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their situations with impunity and without the least check or remonstrance . But though he quitted the ministry , he did not immediately withdraw from the communion of the E stablished Church , for we find him communicating , some time after , at
Frampton , where his friend Ishmael Burroughs was curate , who himself afterwards left the church and became pastor of a Presbyterian congregation at Wisbeach , where he continued the remainder of his days . We are not sure that either he or
Rastrick engaged in the ministry among the Dissenters , or even actually joined them , till after the Revolution , when the Toleration Act made it perfectly safe for them so to do . It does not appear at what time
Burroughs undertook his charge , or eitered upon his ministry at Wisbeach , but it appears that Rastrick entered upon his ministry and took the charge of the Presbyterian congregation at Lynn , in 1701 , for we find that he was minister here
twenty-six years ; and he died in 1727 . The commencement of his ministry here was therefore fourteen years after he had resigned or quitted Kirkton , and perhaps thirty years or more after the commencement of his public
ministry : so that at the time of his death he had been in the ministry between fifty and sixty years . How and where he spent his time during the interval between his quitting Kirkton and his settling at Lynn , we have not been able to discover ,
Whereever it was , he spent it no doubt , in a manner Worthy of himself , or of that integrity and goodness of character which he so uniformly and so well sustained through life . When Mr . Rastrick came to settle
at Lynn , he had been fourteen years jn a state of separation from the Church , and therefore a kind of Dissenter . The Presbyterian was the denomination he appeared most to ap-P * ove , and it was that which he afterwards joined : but he had too much moderation , and too little of a
sectaria spint to be admired by any existing party . Dissatisfied with many «» ngs in the Church , he was far lr approviu g of all things he saw among the dissenters . This made him
tHtCn tninl ? « -, » -i / I ~ , ™ -, / "K ^ 4- ^^ 11 ^ . -., « . \ tl T think and say ( as lie te * us ) J ^ at , as things then stood hi Eng-^ i / r " he was neither fit for Church *»* Meetin g . " That this unprejudic-
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ed or unbiassed disposition of his should not insure to him the admiration or esteem of his new friends or connexion , but would tend to lower rather than exalt him in their estimation , and so prove prejudicial to his interest among them , must not be
deemed very strange or wonderful ; especially as he was pretty free in expressing his disapprobation of what he thought amiss . That such was the case appears from his own testimony : " My conscience beareth me
witness , ( says he ) that in my more private station in all the places where I have served , I have not been sparing both in preaching and practice , to express myself , and set myself against the corruptions and errors of
Dissenters , though it has been so much to my hindrance and disadvantage in outward or worldly respects . " In another place he says , " In the mean time , I hope ( in the strength of Christ ) to abide in the true Catholic and
apostolic Christian faith and church , and in the true Protestant reformed religion : and ( as to the Church of England so called ) a mere nonconformist , not addicting- myself to any faction , sect or party of Christians , as such , under what denomination
soever . " All this is very honourable to his memory ; and it may help in some measure to account for a person of his learning and talents remaining all the residue of his days the minister of a comparatively obscure and poor congregation , ( as this at Lynn ,
at best , certainly was , ) while many respectable and opulent congregations were in want of such pastors , or were supplied by men of far inferior abili ^ ties and attainments . The same may also help to account for those difficulties and trials he afterwards
experienced from his congregation , or from certain individuals that composed a part of it . Such troublers or disturbers a moderate , liberal-minded minister is pretty sure of finding in most dissenting congregations . A thorough-paced bigot , or sectary , has a far better chance of escaping them ,
or at least of obtaining their countenance and co-operation . Rastriek kept his mind open to conviction ; as appears from the change which took place in his sentiments in the latter part of his life , when he embraced the opinions which distinguished Clarke and Jackson among the churchmen , and Pierce and Ilallett and others
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Memoir of John Rastrick , M . A . 60 S
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1815, page 603, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1765/page/3/
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