[h] Guilford, Branford, Milford, Stamford, on the mainland, and Southold, on Long Island. [i] The General Court was head of the churches. "It was more than Pope, or Pope and College of Cardinals, for it exercised all authority, civil and ecclesiastical. In matters of discipline, faith, and practice there was no appeal from its decisions. Except the right to be protected in their orthodoxy the churches had no privileges which the Court did not confer, or could not take away."--Bronson's _Early Gov't. in Conn._ p. 347, in _N. H. Hist. Soc. Papers_, vol. iii. [j] On August 18, 1658, the court refused, upon complaint of the Wethersfield church, to remove Mr. Russell. In March, 1661, after duly considering the matter, the court allowed Mr. Stow to sever his connection with the church of Middletown. It concerned itself with the strife in the Windsor church over an assistant pastor from 1667 to 1680. It allowed the settlement of Woodbury in 1672 because of dissatisfaction with the Stratford church. It permitted Stratford to divide in 1669. These are but a few instances both of the authority of the General Court over individual churches and of that discord which, finding its strongest expression in the troubles of the Hartford church, not only rent the churches of Connecticut from 1650 to 1670, but "insinuated itself into all the affairs of the society, towns, and the whole community." Another illustration of the court's oversight of the purity of religion was its investigation in 1670 into the "soundness of the minister at Rye." For these and hosts of similar examples see index _Conn. Col. Rec._ vols. i, ii, iii, and iv. CHAPTER IV THE CAMBRIDGE PLATFORM AND THE HALF-WAY COVENANT It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.--Sydney Smith.