THE RISE OF THE OLD DISSENT, EXEMPLIFIED IN THE LIFE OF OLIVER HEYWOOD, ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE PRESBYTERIAN 1630-1702. BY THE REV. JOSEPH HUNTER, F.S.A. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. 1842. 967. PREFACE. MR. HEYWOOD was one of those persons whose lives are the connecting links of early Puritanism and modern Dissent. He was born in the reign of King Charles the First; studied at Cambridge when the University had been newly reformed by the parliamentary commissioners; was ordained a minister by a Presbyterian classis in the time of the Commonwealth; became the pastor of a little rural flock; was separated from them by the operation of the Act of Uniformity; refused to desist. from the exercise of his ministry when he was so removed, and suffered considerable inconvenience in consequence; became pastor of a congregation of NonConforming persons when the Act of Toleration allowed of the formation of such societies; and having lived in peace for thirteen years under the protection of that Act, died in 1702, having seen several congregations besides his own raised in a great measure by his efforts. Such is the outline of his life, and it will be found in the following pages to be filled up with a minuteness which will require, I fear, some indulgence on the part of the reader to be excused; but having such authentic materials, I was unwilling to lose the opportunity of presenting in detail the facts which made up the experience of one of those men who, by the course which they took at a very critical period in the history of the |