authority disciplined them and their members, and early invaded
ecclesiastical territory. In Salem, Endicott took it upon himself to
expel Ralph Smith for holding extreme Separatist principles, and
shipped the Browns back to England for persisting in the use of the
Book of Common Prayer. He considered both parties equally dangerous to
the welfare of the community, because, according to the new standard
of church-life, both were censurable. Endicott held that to tolerate
any measure of diversity in religious practices was to cultivate the
ferment of civil disorder. Considering the bitterness, narrowness,
intensity, and also the irritating conviction that every one else was
heretical and anti-Christian, with which men of that age clung to
their religious differences, Endicott had some reason for holding this
opinion. The Boston authorities believed in no less drastic measures
to maintain the civil peace and consequent good name of the
colony. John Davenport of New Haven voiced the Massachusetts sentiment
as well as his own in: "Civil government is for the common welfare of
all, as well in the Church as without; which will then be most
certainly effected, when Public Trust and Power of these matters is
committed to such men as are most approved according to God; and these
are Church-members."[24] Consequently, the Massachusetts law of 1631
[25] forbade any but church members to become freemen of the colony,
and to these only was intrusted any share in its government. A similar
law was later formulated for the New Haven colony. John Cotton echoed
the further sentiment of a New England community when, writing of the
relations between the churches and the magistrates, he defined the
church as "subject to the Magistrate in the matters concerning the
civil peace, of which there are four sorts:" (1) with reference to
men's goods, lives, liberty, and lands; (2) with establishment of
religion in doctrine, worship, and government according to the Word of
God, as also the reformation of corruption in any of these; (3) with