When Mr Pinchin's Book came over to us, it was the time of the •itting of our General Court, wherein both the Magistrates and Deputies of every Town in the Country, do assemble together to consider and determine of the chiefest affairs which concern this Colony: At the same time a Ship in the Harbour was ready to set sail for England. Now the Court (both parts of them, the Magistrates and Deputies) perceiving by the Title Page that the Contents of the Book were unsound, and Derogatory, both to the Justice of God and the Grace of Christ, which being published in England might add to the heap of many Errors and Heresies already too much abounding, and this Book being published under the name of a New English Gentleman, might occasion many to think, that New England also concurred in the allowance of such Exorbitant Aberrations: They therefore judged it meet, not to stay till the Elders could be gathered together; but whilst the Ship yet stayed, to declare their own Judgement against the Book, and to send a Copy of their Declaration to England by the Ship, then ready to depart: Had the Tenets therein seemed to them to be matters, either of doubtful disputation, or of small moment, we doubt not, they would either not at all have declared themselves against the Book, or if they had; they would have stayed for some opportunity of previous consultation with the Elders; but some of the Tenets seemed to them so directly to shake the Fundamentals ⟨image 145⟩of Religion, and to wound the vitals of Christianity, that they being many of them well versed both in the Dogmatical and Controversial points of Divinity, thought it their duty to profess their Orthodox faith against all destructive Paradoxes, and dangerous Innovations vented from amongst our selves; for according as they believe, they do also profess (as our selves likewise do) That the Obedience of Christ to the whole Law (which is the Law of Righteousness) is the matter of our Justification;
When Mr Pinchin's Book came over to us, it was the time of the •itting of our Generall Court, wherein both the Magistrates and Deputies of every Town in the Country, do assemble together to consider and determine of the chiefest affairs which concern this Colony: At the same time a Ship in the Harbour was ready to set sayl for England. Now the Court (both parts of them, the Magistrates and Deputies) perceiving by the Title Page that the Contents of the Book were unsound, and Derogatory, both to the Justice of God and the Grace of Christ, which being published in England might adde to the heap of many Errours and Heresies already too much abounding, and this Book being published under the name of a New English Gentleman, might occasion many to think, that New England also concurred in the allowance of such Exorbitant Aberrations: They therefore judged it meet, not to stay till the Elders could be gathered together; but whilst the Ship yet stayed, to declare their own Judgement against the Book, and to send a Copy of their Declaration to England by the Ship, then ready to depart: Had the Tenets therein seemed to them to be matters, either of doubtfull disputation, or of small moment, we doubt not, they would either not at all have declared themselves against the Book, or if they had; they would have stayed for some opportunity of previous consultation with the Elders; but some of the Tenets seemed to them so directly to shake the Fundamentals ⟨image 145⟩of Religion, and to wound the vitals of Christianity, that they being many of them well versed both in the Dogmaticall and Controversall points of Divinity, thought it their duty to profess their Orthodox faith against all destructive Paradoxes, and dangerous Innovations vented from amongst our selves; for according as they beleeve, they do also profess (as our selves likewise do) That the Obedience of Christ to the whole Law (which is the Law of Righteousness) is the matter of our Justification;
