Winthrop, ii. 136.] ... Some write that the Indians did burne her to death
with fire, her house and all the rest named that belonged to her; but I am
not able to affirme by what kind of death they slew her, but slaine it
seemes she is, according to all reports. I never heard that the Indians in
those parts did ever before this, commit the like outrage ...; and
therefore God's hand is the more apparently seene herein, to pick out this
wofull woman, to make her and those belonging to her, an unheard of heavie
example of their cruelty above al others." [Footnote: _Short Story_,
Preface.]
CHAPTER III.
THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM.
With the ruin of the Antinomians, opposition to the clergy ceased within
the church itself, but many causes combined to prevent the bulk of the
people from participating in the communion. Of those who were excluded,
perhaps even the majority might have found it impossible to have secured
their pastor's approbation, but numbers who would have been gladly
received were restrained by conscientious scruples; and more shrank from
undergoing the ordeal to which they would have been obliged to submit. It
was no light matter for a pious but a sincerely honest man to profess his
conversion, and how God had been pleased to work "in the inward parts of
his soul," when he was not absolutely certain that he had indeed been
visited by the Spirit.
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