John Martin (minister)


John Martin was an English Particular Baptist minister.

Early life

The son of John Martin, a publican and grazier, by his wife Mary King, he was born at Spalding, Lincolnshire, on 15 March 1741. He was educated at Gosberton, and then at Stamford under Dr. Newark. Soon after his mother's death in 1756 he went as office-boy to an attorney at Holbeach, but became depressed.

Baptist minister

In 1760 Martin moved to London to sit under John Gill. He was baptised by the Rev. Mr. Clark in a garden, Gamlingay, Bedfordshire, and joined the ministry of the Particular Baptists. He was called successively to Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire, Shepshed in Leicestershire where he was an itinerant preacher, and in 1773 to Grafton Street Chapel in London. His ministry was successful, and a new meeting-house was built in Keppel Street, near Bedford Square, in 1795.
In 1798 Martin offended other Baptists by defending the Test and Corporation Acts, and in January 1798 he provoked widespread indignation among English Dissenters by declaring from the pulpit that should the French land in England many of them were quite capable of helping them. A large secession from his chapel followed, and he was ejected from the Particular Baptists, but he continued to preach.

Last years

In April 1814, Martin resigned his pulpit in consequence of a stroke of. He died in London on 23 April 1820, and was buried in Bunhill Fields.

Works

In 1763 Martin became convinced of the duty of believers' baptism and published a pamphlet, suggested partly by his work in London as a watch-finisher, and entitled Mechanicus and Flavens, or the Watch Spiritualised. His writings included:
Joseph Ivimey also credited him with a pamphlet on ‘The Murder of the French King’.

Family

In 1761 Martin married a Miss Jessup, daughter of a farmer near Sleaford; she died in 1765.