Of this there was an instance. It chanced once that on a fast-day kept throughout England, the judges on their circuit stopped over at Chelmsford, where Hooker was to preach. Here, before a vast audience, and in the presence of the judges, he freely inveighed against the sins of England, and foretold the plagues that would result. Charles had recently married a papist princess. The undaunted apostle in his prayer besought God to set in the heart of the king what His own mouth had spoken by his prophet Malachi, as he distinctly quoted it: “An abomination is committed; Judah hath married the daughter of a strange god; the Lord will cut off the man that doeth this.” Though the judges turned to and noted the passage thus cited, Hooker came to no trouble; but it was not long before England did.[804] Hooker and Cotton have been well called the Luther and Melancthon of New England; each became the oracle of his plantation. And now “the prophets in exile began to see the true forms of the house.” They already held the soil by a twofold title: the royal charter had granted it to the patentees called the “Massachusetts Company,” “to be held by them, their heirs and assigns, in free and common soccage; paying, in lieu of all services, one fifth of the gold and silver that should be found.”[805] And this vestment the conscientious Pilgrims had been careful to supplement by actual purchase from the aborigines.[806] Every day the old trading corporation assumed new prerogatives, verging more and more towards a representative democracy. Winthrop was timid, and doubted the legality of this popular movement. Cotton was alarmed; and on one election day he essayed to check the democratic tendency by preaching to the assembled freemen against rotation in office, arguing that an honest magistrate held his position as a proprietor holds his freehold. But the voters were deaf to the fears of the government, and careless, for once, of the decision of the pulpit. Dudley succeeded Winthrop in the gubernatorial chair;[807] legislation was intrusted to representatives chosen by the several towns of Massachusetts Bay;[808] it was decreed that the freemen at large should be convened only for the election of magistrates.[809] Thus, in 1634, the electors exercised their “absolute power,” and “established a reformation of such things as they judged to be amiss in the model of government.”[810] Now the colonial authority was divided between two branches. The representatives were the legislative, the magistrates were the executive arm. Both sat together in the outset, forming what was called “The General Court.” Finally, the magistrates grew discontented; as the towns increased, so did the representatives; and they found themselves outvoted; so they pressed for separate houses, each with a veto on the other. It was granted. The _deputies_ and the _council_ were inaugurated;[811] and these, under the Republic, have become the Representatives and the Senate.