minister of the gospel recover his former splendour throughout ... New
England." [Footnote: Hubbard, p. 302.]

He was not a sensitive man, and having once determined to do penance, he
was far too astute a politician to do it by halves; he not only gave
himself up to the task of detecting the heterodoxy of his old friends,
[Footnote: Winthrop, i. 253.] but on a day of solemn fasting he publicly
professed repentance with many tears, and told how, "God leaving him for a
time, he fell into a spirituall slumber; and had it not been for the
watchfulnesse of his brethren, the elders, &c., hee might have slept on,
... and was very thankfull to his brethren for their watchfulnesse over
him." [Footnote: _Hypocrisie Unmasked_, p. 76.] Nor to the end of his
life did he feel quite at ease; "yea, such was his ingenuity and piety as
that his soul was not satisfied without often breaking forth into
affectionate bewailing of his infirmity herein, in the publick assembly,
sometimes in his prayer, sometimes in his sermon, and that with tears."
[Footnote: Norton's _Funeral Sermon_, p. 37.]

Wheelwright was made of sterner stuff, and was inflexible. In fact,
however, the difference of dogma, if any existed, was trivial. The clergy
used the cry of heresy to excite odium, just as they called their
opponents Antinomians, or dangerous fanatics. To support these accusations
the synod gravely accepted every unsavory inference which ingenuity could
wring from the tenets of their adversaries; and these, together with the
fables invented by idle gossip, made up the long list of errors they
condemned. Though the scheme was unprincipled, it met with complete
success, and the Antinomians have come down to posterity branded as deadly
enemies of Christ and the commonwealth; yet nothing is more certain than
that they were not only good citizens, but substantially orthodox. On such
a point there is no one among the conservatives whose testimony has the