LAMB. 465 Lawson, that he spake now to him in an unknown tongue, and prayed him to explain himself. Lawson told Mellish that he was not fit to dispute, if he knew not the meaning of these words. Mellish replied, that if lie should stand up and tell the people -that the moon was made of green cheese, he did not question but some would be of his Mr. Lamb lived till after the restoration, and was one of the ministers who, on the part of the baptists, signed a renunciation of Venner's insurrection.+ It is probable that he continued preaching at his meeting-house in Bell-alley till the time of his death. He died, it is said, about the year 16724 Mr. Edwards, speaking of him and his church, says, " This man, whowas a soap-boiler, and his church are very erroneous, strange doctrines being vented there continually, both in preaching and discoursing, and strange things are done by them, both in their church-meetings and out of them. Many used to resort thither, and all preach universal redemption. Lamb preaches universal grace and the arminian tenets."§ Mr. Bailie says, that Mr. Lamb's congregation was by far the largest and most fruitful of the seven baptist congregations in London, but that it was pestered with the gangrene of arminianism ; then, in the very next page; charges him with preaching the various opinions of the antinomians.II These writers, who were equally indignant against all who presumed to oppose the impositions of the national church, wrote under the influ- ence of a spirit of bigotry, or they received very incorrect information. There are, at least, three publications extant by Mr. Lamb, from which his real sentiments may be collected with much greater, accuracy than from any party-historian whatever. The first is a small octavo pamphlet, entitled, " The Fountain of Free Grace opened." The second is a larger pamphlet, in quarto, entitled, " A Treatise of par- ticular Predestination, wherein are answered three Letters ; the first tending to disprove particular Predestination : the second to show the contradiction between Christ's dying for all, and God's election of some: the, third to prove, that the soul doth not come from the parent, and consequently that thereis nooriginal sin," 1642. The title of Mr.Lamb's third Edwards's Gangrrena, part ii. p. 14, 15. -I- Kennet's Chron. p. 258. t Crosby's Baptists, vol. iii. p. 55. Edwards's Gangrmna, part i. p. 124. Second edit. p Bailie's Anabaptism, p. 94, 95. TOL. III. 2 kt ii 1 .111""P".ft-lacteFii,
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