Benjamin Brook, Tutbury, to John Sutcliff, Olney (“Favd by Rev. Mr Smith”), 9 June 1810.

Tutbury June 9. 1810.

Rev. sir,

         You greatly obliged me by sending Baylie’s Dissuasive. I have found great assistance from your various communications; for which, I shall never by sufficiently thankful. Agreeable to your request, I have here sent you a list of the articles, with which you have kindly favoured me:

Fuller’s Church Hist. & Hist. of Cambridge.

Part of a Register.

Life of T. Cawton.

Fuller’s Worthies.

Backus’s Hist of New Eng. Baptists, Vol. I.

Pagit’s Arrow against the Brownists.

Ainsworth’s Counterpoison.

Prince’s Chronological Hist. of New Eng. Vol. I.

Life of T. Wilson.

Baylie’s Dissuasive

                                                                                         B Brook

Text: Timothy Whelan, Baptist Autographs in the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 1741-1845 (Macon: Mercer University Press, 2009), pp. 146-47 (annotated version); also Eng. MS. 373, fol. 256b, John Rylands University Library of Manchester. On the back page Sutcliff has written: “Rec. June 13. 1810.” Benjamin Brook ministered to the Independent congregation in Tutbury, 1801-30. John Smith, Sutcliff’s former student, was ministering at Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, not far from Tutbury. Brook may have known Smith prior to his coming to Burton-on-Trent, for Brook spoke, along with Fuller, Sutcliff, and others, at Smith’s ordination on 20 May 1809 (see Baptist Magazine 1 [1809], 341); Olney Church Book, ff. 97, 101. The books are as follows:  The Church-History of Britain from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the Year M.DC.XLVIII (1655) and The History of the University of Cambridge Since the Conquest (1655) by Thomas Fuller (1608-61); The Fourth Part of a Brief Register, Kalender and Survey of the Several Kinds, Forms of Parliamentary Writs (1664) by William Prynne (1600-69); The Life and Death of that Holy and Reverend Man of God, Mr. Thomas Cawton  (1662) by Thomas Cawton, Jr. (1637-77); The History of the Worthies of England (1662) by Thomas Fuller; A History of New-England, with Particular Reference to the Denomination of Christians called Baptists (Boston, 1777) by Isaac Backus (1724-1806); An Arrow Against the Separation of the Brownists (Amsterdam, 1618) by John Paget (d. 1640); Counterpoyson, Considerations Touching the Points in Difference Between the Godly Ministers and People of the Church of England, and the Seduced Brethren of the Separation (1642) by Henry Ainsworth (1571-1622?); A Chronological History of New-England in the Form of Annals Being a Summary and Exact Account of the Most Material Transactions and Occurrences Relating to this Country, in the Order of Time wherein they Happened, from the Discovery by Capt. Gosnold in 1602, to the Arrival of Governor Belcher, in 1730 (Boston, 1736) by Thomas Prince (1687-1758); The Life and Death of Mr. Tho. Wilson, Minister of Maidstone, in the County of Kent, M.A. (1672) by George Swinnock (1627-73); The Dissuasive from the Errors of the Time:  Vindicated from the Exceptions of Mr. Cotton and Mr. Tombes (1655) by Robert Baillie (1599-1662). Some of these books had been requested by Brook previously.