New England authorities concluded that the existence of credobaptist churches threatened civil unity. Denying the legitimacy of your fellows’ baptism might undermine the credibility of the ecclesiastical and civil leadership. Baptists churches might also consider themselves purer than the established church, leading to sectarianism and civil discord. New England had learned quite a lot from their disputes with Roger Williams, whose radical views of church purity generated contention in Boston and Salem. For these reasons, laws against preaching credobaptism were justified on grounds of civil
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