magistrate; so that the civil and ecclesiastical powers were intimately combined. The clergy were consulted about the laws, were frequently present at the passing of them, and by the necessity of their influence in the origination, demonstrated how much the due execution of them depended on their power.

"But the error of establishing one rule for all men in ecclesiastical policy and discipline (which experience has proved cannot be maintained, even in matters of indifference) could not fail of discovering itself in very serious instances as the Society increased. The great body of the English nation being of a different persuasion in this respect, numbers belonging to their Church, who came into the country, necessarily formed an opposition which, as they had the countenance of the King, could not be crushed like those other sectaries. It became a constant subject of royal attention, to allow freedom and liberty of conscience, especially in the use of the Common Prayer, and the rights of sacrament and baptism as thereby prescribed. The law confining the rights of freemen to Church members was at length repealed (in pretence); and pecuniary qualifications for those who were not Church members, with good morals and the absurd requisite of orthodoxy of opinion, certified by a clergyman, were substituted in its place. But the great ascendency which the Congregationalists had gained over every other sect made the chance of promotion to office, and the share of influence in general, very unequal, and was, without doubt, one of the most important causes which conspired to the loss of the Charter." (Minot's Continuation of the History of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, etc., Vol. I., Chap. i, pp. 29-31.)