<P> As noted earlier, the vast majority of Puritans who settled in the Massachusetts Bay Colony were non-separating Puritans . They deeply abhorred many of the practices of the Church of England, but they refused to separate from the Church of England because they placed an extremely high value on the doctrine of the unity of the Church . They viewed the Separating Puritans as schismatics . Thus, the Puritans in Massachusetts erected their church along Presbyterian - Congregational lines, but they technically remained in full communion with the Church of England . This position led to two major theological controversies in the course of the 1630s: the Roger Williams controversy, and the Anne Hutchinson controversy . </P> <P> Roger Williams, a Separating Puritan minister, arrived in Boston in 1631 . He was almost immediately invited to become the pastor of the local congregation, but he refused the invitation on the grounds that the congregation had not separated from the Church of England . He then was invited to become pastor of the church at Salem, but was blocked by Boston political leaders, who objected to his separatism . He thus spent two years with his fellow Separatists in the Plymouth Colony, but ultimately came into conflict with them and returned to Salem, where he became pastor in May 1635, against the objection of the Boston authorities . Williams set forth a manifesto in which he declared that 1) the Church of England was apostate and fellowship with it was a grievous sin; 2) the Massachusetts Colony's charter falsely said that King Charles was a Christian; 3) the colony should not be allowed to impose oaths on its citizens, because that was forbidden by Matthew 5: 33 - 37 </P> <P> Williams' actions so outraged the Puritan leaders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that they expelled him from the colony . In 1636, the exiled Williams founded the colony of Providence Plantation . He was one of the first Puritans to advocate separation of church and state, and Providence Plantation was one of the first places in the Christian world to recognize freedom of religion . </P> <P> Anne Hutchinson and her family moved from Boston, Lincolnshire to the Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1634, following their Puritan minister John Cotton . Cotton began pastoring a congregation in Boston, Massachusetts, and Hutchinson joined his congregation . Following the Puritan practice of conventicling, Hutchinson set up a conventicle in her home . At the conventicle, a group would meet during the week to discuss John Cotton's sermon from the previous Sunday . Hutchinson proved to be extremely charismatic at propounding on Cotton's ideas during these conventicles, and eventually the size of her conventicle swelled to 80 people and had to be moved from her home to the church building . </P>

Which colony was founded as a colony of religious freedom in reaction to the puritans