i5° 



MINUTE BOOK OF THE WIRKSWORTH CLASSIS. 



secured — which gained for Presbyterians a half-hearted support, 

 or, at all events, a considerable preference over Independents. 

 The very principles of the latter involved such a segregation into 

 mere knots of worshippers, that those who retained even the 

 smallest leaven of Catholicism were able to see how fatal its 

 general acceptance would be to any chance of the revival of 

 Church feelings. A Classical Assembly, if it did nothing more, 

 secured for the parishes composing it a notion of the advantages 

 of joint action and common Christian fellowship. Hence the 

 certain amount of support that Presbyterians received, in Derby- 

 shire and elsewhere, from those who were never thoroughly with 

 them, and who seized the first opportunity of throwing off their 

 yoke, when the choice lay between the Church and the Presbytery. 



The pages of this Minute Book are throughout written in a 

 fairly legible and business-like hand, the writing of Scribe Rudyard 

 being rather the most distinct. The orthography is as capricious 

 as it usually was at that period, even in the hands of scholars ; the 

 very name of the county is given in five different varieties — 

 Derby, Derbey, Darby, Darbey, and Darbie. 



Our thanks are due to the Dowager Lady Hatherton and to 

 Miss Hurt, for having so carefully transcribed the greater portion 

 of the MS for the press. 



o 



Wirkesworth Classis \ Thege pr£sent aU ^ classica]1 meeting the said l6th 

 in Com Derb Decemb r d of Decemb g 

 l6th 1651. ) ' 3 



M» 



Minist rs 



Port'* Moderator 

 Tho : Shelm'dinet 

 Martine TophamJ 

 John Otefield§ 

 Tho : Myles|| 

 Rog : Coke Scribe J 



M'< 



Othlf 

 Henrie Buxton** 

 John Sclal r tt 

 William StorerJJ 

 Edward Allen 

 Richard Varden 



Mr. Samuel Hieron§§ 

 this day preached his 

 approbation sermon ; 

 and his paines ap- 

 proved. 



* Robert Porter was minister of Pentrich, succeeding to Rev. John 

 Chapman, ejected by the Parliament. Calamy gives him a high character : — 

 " His parts were great and quick, his fancy very rich and pregnant, and his 



wit rendered him the desire and pleasure of gentlemen in conversation 



His judgement was solid, and his eloquence natural and greatly Scriptural. . . . 



