husband and wife, in the presence of divers credible witnesses, promising to each other, with God’s assistance, to be loving and faithful in that relation, till death shall separate them.  But antecedent to this, they first present themselves to the monthly meeting for the affairs of the church where they reside; there declaring their intentions to take one another as husband and wife, if the said meeting have nothing material to object against it.  They are constantly asked the necessary questions, [25] as in case of parents or guardians, if they have acquainted them with their intention, and have their consent, &c.  The method of the meeting is, to take

a minute thereof, and to appoint proper persons to inquire of their conversation and clearness from all others, and whether they have discharged their duty to their parents or guardians; and to make report thereof to the next monthly meeting, where the same parties are desired to give their attendance. [26]  In case it appears they have proceeded orderly, the meeting passes their proposal, and so records it in their meeting book.  And in case the woman be a widow, and hath children, due care is there taken that provision also be made by her for the orphans, before the meeting pass the proposals of marriage: advising the parties concerned, to appoint a convenient time and place, and to give fitting notice to their relations, and such friends and neighbours, as they desire should be the witnesses of their marriage: where they take one another by the hand, and by name promise reciprocally, love and fidelity, after the manner before expressed.  Of all which proceedings, a narrative in way of certificate is made, to which the said parties first set their hands, thereby confirming it as their act and deed; and then divers relations, spectators, and auditors, set their names as witnesses of what they said and signed.  And this certificate is afterward registered in the record belonging to the meeting, where the marriage is solemnized.  Which regular method has been, as it deserves, adjudged in courts of law a good marriage, where it has been by cross and ill people disputed and contested, for want of the accustomed formalities of priest and ring, &c.—ceremonies they have refused, not out of humour, but conscience reasonably grounded; inasmuch as no scripture example

tells us, that the priest had any other part, of old time, than that of a witness among the rest, before whom the Jews used to take one another: and, therefore, this people look upon it as an imposition, to advance the power and profits of the clergy: and for the use of the ring, it is enough to say, that it was a heathenish and vain custom, and never in practice among the people of God, Jews, or primitive Christians.  The words of the usual form, as “with my body I thee worship,” &c. are hardly defensible.  In short, they are more careful, exact, and regular, than any form now used; and it is free of the inconveniences, with which other methods are attended; their care and checks being so many, and such, as that no clandestine marriages can be performed among them.

XI.  It may not be unfit to say something here of their births and burials, which make up so much of the pomp of too many called Christians.  For births, the parents name their own children; which is usually some days after they are born, in the presence of the midwife, if she can be there, and those that were at the birth, who afterwards sign a certificate for that purpose prepared, of the birth and name of the child or children; which is recorded in a proper book, in the monthly-meeting to which the parents belong; avoiding the accustomed ceremonies and festivals.

XII.  Their burials are performed with the same simplicity.  If the body of the deceased be near any public meeting-place, it is usually carried thither, for the more convenient reception of those that accompany it to the burying-ground.  And it so falls out sometimes, that while the meeting is gathering for the burial, [27] some or other has a word of exhortation, for

the sake of the people there met together.  After which the body is borne away by young men, or else those that are of their neighbourhood, or those that were most of the intimacy of the deceased party: the corpse being in a plain coffin, without any covering or furniture upon it.  At the ground they pause some time before they put the body into its grave, that if any there should have anything upon them to exhort the people, they may not be disappointed; and that the relations may the more retiredly and solemnly take the last leave of the body of their departed kindred, and the spectators have a sense of mortality, by the occasion then given them, to reflect upon their own latter end.  Otherwise, they have no set rites or ceremonies on those occasions.  Neither do the kindred of the deceased ever wear mourning; [28] they looking upon it as a worldly ceremony and piece of pomp; and that what mourning is fit for a Christian to have, at the departure of a beloved relation or friend, should be worn in the mind, which is only sensible of the loss: and the love they had to them, and remembrance of them, to be outwardly expressed by a respect to their advice, and care of those they have left behind them, and their love of that they loved.  Which conduct of theirs, though unmodish or unfashionable, leaves nothing of the substance of things neglected or undone; and as

they aim at no more, so that simplicity of life is what they observe with great satisfaction; though it sometimes happens not to be without the mockeries of the vain world they live in.

These things gave them a rough and disagreeable appearance with the generality; who thought them turners of the world upside down, as, indeed, in some sense they were: but in no other than that wherein Paul was so charged, viz. To bring things back into their primitive and right order again.  For these and such like practices of theirs were not the result of humour, or for civil distinction, as some have fancied; but a fruit of inward sense, which God through his holy fear, had begotten in them.  They did not consider how to contradict the world, or distinguish themselves as a party from others; it being none of their business, as it was not their interest; no, it was not the result of consultation, or a framed design, by which to declare or recommend schism or novelty.  But God having given them a sight of themselves, they saw the whole world in the same glass of truth; and sensibly discerned the affections and passions of men, and the rise and tendency of things; what it was that gratified the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, which are not of the Father, but of the world.  And from thence sprang, in the night of darkness and apostacy, which hath been over people through their degeneration from the light and Spirit of God, these and many other vain customs, which are seen, by the heavenly day of Christ that dawns in the