[May, 1634.] Instead of the freemen’s appearing personally in the general court, they for the first time sent deputies, to the number of twenty-four. This was a variation from the charter which gave no power to admit representatives. These with the governor, deputy-governor, and assistants, formed the legislature of the colony, met and voted together in one apartment till March 1644, when it was ordained, that the governor and assistants, should sit apart: and thus commenced the house of representatives, as a distinct body. The general court assumed spiritual jurisdiction. Being church members, they might suppose they represented the churches no less than the colony. [March 8, 1636.] They would approve of no churches, after a certain period, unless they had the approbation of the magistrates and elders of most of the churches within the colony; nor would admit to freedom any of their members. They pressed colonial uniformity in religion, till they became persecutors[17]. Whatever apology may be made for the treatment given to episcopalians, baptists and quakers, the colony cannot be cleared from the charge of persecuting: that however will not justify those who persecute with reproaches and ill-will the present generation, now reprobating the intolerance of their forefathers, which at that period was, more or less, the stain of most religious parties. “It was not peculiar to the Massachusetts people to think themselves bound in conscience to use the sword of the civil magistrate to convince, or cut off heretics, so that they might not infect the church, or injure the public peace[18].” The true grounds of liberty of conscience, were not then known or embraced by many sects of christians. But remember, that the _Massachusetts-Bay_ now surpasses the mother country, in its regard for the sacred and civil rights of mankind. It not only exempts those of other denominations from paying to the support of its own colonial establishments, the congregational churches; and has been a great number of years in this laudable practice; but it protects all protestants without requiring any qualifying subscriptions or tests, and excludes none by partial laws from the exercise of civil power. The government was in divers respects absolute. Both magistrates and general court often judged and punished, in a summary way, without a jury, according to discretion, as occasions occurred. It was four years before it was enacted or ordered, that no trial should pass upon any for life or banishment, but by a jury of freemen: and within three years after, [1637.] that law was violated even by the general court. They exercised, while sitting, legislative, judicial and executive powers—a practice which must ever be dangerous to the rights of a people, even when allowed to their own annual representatives.