and to the Quakers and Baptists in 1728, 1 in the form of exemption laws. In the case of the Baptists the exemption granted was not absolute, but only for a limited period of years. With the expiration of this period the struggle for relief of necessity had to be renewed. 2 The rights of dissent had begun to receive some recognition, but the limitations embodied in the foregoing legislation bore convincing testimony of a grudging temper of mind which would yield no ground without strong pressure.
The spirit of excitement and controversy which characterized the revival of religion of the third and fourth decades of the eighteenth century (t. ^., the Great Awakening) led to new complications and difficulties. Stirred by the revival, itinerant preachers, some of them of little learning and of less tact, invaded parishes of their clerical brethren without their consent, and presumed to censure the ministers and congregations that had not yielded to the emotional impulses of the revival. 3 A clash of parties followed, producing new antipathies and cleavages. Many who were in sympathy with the revival withdrew from orthodox congregations to organize new churches, nominally Baptist, with a view to obtaining exemption from the obligation to support the state church. To meet this evasion in 1752 the General Court of Massachusetts passed an act which provided
That no person for the future shall be so esteemed an A(n)nabaptist as to have his poll or polls and estate exempted from paying a proportionable part of the taxes that shall
- 1 Charters and "Acts and Laws" of the Province of Mass., etc., p. 423. The five-mile limitation formed a part of this legislation, also.
- 2 Burrage, History of the Baptists in New England, p. 105.
- 3 Palfrey, A Compendious History of New England, vol. iv, pp. 94, 95
