diversion in her favor, rendered quite null by her claim of
immediate inspiration in what she had done.

The records at this point, show none of the excitement, the
hysterical ecstasy which marked the same declaration in the case
of some among the Quakers who were afterward tried. Her calmness
increased instead of lessening. On the score of contempt of the
ministers it had become evident that she could not be convicted,
but this claim to direct revelation, was an even more serious
matter. Scripture might be twisted to the point of dismemberment,
so long as one kept to the text, and made no pretence of knowledge
beyond it; contention within these bounds was lawful and
honorable, and the daily food of these argumentative Christians
who gave themselves to the work of combining intellectual freedom
and spiritual slavery, with perpetual surprise at any indication
that the two were incompatible.

The belief in personal revelation, actually no more than a deep
impression produced by long pondering over some passage, was
really part of the Puritan faith, but the united company had no
thought of discovering points of harmony, or brushing aside mere
phrases which simply concealed the essential truth held by both.
Such belief could come only from the direct prompting of Satan,
and when she firmly and solemnly declared that whatever way their
judgment went, she should be saved from calamity, that she was and
should remain, in direct communion with God, and that they were
simply pitiless persecutors of the elect, the wrath was instant
and boundless. A unanimous vote condemned her at once, and stands
in the records of Massachusetts as follows: