conventicle

• A conventicle was defined as an assembly of more than five persons besides the members of a family met together for holding worship not according to the rites of the Church of England. —  The Diary of Samuel Pepys, May/Jun 1663
• A second Puritan development under Grindal was the rise of the Puritan conventicle, modeled on the Zurich Prophezei (Puritans learned of the practice through the congregation of refugees from Zurich established in London), where ministers met weekly to discuss "profitable questions." —  Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com
• At the conventicle, a group would meet during the week to discuss John Cotton's sermon from the previous Sunday. —  Elections - fresh news by plazoo.com
• Both Nelson and Hickes resided at this time in Ormond Street; probably the conventicle was at one of their houses. —  Notes and Queries, Number 52, October 26, 1850 A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc
• Great violences, outrageous distresses, and woful havock and spoil, have been made upon people's goods and estates, by a company of idle, extravagant, and merciless informers, by persecutions on the conventicle-act, and others, also on qui tam writs, and on other processes, for twenty pounds a month, and two-thirds of their estates seized for the king. —  Fox's Book of Martyrs Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context