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Dissenters will not become churchmen, nor abandon the principles and worship they prefer; but they will allow the freedom which they claim and respect, the established rights of churchmen, with the same frankness and spirit with which they assert and would defend their own. As

to the acknowledgments that should be presented to their noble and illustrious friends in Parliament, and especially to Lord John Russell, and to Lord Holland, your noble Chairman, for the third time on this occasion, the Committee will refer to you the honourable and delightful task. Language will indeed toil in vain to express all that will be thought and felt, but you will accord with the united Committee, and other public bodies, in attempting at least to render the tribute that has been well deserved, in which your country will unite, and which future ages will renew.

"Before they conclude the Report, the Committee must add, that the important question, which has occupied so much attention and time, has prevented those exertions in this Session of Parliament for the removal of the inconveniences to which their Baptist friends continue exposed, and for the substitution of a registry of births for baptismal registries, and that validation of the registers of Dissenters, which they hoped to undertake. But those measures, as well as the other matters already intimated, it is the intention of the Committee in the next Session to attempt, and in some of them they expect that the great and useful body of Wesleyan Methodists are prepared to concur. And having made this intimation, and having assured the Meeting that nothing can have exceeded the kindness and courtesy with which the noble Chairman consented to preside on

this occasion, and to meet under such new and propitious circumstances "his old friends of The Protestant Society," they conclude by an expression of their hope, that the religious freedom which is so justly dear, and which will now beam more brightly in the British Isle, will soon extend to every country, and surround the earth with a new and moral atmosphere of charity and light."

The Meeting was then successively addressed by the Rev. J. A. James, J. Hunt, Joseph Fletcher, M. A., T. Adkins, S. Hillyard, Dr. Styles, Thomas Smith, M.A. B. Rayson, J. M. Ray, Dr. Newman, Thomas Russell, M. A., Dr. Cox, H. Townley, J. Arundel, Alderman Wood, M. P., Alderman Wilson, J. Wilks, Esq., and Lord Holland, who severally proposed or supported resolutions, which we hope to publish in our next.

NOTICES.

Homerton College. The Annual Meetings connected with this Institution will be holden on Tuesday the 24th, and on Wednesday the 25th of June. On Tuesday morning the meeting for business will take place, at the King's Head Tavern, in the Poultry; the chair to be taken at twelve o'clock precisely. On Wednesday morning the public examination of the students will take place at the College at Homerton; the chair to be taken at eleven o'clock precisely. After which, the ministers and other friends of the Institution will dine together as usual.

The Annual Meeting of Subscribers and Friends to Highbury College will be held on Wednesday evening, July 2d, at the Chapel in Barbican. Chair to be taken at half-past six.

The Hoxton Association of Ministers will be held the preceding evening, July 1, at Highbury College, at six o'clock.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS AND MINOR CORRESPONDENCE.

COMMUNICATIONS have been received during the past Month from the Reverend John Burder-Joseph Pattison-J. Peggs-William Thorn-John Cockin-S. Percy --R. Slade-John Sibree-R. Harris-J. Arundel and D. Jones.

Also from Messrs. Joseph Tarn--Thomas Wilson--Robert Winter-Thomas Conderand John Wilks-Kezia--A Constant Reader-S. G.A. Μ.

Several articles of unusual length have compelled us to omit the valuable communication of Episcopus, and other papers for the original department. We have also reluctantly deferred several articles of Poetry, Review, Short Notices, and ordinary Intelligence, to make room for the proceedings of those meetings which have been recently held in connexion with the several Dissenting Societies, all of which we hope to insert in our next.

We have been requested to insert the following queries:-

What is the present extent of religious instruction afforded in schools frequented by youth of the middle class of society, especially among Dissenters ?

Ought it to satisfy the minds of Christian parents and guardians ?

What practical suggestions can be offered for the improvement of those plans which are now practised in this most important branch of education?

*We intend to present our readers with a fine Portrait of the Rev. Thos. ATKINS, of Southampton, in our next.

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Dann by S. Wageman. - Engraved by Wie. Frys

Pub July, 1.1828, for the Congregational Mag by BJ. Holdsworth.S! Pauls Church Yard, London.

THE

CONGREGATIONAL
MAGAZINE.

No. 43. N. S.]

JULY, 1828.

[VOL. XI.

HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF THE CONGREGATIONAL

CHURCH AT BOCKING, ESSEX;

WITH BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF ITS SUCCESSIVE PASTORS.

THE Congregational Church in the village of Bocking must be classed amongst the largest and most effective of our churches, in a county where they are known to be large, numerous, and influential. As its present circumstances afford matter for devout gratitude, so its past history is replete with interesting details, which have been collected with great care and diligence, by an esteemed correspondent, to whom we owe many thanks for past communications; and, we doubt not, our readers will think the present narrative adds not a little to the amount of our obligations.

It is necessary to premise that the village of Bocking adjoins the market town of Braintree, and would be supposed, by most travellers, to be a hamlet of the same ; but it forms a distinct parish, containing nearly 3000 inhabitants, and is a rural deanery; as it is, however, contiguous to Braintree, and, in fact, forms a lengthened line of street with it, our readers will easily understand how both names were formerly employed indiscriminately to describe the dissenting congregation there.

The first dissenting minister, of whom there is any record, as N. S. No. 43.

having preached at Braintree, was the Rev. Samuel Bantoft, D. D. who was ejected from the vicarage of Stebbing by the Act of Uniformity, in 1662, and doubtless found there a people ready to listen to his ministry; as the pious Mr. Argor had been also ejected from the vicarage of Braintree. Here Mr. Bantoft continued till the same unrighteous power power which had driven him from his church, compelled him also to leave the town, where he had chosen to exercise his ministry as a Dissenter.* Nor were his enemies satisfied till they had obtained against him a sentence of excommunication; a punishment which, according to the law of Christ, excludes from the fellowship of the Christian church, but which, according to the laws of England, excludes from the privileges of civil society. As Mr. Bantoft was the only dissenting minister who appears to have laboured at Braintree, previously to the close of the seventeenth century, he may, with propriety, be regarded as the founder of this Christian church. But the sufferings of the minister do not seem to have

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shaken the steadfastness of the flock; for though we hear no more of nonconformity in the two parishes till 1700, we find, at that time, there was a small congregation of Dissenters, who assembled in a barn, near the White Hart Inn, Bocking, and who now invited a young clergyman, named Shepherd, who had lately, from conscientious motives, relinquished his benefice to be their pastor. Happily Mr. Shepherd complied with the wishes of the little flock, and from this period, through the goodness of the great Head of his people, a course of prosperity has attended this church.

tions. "At a common, near Braintree, says the writer of his life, † upwards of ten thousand persons attended." Prosperous as, under the care of Mr. Shepherd, the church at Bocking had been, it was not surprising that they should now direct their attention to a young clergyman, whose preaching they approved, and whose sentiments, especially as separation from the church, without a real dissent, was then almost unknown, seemed to incline toward nonconformity. Accordingly the church invited Mr. Whitefield to be their pastor. But having probably, at this early period, unalterably determined on the course of itinerant labour, for which his disposition and talents were more adapted, he declined the offer.

Soon after the settlement of Mr. Shepherd, the old place of worship was found inadequate to the accommodation of the auditory, and the original foundation of the present spacious meeting-house, which stands near the entrance of the village of Bocking, from the town of Braintree, was laid in the year 1707. This building was denominated Braintree Meeting-ed, that his practice, after he had

house, and its ministers were designated as the dissenting ministers of Braintree, till the year 1789, when an Independent place of worship was erected in the town of Braintree; since that period, the dissenting interest, of which we are speaking, has been correctly designated, according to its situation, in the parish of Bocking. When Mr. Shepherd had finished his lengthened and useful course, he was succeeded in his office by Mr. Joseph Pitts, who, after retaining it for the space of four years, resigned his charge in the commencement of 1742, and removed to London. In the course of the year preceding this event, the celebrated Mr. Whitefield had visited the neighbourhood of Bocking, and had preached to many large and attentive congrega

That his refusal arose from no dislike to dissenting discipline, may be concluded from the opinion which he had previously expressed, but with which, it must be confess

established a church, did not accord. "So far (is his language when addressing Mr. Ralph Erskine) from not setting a hedge about our Lord's garden, that was I called to it, I should set a much closer hedge than that which the associate presbytery are planting; I should inquire into the people's experiences before I admitted them to the Lord's table." But, though Mr. Whitefield did not gratify the church at Bocking by becoming their pastor, he did them, perhaps, as great a service by recommending to their choice one who possessed, in common with a large share of his friend's eloquence and zeal, a larger share of prudence and judgment, qualities of vital

* Felsted Common. + Whitefield's Life, p. 72. ‡ Letters, vol. i. p. 317.

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