These documents are in the State Paper Office, Dom. Interreg., petitions, &c., vol. xiv., p. 313. Connected with them is a petition to Oliver Cromwell from several ministers, complaining that they had been presented at the assizes for not administering the Lord's Supper, and praying for protection.
[207] The notice which some Congregational societies took of public affairs under the Commonwealth, particularly on days of special humiliation, appears from entries in their records. When, for example, in the year 1652, Admiral Blake met with a defeat in the Downs, and Van Tromp, with a broom at his topmast, vauntingly threatened to sweep the seas of the British flag, the Independents at Yarmouth (who probably had relatives on board Blake's ships, and who had often, on the sands, watched the flotilla which just then was freighted with the hopes of England, as it sailed through Yarmouth Roads)—agreed on the 7th of December, that on the following Thursday, "at ten of the clock, the Church should meet to seek God for the navy at sea." Again, on the 5th of December, 1656, "being appointed by the Governors of this land for a day of fasting and humiliation—to be humbled for the rebuke the Lord gave this nation at Domingo, and that the Lord would discover the cause of that stroke, that every one might find out the plague of his own heart, and that the increase and kingdom of Christ might be promoted, and that our Governors might be faithful in all that is committed to them—the Church hereupon agreed to take the opportunity to seek the Lord upon the forementioned grounds." Threatenings of the plague, breaches and divisions in Churches, brought these earnest Independents together for special intercession.
[208] Poor Churches craved help from sister communities in better circumstances, and did so with signal success. Whilst the spirit of brotherly affection was seen in the bestowment of liberal contributions to the necessitous, it was shewn also in the considerate manner of dismissing members from one neighbourhood to another. We find the following quaint record in the Yarmouth Church Book.
Upon "Brother Staffe" desiring his dismission through "Brother Gideney," "the brethren desired rather that he would come down, for they had something to communicate unto him, and that our parting might not be with bare paper."
[209] Commentary on Ezekiel, p. xii.
[210] Works of Howe, vi. 340.
Thomas Brooks was a Divine, endowed richly with that quaint and curious kind of learning which sparkles so brilliantly in the writings of Jeremy Taylor; and though inferior to his great Church contemporary in point of diction he surpassed him far in the sympathetic and loving exhibition of those sentiments which are most distinctive of the Gospel. After being minister of the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, he became Rector of St. Margaret's, Fish Street Hill; where, according to Calamy, he gathered a Congregational Church, against which proceeding some of his parishioners presented a petition. But it appears that this is a mistake, and that he did not form an Independent Society until after the Restoration.—Brooks's Complete Works, vol. i.—Memoir by Grosart.
[211] Roger's Life of Howe, 18. This interesting book is our authority for what follows.
[212] Lord Broghill, in a letter to the Protector, Edinburgh, Feb. the 26th, 1655, speaks of "putting no small confidence in Mr. Gillespie and Mr. Levingstone."—Thurloe, iv. 558.
[213] Caldewood, Spalding, Whitelocke, and Sewel.—Orme's Life of Owen, 404-406.