long after, so ready to annoy, and with bitter invectives sting, every magistrate and minister that did not approve of their sentiments; the venom of which spirit had soon after infected so many of that church and people of Salem, as will appear in the next chapter. But this fear was without cause; nor did it spring from a godly jealousy, but from the bitter root of pride, that vaunteth itself above order, and against love and peace. No such spirit was ever observed to appear in Mr. Cotton's days, but a spirit of love and meekness, or since his time to the present year.

Those that lived in those times could not but observe, on the contrary, how it pleased the Lord to give a special testimony of his presence in the church of Boston, after Mr. Cotton was called to office there. More were observed to be converted and added to that church than to all the rest of the churches in the country.1 Divers profane and notorious evil persons came and confessed their sins, and were comfortably received into the bosom of the church. An eminent spirit of grace was poured into the lips of that famous preacher, and other eminent gifts did abound in private brethren of that church, which forwarded the edification and salvation of others. The Lord was pleased also greatly to bless the discipline of that church, wherein he gave the pastor, Mr. Wilson, and Mr. Leveret, a singular gift, to the great benefit of the whole congregation. Nevertheless, God was pleased to send or let loose, not long after, a messenger of Satan in that church, that they should not be exalted above measure, through the abundance of revelations. Satan desired to winnow the chief of the Apostles; no wonder if he were as desirous so to deal with other ordinary ministers of the Gospel in succeeding ages, and their churches.

On the 22d of December in the year following, viz. 1634, Mr. Simmes was, on a solemn day of humiliation, likewise ordained teacher of the church of Charlestown. But within a while after,2 upon one account or other, there did arise a spirit of jealousy between Mr. James, the pastor of that church, and some of the brethren,

'See Savage's Winthrop, i. 121.-—н.

In 1636-H.

although Mr. Simmes was not condemned for being any blameable cause thereof, yet was it within a year after blown up into an open flame, so as they were constrained to call in the help of the elders and messengers of the next churches; and it being the case of an elder, the neighbor churches, to whom they sent for advice, sent most elders, and but few other messengers. Upon hearing the whole case it appeared that the pastor (by his natural temper a melancholic man, and subject to jealousies) had been to blame for speaking as of certainty that which he only conceived out of jealousy; and also that the rest had not been without all fault, in that they had not proceeded with him in a due order, for, of the two witnesses produced against him, one was the accuser. They advised, therefore, that, if they could not comfortably close again, the pastor and such as stood on his part, (if they would,) should desire dismission, which should be granted them, for avoiding extremities, which it seems they accepted of, and Mr. James soon after removed to the southward, and some years after returned back to England, where he was accepted as a faithful minister of the Gospel, and continued in that work till the year 1678, at Needham, in Suffolk, which was about the 86th year of his age, (though not of his ministry, as is said of Polycarpus,) and may yet be living, and waiting for his dissolution. He went also to Virginia, with Mr. Thompson and Mr. Knowles, Anno 1642, as will be mentioned in the transactions of that lustre.

About the same time happened another uncomfortable agitation at Lynn, viz. March 15, 1634, where the elders of every church were called together to put an end to a difference in that church. One Mr. Bachelor, that came into the country the summer before,2 (in the 71st year of his age,) in the want of a minister was called to take upon him the ministerial office in that place. Not long after divers of the brethren, not liking the proceedings of the pastor, and withal questioning whether they were a church or not, did separate from church communion. The pastor and the other brethren desired the

See Prince, pp. 413-14; Sav. Win. i. 94, 182.-H.

• With Welde and others. Sav. Win. i. 77-8.—н.

advice and help of the rest of the churches, who, not thinking fit to judge of the case without hearing the other side, offered to meet at Lynn about it. Upon this the pastor required the separate brethren to deliver their grievances in writing, which they refusing to do, the pastor wrote to all the churches that for this cause they purposed to proceed against them, as persons excommunicable; and therefore desired them to stay their journey. This letter being read at the Lecture at Boston, (where all the ministers of every church generally used to be present,) they all agreed, with consent of their churches, to go presently to Lynn, (at that time called Sagust,) to stay this hasty proceeding. Accordingly, being met, and both parties, after much debate, being heard, it was determined that they were a true church, though not constituted in due order; yet after-consent and practice of church estate had supplied that defect; and so all were reconciled at that time.

Mr. John Maverick, teacher of the church of Dorchester, died the 3d of February, 1635, about the 60th year of his age. He was a man of an humble spirit, and a faithful preacher of the Gospel, very ready to further the work of the Lord, both in the church, and in the civil state.

About the year 1635 were churches gathered and ministers ordained in many places about the Bay, as at Bear Cove, called afterwards Hingham; where Mr. Peter Hubbert, that came out of Norfolk, in England, was called to be their pastor; a man well qualified with ministerial abilities, though not so fully persuaded of the Congregational discipline as some others were.

And at Westaugustus, since called Weymouth, one Mr. Hull was at first their minister, though afterwards he gave place to some other, which hath been the lot of several that have successively been the officers of that church, though men of worth and learning. At the first it is thought their proceedings were not so orderly as should have been, which was not the least occasion of their after troubles.

The Plantation at Agawam was, from the first year of its being raised to a township, so filled with inhabitants 2 See page 155.-H.

1 Hobart.-H.

that some of them presently swarmed out into another place, a little further eastward. The reverend and learned Mr. Parker was at first called to Ipswich,' to join with Mr. Ward; but he choosing rather to accompany some of his countrymen that came out of Wiltshire in England, to that new place, than to be engaged with such as he had not been acquainted withall before, therefore removed with them thither, and called it|| Newberry; which recess of theirs made room for others that soon after supplied their place.

In the latter end of this year, 1635, Mr. Bachelor, pastor of the church at Lynn, (whereof mention was made before,) was complained of to the magistrates, and convened before them on this occasion. He came out of England with a small body of six or seven persons, who settled with him at Lynn, where he received many of the inhabitants of ||that|| place into his church, or, at least, they had with the rest received him as their pastor; but contention growing between him and the greatest part of his church, he desired dismission for himself and his first members, which being granted, upon supposition that he would leave the town, as he had given out he would, he, with the six or seven persons, renewed their old covenant, intending to raise another church in the place; whereat the most and chief of the town being offended, (for that it would cross their intentions of calling another minister,) complained to the magistrates, who, foreseeing the distraction which was like to come by this course, had forbid him to proceed in any such church way, until the cause were considered by the other ministers. But he refused to desist, whereupon they sent for him, and upon his delay, day after day, the marshal was sent to fetch him. Upon his appearance and submission, and promise to remove out of the town within three months, he was discharged. Accordingly he removed to the Plantation that then was new begun beyond Ipswich, called Newbery, where he stayed not long, in regard he could not accomplish his desire of being admitted to a pastoral office in the church of that place, waiting an opportunity of providing a suitable settled at || ||2 the||

1 In 1634.-H.

place for himself and his company elsewhere, which at last was found at Hampton, a Plantation begun towards Pascataqua, about the year 1638.

The next year they of Lynn gathered another church, having invited Mr. Whiting to be their pastor, a man of great worth and learning, that not long before? came over from a parish3 adjoining to Boston, in Lincolnshire. There was some difficulty in settling them in church order anew, in regard they had many of them formerly belonged to another church in Mr. Bachelor's time, according to the usual observation, that many times it is more easy to raise a new building than repair an old one, especially when the persons concerned either want experience or skill in the kind of the architecture as was said to be the case there. But Anno 1637 Mr. Thomas Cobbet, that came over with Mr. Davenport, was called also to Lynn, where he was ordained teacher of the same church whereof Mr. Whiting was the pastor. The learning and abilities of Mr. Cobbet are well known by his writings, since published to the world.

CHAP. XXIX.

a

Memorable accidents during this lustre of years. The small-pox among the Indians; pestilential fever at Plymouth; with other occurrences worthy to be observed, from the year 1630 to 1636.

In the year 1633 it pleased God to visit the Colony of Plymouth with a pestilential fever, whereof many died, upwards of twenty, men, women, and children, which was a great number out of a small company of inhabitants. Some of them looked upon a numerous company of strange flies in the spring, like bumblebees, (which coming out of the ground, with a terrible kind of humming noise, so as the woods did ring therewith) to be a presage of that mortality which followed very hot, in the months of June, July and August. But in the end of that year and winter following a great mortality happened among the Massachusetts Indians, whereby thousands of them were swept away, which came by the * He arrived in Boston, May 26, 1636.-H.

1 Nov. 8, 1636.-н.

Skirbeck.-H.

• Bradford, in Prince, pp. 432, 437; Davis's Morton, pp. 173-4.-H.