" [Footnote: Mrs. Gould's Answer, Backus,
i. 384.] The sequence is complete: so long as Gould confined his heresy to
pure speculation upon dogma he was little heeded; when he withheld his
child from baptism and went out during the ceremony he was admonished,
denied the sacrament, and treated as a social outcast; but when he
separated, he was excommunicated and given to the magistrate to be
crushed.
Passing from one tribunal to another the sectaries came before the General
Court in October, 1665: such as were freemen were disfranchised, and all
were sentenced, upon conviction before a single magistrate of continued
schism, to be imprisoned until further order. [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._
vol. iv. pt. 2, p. 291.] The following April they were fined four pounds
and put in confinement, where they lay till the 11th of September, when
the legislature, after a hearing, ordered them to be discharged upon
payment of fines and costs. [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._ vol. iv. pt. 2,
p. 316.]
How many Baptists were prosecuted, and what they suffered, is not known,
as only an imperfect record remains of the fortunes of even the leaders of
the movement; this much, however, is certain, they not only continued
contumacious, but persecution added to their numbers. So at length the
clergy decided to try what effect a public refutation of these heretics
would have on popular opinion.
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