[Footnote:
Winthrop, i. 178.] Winthrop agreed to leave the question to the ministers,
who the next morning gave an emphatic opinion in favor of strict
discipline. Thenceforward he was pliant in their hands, and with that day
opened the dark epoch of his life. By leading the crusade against the
Antinomians he regained the confidence of the elders and they never again
failed him; but in return they exacted obedience to their will; and the
rancor with which he pursued Anne Hutchinson, Gorton, and Childe cannot be
extenuated, and must ever be a stain upon his fame.
As Hutchinson points out, in early life his tendencies were liberal, but
in America he steadily grew narrow. The reason is obvious. The leader of
an intolerant party has himself to be intolerant. His claim to eminence as
a statesman must rest upon the purity of his moral character, his calm
temper, and his good judgment; for his mind was not original or brilliant,
nor was his thought in advance of his age. Herein he differed from his
celebrated contemporary, for among the long list of famous men, who are
the pride of Massachusetts, there are few who in mere intellectual
capacity outrank Cotton. He was not only a profound scholar, an eloquent
preacher, and a famous controversialist, but a great organizer, and a
natural politician. He it was who constructed the Congregational
hierarchy; his publications were the accepted authority both abroad and at
home; and the system which he developed in his books was that which was
made law by the Cambridge Platform.
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