"'I have long feared several
sins, whereof one,' he said, 'was Corahism: that is, when people rise up
as Corah against their ministers, as if they took too much upon them, when
indeed they do but rule for Christ, and according to Christ.'" [Footnote:
_Magnalia_, bk. 3, ch. iii. Section 17.] Permeated with this love of
power, and possessed of a superb organization, the clergy never failed to
act on public opinion with decisive effect whenever they saw their worldly
interests endangered. Childe has described the attack which overwhelmed
him, and Gorton gives a striking account of their process of inciting a
crusade:--
"These things concluded to be heresies and blasphemies.... The ministers
did zealously preach unto the people the great danger of such things, and
the guilt such lay under that held them, stirring the people up to labour
to find such persons out and to execute death upon them, making persons so
execrable in the eyes of the people, whom they intimated should hold such
things, yea some of them naming some of us in their pulpits, that the
people that had not seen us thought us to be worse by far in any respect
then those barbarous Indians are in the country.... Whereupon we heard a
rumor that the Massachusets was sending out an army of men to cut us off."
[Footnote: _Simplicitie's Defence_, p.
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