Life

Bayes was son of the Rev. Samuel Bayes, who was ejected by the Act of Uniformity of 1662 from a living in Derbyshire

Derbyshire

Derbyshire is a county in the East Midlands of England. A substantial portion of the Peak District National Park lies within Derbyshire. The northern part of Derbyshire overlaps with the Pennines, a famous chain of hills and mountains. The county contains within its boundary of approx...

, and after 1662 lived at Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

 until his death. Believed to be born in 1671, he received his entire secular education in the grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

 of his native town, Manchester. Being dedicated from his birth to the nonconformist ministry, he was placed under the tuition of Richard Frankland

Richard Frankland (tutor)

Richard Frankland was an English nonconformist, notable for founding the Rathmell Academy, a dissenting academy in the north of England.-Biography:...

, of Attercliffe

Attercliffe

Attercliffe is an industrial suburb of northeast Sheffield, England on the south bank of the River Don.-History:The name Attercliffe can be traced back as far as an entry in the Domesday book -Ateclive- meaning at the cliffe, a small escarpment that lay alongside the River Don...

 in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

, on 15 Nov. 1686.

On the conclusion of his course he proceeded to London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

, and was admitted for ‘examination’ by a number of the elder ministers ‘according to the practice of the times.’ He was ordained preacher of the gospel and minister on 22 June 1694. This—the first public ordination amongst dissenters in the city after the Act of Uniformity—took place in the meeting-house of Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley

Samuel Annesley was a prominent Puritan and nonconformist pastor, best known for the sermons he collected as the series of Morning Exercises.-Life:...

 in Little St. Helens. There were six candidates, one of whom was Edmund Calamy

Edmund Calamy (historian)

Edmund Calamy was an English Nonconformist churchman, divine and historian.-Life:A grandson of Edmund Calamy the Elder, he was born in the City of London, in the parish of St Mary Aldermanbury. He was sent to various schools, including Merchant Taylors', and in 1688 proceeded to the university of...

.

It appears that young Bayes ‘served’ the churches around London as a kind of itinerant or evangelist for some years. But about 1706 he settled at St. Thomas's meeting-house, Southwark

Southwark

Southwark is a district of south London, England, and the administrative headquarters of the London Borough of Southwark. Situated east of Charing Cross, it forms one of the oldest parts of London and fronts the River Thames to the north...

, as assistant to John Sheffield, one of the most original of the later puritan writers. This engagement requiring his attendance only in the morning of each Sunday, he also acted as assistant to Christopher Taylor at Leather Lane

Leather Lane

Leather Lane is a street one block west of Hatton Garden, in the Holborn of London. It is home to a well-used weekday market which specialises in clothing and footwear....

.

When Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry

Matthew Henry was an English commentator on the Bible and Presbyterian minister.-Life:He was born at Broad Oak, a farmhouse on the borders of Flintshire and Shropshire. His father, Philip Henry, had just been ejected under the Act of Uniformity 1662...

 died, leaving his ‘Commentary’ unfinished, its completion was entrusted to a select number of presbyterian divines, including Bayes, to whom was assigned the Epistle to the Galatians

Epistle to the Galatians

The Epistle of Paul to the Galatians, often shortened to Galatians, is the ninth book of the New Testament. It is a letter from Paul of Tarsus to a number of Early Christian communities in the Roman province of Galatia in central Anatolia...

. The continuation has never secured the unique acceptance of Matthew Henry's own writing, but the ‘Galatians’ is among the best of the supplements.

With Taylor of Leather Lane dying in 1723, Bayes, his assistant, was invited to succeed him. Accordingly he resigned the morning service at St. Thomas's. Subsequently he himself appointed ‘assistants,’ first John Cornish, and next his own son, Thomas Bayes

Thomas Bayes

Thomas Bayes was an English mathematician and Presbyterian minister, known for having formulated a specific case of the theorem that bears his name: Bayes' theorem...

. Dr. Calamy's death in 1732 caused a vacancy in the Merchants' lectureship at Salters' Hall, and Bayes was chosen to succeed him.
In 1735 he associated himself with a number of divines in a course of lectures—also delivered at Salters' Hall—against popery. His own subject was ‘The Church of Rome's Doctrine and Practice with relation to the Worship of God in an unknown tongue.’ He died on 24 April 1746, and was buried in Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields

Bunhill Fields is a cemetery in the London Borough of Islington, north of the City of London, and managed by the City of London Corporation. It is about 4 hectares in extent, although historically was much larger....

.

Works

Besides the publications already named, he published several occasional sermons. There is a very fine portrait of him (in oil) in Dr. Williams's library, engraved in Wilson's ‘History and Antiquities of Dissenting Churches.’