Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/409

 The First Baptist Church in Massachusetts.

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��Then followed the period of the Com- monwealth under Cromwell, and then the Restoration, when " there arose up a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph." The Act of Uniformity, passed in 1662, under the sanction of Charles II, though a fatal blow at the purity and piety of the Eng- lish Church, was a royal blessing to the cause of religion in America. Two thousand bravely conscientious men, who feared God more than the decrees of Pope, King, or Parliament, were driven from their livings and from the kingdom. What was England's great loss was America's great gain, for a grand tidal wave of emigration swept westward across the Atlantic to our shores. Godly men and women, clergy and laity, made up this exiled band, too true and earnest to yield a base compliance to the edict of conformity. For thirteen years here the Dissenters from Mr. Newman's church waited for a spiritual guide, but not in vain.

How our Baptist brethren here con- ducted themselves during these years, and the difficulties they may have occa- sioned or encountered, we know but little. Plymouth, liberal already, has grown more lenient towards church offenders in matters of conscience. Mr. John Brown, a citizen of Reho- both, and one of the magistrates, has presented before the Court his scruples at the expediency of coercing the peo- ple to support the ministry, and has offered to pay from his own property the taxes of all those of his townsmen who may refuse their support of the ministry. This was in 1665. Mas- sachusetts Bay has tried to correct the errors of her sister colony on the sub- ject of toleration, and has in turn been rebuked by her example.

��JOHN MYLES.

Leaving the membership awhile, let us cross the sea to Wales to find their future pastor and teacher — John Myles.

Wales had been the asylum for the persecuted and oppressed for many centuries. There freedom of religious thought was tolerated, and from thence sprung three men of unusual vigor and power : Roger Williams, Oliver Crom- well, and John Myles. About the year 1645, the Baptists in that country, who had previously been scattered and con- nected with other churches, began to unite in the formation of separate churches, under their own pastors. Prominent among these was the Rev- erend Mr. Myles, who preached in various places with great success, until the year 1649, when we find him pastor of a church which he organized in Swansea, in South Wales. It is a singular coincidence that Mr. Myles's pastorate at Swansea, and the separa- tion of the members from the Rehoboth church, a part of whom aided in estab- Ushing the church in Swanzey, Massa- chusetts, occurred in the same year.

During the Protectorate of Cromwell, all Dissenters enjoyed the largest liberty of conscience, and, as a result, the church at Swansea grew from forty- eight to three hundred souls. Around this centre of influence sprang up sev- eral branch churches, and pastors were raised up to care for them. Mr. Myles soon became the leader of his denomi- nation in Wales, and in 1651 he was sent as the representative of all the Baptist churches in Wales to the Bap- tist ministers' meeting, at Glaziers' Hall, London, with a letter, giving an account of the peace, union, and mcrease of the work. As a preacher and worker he

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