This drives the ministers that would
be faithful unto the Lord Jesus Christ, and his interests in the churches,
unto a necessity of appearing for their defence. No little part of these
actions must unavoidably fall to my share. I have already written a large
monitory letter to these innovators, which, though most lovingly penned,
yet enrages their violent and imperious lusts to carry on the apostacy."
"1699. 5th d. 11th m. (Saturday.) I see Satan beginning a terrible shake
in the churches of New England, and the innovators that had set up a new
church in Boston (a new one indeed!) have made a day of temptation among
us. The men are ignorant, arrogant, obstinate, and full of malice and
slander, and they fill the land with lies, in the misrepresentations
whereof I am a very singular sufferer. Wherefore I set apart this day
again for prayer in my study, to cry mightily unto God." [Footnote:
_History of Harvard_, Quincy, i. 486, 487, App. x.]
"21st d. 11th m. The people of the new church in Boston, who, by their
late manifesto, went on in an ill way, and in a worse frame, and the town
was filled with sin, and especially with slanders, wherein especially my
father and myself were sufferers. We two, with many prayers and studies,
and with humble resignation of our names unto the Lord, prepared a
faithful antidote for our churches against the infection of the example,
which we feared this company had given them, and we put it into the press.
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