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Notwithstanding the discontented brethren continued to press 

 the acceptance of their petition, for a mutual council. Parris 

 refused to notice it, and says. " I put it up in my pocket, and 

 told them T would consider it." It appears, by the records, 

 that the acknowledgment of Mr. Parris was first read before the 

 church, November, 18. 1694, in the presence of the dissenting 

 brethren, when Tarbell remarked, that if the pastor had for- 

 merly made but half the achiiowled gment he now had^ it had 

 never come to this. It would seem that the acknowledgment 

 of the pastor was not satisfactory to the brethren, and they con- 

 tinued to persist in the calling of a council. In the meantime, 

 Parris brought sundry objections, as he called them, against 

 Tarbell and his friends, which were read before the church, 

 November 13th. These objections, were as follows : — "Their 

 precipitant, schismatical and total withdrawing from the church ; 

 Their bringing forward a factious libel to the pastor, consisting 

 of calumnies, or reflections on said minister, and others of the 

 plantation ; their impetuous pursuit of the minister at his house, 

 for answer to said libel to his great disquietude ; there restless 

 pursuit of the minister, on the 14th of April, 1693, for an ans- 

 wer to said libel ; their persisting with great heat, that their 

 charge might be read, yea loudly and fiercely before the Avhole 

 brotherhood, clammouring against the church, and their pub- 

 lishing under their own hands, in divers places of the country, 

 sundry oblequies against the church ; their ensnaring several to 

 join them in a petition to his Excellency and General Court, 

 scandalizing the church and minister, as unpeaceable with their 

 neighbors ; their withdrawing their purses, as well as their 

 persons from upholding the Lord's table, and the ministery ; 

 their gross mistake in their letter to the church at Maiden, 

 "wherein they profess so much dissatisfaction with the doctrine, 

 practice and administration of their pastor, for above a year, 

 before the date of said letter, as that they were forced to with- 

 draw from all public worship ; whereas it is most notorious, 

 that they were not wanting as to a profession of much respect 

 to their pastor, all along before, yea, and a considerable while 

 after the breaking out of the late horrid witchcraft." These are 

 some of the charges brought against the three brethren by Par- 

 ris, and he informs us, " as soon as the public reading of these 

 articles was ended, Brother Thomas Wilkins, in a scoffing and 

 contemptuous way, said openly, ' this is a large epistle.' " It 

 ■would seem by the records, that the dissenting brethren con- 

 tinued to make strenuous efforts to bring Parris before a coun- 

 cil, which was at last recommended by the pastors of the chur- 

 ches in the neighborhood, when Parris in his last attempt to 



