Though such considerations are little apt to induce a priesthood to surrender their temporal power, they usually control commercial communities. Accordingly, Boston and the larger towns favored concession, while the country was the ministers’ stronghold. The result of this divergence of opinion was that the moderate party, to which Bradstreet and Dudley belonged, predominated in the Board of Assistants, while the deputies remained immovable. The branches of the legislature thus became opposed; no course of action could be agreed on, and the theocracy drifted to its destruction. The duplicity characteristic of theological politics grew daily more marked. In May, 1679, a law had been passed forbidding the building of churches without leave from the freemen of the town or the General Court. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. v. 213.] On the 11th of June, 1680, three persons representing the society of Baptists were summoned before the legislature, charged with the crime of erecting a meeting-house. They were admonished and forbidden to meet for worship except with the established congregations; and their church was closed. [Footnote: Mass. Rec. v. 271.] That very day an address was voted to the king, one passage of which is as follows: “Concerning liberty of conscience, ... that after all, a multitude of notorious errors ... be openly broached, ... amongst us, as by the Quakers, &c., wee presume his majesty doeth not intend; and as for other Prottestant dissenters, that carry it peaceably & soberly, wee trust there shallbe no cause of just complaint against us on their behalfe.” [Footnote: _Mass. Rec._ v. 287.]