CHAPTER X.
Up to this point, we have been engaged in watching the course of affairs within the bounds of the Establishment, and in pointing out its relations to Nonconformity; it remains for us to examine the growth of Nonconformity itself, in the principal varieties of its manifestation.
Presbyterianism underwent a change. The ejected ministers, who had adopted that system, continued to cleave to the idea of an Established Church, and it was long before they gave up all hopes of some comprehensive scheme, which, whilst retaining a modified Episcopacy, should provide for the removal of their own well-known scruples. They manifested an indisposition to enter upon any proceedings which could be termed denominational; yet, preaching the Gospel appeared to them an employment which they ought on no account to relinquish, for they felt that they had received a Divine commission, and that it would be at their peril to draw back from its fulfilment. The personal satisfaction also which they experienced in the discharge of their vocation, and the eagerness of people to listen to their voices, deepened the consciousness of a necessity laid upon them. But, at first, they only preached in their own houses, in the hall of a friend’s mansion, in some sequestered forest nook, or in the retirement of a mountain dell. Like the seventy disciples, like the brethren scattered abroad upon the persecution of Stephen, like the witnesses of the Middle Ages, like Wycliffe’s friars, like the early Methodists, they simply attempted to kindle and keep alight the flame of spiritual piety. Two years after the Act of Uniformity had been passed, although some ministers then “were vehement for an entire separation” from the Establishment, others, including Baxter, Bates, and Heywood, advocated attendance at the parish church—in this respect acting in the same manner as John Wesley did, at least for some time after the institution of Methodism. Yet coming events cast their shadows before them. At the end of 1666, Oliver Heywood baptized a child at Halifax, a significant incident; and, in 1672, the same patriarch of the “old Dissent” “kept a solemn day at Bramhope,” when old Mr. Holdsworth “administered the Supper.”[230] By degrees, and almost unconsciously, the worthy Heywood—and he may be taken as the specimen of a class—made advances towards a determined position outside the enclosure fenced in by law. Celebrating the Lord’s Supper, besides administering Baptism, could not be consistently repeated many times, without involving other acts, inevitably preparing for the institution of distinctive and separate Churches. Admission to the Lord’s table rendered some religious oversight of the communicants necessary, and practically, what amounted to a distinct Christian society, would begin to exist before such an existence became clearly recognized even by those engaged in its creation. When, in the year 1672, the Declaration of Indulgence afforded liberty of action, cautious and hesitating men, who had felt their way, availed themselves of the Royal concession to pursue, practically, the legitimate consequences of their prior proceedings. A minister gathered together such godly neighbours as sympathized in his views; and such persons, owning him as their rightful pastor, entered into covenant—as it was called—“to believe and practise what truths and duties,” he should make manifest to them, “to be the mind of God.”[231] According to the Presbyterian theory, the minister in the order of nature, and generally in the order of time, takes precedence of the Church; he does not spring from the Church, but the Church has its root and beginning in him; nor does the origin of his ministerial power rest in the people, his vocation is bestowed upon him directly from above; and this idea of the origin and relation of the Christian ministry we may see worked out in the history of English Presbyterianism.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
To build upon the platforms of the Westminster Assembly and the Long Parliament, had become impossible. It was a hopeless thing to think of forming classes, of meeting in synods, and of exercising parish discipline, such as had been the ideal of twenty or thirty years before—of instituting schools of virtue and religion in towns and villages, where the pastor should have the rod of the magistrate to enforce the belief of truth, and the practice of goodness. Perhaps, choice without necessity, through what had been taught by experience after the Restoration, would have led some Presbyterian pastors to abandon certain portions of their earlier cherished schemes of parochial order and discipline.
No deacons, having authority together with the minister, existed in Presbyterian Churches, and the control of affairs rested chiefly, if not entirely, with one presiding person, except where there might be a plurality of pastors. The question of individual admission to fellowship was decided by the wisdom and the care of the presbyter or bishop, not by the deliberation or vote of the Church; and the decision and administration of discipline would naturally fall into the same hands as those which had opened the door of entrance to the enjoyment of ecclesiastical privileges. One of the last things which the Presbyterians accomplished, in reference to their separate and permanent existence as a religious body, appears, indeed, one of the first things essential to that existence. The ordination of others to succeed in the ministry must be reckoned a primary measure, requisite for the existence of Nonconformist Churches; yet it seems not to have been until the year 1672, that any Presbyterian orders were conferred after the Restoration. The first solemn act of this description, with which I am acquainted, was performed in Manchester, at a house in Deans’-gate, by five presbyters; and it is worthy of notice that those so ordained were not novitiates, but persons who had been engaged for several years in preaching the Gospel.[232] Subsequently, several instances of ordination occur, but the ceremony continued, up to the time of the Revolution, to be observed in private. As in the days of the Commonwealth, so still, a careful examination of the candidates preceded the service: Latin themes, and theological debates in the same language were required, and after a confession of faith had been made by the young minister, there followed the imposition of hands, and a solemn ordination-prayer, the right hand of fellowship being afterwards given to him in token of his admission to the ministerial brotherhood.[233]
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The form of Church government, approved at Westminster, 1645, had declared that “it is agreeable to the Word of God, and very expedient, that such as are to be ordained ministers, be designed to some particular Church, or other ministerial charge;”[234] but from this rule the Presbyterians deviated after the Restoration, perhaps not so much from any change in judgment, as from a change in circumstances—scattered flocks and unsettled times rendering a general provision for perpetuating the ministry alone convenient or practicable.
In these ways innovations arose upon the old Presbyterian system, but a more important change occurred in the gradual leavening of the whole body with a more tolerant spirit. Presbyterians had persecuted “the sects,” or had connived at their persecution, but now, often having to share with them in the endurance of sorrow, they came to regard them with brotherly kindness and charity. The principle of religious liberty had once filled them with alarm, their own freedom for a long while could not satisfy their wishes, but they now came to see, that their return to the Establishment being precluded by insurmountable barriers, they must make common cause with those who were in a like position with themselves, and the liberty which they had learned to value, they must also learn to concede. The discipline of circumstances has played no small part in the education of mankind. Great principles have, indeed, on rare occasions, flashed on minds of the highest order with a kind of inspiration; but, in the cases of most men, the knowledge of truths lying below the surface, has but slowly arisen, and gradually dawned. Now and then some momentous doctrine has been struck out as by fire—resembling the fusile process, when a bronze statue is cast, and at once it comes from the mould complete—but commonly the acquisition of important principles may be compared to the hewing of marble, and the carving of oak, by a patient, laborious, and oft-repeated application of the chisel.
The history of Congregationalism after the Restoration is a history of development. Between Presbyterianism and an Establishment there are strong affinities; but there are insuperable difficulties connected with the maintenance of Congregational order in a parish, and the only real kind of Congregational Church, formed by any incumbent under the Commonwealth, had to be practically severed from the legal position which he held as a parochial clergyman. When, therefore, upon the fall of Cromwell’s Broad Church, the bark of Congregationalism was cut completely adrift from its State moorings, it was, so far as intervals of peace would allow, left to make its way, under God’s blessing, by the efforts of the rowers whom it carried on board.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
Independents and Baptists are included under the general denomination of Congregationalists. Independents retired into obscurity for a while after the Restoration. The doors of buildings where they had been wont to assemble were nailed up; the pastors were driven out; flocks were scattered; the administration of ordinances could not take place; and meetings could not be held, as the still existing records of communities, which had been prosperous under the Commonwealth, bear ample witness. There is reason to believe that the Independents had diminished in number. The Court influence in their favour, which they enjoyed so long as the Protector, Oliver, lived, would die when he died; and those who had joined their company, so long as the sun shone on their side of the street, and who had walked with them in silver slippers, would forsake their old companions, and go another way when the path was overshadowed, and the silver slippers were changed for spiked sandals. The political antecedents of the Independents as a party, their allegiance to Oliver Cromwell, the sympathy of many of them in Republican ideas, and their supposed complicity in the execution of Charles I., combined to make them exceedingly unpopular with the Royalists, whilst their democratic notions of Church government appeared most offensive to Episcopalians; consequently, to maintain a position under so much odium, and to withstand the steady fire of persecution, required a degree of faith, and a measure of decision, not very common in this world, where the love of ease and the sacrifice of principle too frequently set the fashion.
The principles of Congregationalism, however, proved their vitality, and although assemblies of Church-members were unfrequent, or were altogether discontinued for a while, the identity of Churches was preserved, and whenever an opportunity presented itself, the scattered ones gladly re-united in the pleasant fellowship after which they yearned.
Congregational principles had received a definite expression in the Savoy Declaration. The Independents had petitioned Oliver Cromwell for permission to hold a synod, which he had reluctantly conceded. After his death, they assembled on the 29th of September, and having conferred together, reached certain theological and ecclesiastical conclusions, which they published to the world.[235] To their confession, which is substantially the same as the Westminster Confession of Faith, they added a clear outline of ecclesiastical order; and, whereas the covenants or mutual agreements into which Congregationalists had entered at the formation of their Churches, in the time of the Civil Wars, generally contained some references to further light breaking in upon them from God’s Word, we discover, in the Savoy Declaration, no language whatever of that kind, and it seems to be assumed in the document that Congregationalism, as to the knowledge of its principles, had by that period attained to something like completeness.
The following were fundamental propositions.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
A particular Church consists of officers and members: the Lord Christ having given to His called ones—united in Church order—liberty and power to choose persons fitted by the Holy Ghost to be over them in the Lord. The officers appointed by Christ to be chosen, and set apart by the Church, are pastors, teachers, elders, and deacons. The way appointed by Christ for the calling of any person unto the office of pastor, teacher, or elder, in a Church, is that he be chosen thereunto by the common suffrage of the Church itself, and solemnly set apart by fasting and prayer, with the imposition of hands of the eldership of that Church, if there be any before constituted therein; and of a deacon, that he be chosen by the like suffrage, and set apart by prayer, and the like imposition of hands; and those who are so chosen, though not set apart after that manner, are rightly constituted ministers of Jesus. The work of preaching is not so peculiarly confined to pastors and teachers, but that others also, gifted and fitted by the Holy Ghost, and approved by the people, may publicly, ordinarily, and constantly perform it. Ordination alone, without election or consent of the Church, doth not constitute any person a Church officer. A Church furnished with officers, according to the mind of Christ, hath full power to administer all His ordinances; and where there is want of any one or more officers, those that are in the Church may administer all the ordinances proper to those officers whom they do not possess; but where there are no teaching-officers at all, none may administer the seals, nor can the Church authorize any so to do. Whereas the Lord Jesus Christ hath appointed and instituted, as a means of edification, that those who walk not according to the rules and laws appointed by Him be censured in His name and authority: every Church hath power in itself to exercise and execute all those censures appointed by Him. The censures appointed by Christ are admonition and excommunication; and whereas some offences may be known only to some, those to whom they are so known must first admonish the offender in private; in public offences, and in case of non-amendment upon private admonition, the offence being related to the Church, the offender is to be duly admonished, in the name of Christ, by the whole Church through the elders, and if this censure prevail not for his repentance, then he is to be cast out by excommunication, with the consent of the members.
These particulars respecting a Declaration of Faith but little known, indicate the opinions entertained by the Independents, not only at the time of the Restoration, but, with some modification, afterwards; and here it may be added that if, in the theory of Presbyterianism, the minister, as to the order of existence, precedes the Church, in the theory of Congregationalism, the Church, in that same order, precedes the minister; and in this significant fact may be found a key to some important differences between the two systems.
Besides those rules, which had reference to the internal order of the Churches, there were these three, relative to their dimensions, their co-operation, and the catholicity of their fellowship. For the avoiding of differences, for the greater solemnity in the celebration of ordinances, and for the larger usefulness of the gifts and graces of the Holy Ghost, saints, living within such distances as that they can conveniently assemble for Divine worship, ought rather to join in one Church for their mutual strengthening and edification than to set up many distinct societies. In cases of difficulties or differences, it is according to the mind of Christ, that many Churches holding communion together do by their managers meet in a synod or council, to consider and give advice; howbeit, these synods are not intrusted with any Church power, properly so called, or with any jurisdiction over the Churches. Such reforming Churches as consist of persons sound in the faith, and of conversation becoming the Gospel, ought not to refuse the communion of each other, so far as may consist with their own principles respectively, though they walk not in all things according to the same rules of Church order.[236]
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
It will be seen upon comparing the account of Independency with the account just given of Presbyterianism, that the Independents differed from their brethren (1) in their mode of admitting members,—for the Presbyterians left that responsibility entirely in the hands of the minister, and the Independents placed it entirely in the hands of the Church; (2) in their method of exercising discipline,—for, in the one case, such exercise followed the minister’s authority, and, in the other case, it followed the popular voice;[237] (3) in the relation of pastor and people,—for Presbyterians considered the first to be placed over the second by the presbyters engaged in ordination, but the Independents looked upon the second as validly appointing the first to office, the essence of the call, according to their judgments, consisting in the election of the Church; and (4) in the manner of ordination,—fasting, and prayer, and imposition of hands were recognized by Presbyterians as parts of the one rite, but though fasting and prayer were generally observed in the ordination of Independent ministers, the imposition of hands was omitted in some cases.
The conclusions at the Savoy were not ecclesiastical canons, but simply united opinions. They had no binding force. They aspired to no higher character than that of counsel and advice. How far they were studied, or how frequently they guided the proceedings of Congregationalists, I cannot say, but they may be considered as embodying the ideas of Congregationalism, which were most common amongst the early advocates of the system. The principle laid down with regard to the extent of a Church is in conformity with the practice adopted under the Commonwealth, when the multiplication of distinct societies was avoided as much as possible, and, except when the number of worshippers demanded a different course, it was the rule not to have more than one Congregational community in one place; and it would seem that the multiplication of small assemblies, which afterwards became frequent, resulted from the pressure of circumstances—persecution, or inability to obtain extensive accommodation rendering division absolutely necessary. Conferences in the form, but without the authority, of synods were held by Congregationalists under the Protectorate, and the cessation of them afterwards, except upon a small scale, may be easily accounted for, without supposing the occurrence of any change of opinion upon the subject. Willingness to receive Presbyterians into communion, and a disposition to unite with Presbyterian fellowships, distinctly appear in the history of those times. It is recorded, respecting Heywood’s Church, in the year 1672, that Independents were willing to acknowledge Presbyterians, and Presbyterians were willing to acknowledge Independents; “and a special season was appointed for communicating together in the Lord’s Supper. Both parties went away abundantly satisfied.”[238]
Both Presbyterians and Independents adopted the practice of adult and of pædo-baptism by sprinkling. According to the Westminster Confession, “not only those that do actually profess faith in and obedience unto Christ, but also the infants of one or both believing parents are to be baptized.” John Owen remarks, as to the subjects of the rite—“The question is not whether all infants are to be baptized or not. For, according to the will of God, some are not to be baptized, even such whose parents are strangers from the covenant.”[239] Baxter adopted the same view.[240] So did Goodwin, but he considered that the child of a godly person, though not in fellowship with any Church, was entitled to the ordinance.[241]
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
Of the importance of a baptismal dedication of infants, Presbyterians and Independents held decided views. Some of the former spoke of the nature and advantages of the sacrament in terms which would be greatly modified by their successors,[242] even as the latter confined its administration within narrower limits than many of the former.
The Baptists resembled the Independents in Church polity, except as it regards baptism. They were specially singled out for attack by the High Church party, and their extraordinary sufferings have never been forgotten by their successors. They could not but be winnowed by the winds of persecution. Forty-six Baptist Churches are said to have been in existence in London in the year 1646. The number of them represented at an assembly held in 1689 is but eleven.[243] Supposing the first of these statements to be exaggerated, and the second to be inadequate, allowing that in the former estimate some small groups of worshippers were counted as Churches, although not organized as such, and that there might be more Baptist Churches in London than were represented in the assembly held after the Restoration; further, taking into account the fact that the erection of larger places of worship, after liberty had been conceded, would absorb the fragmentary assemblies common when oppression was rife; still, the comparison even of these loose returns would indicate that the fact of the case is in accordance with the probability, and that Baptists, like Independents, declined somewhat in numerical power.
Baptist Churches sprung out of Independent ones, as before, so after the days of Cromwell. For instance, in the year 1633, a number of Baptists in London, who had been members of an Independent Church, swarmed, and settled down into a distinct Baptist community,[244] and in 1667 a Baptist member of the Independent Church in Norwich withdrew from that society, and entered upon the task “of building another house for God.”[245]
In the records of early Independency we meet with allusions to messengers appointed to take part in conferences between those Churches and others of the same denomination. A like practice existed among the Baptists, who seem to have gone beyond their brethren in the number and importance of such conferences.
The Baptists were divided into Particular and General. The Particular Baptists were those who held the doctrine of particular redemption.
Upon comparing the doctrinal part of the confession of the Particular Baptists, published in the years 1677 and 1689, with the doctrinal part of the confession of the Westminster Divines, it will be found to resemble it—differing in this respect from an earlier confession of faith, published by seven Baptist Churches in 1644 and 1646. That earlier confession presents a statement of doctrinal belief much shorter, couched in different terms, and arranged in a different order.[246] The Predestinarianism expressed by the Baptists in 1677 and 1689, is not less decided than the Predestinarianism of the Confession of 1644 and 1646, but in neither of these confessions can I find the doctrine of reprobation. The omission in the last confession, of the Westminster Article on that subject, is very significant.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The Article on the nature of baptism in the Baptist Confession of 1677 differs but slightly from the Articles on the same subject in the Westminster Confession, and in the Savoy Declaration; but, of course, there is a great difference from these, in the Article touching the subjects of baptism, and the mode of its administration. The Baptist Confession says, “Those who do actually profess repentance towards God, faith in and obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ are the only proper subjects of this ordinance. The outward element to be used in this ordinance is water, wherein the party is to be baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Immersion or dipping of the person in water is necessary to the due administration of the ordinance.”
The General Baptists, whose early history can be reviewed more conveniently when we have passed the Revolution, were those who, resembling their brethren in other respects, held Anti-Calvinistic sentiments, and preached the doctrine of general redemption. Some of the Churches of this denomination kept Saturday as a day of rest and worship, and were on that account called Seventh Day Baptists. They seem to have been very strict in their ecclesiastical discipline, and to have drawn around them very closely the bonds of fellowship. Not only were formal letters of dismissal from one Church to another given when members removed to a new residence—as was a common practice amongst all Congregationalists—but an instance is at hand of “an epistle of commendation,” written in a very primitive style, being given to a person on the point of travelling to some distant part of the country.
The document is signed by Francis Bampfield, a well-known ejected minister,[247]—who died in Newgate,—and also by his deacons. They thus jointly express their fraternal affection: “To any Church of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom our brother may come, who are one with us in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, and in the order of the Gospel of God keeping the holy Sabbath. Our brother, having occasion to visit your parts, and being unacquainted with the faces of the saints in your parts, was desirous of a testimony from us, which we are desirous to give unto you, that he may be watched over, and made a partaker of the privileges of Christ’s house. For he is a brother, and faithful, who also hath been as a living member amongst us, in varieties of cases in which he hath been tried. Therefore receive him as you would receive any of us, and as we would receive you in the Lord, who commend him and you to the grace of God, and subscribe ourselves in behalf of the rest, &c.”[248]
Baptists were not only divided into Particular and General, as it respects doctrine; they were distinguished as Strict and Open with respect to communion. In the Confession of 1677 the distinction as to discipline is thus represented—“The known principles and the state of the consciences of us that have agreed in this confession is such, that we cannot hold Church communion with any other than baptized believers, and Churches constituted of such; yet some other of us have a greater liberty, and freedom in our spirits that way.”
Kiffin and Thomas Paul were advocates of strict communion; Jessy, Tombes, and Bunyan were advocates of open communion.[249]
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The records of the Baptist Church assembling in Broadmead, Bristol, furnish a complete history of its Christian fellowship. The mode of admission is fully described. Candidates gave an account of the work of God upon their souls before the whole congregation. Three are on one occasion mentioned as giving satisfaction, but two of the brethren desired further time to discourse with one Mary Skinker about her principles, whether she was sound in the doctrine of the Gospel, concerning the person and human nature of Christ our Lord; and time also to discourse with one Elizabeth Jordan somewhat further, for their satisfaction concerning the truth of the work of grace upon her soul. Persons, “hoped to be in the truth,” were baptized in the river Frome—this was done once, amidst frost and snow, and a sharp, piercing wind, so that a wet handkerchief was frozen round the neck of one of the women; although one person was sick, and another had tooth-ache, and a third had sprained his leg, and a fourth was consumptive, the Lord, it is said, “to declare His power, did, as it were, work a miracle, to give a precedent to others,” lest, from the coldness of the season, they should fear to do His will. He preserved them all, and not so much as one was ill; each was the better for being baptized, and all were alive ten years afterwards to speak of the Lord’s goodness, and have it recorded in the Church Book. Discipline was rigidly maintained. Letters were written to members suspected of improper conduct, and the answers they returned of confession, or denial, or excuse, are carefully preserved. Instances of answers to prayer are recorded—one of a bachelor, who fell distracted, so that he was forced to be bound to his bed, but after days of prayer the Lord cast out, “as it were, three spirits, visible to be seen”—a spirit of uncleanness for rage and blasphemy, a spirit of horror and fear, and a spirit of shame and dumbness. Allusion is made to the occurrence of a fiery apparition on the north-west side of the City, like a boy’s kite, with a fiery oval head, and a long white tail. These records abound in stories of persecution and disturbance; but whatever may be thought of the superstitious tinge, so apparent in the character of these simple-hearted and pious people, every reader must be touched by the following entries:—
“On the 2nd of July [1682], Lord’s Day, our pastor preached in another place in the Wood. Our friends took much pains in the rain, because many informers were ordered out to search, and we were in peace, though there were near twenty men and boys in search.” “On the 16th brother Fownes first, and brother Whinnell after, preached under a tree, it being very rainy.” “On the 13th [of August] our pastor preached in the Wood, and afterwards broke bread at Mr. Young’s in peace. But Hellier and the rest were busy that day, and shut up the gates, and kept watch at the Weir, and behind St. Philip’s in the morning, to prevent any going out, and in the evening to catch them coming in, and took up several in the evening as vagrants on the Lord’s Day, and sent some to Newgate, and some to Bridewell, watching till seven in the evening for that purpose.” “On the 20th met above Scruze Hole, in our old place, and heard brother Fownes preach twice in peace. Brother Terrill had caused workmen to make banks on the side of the hill to sit down on, several of them like a gallery. And there we met also on the 27th in peace. And both days we sang a psalm in the open wood.”[250] No doubt if other Congregational Church books, Baptist and Pædo-baptist, had been as minute and copious in detail, and had been as safely handed down to us as the Broadmead Records have happily been, we should have found in them somewhat similar information, touching different kinds of Independent communities.
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
The history of the Quakers, throughout the period under review, is a history of spiritual life, of intense suffering, of calm endurance, of inflexible adherence to principle, of heroic zeal, of indefatigable activity, and of large success, both as to the increase of numbers, and the moral improvement of mankind. It is also a history of organic ecclesiastical development. So spiritual an impulse worked out a graduated system of co-operation and discipline. Quakers differed from the Presbyterians, from the Independents, and from the Baptists in doctrinal opinions, and they also rejected the celebration of sacraments, which all the others reverentially observed; but in ecclesiastical government the Quakers were much less unlike the Presbyterians than the other two denominations. Quakers’ Societies were not distinct Churches, independent of each other, but they formed one large spiritual aggregate, the various parts being united, not only in sympathy and general action, but in certain definite social arrangements. In respect to corporate unity, Quakers attained to a perfection at which the Presbyterians of the Commonwealth aimed in vain, and which the Presbyterians of the Restoration never attempted. After the first few years of struggle and suffering, Quakerism consolidated itself into the following shape, as described by Sewell, the historian of the sect:—
“As to Church government, both for looking to the orderly conversation of the members, and for taking care of the poor, and of indigent widows and orphans, and also for making inquiry into marriages solemnized among them, they have particular meetings, either weekly, or every two weeks, or monthly, according to the greatness of the Churches. They have also quarterly meetings in every county, where matters are brought that cannot well be adjusted in the particular meetings. To these meetings come not only the ministers and elders, but also other members, that are known to be of sober conversation; and what is agreed upon there is entered into a book belonging to the meeting. Besides these meetings, a general annual assembly is kept at London in the Whitsun Week so-called, not for any superstitious observation the Quakers have for that more than any other time, but because that season of the year best suits the general accommodation. To this yearly meeting, which sometimes lasteth four, five, or more days, are admitted such as are sent from all Churches of that Society in the world, to give an account of the state of the particular Churches, which from some places is done only by writing, and from that meeting is sent a general epistle to all the Churches, which commonly is printed, and sometimes particular epistles are also sent to the respective Churches. By which it may be known every year in what condition the Churches are, and in the said epistle generally is recommended a godly life and conversation, and due care about the education of children. If it happen that the poor anywhere are in want, then that is supplied by others who have in store, or sometimes by an extraordinary collection.”
DEVELOPMENT OF NONCONFORMITY.
He supplies the following particulars respecting another subject:—
“In their method of marriage they also depart from the common way, for in the Old Testament they find not that the joining of a couple in marriage ever was the office of a priest, nor in the Gospel any preacher among Christians appointed thereto. Therefore it is their custom, that when any intend to enter into marriage, they first having the consent of parents or guardians, acquaint the respective men’s and women’s meetings of their intention, and after due inquiry, all things appearing clear, they in a public meeting solemnly take each other in marriage, with a promise of love and fidelity, and not to leave one another before death separates them. Of this a certificate is drawn, mentioning the names and distinctions of the persons thus joined, which, being first signed by themselves, those then that are present sign as witnesses. In the burying of their dead they mind decency, and endeavour to avoid all pomp, and the wearing of mourning is not approved among them, for they think that the mourning which is lawful may be showed sufficiently to the world by a modest and grave deportment.”[251]