marks, like his own, are merely intended as hints which may serve to
elicit the _true_ interpretation.

S.W. SINGER.

Mickleham, August 20. 1850.

* * * * *

FAMILY OF LOVE.

I do not know whether the following Notes on "The Family of Love" will
be deserving a place in the pages of "NOTES AND QUERIES;" as I may
possibly have been anticipated in much of what I send.

The Family of Love attracted notice as early as 1575, but not in such a
manner as to call for direct coercion. An apology was published for
them, from which it might be inferred that they possessed no distinct
opinions, but merely bound themselves to a more exalted interpretation
of Christian duties, on the principle of imitating the great love of God
manifested in their creation and retention. This principle, unrestrained
by any confession of faith or system of discipline, naturally attracted
to it the loose and irregular spirits that were at that time so
prevalent, and the sect became the receptacle for every variety of
opinion and disorder, exposing itself to more particular notice from its
contempt for outward observances, and its opposition to the civil
government. The _Evangelium Regni_ of Henry Nicholas, the acknowledged
founder of the sect, is written in such a manner as to include all
religious persuasions, and permits all parties to hold whatever
sentiments they please, if they merely declare themselves _members of
the Family of Love_.

"Omnes vos, O amatores veritatis! qui amabilem vitam charitatis
diligitis vocatmini et invitamini." (cap. 41.) ... "Omnes
peribunt, qui extra Christum extra communionem charitatis
manent." (Ibid.)

A confutation of this sect was written in the year 1579; the privy
council called upon the convocation of the year 1580 to notice it. We
find the sect still described in the publications of 1641, and
continuing under the same name with its preachers and congregations in
1645.

Bp. Cooper, in speaking of the sect in 1589 (_Admonition, &c._, p.
146.), terms them "that peevish faction of the 'Familie of Love,' which
have been breeding in this realm the space of these thirty years."

Fuller (_Ch. Hist._, 17th cent., p. 610.) says that in his time "they
had obtained the name of Ranters."

Leslie, in his _Works_ (vol. ii. p. 609.), considers the sect "identical
with that of the Quakers."

That this was not the case is evident, I conceive, from George Fox, the
fathe