and so went forth, and about half an hour after
returned again, and went on to very good purpose about two hours."
[Footnote: Winthrop, i. 304.] Common men could not have kept this hold
upon the inhabitants of New England, but the clergy were learned,
resolute, and able, and their strong but narrow minds burned with
fanaticism and love of power; with their beliefs and under their
temptations persecution seemed to them not only their most potent weapon,
but a duty they owed to Christ--and that duty they unflinchingly
performed. John Cotton, the most gifted among them, taught it as a holy
work: "But the good that is brought to princes and subjects by the due
punishment of apostate seducers and idolaters and blasphemers is manifold.
"First, it putteth away evill from the people and cutteth off a gangreene,
which would spread to further ungodlinesse....
"Secondly, it driveth away wolves from worrying and scattering the sheep
of Christ. For false teachers be wolves, ... and the very name of wolves
holdeth forth what benefit will redound to the sheep, by either killing
them or driving them away.
"Thirdly, such executions upon such evill doers causeth all the country to
heare and feare, and doe no more such wickednesse.... Yea as these
punishments are preventions of like wickednesse in some, so are they
wholesome medicines, to heale such as are curable of these eviles.
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