when persons know that the Most High is alone the absolute Lord of Conscience; that no mortal breathing has any right to hinder them from thinking and acting for themselves, in religious affairs... the law of nature, reason and grace will lay subjects under strong obligations to their rulers, when equal justice is ministered to them of different principles, in the practice of religion. [l46] Frothingham confutes the declaration that there was liberty of conscience in the colony, "for the separates have gone to the General Assembly with their prayers, from year to year, asking nothing but their just rights, full and free liberty of conscience, and have been, and still are, denied their request." Furthermore, the colony law supported criminals in prison and gave the poor man's oath to debtors, but nothing to the man who was in prison for conscience's sake. Such a one was dependent upon the charity of his friends for the very necessities of life. Such laws and the ecclesiastical constitution which they support become-- a forfeiture of the charter grant because they exercise that oppression and persecution contrary to its first intent, and are the direct cause of contention and disunion, which is repugnant to the principal design of constituting the colony; viz. that it "May be so religiously, peaceably and civilly governed as may win and invite the natives to the Christian faith." [l47] This "Key to unlock the Door" was probably the strongest work put forth from the dissenter's standpoint, and within three years it was followed by a legislative act granting a measure of toleration. But there were other important books of similar character. Two among these were Robert Bragge's "Church Discipline,"[f] reprinted in 1768, and Joseph Brown's (Baptist) "Letter to the Infant Baptizers of North Parish in New London." Brown closes his book with a mild and reasonable appeal to every one to try to put himself in the place of the oppressed dissenter.[g] In Brown's argument, as in that of the majority of the dissenters, the plea is for toleration in the choice of the form of religion to be supported, and not for liberty to support or neglect religion itself. Those who believed in the voluntary support of religion were not seeking exemption as individuals, but as organized societies or churches, whose highest privilege it was to support Christ's teachings. Considered from this point of view, they were only seeking those privileges which had been granted the Episcopalians, the Quakers, and Baptists in 1727-29. Looked at from the point of view of the government, however, these Separatists varied so slightly from the legalized polity and worship, and yet withal so dangerously, that they did not deserve to be classed as "sober dissenters." To recognize them as such would be to set the seal of approval upon all who chose to question the authority, or the righteousness, of the Saybrook system. With the fear