Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 8.djvu/410

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��The First Baptist Church in MassacJmsetts.

��had no equal in that country, and his zeal enabled him to establish many new churches in his native land. The act of the English Saint Bartholomew's Day, in 1662, deprived Mr, Myles of the support which the government under Cromwell had granted him, and he, with many others, chose the freedom of exile to the tyranny of an unprin- cipled monarch. It would be inter- esting for us to give an account of his leave-taking of his church at Swansea, and of his associates in Christian labor, and to trace out his passage to Massa- chusetts, and to relate the circum- stances which led him to search out and to find the little band of Baptists at Rehoboth. Surely some law of spir- itual gravitation or affinity, under the good hand of God, thus raised up and brought this under-shepherd to the flock thus scattered in the wilderness. Nicholas Tanner, Obadiah Brown, John Thomas, and others, accompanied Mr. Myles in his exile from Swansea, Wales. The first that is known of them in America was the formation of a Baptist church at the house of John Butterworth in Rehoboth, whose residence is said to have been near the Cove in the western part of the present town of East Providence. Mr. Myles and his followers had probably learned at Boston, or at Plymouth, of the treat- ment offered to Holmes and his party, ten years before, and his sympathies led him to seek out and unite the elements which persecution had scattered. Seven members made up this infant church, namely : John Myles, pastor, James Brown, Nicholas Tanner, Joseph Carpenter, John Butterworth, Eldad Kingsley, and Benjamin Alby. The principles to which their assent was given were the same as those held by the Welsh Baptists, as expounded by

��Mr. Myles. The original record-book of the church contains a list of the members of Mr. Myles's church in Swansea, from 1640 till 1660, with let- ters, decrees, ordinances, etc., of the several churches of the denomination in England and Whales. This book, now in the possession of the First Bap- tist Church in Swanzey, Massachusetts, is probably a copy of the original Welsh records, made by or for Mr. Myles's church in Massachusetts, the senti- ments of which controlled their actions here.

Of the seven constituent members, only one was a member of Myles's church in Wales — Nicholas Tanner. James Brown was a son of John Brown, both of whom held high offices in the Plymouth colony. Mr. Newman and his church were again aroused at the revival of this dangerous sect, and they again united with the other orthodox churches of the colony in soliciting the Court to interpose its influence against them, and the members of this little church were each fined five pounds, for setting up a public meeting without the knowledge and approbation of the Court, to the disturbance of the peace of the place, — ordered to desist from their meeting for the space of a month, and advised to remove their meeting to some other place where they might not prejudice any other church. The worthy magistrates of Plymouth have not told us how these few Baptist brethren " disturbed the peace " of quiet old Rehoboth. Good old Rehoboth, that roomy place, was not big enough to contain this church of seven members, and we have to-day to thank the spirit of Newman and the order of Plymouth Court for the hand- ful of seed-corn, which they cast upon the waters, which here took root

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