ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



that it was in this year that George Fox commenced his mission in the 

 county. There was a cloud upon the horizon, at this time no bigger 

 than a man's hand, which soon grew to such stupendous proportions 

 that the two principal denominations were forced to combine in order 

 to preserve themselves from extinction. Fox made a progress from 

 parish to parish through the western portion of the county. At Brigham 

 he converted John Wilkinson, ' who was preacher of that parish and of 

 two other parishes in Cumberland,' in which neighbourhood ' many 

 hundreds were convinced.' ' Consternation is scarcely the word to de- 

 scribe the state of feeling which filled the hearts of the religious leaders 

 in that portion of the county at the missionary success of Fox. In the 

 records of the independents of Cockermouth for the year 1654 we are 

 told that 'the i6th day of the 4th month the churches met at Bride- 

 kirk, where they solemnly made confession of their Faith, and renewed 

 their covenant with God, begging of the Lord His grace and strength, 

 that they might stand against that deluge of errors that had overflown 

 the country, and had shattered to pieces the other congregations about 

 Broughton ; only some few friends of the people had since come to 

 land and kept together in communion.' 3 The religious instincts of the 

 people, so far as they were represented by the preachers who had sup- 

 planted the old order of clergy, began to gravitate towards Fox, who, 

 in a few years, was almost universally accepted as the sovereign pontiff 

 of Cumberland. The puritan teachers were so utterly forsaken that the 

 churches in some parishes stood empty. 3 



It can be readily imagined that the external pressure of Fox's 

 preaching contributed in no small measure to ' the agreement of the 

 associated ministers and churches of the counties of Cumberland and 

 Westmorland,' which was brought to a successful issue in 1656. Those 

 who take the trouble to read the Articles of Association and reflect on 

 the application of the rules of discipline and government will see 

 nothing extravagant in the epigram of Milton, that ' new Presbyter is 

 but old Priest writ large.' Even ' the power of the keys,' which was 

 claimed to be latent in presbyterianism, was accepted in a modified 

 form by the independents. The formulary of excommunication obtained 

 a wider range and descended to more minute detail than was ever known 

 in the strictest days of the English church. For the better carrying out 

 of the agreement, the county was divided into three districts or associa- 

 tions, Carlisle, Penrith, and Cockermouth, which should meet monthly, 

 more or less, as occasion required, or as the greater part of the association 

 thought fit. The ministers of Westmorland gave their consent to the 

 Agreement so far as the general propositions were concerned, but made 

 their own arrangements about places of meeting. An eirenicon was 



George Fox's Journal, Leeds edition, i. 220-6. 



1 Lewis Hist, of the Congregational Church of Cockermouth, pp. 17-8. 



8 George Fox's journal, i. 226-30, 441. This statement by Fox cannot be regarded as an exagger- 

 ation : it is fully borne out by the records of Congregationalism at Cockermouth (Hist, of the Congre- 

 gational Church, pp. 14-25). The weapon of excommunication, which the ministers used against the 

 seceders, had no effect on the general apostasy. 



