The aristocratic and oligarchical tendencies at work in Massachusetts there received enormous additional strength from the fact that the clergy were almost a unit in their support of reactionary ideas. This was a defect which was, to a certain extent, inherent in the Calvinistic ministry; and the failure of the contemporary Puritan colony in the Caribbean was, in considerable measure, due to the outrageous claims of the Puritan ministers there upon the civil power.[470] The influence of the Puritan clergyman upon his more devout followers could be equaled only by that of the Catholics, and it is difficult for the modern layman to realize its full extent. It came about in part from the Puritan doctrine already noted, that nothing in life was untinged with a religious aspect. If no one dreams now of any necessity of consulting the clergy, as such, with reference to the fashion in clothes or the economic and social policy of the nation, it is partly because those matters are no longer considered as religious, but purely temporal. The opinion of a clergyman, therefore, is of no more value than that of the well-informed layman, with his broader practical experience of life, if, indeed, of as much. One does, however, have recourse to a specialist, and a banker's opinion is sought on finance, and a doctor's on health. As, according to Puritan theory, there was no act which was not of a religious or moral character, the clergyman was, so say, a specialist on one aspect of everything, and from that standpoint his advice must be sought in every detail of life, and his influence was correspondingly great. Footnote 470: Newton, _Puritan Colonisation_, pp. 160 _ff._ _Cf._ similar conditions in Bermuda, where the ministers went to such lengths as to “make a man quite out of love with the government of the clergy.” _Cal. State Pap., Col., 1574-1660_, p. 323. The individuals who emigrated to Rhode Island and Connecticut were mainly those who were dissatisfied with the restrictions imposed by Massachusetts. That process of secondary selection had now begun which was to continue to winnow out from every new community the most adventurous and independent, and to plant them again to the westward in still newer settlements, where, in turn, the process would again be repeated. In the colonies now forming, therefore, there was a freer opportunity for the seeds of liberty to grow than in the old Bay. The new commonwealths had, in addition, the great advantage that in them, at least at their beginning, the influence of the clergy was wholly upon the side of freedom; and in estimating the results of priestly power in New England, it is only just to recall that Roger Williams and Thomas Hooker were clergymen, as well as the narrower divines of Boston and her sister towns.