He does not appear to have engaged fully in the performance of pastoral duties. Perhaps he had a lingering preference for the establishment, although the peculiar circumstances of the times, after the death of Charles the first, induced him to unite with other serious persons in church fellowship. Dr. Walker states that he got possession of the living of Beccles in 1655. {119} This he might be enabled to accomplish when Cromwell, in order that the Presbyterians might not fill all the livings with persons of their persuasion, appointed, by an ordinance in council, commissioners, partly selected from the Independent denomination, to examine all persons seeking admission to benefices. {120} * * * * * It was to be expected that the possession of religious liberty, in a degree before unequalled, would occasion the propagation of many opinions previously unknown or concealed through fear. The Baptists, especially, now became a distinct and important denomination. They were the objects of bitter scorn and invective from the Presbyterian party, who had gained the ascendancy, and were treated with less kindness by the Independents than might reasonably have been expected. In 1656, two persons who had been members of the Independent church at Beccles, received adult baptism, and in so doing were considered to have given “offence” to the church, and desired to appear and “give an account of their practices.” There are some subsequent instances of a similar kind. It was natural that, entertaining peculiar opinions as to the mode and objects of christian baptism, they should unite with societies professing the same sentiments. Greatly is it to be lamented that uncharitableness should ever have intruded where intolerance would have been deprecated; that fellow-christians should have allowed these minor differences of sentiment to create even an apparent separation of heart, or —“Let the basin and the flood Divide the purchase of that blood, Where _all_ must plunge or die.” The next pastor, and the transactions connected with his ministry will require a more extended notice. ROBERT OTTEE was a native of Great Yarmouth, where his father carried on the business of a boddice-maker. {121} The son appears to have received such an education as, in some measure, fitted him for the more elevated and responsible situation he was destined to occupy. He was kept at the Latin school till he was old enough to be employed in his father’s trade, at which he worked several years. It does not appear that at this early period of his life, he had any view to the ministry; but his inclination towards mental pursuits was so decided, that nothing but a deep sense of filial duty would have reconciled him to the manual occupation in which he found himself engaged. He had already imbibed a conviction of the supreme importance of religion, and while he laboured with his hands, his Bible generally lay open before him.