By the governour & general court of the colony of the Massachusetts Bay, in New-England

It having been a thing too sensible and obvious to escape the observation of all who are not wholly strangers in our Israel; that this poor land has laboured under a long series of afflictions and calamities, whereby we have suffered successively in our precious and pleasant things ... Wherefore it is ordered, that the laws of this colony against vice, and all sort of debauchery and prophaness (which laws have too much lost their edg by the late interrpution of the government) be now faithfully and vigorously put in execution ...