these he recognized no other source of authority. The freedom of the individual was only limited by the express will of God or the King." He and his followers held that "by union with Christ, believers partook of the perfection of God, that Christ is both human and divine, and that Heaven and Hell exist only in the mind." The following are some of the activities for which he and his followers were imprisoned, whipped, put to hard labor, and banished, and had their cattle, food, and property confiscated: teaching that heaven and hell were states existing in the hearts of men and women, rather than a material place where people reside in an afterlife teaching that the baptism of infants would not save a baby's soul, since babies had no capacity to understand or accept the concepts of Christianity (a position also held by Baptists) teaching that the ministers and magistrates should not be the sole or ultimate authorities of how biblical interpretations were enforced with criminal laws teaching that God is a unity rather than a trinity objecting to the mandatory paying of tithes to a state church, and mandatory attendance, since salvation came through individual faith freely chosen, and not from conformity to denominational creeds and ritual In his day, Gorton was largely reviled by those who were not his followers, and his insolence towards colonial leaders made him the butt of most early writers of Rhode Island's colonial history. Nathaniel Morton was the keeper of the Plymouth records for years, and he published a "libellous and scandalous" book about Gorton while he was still alive. On 30 June 1669, Gorton wrote a lengthy letter of denial, refuting virtually every point made by Morton. More than a century later, however, Rhode Island Secretary of State Samuel Eddy wrote, "In the case of Gorton... no one of the first settlers has received more unmerited reproach, nor any one suffered so much injustice. His opinions on religious subjects were probably somewhat singular, though certainly not more so than in any at this day. But that was his business; his opinions were his own and he had a right to them." Later, Rhode Island historian and Lieutenant Governor Samuel G. Arnold wrote of Gorton: Gorton was described as being gentle and sympathetic in private intercourse, and generous and sympathetic in nature. He gave to others the same liberty of thought