Another example of a Baptist preacher in a parish church is taken from the "Life and Death of Mr. John Bunyan:"--
"Being to preach in a church in a country village (before the restoration of King Charles) in Cambridgeshire, and the people being gathered together in the churchyard, a Cambridge scholar, and none of the soberest of 'em neither, enquired what the meaning of that concourse of people was, it being upon the weekday, and being told that one Bunyan, a tinker, was to preach there, he gave a boy twopence to hold his horse, saying, 'He was resolved to hear the tinker prate;' and so went into the church to hear him. But God met with him there by his ministry, so that He came out much changed, and would, by his goodwill, hear none but the tinker for a long time after, he himself becoming a very eminent preacher in that county afterwards. This story," the writer adds, "I know to be true, having many a time discoursed with the man, and therefore I could not but set it down as a singular instance of the power of God that accompanied his ministry."
The Baptists became numerous under the Commonwealth.[235] Numbers of members were admitted to their Churches, and these Churches formed themselves into associations. At the meetings which were consequently held, questions relating to order, worship, and discipline came under discussion. Disputes arose respecting what is termed "open" and "strict" membership--in other words, respecting the question, whether individuals not adopting Baptist views were proper persons for membership in Baptist Churches.[236] A controversy also sprung up as to the propriety of hearing the Gospel as it was preached by ministers who had not been baptized, according to the Baptist idea, and also with respect to the practice of joining in psalmody with those who were unbaptized.[237]
Nonconformists in Wales previous to the outbreak of the civil wars, and for some years afterwards, are said to have been Congregational Pædobaptists. The formation of the first Antipædobaptist Church in the principality is ascribed to the year 1649. Vavasour Powell--who has appeared in these pages in connection with the Fifth Monarchy men--and who had been from about the year 1640 an indefatigable preacher of the Gospel amongst his fellow-countrymen--for he was a Welshman--adopted Antipædobaptist views in the midst of his missionary career; and after that change he may be presumed to have advocated his newly-adopted opinion. But he does not appear to have been at all a bigoted man, or to have sought the establishment of Churches upon the strict communion principle.[238] After the year 1649, a few more Baptist congregations were gathered, and a small association of four of these met in the town of Carmarthen in the year 1651, when questions were mooted touching the practice of singing psalms, and the laying on of hands in the office of ordination.[239]