In New England the church and township were inseparable, their members being for the most part Congregationalists. In the early days a body of believers simply entered into a Church covenant and that was all. The methods of worship were somewhat peculiar, and it is asserted that for sixty years these Puritans had no marriage or funeral ceremonies. Throughout all the colonies there was the principle that the members of the church must support their minister, and in 1637 Massachusetts issued an order to that effect. In 1650 Connecticut and in 1657 Plymouth did the same. The Churches were separate in their governance, and the synods of United Churches held at Boston in 1646, 1657, and 1662 were not viewed with entire favour by all the congregations. At first, as has already been shown, the Puritans were the most intolerant of people, and tried to enforce the law that a freeman must be a member of the Church. Gradually, however, this fanatic flame burnt itself out, and by the end of the seventeenth century the intensity of feeling on matters of Church and toleration began to relax. Fifty years later there were men in Massachusetts and elsewhere who blushed for shame at the harsh bigotry of their grand-parents, and one writer is able to say "at present the Congregationalists of New England may be esteemed among the most moderate and charitable of Christian professions."[221] Nevertheless even in that eighteenth century there was no lack of factions and parties, and this was intensified by the preaching of George Whitefield in 1739. He certainly created a religious revival amongst the dissenters, but at the same time his words drove many of the Independents into the arms of the Church of England, which, though by no means welcomed in Massachusetts, had long been tolerated in Connecticut. Even after this event, however, the Established Church never really succeeded in the colonies, for there was no colonial episcopate, and it was regarded as doing little or nothing for spiritual life. In 1758, Archbishop Thomas Seeker urged manfully "the establishment of Bishops of our Church in America,"[222] but it was too late, and the fear of such an establishment was a main cause of uneasiness in New England at the outbreak of the War of Independence.