John Cowell

John Cowell became a member at Carter Lane, Southwark, in 1774. In 1778, while living in Gravel Lane, Southwark, he subscribed to J. C. Ryland’s Contemplations. He was also a subscriber to the Baptist Missionary Society, donating £1.1 in 1800 and in 1804. A later entry in the Carter Lane church book notes that Cowell and his wife, also a member, were dismissed “to the church at Potter Street, near Harlow, Essex under the Pastoral care of Mr Brown” at a Church meeting on Monday, 20 December 1802. According to the church records at Potter Street, on 31 March 1811 it was proposed at a church meeting that messengers from the church visit Cowell concerning his absence from church and the Lord’s Supper and church meetings. On 26 May two messengers were appointed to visit Cowell. On 30 June they reported that Cowell had told them he was not attending because neither “he nor his family could profit by the ministry of” Rev. Bain. To Cowell, “every thing was carried at them according to the will of the pastor and that he absented himself from church meetings for the sake of peace but that he wished to hold communion with us as a church in the way he had done for a long time past. That he did not wish to hold his subscription or any pecuniary aid needfelt. The church admitted his reason for not attending regularly the public means of grace as it was not their business to search the heart. Nor to say who or where he should hear, every one having a public right to seek spiritual profit where they may find it. His second reason they could not admit as it was one principle part of his office to attend church meetings. It was agreed to present to him by the reporting messengers the church’s respects & request him to attend at church meetings and that they fully comply with his request to continuance on communion.”  He left Harlow and joined a dissenting congregation at Ware in 1822. See Horsleydown and Carter Lane Church Book, f. 41; “List of Subscribers,” Bristol Baptist College Library, shelfmark G97a.Ah.33; BMS Periodical Accounts, 2:204; 3:132; Stephen Hulcoop, Extracts from the Minute Book of Potter Street Baptist Church Harlow Relating to Discipline of Members by the Church Meeting Covering the Period 1776-1827 (Harlow: S. H. Publishing, 2001), 21-22.