“It doth not a little grieve my spirit, to hear what sad things are reported daily of your tyranny and persecutions in New-England, as that you fine, whip and imprison men for their consciences. First, you compel such to come into your assemblies as you know will not join you in your worship, and when they show their dislike thereof, or witness against it, then you stir up your magistrates to punish them for such (as you conceive) their public affronts. Truly, friends, this your practice of compelling any in matters of worship, to do that whereof they are not fully persuaded, is to make them sin, for so the apostle (Rom. 14: 23) tells us, and many are made hypocrites thereby, conforming in their outward man, for fear of punishment. We pray for you, and wish you prosperity every way, hoping the Lord would have given you so much light and love there, that you might have been eyes to God’s people here, and not to practise those courses in a wilderness, which you went so far to prevent. These rigid ways have laid you very low in the hearts of the saints.” Mr. Cotton replied to this letter. After stating that Mr. Clarke and Mr. Holmes had offended against the “order and government of our churches, established, _we know_, by God’s law,” he furnishes this remarkable specimen of sophistry: “You think, to compel men in matters of worship is to make them sin. If the worship be lawful in itself, the magistrate compelling him to come to it compelleth him not to sin, but the sin is in his will that needs to be compelled to a Christian duty. If it do make men hypocrites, yet better be hypocrites than profane persons. Hypocrites give God part of his dues, the outward man; but the profane person giveth God neither outward nor inward man. You know not, if you think we came into this wilderness, to practise those courses here, which we fled from in England. We believe there is a vast difference between men’s inventions and God’s institutions. We fled from men’s inventions, to which we else should have been compelled. We compel none to men’s inventions. If our ways (rigid ways, as you call them,) have laid us low in the hearts of God’s people, yea, and of the saints, (as you style them) we do not believe it is any part of their saintship. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, we have tolerated in our churches some anabaptists, some antinomians, and some seekers, and do so still, at this day. We are far from arrogating infallibility of judgment to ourselves, or affecting uniformity. Uniformity God never required; infallibility he never granted us.”[275]