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and intolerant as any the statute books of Connecticut ever contained were enacted in 1742-43 to curb and if possible to eradicate the Separatist defection. 1 Ordained ministers were forbidden to preach outside the bounds of their parishes unless expressly invited so to do. 2 Ministerial Associations were restrained from licensing candidates to preach outside the territorial jurisdiction of the Association granting licensure. 3 Ministers of the Establishment were empowered to lodge certificates with society clerks, attesting that men had entered their parishes and preached therein without first having received permission. No provision for
- 1 The bigoted and unfeeling spirit which controlled the authorities is well expressed in the act of May, 1743. Proceeding on the assumption that the Separatists, taking advantage of the act of May, 1708, were responsible for the disruptive tactics and measures of the times, by means of which " some of the parishes established by the laws of this Colony . . . have been greatly damnified, and by indirect means divided and parted," the General Court repealed the act in question, and put in its place the following: "And be it further enacted, that, for the future, if any of His Majesty's good subjects, being protestants, inhabitants of this Colony, that shall soberly dissent from the way of worship and ministry established by the laws of this Colony, that such persons may apply themselves to this Assembly for relief, where they shall be heard. And such persons as have any distinguishing character, by which they may be known from the presbyterians or congregationalists, and from the consociated churches established by the laws of this Colony, may expect the indulgence of this Assembly [Italics mine. V. &.], having first before this Assembly taken the oaths and subscribed the declaration provided in the act of Parliament in cases of like nature." (The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 522. Cf. Backus, History of New England, vol. ii, p. 58.)
- 2 The Public Records of the Colony of Connecticut, vol. viii, p. 454.
- 3 lbid., p. 456.
