from its beginning in the colonization of
New England, he eluded the watch set for him at the various English
ports, and in July 1633 emigrated to the colony of Massachusetts Bay,
arriving at Boston early in September. On the 10th of October he was
chosen "teacher" of the First Church of Boston, of which John Wilson
(1588-1667) was pastor, and here he remained until his death on the 23rd
of December 1652. In the newer, as in the older Boston, his popularity
was almost unbounded, and his influence, both in ecclesiastical and in
civil affairs, was probably greater than that of any other minister in
theocratic New England. According to the contemporary historian, William
Hubbard, "Whatever he delivered in the pulpit was soon put into an order
of court, if of a civil, or set up as a practice in the church, if of an
ecclesiastical concernment." His influence, too, was generally
beneficent, though it was never used to further the cause of religious
freedom, or of democracy, his theory of government being given in an
oft-quoted passage: "Democracy, I do not conceyve that ever God did
ordeyne as a fitt government eyther for church or commonwealth.... As
for Monarchy and aristocracy they are both for them clearly approved,
and directed in Scripture yet so as (God) referreth the sovereigntie to
himselfe, and setteth up Theocracy in both, as the best form of
government." He naturally took an active part in most, if not all, of
the political and theological controversies of his time, the two
principal of which were those concerning Antinomianism and the expulsion
of Roger Williams. In the former his position was somewhat equivocal--he
first supported and then violently opposed Anne Hutchinson,--in the
latter he approved Williams's expulsion as "righteous in the eyes of
God," and subsequently in a pamphlet discussion with Williams,
particularly in his _Bloudy Tenent, Washed and made White in the Blood
of the Lamb_ (1647), vigorously opposed religious freedom. He was a man
of great learning and was a prolific writer. His writings include: _The
Keyes to the Kingdom of Heaven and the Power thereof_ (1644), _The Way
of the Churches of Christ in New England_ (1645), and _The Way of
Congregational Churches Cleared_ (1648), these works constituting an
invaluable exposition of New England Congregationalism; and _Milk for
Babes, Drawn out of the Breasts of Both Testaments, Chiefly for the
Spirituall Nourishment of Boston Babes in either Englan