The nonconformists plea for peace, or, An account of their judgment in certain things…

XVI. Those called Independents do keep up such Churches as they had gathered before; when none of our present oaths, declarations, subscriptions or practices were imposed on them; which is not therefore to be taken as new.

XVII. As to the rest, it was the great and terrible Plague in 1665. which made this change in their Assembling and Ministration. When the public Ministers forsook the City, and the rich left the poor to misery and death, and people looked every day for their last; when they that heard a Sermon one day, were buried the next; when death had awakened the people to Repentance, and a regard of their everlasting state, divers Nonconformable Ministers resolved to stay with them; They begged money out of the Countries for the poor, and relieved them: They got into the empty Pulpits, and preached to them: And when Preachers and Hearers looked every day for their last, it is easy to conceive that there was serious Preaching, and serious Hearing: By this ⟨p. 237⟩many that died were helped in their preparations; and through God's great mercies, multitudes that survived, repented and became the serious seekers of a better world. The men that did this were mostly unmarried, and could easilier venture their own lives, than such as had families; and some of them that had families, yet trusted God, and most did scape. We know but of one (pious Germane Minister that died of the Plague in the City (and one of another Disease, if not through want) and two that fled from it in the Country.) And when God had blest these mens faithful labours with the conversion of many souls (especially Apprentices and young people,) the experience so engaged their mutual affections, that the Ministers resolved that they would live and die in such service as God had so blessed and preserved them in; and their hearers resolved that they would not forsake their Teachers: And thus the dreadful Plague began that which so much now offendeth men, as a dangerous Schism.

XVII. As to the rest, it was the great and terrible Plague in 1665. which made this change in their Assembling and Ministration. When the publick Ministers forsook the City, and the rich left the poor to misery and death, and people lookt every day for their last; when they that heard a Sermon one day, were buried the next; when death had awakened the people to Repentance, and a regard of their everlasting state, divers Nonconformable Ministers resolved to stay with them; They begg'd money out of the Countries for the poor, and relieved them: They got into the empty Pulpits, and preached to them: And when Preachers and Hearers lookt every day for their last, it is easie to conceive that there was serious Preaching, and serious Hearing: By this