" And "he
would speak with such a transcendent majesty and liveliness, that the
people ... would often shake under his dispensations, as if they had heard
the sound of the trumpets from the burning mountain, and yet they would
mourn to think, that they were going presently to be dismissed from such
an heaven upon earth." ... "When a publick admonition was to be dispensed
unto any one that had offended scandalously... the hearers would be all
drowned in tears, as if the admonition had been, as indeed he would with
much artifice make it be directed unto them all; but such would be the
compassion, and yet the gravity, the majesty, the scriptural and awful
pungency of these his dispensations, that the conscience of the offender
himself, could make no resistance thereunto." [Footnote: _Magnalia_,
bk. 4, ch. iv. Sub-section 9, 10.]
Their arrogance was fed by the submission of the people, and they would
not tolerate the slightest opposition even from their most devoted
retainers. The Reforming Synod was held in 1679. "When the report of a
committee on 'the evils that had provoked the Lord' came up for
consideration, 'Mr. Wheelock declared that there was a cry of injustice in
that magistrates and ministers were not rated' (taxed), 'which occasioned
a very warm discourse. Mr. Stodder' (minister of Northampton) 'charged the
deputy with saying what was not true, and the deputy governor' (Danforth)
'told him he deserved to be laid by the heels, etc.
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