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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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presentation of Daniel Disney This Joshua died in 1727 , and was succeeded Jby his sou , who died vicar thereby 1765 . The congregation most probably increased after the passing of the
Toleration Act ; at least all the sectarians were encouraged by this measure to make a more open show of their profession , and in the year 1725 Mr , Daniel Disney , assisted by a few substantial yeomen out of the country , and some respectable tradesmen of
Lincoln , making ten in all , purchased a piece of ground and built the present chapel in the parish of St . Peter ' s at Goats . The property was vested by deed in these ten , and their successors , in trust , for the benefit of the society , or ' * Church of Christ , " as it was called , of which Mr . Thomas Cooper
was the late , and Mr . Joseph Cappe the then pastor . When the ten trustees are reduced to four , they are to fill up , by a new appointment , to the original number of ten . It would almost appear by the provisions of this deed , that religious liberty was not even then considered as < m a stable
foundation . For it contemplated the possibility of a repeal of the Toleration Act , by providing that , on this event , the chapel and estate should become the private property of the trustees for the time being , their heirs ,
&c . It cannot be precisely ascertained whether the society at Lincoln was at this time Presbyterian or Independent , as it is merely designated as the " separate congregation or Church of Christ , ' and the trustees
iare not limited in their admission of ministers by any particular creed or doctrine . But it is most probaWe that it was of the former sect , as the society has come down to our times under that name . The doctrine was
no doubt Calvinistical , though softened of the asperities which characterized the faith of the early Puritans . After this period the society seem to have flourished considerably , at least in their temporal concerns ; for in no less than eight years after the building Of the chapel , they were , by savings but of their fund , enabled to realize
the sum of £ 150 . in the purchase of a small estate at Caythorpe ; and at the end of ^ twel ve years more they laid out £ 200 . in the purchaae of a
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house for the minister . All this seems to have been done from the common contributions of the inembers-. of the society , nothing appearing as a beftefaction or bequest from any particular member . How long their affairs
continued thus prosperous , and when they began to decline , does not exactly appear . But sometime about the year 1766 we find them encumbered with debt , and a few years after unable to support a resident minister . Their pastor , the Rev . S . Hodson ,
resigned on the payment of a small pension from the trustees , which he enjoyed till his death . To do all they could , the trustees agreed with the minister of the extra-episcopal chapel of Kirkstead , ( the Rev . S . Dunkley , ) then under the patronage of the
Diisneys , to preach at Lincoln six Sundays in the year , at the stipend of six guineas * . this also enabled him to receive two annual benefactions , payable to the minister doing actual duty at the chapel under the appointment of the trustees : one a rent-charge out of the Kirkstead estate of £ 6 ., and
the other a moiety of the rent of a close at Morton , near Gainsborough . The same gradual change had taken place in the doctrines preached by the ministers at Lincoln , from the period of building the chapel , as was
general with respect to the whole Presbyterian sect , which had thrown off , one by one , all the more distinguishing points of Calvinism * and the ministers of this body had many of them become avowed Ariaus , and
some of them at this time Socinians . Mr . Duwkley was a decided Arian ; but the congregation did not all of them follow the new creed of their minister . Some , more warmly attached to the old doctrines , joined the Whitfieldian Methodists , which was
probably the principle cause of ., the decline of the old congregation . Sometime about this period a society , which was a mixture of Particular Baptists and Whitfieldian Methodists , obtained leave of the trustees
to hold their worship in the chapel on the Sundays , when it was uot occupied by their own minister . Whilst these people kept together , a vestryroom was built , in which they were assisted by a donation from the trustees . Soon after this they divided ,
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2 i 4 History of the Presbyterian Congregation in Lincoln .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1819, page 214, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1771/page/2/
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