Note 207 — Chapter IX

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.