They found themselves engaged to record their sufferings and
services: and in the case of marriage, which they could not perform in
the usual methods of the nation, but among themselves, they took care
that all things were clear between the parties and all others: and it was
then rare, that any one entertained an inclination to a person on that
account, till he or she had communicated it secretly to some very weighty
and eminent friends among them, that they might have a sense of the
matter; looking to the counsel and unity of their brethren as of great
moment to them. But because the charge of the poor, the number of
orphans, marriages, sufferings, and other matters, multiplied; and that
it was good that the churches were in some way and method of proceeding
in such affairs among them, to the end they might the better correspond
upon occasion, where a member of one meeting might have to do with one of
another; it pleased the Lord, in his wisdom and goodness, to open the
understanding of the first instrument of this dispensation of life, about
a good and orderly way of proceeding; who felt a holy concern to visit
the churches in person throughout this nation, to begin and establish it
among them: and by his epistles, the like was done in other nations and
provinces abroad; which he also afterwards visited, and helped in that
service, as shall be observed when I come to speak of him.
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