Cotton did differ from them, and had
propounded them to him, and pressed him to a direct answer ... to every
one; which he had promised. ... This meeting being spoke of in the court
the day before, the governour took great offence at it, as being without
his privity, &c., which this day Mr. Peter told him as plainly of (with
all due reverence), and how it had sadded the ministers' spirits, that he
should be jealous of their meetings, or seem to restrain their liberty,
&c. The governour excused his speech as sudden and upon a mistake. Mr.
Peter told him also, that before he came, within less than two years
since, the churches were in peace.... Mr. Peter also besought him humbly
to consider his youth and short experience in the things of God, and to
beware of peremptory conclusions which he perceived him to be very apt
unto." [Footnote: Winthrop, i. 209.] This coarse bully was the same Hugh
Peters of whom Whitelock afterward complained that he often advised him,
though he "understood little of the law, but was very opinionative,"
[Footnote: Memorials, p. 521.] and who was so terrified at the approach of
death that on his way to the scaffold he had to drink liquor to keep from
fainting. [Footnote: Burnet, i. 162.]
"Mr. Wilson" also "made a very sad speech to the General Court of the
condition of our churches, and the inevitable danger of separation, if
these differences .
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