The alarm spread through the colony. The ministers thronged to Boston, to confer with Mr. Cotton and others. Long discussions ensued, without effect, and at length it was resolved to try the virtue of a general synod. It was accordingly held at Newtown, (now Cambridge) on the 30th of August, 1637, and was attended not only by all the ministers and messengers of the churches, but by the magistrates. Three weeks were spent in debates, during which the mild spirit of Winthrop often interposed to soften the asperity of controversy. The synod collected, with great industry, all the erroneous opinions then to be found in the country, amounting to eighty-two, and finished its session, by condemning these errors, and pronouncing its judgment on certain points of church discipline.[175] The effect of the synod was the usual one, of increasing the pertinacity with which the different parties held their opinions. Mrs. Hutchinson continued her lectures, and nearly all the members of the Boston church became her converts. She forsook the public assemblies, and set up a meeting in her own house. She accused the greater part of the ministers in the country as preachers of error. The civil power now interposed, to apply the remedy for heresy, which has often been used, when argument had failed. Mrs. Hutchinson was summoned before the General Court, and many of the ministers. She was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to be banished. The church excommunicated her, though she is said to have recanted her errors. Rev. Mr. Wheelwright, her brother-in-law, who had publicly espoused her cause, was likewise banished.