LEATHER-LANE.-Presbyterian, Extinct.

Mr. Taylor published but two sermons: One upon the thanksgiving for the union with Scotland, May 1, 1707; the other on the death of Mr. John Hind, who died Nov. 6, 1704. He also drew up a Latin epitaph for his tutor, Mr. Warren. Mr. Bayes remarks, "that many other of his discourses would have very well deserved to see the light, but though he published little, yet what he did was judicious and correct."

JOSHUA BAYES.-He was a minister of long standing and great respectability amongst the Presbyterians in the last century; but as we have met with no account of him in print, the particulars we have been able to collect are necessarily very circumscribed. His father, the Rev. Samuel Bayes, was a native of Yorkshire, and received his education at Trinity College, Cambridge. He enjoyed, for some years, the living of Grendon in Northamptonshire, which he lost at the Restoration; and he seems afterwards to have had another living in Derbyshire, but was obliged to quit that also upon the passing of the Bartholomew Act, in 1662. Upon bis being silenced, he retired to Manchester, where he lived privately till his death.* His son Joshua was born, we believe, at Manchester, in the year 1671. Having the advantage to descend from religious parents, he was inured to early habits of piety, and received those serious impressions in his youth, which were cultivated and matured as he advanced in life. The early part of his education, he most probably received in his native town; and being designed for the ministry amongst the Nonconformists, he was placed for academical learning under the tuition of the reverend and learned Mr. Richard Frankland, at Attercliffe in Yorkshire. He entered that seminary Nov. 15, 1686, and pursued his studies there with singular advantage. At the close of his academical course, he went to London, and passed his trials

Calamy's. Acc. p. 496.-Contin. p. 643,

Ob?1746.

LEATHER LANE.-Presbyterian, Extinct.

for the ministry before some senior ministers, according to the practice of those times. He was ordained June 22, 1694, with six other candidates, at Dr. Annersley's meetinghouse, in Little St. Helen's. This was the first public ordination amongst the Dissenters in the city; after the Act of Uniformity took place. A particular account of the service may be seen in the life of Dr. Calamy, who was one of the candidates.

It does not appear where Mr. Bayes spent the first years of his ministry, but it was, most probably, in the neighbourhood of London. About 1706, he settled at St. Thomas's-meeting, Southwark, as assistant to Mr. John Sheffield; but, being engaged at that place only in the morning, he accepted an invitation to assist Mr. Christopher Taylor, on the other part of the day, at Leather-lane. Whilst engaged in these services, he was chosen to assist in finishing a design which has proved of standing benefit to the church of Christ, and will continue to do so till the latest posterity. The excellent Matthew Henry, it is well known, left his exposition incomplete. He had proceeded no further than the Acts of the Apostles when death interrupted his labours, leaving his notes on the remainder of the NewTestament in a very imperfect state. The care of completing this excellent and useful work, was assigned to some of the most able and respectable dissenting ministers about London; (B) and the part allotted to Mr. Bayes was the

(B) The following is a list of the names of those gentlemen, and the parts they executed.

The Rev. John Evans, Romans.

Simon Browne, 1 Corinthians.

Daniel Mayo, 2 Corinthians; 1 and 2 Thessalonians.

Joshua Bayes, Galatians.

Samuel Rosewell, Ephesians.

William Harris, Philippians and Colossians.

Benjamin Andrew Atkinson, 1 and 2 Timothy,

Jeremiah Smith, Titus and Philemon.

LEATHER-LANE.-Presbyterian, Extinct.

Epistle to the Galatians. Although the last volume, which comprised the labour of these gentlemen, was deemed, upon the whole, to be not equal to the rest; yet it could not be owing, in general, to any deficiency of judgment or learning in those who executed it. Being tied down to the style and method of the author, their own powers were cramped; and they had no room for that expansion of genius which many of them discovered as original writers. It must be recollected, that here Mr. Henry was the original; and those who filled up the plan, only imitators.*

Mr. Taylor dying in 1723, Mr. Bayes was called to succeed him in the pastoral office at Leather-lane, and resigned the morning service at St. Thomas's. As he was now advancing in life, he confined his public labours chiefly to one part of the day, and was assisted on the other part, first by Mr. John Cornish, and afterwards by his own son, Mr. Thomas Bayes. The death of Dr. Calamy, in 1782, occasioning a vacancy in the Merchants lecture at Salters'-hall, Mr. Bayes was chosen to fill up that honourable station, and supported it with great respectability for several years. In 1735, he joined several other ministers in carrying on a course of sermons against Popery, at the same place. The subject discussed by him was, "The Church of Rome's doctrine and practice with relation to the worship of God in an unknown tongue." At length, after a series of laborious and useful services, he was called home to his reward on the 24th of April, 1746, in the seventy-sixth year of his age, (c) and

The Rev. William Tong, Hebrews and Revelations,

Samuel Wright, James.

Zechariah Merrill, 1 Peter.

Joseph Hill, 2 Peter.

John Reynolds, 1, 2, and 3 John.

John Billingsley, Jude.

Prot. Diss, Mag. vol. v. p. 163.

(c) The inscription upon his tomb-stone says, in his 52d year; but it

is evidently a mistake.