Transcribed from the 1837 Jackson and Walford edition by DavidPrice,
BRIEF RECORDS
OF THE
INDEPENDENT CHURCH,
AT
BECCLES, SUFFOLK;
INCLUDINGBIOGRAPHICAL NOTICES OF ITS MINISTERS, AND
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE RISE OFNONCONFORMITY
IN THE EAST ANGLIAN COUNTIES.
BY
SAMUEL WILTON RIX.
LONDON:
JACKSON ANDWALFORD, 18, ST. PAUL’S CHURCHYARD.
M DCCCXXXVII.
p.ii“The churches in those early times were entirelyIndependent; none of them subject to any foreign jurisdiction,but each one governed by its own rulers and its ownlaws.”
Mosheim,Cent. I.
“Indeed this way of examining all things by the Word . .. is a course I would admonish all to beware of who would avoidthe danger of being made Independents.”
Owen onSchism.
WILLIAMLENNY, PRINTER, BECCLES.
ARE INSCRIBED
TO THE YOUNG PERSONS
OF THE INDEPENDENT CHURCH ANDCONGREGATION
AT BECCLES.
p.vPREFACE.
Many months ago, I was favouredwith a perusal of the earliest records of the Independent churchat Beccles. An interest in the subject once excited, I wenton to collect such other materials for its history as fell in myway: and the re-opening of its place of worship, afterconsiderable alteration, appeared a suitable time for offeringthese records to notice, in a permanent and connected form.
Publications of dissenting church history have not usuallyreceived extensive encouragement. That circumstance is, Ibelieve, chiefly attributable to the anxiety of dissentingministers and parents, in general, to inculcate and maintain theprinciples of personal religion, rather than the peculiarities ofnonconformity. A just preference, unquestionably,—butwhich has betrayed many into a neglect of topics immensely,though not supremely, important. The youth of dissentingfamilies too frequently p. vigrow up in ignorance of any otherreason for their nonconformity than parental example. Thenatural result is, that “by and by, when persecutionariseth,” or when fashion, or emolument, or the attractivepomp of the national worship, allures, they forsake the groundwhich their ancestors maintained at the peril of liberty, and oflife itself.
Viewed in this light, the prevalent disregard of such subjectsbecomes a powerful inducement to invite attention to them. Nor am I altogether without hope t