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whereas the Massachusetts had no voice in Parliament, and laws were thrust upon them by strangers.
‘For mine own part,’ said Major Gookins, ‘I do hold our brother Eliot's book on the Christian Commonwealth, which the General Court did make haste to condemn on the coming in of the king, to be a sound and seasonable treatise, notwithstanding the author himself hath in some sort disowned it.’
‘I did truly condemn and deny the false and seditious doctrines charged upon it,’ said Mr. Eliot, ‘but for the book itself, rightly taken, and making allowance for some little heat of discourse and certain hasty and ill-considered words therein, I have never seen cause to repent.
I quite agree with what my lamented friend and fellow-laborer, Mr. Danforth, said, when he was told that the king was to be proclaimed at Boston:
This matchless plant from far, and here hath sought
A place to set it ill; and for its sake
The wilderness a pleasant land doth make.
Whatever form of government may be deduced from Scripture, that let us yield to for conscience' sake, not forgetting at the same time that the Apostle hath said,if thou mayest be free use it rather.’ My uncle said this was well spoken of Mr. Danforth, who was a worthy gentleman and a true friend to the liberties of the Colony; and he asked Rebecca to read some ingenious verses writ by him in one of his almanacs, which she had copied not long ago, wherein he compareth New England to a goodly tree or plant. Whereupon, Rebecca read them as followeth: A skilful husbandman he was, who brought
This matchless plant from far, and here hath sought
A place to set it ill; and for its sake
The wilderness a pleasant land doth make.
