CURRIERS-HALL.Sabbatarian Baptist. yard, Goswell-street. Mr. Bampfield was much lamented by his fellow-prisoners, as well as by his friends in general. All who knew him were convinced that he was a man of serious piety, and deserved a better treatment than he met with. He was a man of great learning and judgment, and one of the most celebrated preachers in the West of England. After he became a Baptist, and a Sabbatarian, he lost much of his reputation amongst his former friends, but preserved his integrity to the last. His works, of which he published several, discover him to be a man of considerable abilities. In some of them, he anticipated the Hutchinsonian notion of deriving all arts and sciences from the sacred scriptures.+ A catalogue shall be inserted below. (F) • Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. ii. p. 755-6.-Crosby's English Baptists, vol. i. p. 363-7. vol. ii. p. 355--361.-Calamy's Account, p. 258. Contin. p. 411.-Noncon. Mem. vol. ii. p. 149. (F) WORKS.-1. His Judgment for the Observation of the Jewish, or Seventh-day Sabbath; with his Reasons, and Scriptures for the same. In a Letter to Mr. William Bens, of Dorchester. 1672 and 1677. 8vo.-2. The Open Confessor, and the Free Prisoner; a Sheet, written in Salisbury Jail. 1675.-3. All in One: All useful Sciences and profitable Arts in one Book of Jehovah-Aeloim, copied out, and commented upon in created Beings, comprehended and discovered in the Fullness and Perfection of Scripture-Knowledge. 1677. Folio.-4. A Name and a new One: or, an historical Declaration of his Life, especially as to some eminent Passages relating to his Call to the Ministry. 1681.-5. The House of Wisdom: The House of the Sons of the Prophets. An House of exquisite Inquiry, and of deep Research where the Mind of Jehovah-Aelvim in the Holy Scripture of Truth, in the original Words and Phrases, and their proper Significancy, is diligently studied, faithfully compared, and aptly put together for the further promoting and higher advancing of Scripture-Knowledge, of all useful Arts, and profitable Sciences, in the One Book of Books, the Word of Christ, copied out, and commented upon in created Beings. 1681. Folio. -6. The Free Prisoner: A Letter written from Newgate. 1683.7. A just Appeal from lower Courts on Earth, to the highest Court in Heaven. 1683. -8. A Continuation of the former just Appeal. 1683.-9. A grammatical Opening of some Hebrew Words and Phrases in the Beginning of the Bible. 1684. CURRIERS'-HALL.Sabbatarian Baptist. EDWARD STENNETT.-This excellent man descended from a respectable family in Lincolnshire. It is greatly to be lamented that we know so few particulars of his personal history; but the little that is preserved is interesting. The part that Mr. Stennett took in the civil wars, having espoused the cause of the parliament, exposed him to many difficulties. His dissent from the established church, lessening his means for the maintaining of his family, which was large, he applied himself to the study of physic. By this means he acquired a decent livelihood, and was enabled to give his children a liberal education. As Mr. Stennett was a faithful and laborious minister, he bore a considerable share of the persecution which, at that time, waited the Nonconformists. Amidst his sufferings, he experienced some remarkable deliverances, of which the following is worth preserving. Mr. Stennett dwelt in the castle of Wallingford, a place where no warrant could make forcible entrance, but that of a Lord Chief Justice. His house was so situated, that assemblies could meet, and every part of religious worship be carried on without any danger of a legal conviction, unless informers were admitted, which care was taken to prevent. In consequence of this, he kept, for a long time, a constant and undisturbed meeting in his hall. A gentleman, who was in the commission of the peace, and his very near neighbour, being highly incensed at the continuance of an assembly of this kind so near him, after having made several fruitless attempts to get his emissaries admitted into the house, in order to a conviction, in the rage of disappointment, resolved, together with a neighbouring clergyman, upon doing it by subornation of witnesses. They accordingly hired some persons fit for this purpose, to swear that they had been present at these assemblies, and heard prayer and preaching, though they had never entered the house upon those occasions. The clergyman's conduct in this affair was the more criminal, because he had professed a great friendship for Mr. Stennett, and CURRIERS-HALL.Sabbatarian Baptist. was was under considerable obligations to him; having often had his assistance in the way of his profession as a physician, for his family, without fee or reward. Mr. Stennett finding an indictment was laid against him on the Conventicle Act, founded upon the oaths of several witnesses, and being well assured that nothing but perjury could support it, was resolved to traverse it, which he did accordingly. The assizes were held at Newbury, and when the time drew near, there was great triumph in the success which these gentlemen proposed to themselves. But, on a sudden, the scene changed: news came to the justice, that his son, whom he had lately placed at Oxford, was gone off with a player. The concern which this occasioned, and the time spent in search of him, prevented his attendance in court. The clergyman, a few days before the assizes, boasted much of the service which would be done to the church and the neighbourhood by this prosecution, and of his own determination to be at Newbury, to help carry it on; but to the surprise of many, his design was frustrated by sudden death. One of the witnesses, who lived at Cromish, was also prevented, by being seized with a violent disease, of which he died. Another of them fell down and broke his leg, which hindered his attendance. In short, of seven or eight persons engaged in this wicked design, there was but one left who was capable of appearing. He was a gardener, and had been frequently employed by Mr. Stennett as a day-labourer, but never lodged in his house, nor admitted to the religious assemblies held there. As he was a servant of the family, they thought to make him a material evidence; and for that purpose, kept him in liquor several days. But coming to his senses just as the assizes drew near, he went about the town, exclaiming against himself for his ingratitude and per jury, as well as against those who had employed him, and absolutely refused to go: so that when Mr. Stennett came VOL. II. 4 G CURRIERS'-HALL, Sabbatarian Baptist. to Newbury, neither prosecutor nor witness appearing against him, he was necessarily discharged.* The foregoing anecdote records a striking interposition of Providence, and affords an awful lesson to persecutors. The occasion of Mr. Edward Stennett being introduced upon our list is this: After the re-union of the Sabbatarian congregation at Pinners'-Hall, towards the latter end of 1686, he received a pressing invitation to take upon him the pastoral charge of that society. He acceded to their wishes; and came to town at stated intervals to preach and administer the ordinances amongst them. But he still preserved his connexion with his people at Wallingford. As he had two sons, both called into the ministry by this church, it is probable that they frequently assisted their father. The time of Mr. Stennett's death is not mentioned; but we apprehend it to have happened in 1689. The name of this venerable minister is rendered illustrious as the ancestor of a numerous race of ministers, who, for several generations were ornaments to religion, and to the cause of Protestant Dissenters. The lives of several of these worthies will be recorded in this work. Mr. Edward Stennett had several sons and one daughter, besides those who died young. His eldest son, JEHUDAH, who was a member of this church at Pinners'-Hall, at nineteen years of age, wrote a Hebrew grammar, which was well received by the public. He was afterwards an eminent physician at Henley-upon-Thames. JOSEPH, the second son, was an eminent minister, and succeeded his father at Pinners'-Hall. Another of his sons, BENJAMIN, proved a valuable and useful minister; but died young. His daughter, chiefly by the instructions of her brother Joseph, acquired such skill in the Greek and Hebrew languages, as to consult the scriptures in their originals, with ease and pleasure. She was an excellent woman, and married to a worthy gentleman, Mr. William Morton, * Life of Mr. Joseph Stennett, prefixed to his works, vol. i. CURRIERS-HALL.Sabbatarian Baptist. of Knaphill, in the county of Bucks.* The mother of this numerous family, and the wife of Mr. Edward Stennett, was Mrs. Mary Quelch, a lady of good family in the city of Oxford. She was a very pious and worthy woman; and, together with her husband, is celebrated by their son, Mr. Joseph Stennett, in the following epitaph inscribed upon their tomb-stone, at Wallingford: Here lies an holy, and an happy pair; As once in grace, they now in glory share: So dy'd, as heirs of immortality. Reader attend: tho' dead, they speak to thee; JOSEPH STENNETT.-This eminent and pious Divine was born at Abingdon, in Berkshire, in the year 1663. Being trained up in a family, where there was so much genuine and undissembled piety, with the blessing of God upon his father's ministry, he became a happy instance of that early conversion, which in some of his printed discourses he has so well recommended to others. Having finished his grammar-learning at the public school in Wallingford, he soon became master of the French and Italian languages; acquired a critical knowledge of the Hebrew and other oriental tongues; successfully studied the liberal sciences, and made a considerable proficiency in philosophy. With a view to his future character as a Divine, he carefully read over the fathers of the first ages, and impartially examined the different schemes produced in modern times. To the labours of learned and judicious writers he paid great deference, being willing to receive light wherever it was to be found. He was fond of no opinion, either for its novelty or • Life of Mr. Joseph Stennett, ubi supra. |