University of Virginia Library

D. APPENDIX D.

[Page 49.]

The author of Wonder Working Providence, page 205, gives the
following account of this edition of the laws. "This year [1646]
the General Court appointed a Committee of diverse persons to draw
up a body of Laws for the well ordering this little Commonwealth;
and to the end that they might be most agreeable with the rule of
Scripture, in every County there were appointed two Magistrates,
two Ministers, and two able persons from among the people, who
having provided such a competent number as was meet, together
with the former that were enacted newly amended, they presented
them to the General Court, where they were again perused and
amended; and then another Committee chosen to bring them into
form, and present them to the Court again, who the year following
passed an act of confirmation upon them, and so committed them to
the press, and in the year 1648, they were printed, and now are to
be seen of all men, to the end that none may plead ignorance, and
that all who intend to transport themselves hither may know that
this is no place of licentious liberty, nor will this people suffer any
to trample down this vineyard of the Lord, but with diligent execution
will cut off from the city of the Lord, the wicked doers,
and if any man can show wherein any of them derogate from the
word of God, very willingly will they accept thereof, and amend
their imperfection (the Lord assisting), but let not any ill affected
person find fault with them, because they suit not with their own
humour, or because they meddle with matters of religion, for it is no
wrong to any man, that a people who have spent their estates, many
of them, and ventured their lives for to keep faith and a pure conscience,
to use all means that the word of God allows for maintenance
and continuance of the same, especially they have taken up
a desolate wilderness to be their habitation, and not deluded any by
keeping their profession in huggermug, but print and proclaim to all
the way and course they intend, God willing, to walk in. If any will

yet notwithstanding seek to justle them out of their own right, let
them not wonder if they meet with all the opposition a people put to
their greatest straits can make, as in all their undertaking their
chiefest aim hath been to promote the ordinances of Christ, so also
in contriving their Laws, Liberties and Privileges, they have not
been wanting, which hath caused many to malign their civil government,
and more especially for punishing any by law, that walk contrary
to the rule of the gospel which they profess, but to them it
seems unreasonable, and savours too much of hypocrisie, that any
people should pray unto the Lord for the speedy accomplishment of
his word in the overthrow of Antichrist, and in the mean time become
a patron to sinful opinions and damnable errors that oppose the
truths of Christ, admit it be but in the bare permission of them."
See in this connection "Remarks on the Early Laws of Massachusetts
Bay; with the Code adopted in 1641, and called The Body
of Liberties, now first printed. By F. C. Gray, LL. D."

Mass. Hist. Coll., 3d se., VIII, p. 192.