" Hence his ordination over the
church in the new settlement was bitterly opposed by the Boston divines,
though apparently desired by the Weymouth congregation. One Britton, who
was friendly towards Lenthal and who spoke "reproachfully" and slurringly
of a book which defended the course of the Boston churches, was whipped
with eleven stripes, as he had no money to pay the imposed fine. John
Smythe, who "got hands to a blank" (which was either canvassing for
signatures to a proxy vote in favor of Lenthal or obtaining signatures
to an instrument declaring against the design of the churches), for thus
"combining to hinder the orderly gathering" of the Weymouth church at this
time, was fined L2. Edward Sylvester for the same offence was fined and
disfranchised. Ambrose Martin, another friend of Lenthal's, for calling
the church covenant of the Boston divines "a stinking carrion and a human
invention," was fined L10, while Thomas Makepeace, another Weymouth
malcontent, was informed by those in power that "they were weary of him,"
or, in modern slang, that "he made them tired." Parson Lenthal himself,
being sent for by the convention, weakened at once in a way his church
followers must have bitterly despised; he was "quickly convinced of his
error and evil." His conviction was followed with his confession, and in
open court he gave under his hand a laudable retraction, which retraction
he was ordered also to "utter in the assembly at Weymouth, and so no
further censure was passed on him.
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