If there ever was a custom among us, whereby communion in our Churches was made a test for the enjoyment of civil privileges in the State, we have done well long since to abolish such corrupt and persecuting maxims, which are a mischief to any free people, and a scandal to any communion to retain.
If there were of old among our fathers any laws enacted or judgments given or executions done according to those laws which have carried too much the face of cruelty and persecution, we ought to be humbled greatly for such errors of our fathers, and confess them to have been sinful; and blessed be God for the more catholic spirit of charity which now distinguishes us.

Or if any of our fathers have dealt proudly in censuring and judging others who differed from them in modes of worship, let us their posterity the rather be clothed with humility, meekness, and charity, preserving truth and holiness with the laudable zeal of our predecessors" (pp.

20, 21, 22).
The Rev.Dr.Cotton Mather, the distinguished son of the famous Rev.Dr.
Increase Mather, but more tolerant than his father, has a passage equally significant and suggestive with that just quoted from Mr.
Coleman: "In this capital city of Boston," says Dr.Cotton Mather, "there are ten assemblies of Christians of different persuasions, who live lovingly and peaceably together, doing all the offices of good neighbourhood for one another in such manner as may give a sensible rebuke to all the bigots of uniformity, and show them how consistent a variety of rites in religion may be with the tranquillity of human society, and may demonstrate to the world that such persecution for conscientious dissents in religion is an _abomination of desolation_--a thing whereof all wise and just men will say, _cursed be its anger, for it is fierce, and its wrath, for it is cruel_."[219] It is not needful that I should trace the legislation and government of the Province of Massachusetts under the second Charter with the same minuteness with which I have narrated that of Massachusetts Bay under the first Charter.

The successive Governors appointed by England over the province were, upon the whole, men of good sense, and were successful in their administration, notwithstanding the active opposition of a Boston disaffected party that prevented any salary being granted to the Judges or Governor for more than one year at a time.

Yet, upon the whole, the new system of government in the Province of Massachusetts was considered preferable to that of the neighbouring colonies of Rhode Island and Connecticut, which retained their old Charters and elected their Governors.