aked from its lethargy, was to become known as "the garden
of the Dutch church."[109:1]

After the extinction of the high theocracy of the New Haven Colony by
the merger of it in Connecticut, a whole church and town, headed by the
pastor, having secured such guaranty of their political liberty as the
unstable government of New Jersey was able to give, left the homes
endeared to them by thirty years of toil and thrift, and lifting the ark
of the covenant by the staves, set themselves down beside the Passaic,
calling their plantation the New-Ark, and reinstituted their fundamental
principle of restricting the franchise to members of the church. Thus
"with one heart they resolved to carry on their spiritual and town
affairs according to godly government." The Puritan migration, of which
this was the nucleus, had an influence on the legislation and the later
history of New Jersey out of all proportion to its numbers.

Twenty years later the ferocious persecution of the Scottish
Covenanters, which was incited by the fears or the bloody vindictiveness
of James II. after the futile insurrection of Monmouth, furnished a
motive for emigration to the best people in North Britain, which was
quickly seized and exploited by the operators in Jersey lands.
Assurances of religious liberty were freely given; men of influence were
encouraged to bring over large companies; and in 1686 the brother of the
martyred Duke of Argyle was made governor of East Jersey. The
considerable settlements of Scotchmen found congenial neighbors in the
New Englanders of Newark. A system of free schools, early established by
a law of the commonwealth, is naturally referred to their common
influence.

Meanwhile a series of events of the highest consequence to the future of
the American church had been in progress in the western half of the
province. Passing from hand to hand, the ownership and lordship of West
Jersey had become vested in a land company dominated by Quakers. For the
first time in the brief history of that sect, it was charged with the
responsibility of the organization and conduct of government. Hitherto
it had been publicly known by the fierce and defiant and often
outrageous protests of its representatives against existing governments
and dignities both in state and in church, such as exposed them to the
natural and reasonable suspicion of being wild and mischievous
anarchists. The opportunities and temptations that come to those in
power