John Reynolds

John Reynolds (1739-1803) was at one time a member of Edward Hitchin’s congregation at White Row, Spitalfields. He also preached for a time in Newport, Essex, and then at Haverhill, Suffolk, where he remained until his call to the Independent meeting in Camomile Street, London, in 1773.    According to Walter Wilson, Reynolds was a close friend of Robert Robinson, the Baptist minister at Cambridge from 1759-1790. He may have been the author of The divinity of Christ defended and his equality with God the Father fully proved from Scripture: being an answer to a pamphlet written by S. Kingsford intitled “The supremacy of God the Father and the Inferiority and Subordination of Jesus Christ, &c.” (London, 1800).  He is to be distinguished from the John Reynolds (1730-92) who succeeded  John Brine in 1766 as pastor of  the Baptist congregation at Curriers’ Hall, Cripplegate. A John Reynolds also operated as a stationer/bookseller from Crooked Lane, not far from Cripplegate or Camomile Street, c. 1788-89, but which John Reynolds it was, or whether it was either of these ministers, is not specifically known (see Ian Maxted, Exeter Working Papers, where he is listed as a stationer at 31 Crooked Lane, having appeared in several London directories and the Universal British Directory in 1791). It is possible this John Reynolds was a member of one of the London Baptist congregations. However, the only imprints to which this John Reynolds affixed his name involved four tracts defending Calvinism and all written by Baptist ministers (John Stanger, John Lloyd, and John Martin) and each sold, in conjunction with other Dissenting booksellers, by Reynolds and William Button, Baptist minister at Dean Street. Thus, it is possible the bookseller in Crooked Lane was one of the two Dissenting ministers in London at that time named John Reynolds. If so, it is more likely the bookseller was the John Reynolds of Curriers' Hall, since he had replaced John Brine, one of the staunchest defenders of Calvinism in the 18th century. A Dissenting minister doubling as a bookseller was not uncommon at this time; William Button (one of the sellers with Reynolds), Thomas Thomas, and Dan Taylor all performed this dual function in London while serving as Baptist ministers, as did Thomas Wills, an Independent minister.  See The History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches and Meeting Houses, in London, Westminster, and Southwark; Including the Lives of Their Ministers, from the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time, 4 vols. (London: W. Wilson for W. Button, 1808–1814),  1.390-91.