Isaac Loeffs d 1689

This is another man mentioned by Harding

Rev Isaac Loeffs (d 1689), the Rector of Shenley from 1650 to 1662, was a lecturer at the Church of St Magnus in London, at that time a Congregational foundation. He suffered ejection but appears to have remained at Shenley. He was known to have been preaching in 1669 at St Albans, Elstree, Codicote and Ridge. About 1675 he removed to London and acted as assistant to a famous congregational minister, Dr Owen/

From elsewhere we learn that Loeffs was educated in Peter House, Cambridge of which he became Fellow Dr Calamy has preserved the following testimonial to his character while at the University by Dr Lazarus Seaman Master of the College.

These are to certify whom it may concern that Isaac Loeffs MA of the last year and Fellow of PeterHouse Cambridge is of a godly life and conversation orthodox in judgment and well affected to the parliament In witness whereof I have subscribed my hand La Seaman Magr CSP Dated Sept 9 1648. After this follows the Latin testimonial of Henry Rich Earl of Holland Chancellor of the University of Cambridge dated Dec 9 in the same year certifying that Mr Isaac Loeffs was admitted to the degree of MA at the appointed time and annual commencement in 1648 and that he was a discreet person whose learning good life and laudable conversation qualified him for that degree and could not be called in question by the envy of slanderous or malice of insidious persons &c. In the year 1652 Mr Loeffs was presented to the living of Shenley in Hertfordshire vacant by the resignation of Mr Stephen Jones in 1650. The patron of the living was John Crew, of Crew, in the county of Chester, Esq, who had transferred the right of nomination to three of the parishioners from whom Mr Loeffs received a legal presentation. Mr Loeffs continued in possession of this living till the Restoration when he was ejected for nonconformity. Som e time afterwards he came to London and was chosen lecturer of St Magnus, LondonBridge but was deprived of this situation also by the act of Uniformity in 1662 After this as Dr Calamy informs us he became assistant to Dr Owen in his gathered church. It is probable however that he was co pastor with Mr Clarkson whom he succeeded. In the church book his name stands in the list of pastors immediately after the latter. We know nothing further concerning him excepting that he died July 10 1689. Mr Loeffs published a treatise on The Soul's Ascension in a State of Separation in 1670.

Dr Edmund Staunton 1600-1671

Harding also mentions Edmund Staunton, DD (1600-1671). He began his career in Bushey and for some years preached in West Hertfordshire. Later, as President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, he suffered ejectment under the Act of Uniformity and withdrew to Rickmansworth. Later he removed to St Albans where he continued to preach “by Stealth, and in face of the penal laws against him.” Dr Staunton was a member of the Westminster Assembly. He died on 15th July 1671 and was buried two days later in the yard of the parish Church at Bovingdon.

A much fuller biographical note and other information can be found here.

William Haworth d 1703

Harding also has this to say about William Haworth

Another pioneer of Congregationalism in St Albans at this time was William Haworth, minister of St Peter’s Church from 1660 to 1662. His stay was marked by one very tragic happening. On 4th May 1662, just three months before the Act of Uniformity became law, Haworth was called from St Peter's to the Abbey to conduct the funeral service of a Mrs Tervil, one of his own parishioners. During the service, the proceedings were rudely interrupted by the entry of a Major Crosby “swearing in a furious manner, calling them rogues and rebels, and directing his speech to the preacher” and ordering him out of the pulpit.21 Leaving the Abbey, Crosby returned at once, flourishing a pistol and accompanied by an armed constable, threatened the minister. At this, one of the congregation, John Townsend stepped forward to intervene and was shot dead by the irate officer. Instead of arresting Crosby, the constable took Haworth and other members of the congregation into custody. When the prisoners were brought to trial Haworth was imprisoned, but no action whatsoever was taken against Crosby. The judge who acted in so infamous a manner was Sir Harbottle Grimston.

Released from prison, Haworth was obliged to leave St Albans. He retired to Hertford, where we find him ministering in secret to a small company of Independents until 1672, and then as the appointed minister until 1703. At Hertford, Haworth succeeded a John Singleton, MD who was ejected from Oxford in 1660 for his nonconformist sympathies. The Congregational Church in Hertford, situated in Cowbridge, still have in their possession the original church book, dating from 1673. A former minister of the church there, states that the book “...is worn and discoloured by age and the writing is not always easy to decipher...unfortunately the pages that contained the record of Mr Haworth's ministry are missing; but from the list of members, which was written by Mr Haworth, we may surmise that the district was large and the work heavy.”

A memorial tablet in the vestibule of the present building bears the inscription:

The Congregational Church assembling in this place was instituted AD 1673.

The Rev William Haworth of St John's College, Cambridge,

afterwards Vicar of St Peter’s, St Albans, was the first pastor.

Haworth died in January 1702/3 and was succeeded in the pastorate by Mr (later Dr) John Guyse who remained until 1727, when he proceeded to a church in New Broad Street, London. As regards the church itself, Turner, a local historian of the early nineteenth century, has this to say: “The Independent Chapel is situated at Cowbridge. It is a freehold, secured to the Protestant Dissenters of this faith and order; and comprises a neat and commodious building, fitted up with galleries, capable of accommodating about 500 persons. The first Independent or Congregational Church in England was established in the year 1616, and there is every reason to believe that a chapel for their accommodation was erected in Hertford shortly after that period.”

(Haworth or Hayworth was born in Preston)

Job Tookey 1616-1670

In his book on Independency in St Albans  F A J Harding speaks about Tookey. He says that

During the Commonwealth, a number of clergymen ministered in St Albans; some of whom were afterwards ejected from their livings under the act of uniformity, 1662.

He mentions George Newton, MA, 1664 (ejected from Taunton) John Geree, MA, 1646-1648 Job Tookey, MA, 1649 (ejected from Yarmouth) John Oliver, 1653 Richard Roberts, MA, 1655 (ejected from Cullesden, Surrey) Nathaniel Partridge, 1657 (ejected) St Peter’s Church Robert Tirling, 1644-1645 William Rechford, 1647-1659 William Haworth, 1660 (ejected) Richard Lever, M.A.,1646-1649 Simon Smyth, 1650 Edward Withnell (ejected) George Newton, M.A., 1644 John Lesley, 1645-1656 Nathaniel Partridge, 1657-1660

He then focuses on the founder of Congregationalism in St Albans, Job Tookey, who, according to Calamy was preacher at St Albans in 1648, and “gathered a Congregational church there.” Urwick (Nonconformity in Herts) adds, “The first Congregational church in St Albans was gathered in St Albans Abbey.” Notice that both commentators use the word “gathered”. This is a basic congregational principle, which denotes that those forming that particular assembly of worshippers are “gathered” round Christ, Who is at the centre of the Church.

The church meeting in St Albans Abbey under the ministry of Rev Job Tookey was truly “congregational” for the reasons that, being a “gathered” church, the congregation, as directed by the Holy Spirit, was a sovereign body and independent of outside control, humanly speaking; and Job Tookey himself, was appointed minister by the citizens of the town. This independency of action claimed by Congregationalists, earned for their assemblies the title of Independent Churches.

Spicer Street Chapel, the present-day direct descendent of the Abbey Congregational assembly, is still known as the Independent Meeting House. By way of further explanation, the late Dr A M Fairbairn might be quoted: “While Congregational denotes the normative principle and constitution of the society, Independent simply describes the relation in which all societies so constituted must stand to every authority external or foreign. The term in its oldest historical use expresses the right of the churches to be independent, as regards interference from without, in order that they might be free to live under the sole authority of Christ. And so Independency here means freedom; ‘free’ is the modern synonym of ‘independent.’

The appointment of Job Tookey as minister at the Abbey was made easier by the fact that the citizens of St Albans were, in truth, the owners of the Abbey Church and were, therefore, in a position to appoint whoever they liked to the living. They were no doubt influenced in their choice by reason of Tookey’s personal piety and general trustworthiness as well as their desire to get rid of the risk of having one of Laud’s nominees. Tookey’s two Commonwealth predecessors at the Abbey, Newton and Geree, while chosen by the citizens, do not appear to have held the principle of the “gathered church” as did Tookey, and it is for that reason we fix on him as the originator of the Congregational manner of worship and church government.

It may be well at this juncture to explain how the Abbey came into the possession of the citizens. After the expropriation of church lands and buildings by order of Henry VIII, all such property became vested in the crown; in 1553, however, the townspeople of St Albans were able to buy the building for £400 to convert it into a parish church and grammar school, the latter being conducted in the Lady Chapel. This purchase was made possible by a charter granted by Edward VI on 12th May 1553. The charter provided, to quote Clutterbuck, that “in consideration of the sum of £400 and a yearly fee farm rent of £10 paid to him by the inhabitants of the borough, granted the same, together with the advowson and right of patronage thereto belonging, to the Mayor and Burgesses of St Albans for ever, to serve as the parish church of the borough...” This bargain was confirmed by a clause in the charter of incorporation granted to the Borough by this monarch. The fee farm rent was afterwards redeemed by the inhabitants of the Borough on 30th July 1684, for £200... 

Records of Job Tookey's ministry are few, but of great interest. In 1650, the year following the execution of Charles I, commissioners appointed by Parliament to enquire into the state of the Ecclesiastical Benefices, found by their inquest that “this Rectory was... sequestered from one John Browne; and that Mr Job Tookey, an able and godly minister, officiated the Cure”.  A few items in the Parish Registers established Job Tookey’s stay in St Albans: - “May 26 1650 (born March 10), Job, son of Mr Job Tookey, Minister” “November 16 1651 Hannah, daughter of Mr Job Tookey” Other daughters were Martha, Rebecca and Sarah. His son Job, according to Calamy, went to the north of England and turned out to be a scapegrace. A grandson, Thomas Tookey, was minister of the Yarmouth Congregational Church 1711-1724.

After about five years Tookey removed to Yarmouth, where he became the teacher of a Congregational Church with Bridge as pastor until ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662. In 1665, he came to London and died there in 1670. (He was a graduate of Immanuel, Cambridge, a Puritan college.)

Reading The Great Ejection Sermons

Donald J MacLean in an article found here.

I can still remember as a teenager pulling my father’s copy of the 1962 Banner edition of Sermons of the Great Ejection off one of his study shelves and turning to Edmund Calamy’s sermon, ‘Trembling for the Ark of God.’ That sermon impacted me profoundly. But, before turning to the detail of this and other sermons, it will be helpful to explain the historical origin of the book.

These sermons were all preached in 1662, the year when 2,000 or so ministers were expelled from ministry in the Church of England by the Act of Uniformity, which required unswerving commitment to the Book of Common Prayer, episcopal ordination and rejection of the Solemn League and Covenant. This Act was designed to drive Puritan preachers from the national church, and achieved this aim on Black Bartholomew’s Day 1662. In the words of J. C. Ryle this represented ‘an injury to the cause of true religion in England which will probably never be repaired.’

However, at least one good came from the tragedy of the Great Ejection - the farewell sermons of Puritan preachers to their congregations. And this Puritan Paperback gives a selection of the best of these sermons, the parting pastoral counsel of some of the finest preachers and theologians England ever produced. After a helpful foreword from Iain Murray, each of the sermons is introduced with a brief biography of the preacher, some of whom will be well known to Banner readers (Thomas Brooks, Thomas Watson, Edmund Calamy) and others relatively unknow (John Collins, Thomas Lye, John Oldfield, John Whitlock). Some prayers have also been included, and the volumes concludes with the 1772 Nonconformist’s Catechism.

To give a flavour of the sermons, consider the first sermon in the volume, Edmund Calamy preaching on Eli trembling for the ark of God (1 Sam. 4:13). In many ways this is a model Puritan sermon. The context for the text is briefly expounded. A biblical theology of the ark and what it represents (fundamentally a visible sign of God’s gracious presence with his people) and what it typifies (Jesus Christ, the Church, and the ordinances of the church) is outlined. From this, Calamy proceeds to draw rich and varied spiritual lessons from the text. For example, believers are troubled when the ark (Christ, his church, the gospel) is in danger of being lost because 1) they love the ark; 2) they have a personal interest in the ark; 3) the damage that follows the ark being lost; 4) if the ark is lost it is because of our sin. This last point is so vital and so convicting. The ark is in danger, not first because of other’s sins, but because of our sins (e.g. Dan. 9:5-6): ‘Oh, beloved, it is for your sin and my sin that the ark of God is in danger.’

There is realism and a hope in Calamy’s application. He is well aware that ‘England has no letters patent of the gospel; the gospel is removable.’ Therefore, he wanted God’s people to have ‘an aching heart for the ark of God that was in danger.’ But he also wanted God’s people to have hope. As long as there was ‘an abundance of praying people’ Calamy argued the ark was safe, for ‘God will never forsake a praying people.’ There is clearly much more in Calamy’s sermon, all of it was needed in 1662, and all of it is needed today. So, take up this volume and read it.

Other sermons are of a uniformly high standard. Thomas Brooks’ ‘Pastor’s Legacies’ are wonderful; John Collins on ‘Contending for the faith’ is a much-needed word for today; Thomas Lyle beautiful covers the love of a pastor for his people and the congregation’s duty in return to ‘stand fast in the Lord’ (Phil. 4:1); Thomas Watson is as helpful as ever on the difference between the righteous and the wicked (Isa. 3:10-11) and how God’s promises stir up a pastor’s beloved people to holiness (2 Cor. 7:1); John Oldfield outlines how to respond to the sufferings of the godly (Psa. 69:6) and the final sermon of John Whitlock is a is a profound challenge to ‘remember, hold fast and repent’ (Rev. 3:3).

These are not antiquarian sermons. They breathe the spirit of the living word of God and will repay reading today, when, to return to Calamy’s sermon, there is as much need to tremble for the ark of God as there was in 1662.

Thomas Browning, Rothwell

From The Annals of Coggeshall

Thomas Browning (c 1634-1685) was born of pious parents at Coggeshall, about the year 1634, and was sent to Oxford at sixteen years of age. Here he "chose the worst companions and despised the best instructions; and after some years left, and became tutor in Col. Sydenham's family. There was so much religion here that he quickly grew weary of it and left, and chose rather to embrace a vain and uncertain course of life." On attending Westminster Abbey, he was greatly impressed by the sermons of Mr John Howe, the pastor; and afterwards of Mr Thomas Weld of New England and Mr Pinchback, assistant of Dr. Thomas Manton. About this time Mr Sames met with him in London, and induced his parents, whom he had estranged by his former life, to invite him and his wife to reside with them at Coggeshall.

He became a member of the church, and was at length encouraged by Mr Sames to devote himself to the ministry, and preached his first sermon on Matt. i. 20 in his pulpit in the Parish Church. Going with Mr Sames to a commencement at Cambridge, they met with Mr Beverly of Rothwell, who was seeking a minister for the adjoining parish of Desborough; and Mr Browning, after preaching there, was invited to become pastor in 1657. Here he continued faithfully discharging his duties for five years.

In all his work he followed the advice once given him by Dr. Owen, " Study things, acceptable words in course will follow." He was ejected among the two thousand, preaching his farewell sermon on 2 Cor. xiii. 14. The people of Desborough and Rothwell gathered together to form one congregation under his ministry, at Rothwell, where he had licence to preach in 1672, and continued during the rest of his life.

"Some soldiers came one Lord's-day, April, 1682, to break up a meeting, and to take Mr Browning of Rothwell. The constable advised them to be well-advised in what they did, 'for,' said he, 'when Sir was alive, he eagerly prosecuted these meetings, and engaged 8 soldiers of the country troop therein, whereof myself was one. Sir himself is dead; 6 of the soldiers are dead; some of them were hanged, and some of them broke their necks; and I myself fell off my horse and broke my collarbone in the act of prosecuting them, and it cost me 30s. to be cured. It hath given me such warnings, that for my part I am resolved I will never intermeddle with them more.' This story he repeated several times that day, which shews how readily conscience, when a little awakened, construes the Divine Providences to be acts of judgment and admonition."*

Mr Browning was on one occasion arrested and imprisoned in Northampton Gaol; from which place he wrote the following with other letters to his church:

"My dear Brethren and Beloved,

"I salute you in the Lord, and make mention of you to him with joy, counting it my most happy lot, next interest in His love, to have so great a share in yours We have peace in the midst of trouble, and quiet in the day of war; because 'this man is our peace even while the Assyrian is in the land.' God has been a little sanctuary to us in our scatterings, and has over-ruled that which was designed for our ruin to our help. O my brethren! methinks I am with you, weeping with you, joying with you, praying with you, and hearing with you. It is true fellowship my soul has with you at a distance. I long after you much in the Lord, yet rejoicingly stay his good pleasure. I would not come out a moment before his time. I would not take a step without his direction. I am wonderfully well; better and better. The cup of afflictions for the Gospel is sweeter the deeper: a stronger cordial the nearer the bottom — I mean death itself. O the joy unspeakable the glorious and dying martyrs of Jesus have had! How full freight have been their souls in their passage to their port! I tell you, if you knew what Christ's prisoners, some of them, enjoyed in their gaols, you would not fear their condition, but long for it. And I am persuaded, could their enemies conceive of their comfort, in mere vexation of heart they would stay their persecutions. 'Therefore, my brethren, my joy and crown, stand fast in the Lord.' Rejoice greatly to run your race: fear not their fear: sit loose from the world: allot yourselves this portion which God has allotted you, through many tribulations to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Come the worst is death, and that is the, best of all ... My brethren, do not budge. Keep your ground: the scripture is your law: God is your king. Your principles are sober, your practices are peaceable. Your obedience to superiors known in those things wherein your obedience is required. If men have nothing against you but in the matters of your God, rejoice and triumph in all your persecutions. . . . I exhort you all to walk in the faith, fear, love and joy of the Lord. Study your mutual edification. Fear nothing of events till they come: only fear offending God with a neglect of your duty. There is no shadow like the shadow of God's wings; therefore keep close to God. Ps. Ivii. 1."

"T. B."

Reference to his death is made in the church-book of Rothwell:

"Mr Thomas Browning, pastor of this church, was gathered to his Father's house in peace, in an awfully persecuting day, May 9, 1685, having served his Lord in this house with much pains and many tears, with much presence and success, about 23 years."

He was buried in Rothwell churchyard, and was succeeded by Mr Richard Davis.**

* Mr Beverly says in his Diary—"1658, May 13. Pretty cheerful till Brother Browning's return from Essex, who told me the sad news (among some other more refreshing) that there was some discord in the New England churches: Mr Stone turned classical. O what a fountain of tears broke my heart forthwith out into, to conceive that Satan should infest those precious churches which the Lord had hitherto so gloriously carried as on eagle's wings."

** Monuments of Mercy, or some of the distinguished favours of Christ to the Congregational Church at Rowel, as handed down in the ministry of Mr John Beverley, and Mr Thomas Browning, remembered. By Matthew Mayrice. London, printed for B. Hett, at the Bible and Crown in the Poultry, near Cheapside, 1729.

Palmer says "His tomb yet remains with a Latin inscription. The late Mr Moses Gregson, who married a descendant of his, communicated to the Editor some extracts from his Diary, which discover an ardent piety."