It is true that Vassal’s petition was the event which made the ministers decide to call a synod [Footnote: Winthrop, ii. 264.] by means of an invitation of the General Court; but it is also certain that under no circumstances would the meeting of some such council have been long delayed. For sixteen years the well-known process had been going on, of the creation of institutions by custom, having the force of law; the stage of development had now been reached when it was necessary that those usages should take the shape of formal enactments. The Cambridge platform therefore marks the completion of an organization, and as such is the central point in the history of the Puritan Commonwealth. The work was done in August, 1648: the Westminster Confession was promulgated as the creed; the powers of the clergy were minutely defined, and the duty of the laity stated to be “obeying their elders and submitting themselves unto them in the Lord.” [Footnote: _Cambridge Platform,_ ch. x. section 7.] The magistrate was enjoined to punish “idolatry, blasphemy, heresy,” and to coerce any church becoming “schismatical.” In October, 1649, the court commended the platform to the consideration of the congregations; in October, 1651, it was adopted; and when church and state were thus united by statute the theocracy was complete. The close of the era of construction is also marked by the death of those two remarkable men whose influence has left the deepest imprint upon the institutions they helped to mould: John Winthrop, who died in 1649, and John Cotton in 1652.