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occupied by Mr . Dennis , behind which stood the chapel , both of which , if we are not mistaken , were his own property . He left behind him several things in MS ., some of which , besides the volume above noticed , are now in
the possession of the present writer . The whole is written in a very small hand and with singular neatness , for he , as well as his son , was an admirable penman . He was doubtless an eminent scholar , and reckoned a very good
mathematician , which is not unlikely , as he was contemporary and of the same college with Barrow : nor is it very probable that that generation of Dissenters had among them many , if any , names of superior learning and respectability .
Of his writings not much went through the press , which we may presume had not been the case had he lived in later times , or under more auspicious circumstances . Of his printed , works the present writer has
not heard of any except the following : 1 . "An Account of the Nonconformity of John Rastrick , A . M ., sometime vicar of Kirkton , near Boston , in Lincolnshire j con taini ng the occasion and circumstances of his secession from
that place . In a letter to a friend . " { It was printed in London , in 1795 ; and the friend to whom it was addressed was Dr . Edmund Calamy . ] £ . * A Sermon at the ordination of
Mr . Samuel Savage , at St . Edmund ' s Bury , April 22 , 1714 . With an exhortation to him at the close . "— - 3 . " Two letters to Mr . Ralph Thcresby , of Leeds , giving an account of a great number of Roman coins found atFlcte ' in Lincolnshire , and oilier
antiquities found at Spalding , &c . and printed in Ihe Philos . Trans . No . 279 , p . 1156 , " &c . 4 . "A Supplement to the latter , printed in the same work , No . 377- p- 340 . "—His imprinted , or unpublished works appear to have been much more numerous and
considerable ; but they got into different hands after the son ' s death , and most of them perhaps have been since lost . Some of them were in the possession of the son ' s successors , Messrs . Mayhew and Warner , and some iii that of the late Dr . Lloyd . What became of them we know not . The two
following articles , with some other loose papers , came into the possession of the present writer : — 1 . The MS . volume before mentioned , entitled " Plain and easy Principles of Christian Religion
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and Obedience ; or the necessity 0 keeping Christ ' s Commandments , in order to our preserving an interest in his favour , demonstrated . ' [ It would make a duodecimo volume of 250 O j 300 pages , and may be called an ingenious and elaborate piece , written
out with great care and singular neatness . ] 2 . "A short Catechism ; containing the chief heads of the Christian religion , and faith of Christ . " It j s carefully and neatly written like the other MS . volume , yet it does not an .
pear to have been intended for the press , but rather as a present , or newyear ' s gift to his children , the name of one of whom , Hannah Rastrick , is prefixed to it in her father ' s hand-writing , The smaller MSS . are some of them
in prose and some in verse , for Mr . R ,, like one of our present mathematicians , would sometimes leave those profound or severer studies , and amuse himself with writing little poems ; but with
this difference , that these productions of the former were only meant for the amusement or gratification of his own children and family , or'the small circle of intimate and particular friends
and not . for the inspection and admiration of the public at large , like those of the latter . Without attempting to draw any further parallel or comparison between our present or former race ' of mathematicians , we shall here close our memoir of the venerable John Rastrick .
His only son , or at least his only surviving- son , was William Rastrick , nnd he was every way a son worthy of such a father . In point of genius and learning , virtue and piety , or real respectability or exemplariness of character , he has always been understood
as nothing inferior to him , or to any one of his contemporaries either in this town or in all this part of tlie kingdom . The very servants , and all • 4-htA those who were most intimate in tut : family , and who had therefore the best opportunity of knowing and judging 11 j < — al
of his private and real character , - ways deemed and spoke of him as one of the best of men and most exemp lary of Christians . Knowing how much his father had been teased and tried by one part of the congregation , he never would undertake the pastoral charge : but used to exchange witli the Presbyterian minister at WisbeacJi , at those times when the Lord ' s Supper was to be administered here ; whicri must have been very inconvenient 10
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606 Memoir ofJohn Rastrick , M * A .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1815, page 606, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1765/page/6/
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