Note 40 — Chapter II · First Visit to New England

Calamy, Account of the Ejected Ministers, i. 481, calls Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, England, a “little Zoar.” In the chapel known as the Old Meeting House, in Mansfield, which was built in the year 1702, by the descendants of the congregation which had formerly received the Ejected Ministers, there are two commemorative brasses above the altar, placed there by the late Rev. A. W. Worthington, a former minister, which bear the following inscription: “In memory of the conscientious sacrifice and Christianity of the Rev. Robert Porter, Vicar of Pentrich, the Rev. John Whitlock, M.A., Vicar of St. Mary’s, Nottingham, the Rev. William Reynolds, M.A., lecturer at the same church, the Rev. John Billingsley, M.A., Vicar of Chesterfield, Joseph Truman, B.D., Rector of Cromwell, the Rev. Robert Smalley, Vicar of Greasley, and others, who resigned their livings when the Act of Uniformity was passed in 1662.

“Driven from their homes by the Oxford Act, in 1666, they found in Mansfield a little Zoar, a shelter and a sanctuary; and united in hearty love and concord, they worshipped together till the Act of Toleration was passed in 1688, when all who survived the day of persecution returned to their ministry, save the Rev. R. Porter, who remained in charge of this congregation till his death, January 22nd, 1690.”