Revd Samuel Wiben (formerly of the Church in Prescott Street Loudon) Obil: Oct 6, 1750. 47 Engraved from a scarce Portrait by Vortne for the Baptist Magazine. Pub April 1819. by Button & Son Paternoster Row. THE Baptist Magazine. APRIL, 1819. MEMOIR OF THE REV. SAMUEL WILSON; Formerly Pastor of the Church in Goodman's Fields, London. THE minister whose memoir is now presented to the attention of our readers, was an eminently useful pastor of one of our most respectable churches in the metropolis. Under his ministry in Goodman's Fields, (commencing about the year 1724, and continuing till 1750,) and that of his successors in office, Mr. Burford, and the late excellent Mr. Abraham Booth, the church increased in numbers, property, and usefulness. Many of its members have liberally and bountifully contributed towards the Baptist fund, and other institutions. Of these the most distinguished was the late Mr. Taylor, of Newgate-street, who was baptized by Mr. Samuel Wilson, and who founded, by his munificent donations, the Baptist Academical Institution at Stepney. 『, ! ༣ *ས་ " testant Dissenters, both by father's and mother's side. He was the son of the Rev. Mr. Ebenezer Wilson, a worthy minister of Christ in this city; whose father also was an eminent preacher of the gospel at Hitchin in Hertfordshire; and as he had a religious, so a liberal education. His grammar and classical learning he received under Dr. Hay, an eminent clergyman, and Professor Ward of Gresham College: his academical studies he went through under the direction of Dr. Ridgley and Mr. Eames, under whom he made great advances in polite and useful literature; with which being furnished, he shone out and made that figure in the church and world he afterwards did... .1 TO "His natural parts were very quick and strong he had great vivacity of spirit, a lively fancy In the funeral sermon, preached and imagination, a retentive meby Dr. Gill, October 14, 1750, is mory, a penetrating mind, and a contained the following account solid judgment; which, with the of Mr. Wilson. The doctor pre-above advantages of human litefaced it by observing-"I want rature, and above all, the grace of the eloquence of the deceased to God bestowed upon him, and paint him out in his proper co-spiritual light and knowledge lours, and to describe him as the given him in the mysteries of the accomplished man, real Christian, gospel, made him the great man and excellent minister." he was. "He was favoured with many "The Rev. Mr. Samuel Wilson was descended from godly mini-preservations and providential sters of the denomination of Pro- deliverances in his infancy and VOL. XI. X younger years, when life was in danger, which he has remarked with his own hand, as expressive of the tender care of Providence over him; and no doubt the Lord saved him in order to call him by his grace, reveal his Son in him, and make him an able minister of the New Testament. "He received his first serious impressions under the ministry of the late Rev. Mr. Daniel Wilcox, an eminent minister of the Presbyterian denomination in this city, as he himself relates in a discourse he published on occasion of the death of that minister, upon the same words which I have been treating of:* and that he was truly a partaker of the grace of God, was not only the judgment of the church to whom he first gave up himself, but will easily be admitted by all good men that have known him, heard him, or read him. And it was your happiness as a church, that you had such a minister, who himself had tasted that the Lord *This sermon, entitled The Blessing of a Gospel Ministry," was preached at Monkwell-street, May 20, 1733, on occasion of the death of Mr. Daniel Wilcox, the author of a work entitled "The Noble Stand," &c. in rela tion to the Salters' Hall controversy; Mr. Wilson says, in the passage referred to by Dr. Gill, "I cannot but express a proper value, and retain a just esteem for this congregation, since it was in this place, among you, under the ministry of your late most useful and affectionate pastor, that I received (if my heart deceived me not) the first serious impressions. And as for several years, with the greatest pleasure, and, I trust, some advantage, I made one of the throng who crowded after him, who was well skilled to speak a word in season to souls who were weary; so you will, I persuade myself, easily excuse me, if, as a debt of gratitude to his memory, I drop a tear or two of affection on his hearse, and cry out with the prophet on alike occasion, My father! My father! The chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof.'" was gracious: an unregenerate ministry has been the bane of the established church, and is like to be the ruin of the Protestant dissenting interest. Though the father and grandfather of our deceased brother were both of the Baptist denomination, yet it was not this that determined him to become of the same persuasion himself; besides, his father dying when he was young, he was under another influence; and when he entered upon the inquiry about Baptism, no one, he himself says, could enter into it with a more earnest desire to find truth on the side of the common practice, all his conversation and prospects leaning strongly that way; but, upon taking the method which he did to search the scriptures, collect the whole evidence from them, and consider every part separately, he found himself obliged to conclude the balance was greatly on the side of Adult Baptism by immersion, and therefore determined to comply with his duty, and on the closest reflection never saw reason to repent of it. This inquiry, which he calls a scripture manual, was published a little before his death, and is worthy the perusal of every serious enquirer into truth; and by it, and other printed performances of his, though dead, he yet speaks.† "After he was fully satisfied in his mind about the point of Baptism, he joined himself with the church at Maze Pond, Southwark, then under the pastoral care of the Rev. Mr. Edward Wallin ; + This admirable tract, which has been repeatedly printed, and most widely circulated, may be had of Button and Son, price 14d. It has been lately translated into the French language. and when he had finished his studies, was called forth by that church to the work of the ministry, into which he came not only with the entire approbation of that church, but with great acceptance to the public. He was soon called to be an assistant to the Rev. Mr. John Noble,* in whose meeting-place a Lord's-day evening lecture was opened for him, where he preached to a crowded audience. He came forth even at first with clear evangelical light, with great warmth, zeal, and fervency of spirit, and, like another Apollos, with a torrent of eloquence, being mighty in the scriptures-all which things recommended him to all sorts of people, and made him exceedingly popular. ther have been made upon you; his popularity continuing to the last. "Need I describe him as a preacher to you, who, at least many of you, have so long sat under his ministry? His mien and deportment in the pulpit were grave and venerable; his gesture graceful; his address very moving and pathetic; his language striking; his discourses spiritual, savoury, and evangelical; having a tendency to awaken the minds of sinners to a sense of sin and danger, and to relieve and comfort distressed minds: he was indeed an eloquent preacher, and a warm defender of the peculiar doctrines of the Christian religion; and in one word, laborious, indefatigable, and successful; not a loiterer, but a labourer in the Lord's vineyard; as in his public work, so in the more private duties of his office, visiting the church and members of it, without respect of persons: fervent in his prayers for them, and with them; hearty in his advice unto them, and unwearied in doing any service for them he undertook. And let me not forget, and I am persuaded you will not easily forget, his conduct at your "After some time, you, this church of Christ, being destitute of a pastor, called him to take the pastoral care of you, which he accepted of, and was solemnly invested with the office of a pastor, elder, or overseer, many ministers assisting in that service, who all rest from their labours, excepting myself: this, I think, was about five or six and twenty years ago. His ministry among you has been greatly owned to the conversion of many sin-church-meetings, where he preners, and to the comfort and sided, becoming his character edification of you all present, as and office; what authority he well as of many that are gone to used when necessary; what pru glory before him. The low estate dence in all things; what pain which you were when you came tience in bearing with the infirmi to this place, and the numbers of ties of the weak, and it may be which you consist, and the flou- sometimes the rudeness of some, rishing condition in which you and the invectives of others; now are, abundantly show the what lenity to offenders; what success of his ministration among compassion to backsliders; what you, notwithstanding the breaches reluctance to pass the awful senwhich by one providence or ano-tence on the incorrigible; and * Mr. Noble was pastor of a Baptist church at Tallow-chandlers' Hall. He died in June, 1730, with what tears in prayer he would weep over such unhappy professors. "His gift in prayer was very |