They were free to build the house of God simply according to the teaching of the divine Word.

What form will the structure take?
One of the first practical questions to emerge was the question by what authority their ministry was to be exercised.

On one point they seem to have been quite clear.

The episcopal ordination, which each of them had received in England, whatever validity it may have had in English law, gave them no authority in the church of God in Salem.

Further, their appointment from the Company in London, although it was a regular commission from the constituted civil government of the colony, could confer no office in the spiritual house.