This sect of Rogerines arose from the intercourse through trade of two brothers, John and James Rogers of New London, with the Sabbatarians or Seventh-day Baptists of Rhode Island. These brothers were baptized in 1674 and 1675, and their parents in the following year. All were received as members of the Seventh-day church at Newport. This did not trouble the Connecticut authorities, who appear not to have interfered with the converts until they committed a flagrant offense and put public dishonor upon the colony church; as in 1677, when elders of the Rhode Island church arrived in New London to baptize the wife of Joseph Rogers, another brother of the first two converts. The elders selected for their baptismal ceremony a quiet spot about two miles from the town. This did not suit John Rogers, who insisted that the town was the only proper place, and led the little procession into it. Mr. Hiscox, one of the elders, was seized while preaching and carried before the magistrates, but was soon released. Deprived of their leader, the Sabbatarians withdrew to another place, and John Rogers, arrogating to himself the office of elder, performed the baptismal service. From this time forth he began to draw disciples to himself. When he pushed his personal opinions too far, the Newport church attempted to discipline both him and his following, but, this attempt failing, the Rogerines became henceforth a distinct sect. The Rogerines, though strictly orthodox in the fundamental articles of the Christian faith, were opposed by the Connecticut magistrates as teachers of doctrines tending to undermine religion, as a persistently rebellious sect, and as notorious breakers of the peace. In faith and practice, these Rogerines bore some resemblance to the Baptists and also to the Quakers. Hence, they were often called Rogerine-Baptists or Rogerine-Quakers. Like the earlier Baptists and the Quakers, they believed it wrong to take an oath. They differed from the Congregationalists chiefly in their form of administering baptism and the Lord's supper and in their opposition to any paid ministry. Rogers also claimed that there were certain tests of personal regeneration which the Congregationalists denied. John Bolles, one of the later leaders of the sect, declared the Congregational Sunday to be "a great Idol in this Country, and all the Religion built on the Holiness of the pretended Sabbath is Hypocrisy and further that it is contrary to Scripture, for Christians to exercise Authority over one another in matters of Religion." [67] Rogers, with less dignity and more pugnaciousness, called the authorities "the scarlet beast" and the Establishment a "harlot," hurling scriptural texts with rankling, exasperating abusiveness in his determination to prove her customs evil and anti-Christian. Not content with such railing, the Rogerines determined to show no respect to their adversaries' opinions and worship. Thus, while maintaining that there should be no _public_