longer to resist the King's
commands, and professed to obey them by providing that those who were
not Congregationalists might exercise the elective franchise, provided
that, in addition to taking the oath of fidelity to the local
Government, and paying a rate which was not paid by one in a hundred,
_and obtaining a certificate from the Congregational minister as to
their being blameless in words and orthodox in religion, they were then
approved by the Court_. The right of franchise was possessed by every
member of any Congregational Church, whether he had property or not, or
paid rate or not;[172] not so with any other inhabitant, unless he
adduced proof that he had paid rate, produced a certificate of character
and of orthodoxy in religion, signed by a Congregational minister, and
was approved by the Court. No instance is recorded of any Episcopalian
ever having obtained the freedom of the colony under such conditions;
"nor," as Mr. Hutchinson says, "was there any Episcopal Church in any
part of the colony until the Charter was vacated."[174]

The Court of Massachusetts Bay also instructed their agents in England,
in 1682, to represent that "as for Anabaptists, they were now subject to
no other penal statutes than those of the Congregational way." But as
late as the spring of 1680 the General Court forbade the Baptists to
assemble for their worship in a meeting-house which they had built in
Boston.[175] The statement which they instructed their agents to make in
England was clearly intended to convey the impression that the Baptist
worship was equally allowed with the Congregational worship; but though
penalties against individual Baptists may have been relaxed, their
worship was no more tolerated than that of the Episcopalian until the
cancelling of the Charter.

The same kind of misleading evasion was practised upon the Government in
England in regard to the Quakers, as in respect to the Baptists, the
Episcopalians, and the elective franchise. The agents of the colony in
England were instructed to state that the "severe laws to prevent the
violent and impetuous intrusions of the Quakers had been suspended;"
but they did not say that laws less severe had been substituted, and
that fines and imprisonments were imposed upon any party who should be
present at a Quakers' meeting. Yet, as late as 1677, the Court of
Massachusetts Bay made a law "That every person found at a Quakers'
meeting shall be apprehended, _ex offic