In Great Britain during the 17th century, God’s Baptist people were brutally persecuted. Toward the end of that period, Edward Terrill, a member of the church in Bristol, kept a journal, from which we can glean an insight into the dangers of that period.
1682. Jan. 29. The Church met at four different places. Many of them went in the afternoon on Durdham Down, and got into a cave of a rock toward Clifton, where Brother Thomas Whinnell preached to them.
March 12. Met in the fields by Barton Hundred, and Mr. Samuel Buttall of Plymouth preached in the fore-part of the day, and Brother Whinnell in the evening. It was thought there were near a thousand persons in the morning.
April 13. Met in the rain in a lane.
May 4 (today’s date). Information was brought to a petty session for Gloucestershire [like the county court], against brother Jennings, for preaching in the lanes, and a warrant granted for levying five pounds, or else goods, or person.
June 11. Brother Fownes being come from London, but not daring to come into the city because of the [law], met with us, and preached in Kingswood, near Scruze Hole, under a tree, and endured the rain.
July 2. Our pastor preached in another place in the wood. Our friends took much pains in the rain, because many informers were ordered out to search; and we were in peace, though there were near twenty men and boys in search.
August 20. Met above Scruze Hole, in our old place, and heard Brother Fownes preach twice in peace. Brother Terrill had caused a workman to make banks on the side of the hill to sit down on, several of them like a gallery; and there we met also on the 27th, in peace. On both days we sang a psalm in the open woods.
On the 7th of December we met for our lecture at Mr. Shuter’s on Redcliffe Hill, in peace, taking a great deal of care in going and coming, the women wearing neither white aprons nor pattens [special shoes] [to keep from drawing the attention of others].
– Source: “This Day in Baptist History,” David Cummins and Wayne Thompson