the ministers to the temper of
Endicot, who was determined to execute his own plan of Church
government. Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to
consult even his friends, he was resolved to suffer no opposition; and
as the Salem Church had disdained the authority of the Church of
England, his feelings were hurt and his temper raised against those who
preferred a Liturgy, and whose object might be, as he conceived, to
cause a schism in the community."[38]

The Mr. Bentley referred to above was the historian of the town of
Salem, in a book entitled "Description and History of Salem, by the Rev.
William Bentley," and reprinted in the "Collection of the Massachusetts
Historical Society," Vol. VI., pp. 212-277. Referring to Endicot's
conduct to the Browns, Mr. Bentley says:

"Endicot had been the cause of all the rash proceedings against the
Browns. He was determined to execute his own plan of Church government.
Inexperienced in the passions of men, and unaccustomed to consult even
his friends, he was resolved to admit of no opposition. They _who could
not be terrified into silence_ were _not commanded to withdraw, but they
were seized and banished as criminals_. The fear of injury to the colony
induced its friends in England to give private satisfaction, and then to
write a reproof to him who had been the cause of the outrages; and
Endicot never recovered his reputation in England." (p. 245.)

It is thus clear beyond reasonable doubt that the sole offence of the
Browns, and those who remained with them, was that they adhered to the
worship which they had always practised, and which was professed by all
parties when they left England, and because they refused to follow Mr.
Endicot in the new Church polity and worship which he adopted from the
Congregational Plymouth physician, after his arrival at Salem, and which
he was determined to establish as the only worship in the new
Plantation. It was Endicot, therefore, that commenced the change, the
innovation, the schism, and the power given him as Manager of the
trading business of the Company he exercised for the purpose of
establishing a Church revolution, and banishing the men who adhered to
the old ways of worship professed by the Company when applying for the
Royal Charter, and still professed by them in England. It is not
pretended by any party that the Browns were not interested in the
success of the Company as originally established, and as professed