Transcript:Colonial Society of Massachusetts. Publications of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts/v10p267

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that Mr. Doughty "was forced to goe away" from Taunton is not quite clear. Doughty was not banished, but he was not made a freeman, his office as minister was not recognized, and he was not allowed the privileges of a church member, and it may be that he was otherwise made uncomfortable. At a General Court at Plymouth 2 March, 1640, his servant was set in the stocks "for swearing profanely" and he himself was fined thirty shillings for selling a pound of powder to the natives.¹ This was a large sum; of the eight towns in the Plymouth Patent four including Taunton paid but fifty shillings each by general levy for the officers of the Patent. This fine was allowed by the General Court, on petition of Taunton, to that town on condition of their building

[Note cont. from Previous Page ] infants. This doctrine could not be tolerated in that puritanical atmosphere (pp. 105, 106).

Mrs. Lamb follows in 1877, and in 1885 G. W. Schuyler tells of this same " minister at Cohasset" and " preacher at Cohasset " as " torn from his pulpit" and "rudely expelled," "because of some doubtful expressions in his sermon" or " because of some expressions which sounded like heresy " (Colonial New- York, ii. 29, 91). And still the tale goes on. Mr. B. Tuckenuan in 1893 speaks of " Francis Doughty, expelled from Cohasset for preaching that Abraham's children should have been baptized " (Peter Stuyvesant, p. 30). And in 1896 we still read of this "Cohasset " victim of New England intolerance, that " hia chief heresy was the assertion that Abraham's children should have received the rite of baptism" (Miss Martha B. Flint, Early Long Island, p. 163 and note).

Mr. Doughty's contention was, of course, as Lechford clearly stated, that the children of all baptized Christians ought to be baptized; that baptism should not be refused to those whose parents had neither of them been admitted to membership ("full covenant relation") in a local church organization on the Congregational model. And the occasion of his protest was the organization of the Cohannet church, at which a "covenant" was to bo adopted. Doughty wished to have this restriction excluded, or possibly to have an express provision for the baptism of the children of all Christians inserted. The mention of " Abraham's children " was a theological argument and illustration in favor of his contention, then easily understood by every one, — compare Galatians, iii. 27-29.

¹ Plymouth Colony Records, ii. 8. And after he was settled in Mespat. We find that at the General Court at Plymouth held 6 June, 1043,—

John Gilbert, Jnr, complns ag" M' Francis Doughty, in an action of trespas vpon the case, to the deffent xx§ [omission in record] bushells of corne attached by the constable of Tannton ; the deffent made no answers. The Court awards the corne to the pltiff, onely Thomas Gilbert promiseth to make it good if the debt be not proued (Ibid. vii. 35).