Up to this time it had been the custom of the Braintree church that any person “propounded” for membership should, before being admitted, give an oral or written relation of his or her religious experience,—a practice in strict accordance with the usage then prevailing, with perhaps a few exceptions, throughout Massachusetts.[6] The record, under date of December 31, 1721, contains the following in relation to this:—
“Dr. Belcher’s son Joseph, junior Sophister, [admitted.] He made the last Relation, before the brethren consented to lay aside Relations.
“Because some persons of a sober life and good conversation have signified their unwillingness to join in full communion with the Church, unless they may be admitted to it without making a Public Relation of their spiritual experiences, which (they say) the Church has no warrant in the word of God to require, it was therefore proposed to the Church the last Sacrament-day that they would not any more require a Relation as above said from any person who desired to partake in the Ordinance of the Lord’s Supper with us, and after the case had been under debate at times among the brethren privately for the space of three weeks, the question was put to them January 28 1721/2 being on a Lord’s Day Evening in the Meeting-house, whether they would any more insist upon the making a Relation as a necessary Term of full communion with them?
“It passed in the negative by a great majority.”
Two months later the case of James Penniman again presented itself. It was now nearly nine years since he had been solemnly admonished; and on the 4th of April, 1722,—
“Sabbath day. It was proposed to the church last Sabbath to excommunicate James Penniman for his contumacy in sin, but this day he presented a confession, which was read before the Congregation, and prayed that they would wait upon him awhile longer, which the Church consented to, and he was again publicly admonished, and warned against persisting in the neglect of Public Worship, against Idleness, Drunkenness and Lying; and he gave some slender hopes of Reformation, seemed to be considerably affected, and behaved himself tolerably well.”
The following entries complete the record during the Marsh pastorate of sixteen years, which ended March 8, 1726, Mr. Marsh then dying in his forty-first year:—
“September 9. Brother Joseph Parmenter made a public Confession, in the presence of the Congregation for the sin of drunkenness.
“September 21. At a Church meeting of the Brethren to consider his case, the question was put whether they would accept his confession [to] restore him; it passed in the negative, because he has made several confessions of the sin, and is still unreformed thereof: the Brethren concluded it proper to suspend him from Communion in the Lord’s Supper, for his further humiliation and warning. He was accordingly suspended.
“March 3d, 1722-3. Sabbath Evening. Brother Parmenter having behaved himself well (for aught anything that appears) since his suspension, was at his desire restored again by a vote of the Brethren, nemine contradicente.