Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rawlin, Richard
RAWLIN, RICHARD (1687–1757), independent minister, born in 1687, was son of Richard Rawlin, successively independent minister at Linton, Cambridgeshire; St. Neot's, Huntingdonshire (from June 1702); and Stroud, Gloucestershire, from about 1718 till his death in 1725. Rawlin was trained for the ministry by William Payne, independent minister of Saffron Walden, Essex, and tutor of, among others, John Guyse [q. v.] His first settlement was as domestic chaplain to Andrew Warner of Badmondisfield Hall, Suffolk, where he ministered to the congregation founded by Samuel Cradock [q. v.], meeting in a barn on Warner's estate. On 5 Nov. 1716 he was chosen pastor of the independent church at Bishop's Stortford, Hertfordshire. He is reported as having six hundred hearers, of whom forty were county voters. In 1730 he removed to London as successor to Thomas Tingey (d. 1 Nov. 1729) in the pastorate of the independent church in Fetter Lane. His settlement took place on 24 June, when Daniel Neal [q. v.] preached a sermon, which was published. The old meeting-house (now held by Moravians) became too small, and a new one was built in 1732 on the opposite side of Fetter Lane. In 1738 Rawlin succeeded Robert Bragge the younger (‘Eternal Bragge,’ who preached four months on Joseph's coat) as one of the six lecturers on Tuesday mornings at Pinners' Hall. Rawlin had three assistants at Fetter Lane—John Farmer [see under Farmer, Hugh], Edward Hitchin (1743–1750), and Edward Hickman (1752–1757), chiefly known as refusing to pray for persons inoculated, since inoculation was ‘a kind of presuming upon providence.’ Rawlin died on 15 Dec. 1757, and was buried in a family vault in Bunhill Fields. Guyse preached his funeral sermon, but it was not printed. He married a wealthy daughter of Joseph Brooksbank of Hackney. She died on 7 Feb. 1749, aged 56.
He published a sermon at the ordination (1743) of Thomas Gibbons [q. v.], and ‘Christ the Righteousness of His People,’ &c., 1741, 8vo, being seven Pinners' Hall lectures; it was commended by James Hervey (1714–1758) [q. v.], and several times reprinted; there is an edition, Glasgow, 1772, 8vo.
[Wilson's Dissenting Churches of London, 1808 ii. 253, 1810 iii. 454 sq.; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans (Toulmin), 1822, vol. i. pp. xx sq.; Jones's Bunhill Memorials, 1849, p. 225; James's Hist. Litig. Presb. Chapels, 1867, pp. 688 sq.; Browne's Hist. Congr. Norf. and Suff. 1877, p. 519; Urwick's Nonconformity in Herts, 1884, pp. 705 sq.]