Background
Barker was born in 1682, but neither the locality of his birth nor the condition of his parents has been ascertained.
Barker was born in 1682, but neither the locality of his birth nor the condition of his parents has been ascertained.
lieutenant is probable that he was related to the Review Matthew Barker, who was ejected from Saint Leonard"s, Eastcheap, London, in 1662, and died on 25 March 1698. The senior pastor was Doctor Benjamin Grosvenor, with whom Barker was on good terms.
On the death of Matthew Henry the commentator in June 1714, his congregation in Mare Street, Hackney, London, invited Barker to succeed him.
There was division of opinion as to the new minister, and a secession followed, which culminated in the Gravel Pit congregation. But the majority adhered to Barker, and soon the congregation was as large as it had ever been.
Barker belonged to the former, and delivered a series of discourses on the supreme and absolute divinity of Jesus Christ. Prefixed to what Tomkins called "A Calm Inquiry whether we have any Warrant from Scripture for addressing ourselves in a Way of Prayer or Praise to the Holy Spirit," is "A Letter to the Review
Mr. Barker." Barker did not allow himself to be drawn into controversy here, but the attack led to correspondence with Doctor Isaac Watts.
In 1729 Philip Gibbs was chosen as Barker"s co-pastor. lieutenant was in the same year that Barker himself suddenly resigned. In 1744 Barker moved from Epsom to reside in London.
But in 1745 he was resident in Walthamstow and later at Clapham.
In 1748 he was grieved by the death of his mother, and in 1751 by that of Doddridge, his frequent correspondent. In the spring of 1762 Barker, on account of old age, resigned his charge at Salters" Hall.
He died on 31 May of the same year in his eightieth year. She died in September 1719.
In 1718 he was assailed by a member of his congregation, the Review Martin Tomkins, on the use of doxologies in prayer and praise.
