Shaping Baptist Congregational Identity in Southwest England: The Loughwood 'Proceedings Book'

• Published in: Bunyan studies no. 27; pp. 54 - 78
• Main Author: Adcock, Rachel
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Newcastle Upon Tyne Northumbria University, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, Design and Social Sciences 01.01.2023
• Subjects: Armed forces; Baptism; Civil war; Ideology; Parliaments; Religion; Religious congregations; Religious organizations; Spirituality; Blackdown Hills
• ISSN: 0954-0970

On 1 June 1659, the monthly church meeting gathering at Loughwood, now in East Devon, agreed on four 'acts' which were recorded in what is now known as the Loughwood 'Proceedings book'.1 The acts were intended to draw church members more closely together, as well unite them with other like-minded believers across the southwest, and, indeed, the nation. Despite the remoteness of the church, deep in the rural southwest, the Loughwood congregation was not spiritually or politically 'isolated and introspective': it was clearly deeply invested in the progress of a national reformation and improving the position of the saints through petitioning, collective prayer, and remembrance.9 As this short entry shows, therefore, 'acts', procedures, and ordinances - including their representation and memorialisation in the church book - were integral to constructing the Loughwood congregation's identity as a visibly separate, orderly, united, and elect body of believers during what they believed was a decisive historical moment. The church book's first entry on 14 February 1654 followed the recent dissolution of the godly nominated assembly (otherwise known as Barebones parliament), and entries were made with varying frequency up until the entry on 1 June 1659.10 Church books allowed congregations to exploit 'the power of self-representation', producing rich repositories which became 'a means of witnessing and memorializing their providential history' at a time when the saints needed to unite, prepare, and lobby.11 As Andy Wood argues, 'subaltern groups' like the Loughwood Baptists, 'might resist the assertion of authority through the articulation of their own memories' which could prove 'an ideological resource or a cultural refuge'.12 Acts and ordinances in the Loughwood church, and their subsequent representation in textual form, are therefore fruitful sites for a consideration of how congregational identity was constructed and shaped, particularly by a group situated in a less geographically, politically, and ideologically 'central' area like the rural southwest. Region and Remembrance While recognising the importance of national contexts to shaping the Loughwood church's preoccupations, this essay also seeks to explore the history and topography of its specific locality and the significance of this for contextualising shifts in congregational practice and the way community identity was constructed. John Bond, a Puritan minister formerly of Exeter, likened the experience of the southwest to that of Job in a sermon preached to alert parliament to the West's sufferings: 'wee were become [...] the most miserable parts of the Kingdome; so that the West must necessarily and specially cry out, The hand of God hath touched me'.15 While Bond's account was designed primarily to galvanise Puritan support, his characterisation of the West is corroborated by many other accounts, particularly in reference to the lack of discipline, looting, and plundering acted by Royalist soldiers.16 Such hardship served to inflame existing reformist tendencies.