484 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. colleague in the pastoral office. About the year 1657, upon the removal of Mr. Norton to Boston, he was chosen pastor' of the church at Ipswich. In this situation he continued, in the faithful and laborious discharge of his numerous pastoral duties, to the end of his days. He died in the beginning of the year 1686, aged seventy-nine, years.. Soon after Mr. Cobbet undertook the pastoral charge at Ipswich, the people of the town voted him to receive one hundred pounds, for the purpose of buying or building himself a house ; and, to raise the money, all the inhabitants were taxed. This being a new thing in the colony, several persons refused to pay the money required, and accordingly were prosecuted for it.t But religion is a voluntary thing. The pecuniary aids requisite to its support ought, in like manner, to be altogether voluntary. All impositions and compulsions from the predominant party, is a direct violation of the laws of equity, an infringement upon the rights of christians, and enters into the very spirit of antichrist. Mr. Cobbet, however, was an eminent preacher, a man much devoted to God in prayer, and the excellent author of many books, the titles of some of which we have been able to collect. His WoRKs.-1. A Vindication of the Covenant of Children of Church Members, 1643.-2. A Vindication of Children's Church- membership and Right to Baptism, 1645.-3. The Civil Magistrate's Power in Matters of Religion, 1651-4. A Discourse on Prayer, 1657.-5. The Honour due from Children to their Parents. JOHN ELLIOT.-This renowned servant of Christ was born in the year 1604, and educated at Cambridge. Upon his removal from the university, he became assistant to the venerable Mr. Hooker, in his school at Chelmsford. While in this situation, he was awakened to a sense of his sins, and brought to experience a work of grace on his heart. We give the account of it in his own words : " To this place I was called," says he, " through the infinite riches of God's mercy in Christ Jesus to my poor soul. For here the Lord said unto my dead soul, live ! and, through the grace of Christ, I do live, and shall hire for ever. When I came to this blessed family, I then saw, and never before, the power of godliness in its lively vigour and efficacy." Having continued for some time in the office of school- master, he resolved to devote himself to the Lord in the Mather's Hist. of New Eng. b. iii. p. 166. Backus's Hist. of Baptists, vol. i. p. 310.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=