“It was likewise further agreed upon yt after the next meeteinge of this nature be p’formed upon the second day of the weeke, publiq notyse be given at yt meeting that from thenceforth it is intended yt the exercise of this nature shall be kept in the usual place, upon the 3rd day of the week, to begin at the houres of two of the clocke in the afternoone in sum’er tyme, & at one in the winter.” Sept. 20th, 1658, occurs the following: “At a meetinge then of the church, beinge occasioned by a letter sent from diverse churches touchinge a generall meetinge of the severall Congregationall churches at London, by ther pastors or others, bretheren, at the Savoye, upon the 29th of September next, it was agreed by the church that our pastour, Mr. Ottie, should goe to that meeteinge on the behalf of this church, and yt ye charge of the jorneye should be mutually borne by the bretheren of the socyetye.” Previously to the death of Oliver Cromwell the Independents had petitioned for liberty to hold this synod. They had acquired, especially in Suffolk and Norfolk, considerable importance by their numbers, and by the accession of many opulent persons. But they had been (to use their own expressions) like so many ships launched singly, and sailing apart and alone in the vast ocean of those tumultuous times, exposed to every wind of doctrine, under no other conduct than the word and Spirit, and their particular elders and principal brethren, without associations among themselves, or so much as holding out a common light to others whereby to know where they were. {137} It is a circumstance which strikingly distinguishes the Independents from the Brownists, that while they strenuously contended against the exercise of any spiritual authority, even by the gravest and wisest assemblies of men, they desired “that there might be a correspondence between their churches, in city and country, for counsel and mutual edification,” and that the world might know to what extent they, “being many,” were “one body.”