Allin, John (1)

Allin, John (1), a Congregational minister, was born in 1596. After graduating, as is supposed, at the University of Cambridge, he entered the ministry of the Church of England. It is thought that he is the man who was silenced at Ipswich by bishop Wren, on account of his Nonconformity, and removed to London. In 1637 he removed to New England, being obliged to escape thither in disguise. Immediately after his arrival he became a resident of Dedham, Mass., and afterwards was teacher there. On April 29, 1639, he was ordained as pastor of the Congregational Church in that place. In 1646, when an attempt was made to bring the colonists into subjection to the British Parliament, he was chosen spokesman for his Church, and presented a paper sustaining the magistrates of the colony who. were determined on resistance. One of the leading controversies of this period grew out of the decision of the Synod in 1662 that persons who had been baptized in infancy, and whose lives were moral, might claim baptism for their children. President Chauncy, of Harvard College, wrote a work in opposition to this view, to which Mr. Allin replied; supporting the Synod. The controversy was a protracted one, and Mr. Allin took a prominent part in it. Though not elegant, his written. style is marked by simplicity and force. Occasionally he shared the labors of Eliot in his benevolent visits to the Indians. He died at Dedham, Mass., Aug. 26, 1671. See Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 1, 108.