The same effect had been felt in the case of John Cotton. The most tolerant, as he was one of the ablest, of the Massachusetts divines, we have already seen how he had started upon the true path when, dismayed by the universal ecclesiastical clamor raised by the Antinomian controversy, he drew back, like Winthrop, and ever after submitted to smaller men. Nevertheless, his death, some months after the final adoption of the Cambridge Platform, removed the last of the three men who by inclination and influence might have done something to stay the theocracy from the course into which it was soon to throw itself headlong. In place of Winthrop and Cotton, its leaders became Endicott and Norton. Able, stern, fiercely bigoted, absolutely convinced of their own infallibility in interpreting the word of God, undeterred by doubt, and unrestrained by pity, they were unwittingly to water the seeds of liberty with the blood of their victims. In the midsummer of the year in which the Platform was finally adopted by the Court, John Clarke, one of the ablest citizens of Rhode Island, Obadiah Holmes, and John Crandall, as representatives of the Baptist church of Newport, arrived at Lynn to visit an aged member of that church, who was too infirm to make a journey himself.[654] In 1644, a law had been passed punishing with banishment anyone who should openly or secretly speak against the orthodox Massachusetts doctrine regarding baptism; and the three Baptists were at once arrested.[655] Clarke was fined £20, Holmes £30, and Crandall £5, in default of which they were to be whipped. The spirit of the court that tried them is vividly shown by two incidents as told by the prisoners themselves. Clarke, having asked by what law he was punished, the penalty not being that prescribed by the ordinance of 1644, relates that Endicott “stept up to us, and told us we had denyed Infants Baptism, and being somewhat transported broke forth, and told me I had deserved death, and said he would not have such trash brought into this jurisdiction.”[656] Holmes, describing his own trial, wrote that, when receiving sentence, “I exprest myself in these words; I blesse God I am counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus; whereupon John Wilson (their pastor as they call him) strook me before the Judgment Seat, and cursed me, saying, the Curse of God, or Jesus goe with thee.”[657] Footnote 654: Newport Church Papers, cited by Backus, _Baptists_, vol. I, p. 178. Footnote 655: Backus, _Baptists_, vol. I, p. 198 _n._ Footnote 656: John Clarke, “Ill Newes from New England” (London, 1652), in _Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll._, Series IV, vol. II, p. 33. Footnote 657: _Ibid._, p. 47.