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A41036
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The life of that reverend divine, and learned historian, Dr. Thomas Fuller
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Fell, John, 1625-1686.
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1661
(1661)
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Wing F616; ESTC R4382
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29,554
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118
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the Patron or other inducements to the Doctors acceptance but yet he did not over-readily entertain the kindness of the proffer till after a serious scrutiny of himself and his Abilities to discharge the requisite duties the place called for and after a very full and satisfactory enquiry of his Parishioners It was the Rectory of Broad Winsor in Dorsetshire a place far distanced from his native Country remoter from his University A Prophet hath no Honour in his own and therefore it was doubled to him in another The Accomodation both in reference to his maintenance and respect from this people was very noble and which afforded great expedience to the Doctors other labours which were bountifully cherished under the tuition of his Ministry After some while employed here in the pastoral Office the Doctor was desired by some Friends to dignifie his Desert with the Degrees which his Time and standing by the Rules of the University afforded him whereunto the Doctor out of a reverence to his Honourable Cailing was well inclined and accordingly prepared for his departure to Cambridge to take the Degree of Batchelour of Divinity Having taken care therefore to supply his place for the time of his absence at his setting forth he was acquainted that 4 of his chief Parishioners with his good leave were ready to wait on him to Cambridge to testifie their exceeding engagements it being the sense and request of his whole Parish This kindnesse was so present and so resolutely prest that the Doctor with many thanks for that and other demonstrations of their Love towards him gladly accepted of their Company and with his customary innate pleasantnesse entertained their time to the Journies end At his comming to Cambridge he was most welcomly treated and saluted by his friends and acquaintance and visited almost by all considerable persons of the University and Town especially of his Parishioners of St. Bennet Fame and Love vying which should render him most Addresses to the great delight and satisfaction of his fellow-Travellers and Neighbours in having a Minister who was so highly and yet no lesse deservedly honoured but to the Trouble of the modest Doctor who was then forced to busie his invention with Complements to which he was most naturally averse At this Commencement there proceeded with him in the same Degree of Batchelour of Divinity three other reverend persons all with general applause and commendation and therefore to doe them no wrong must forbear to give the Deceased Doctor his particular due Onely thus much by the way may be added that this Commencement cost the Doctor for his particular the sum of sevenscore pounds an evidence of his liberality and largenesse of mind proportionable to his other capacity's and yet then which nothing was lesse studied At his departure he was dismissed with as Honourable valedictions and so he returned in the same company who had out of their own purse contributed another addition of honour to that solemnity to his said Rectory at Broad Winsor resolving there to spend himselfe and the time of his pilgrimage amongst his deare and loving charge In the amaenity and retirements of this rurall life some perfection was given to those pieces which soon after blest this age an account of all which is reserved to the conclufion of these Collections from this pleasant prospect he drew that excellent Piece of the Holy Land Pisgah sight and other Tracts relating thereto so that what was said bitterly of some Tyrants that they made whole Countries vast solitudes and desarts may be inverted to the Eulogie of this Doctor that he in these recesses made desarts the solitudes of Israel the frequented path and track of all ingenuous and studious persons But Contemplation and the immurement of his vast spirit within the precincts of his Parish although both delightfull and profitable those foraign Travels of his brain above mentioned affording the One and his pious labours at home yeilding the other grew tedious and wearisom to his active and free Genius which was framed by nature for converse and general Intelligence not to be smothered in such an obscurity To this inclination also the unquietness and trepidations of those times then scared with the news of a war about Religion and reformation which the Scots pretended did oversway him He was very Tensible whither those first commotions did tend and that some heavy disaster did in those angry clouds which impended over the Nation more particularly threaten the Clergy He was then also married unto a vertuous young Gentlewoman and by her had born there his eldest son now a hopefull plant in the same Colledge and University where his Father had his education These motives concurring with that generall fame and esteem of him drew him to the consultation of a City life where both security honour and the advantages of learning did demonstratively promise the completion of his desires intended tranquillity destined already to some publique workes which were then in designment Removing therefore to London having obtained his fair dismission from that charge in the Countrey he continued his pious endeavour of preaching in most of the voyced Pulpits of London being cryed up for one of the most excellent preachers of his age but most usually in the Inns of Court He was from thence by the Master and Brotherhood of the Savoy as well as earnestly desired and intreated by that small parish complemented to accept of the Lecturers place which having undertaken after some instance heâ— did most piously and effectually discharge witness the great confluence of affected Hearers from distant congregations insomuch that his own Cure were in a sense excommunicated from the Church unless their timous diligence kept pace with their devotion the Doctor affording them no more time for their extraordinaries on the Lords day then what he allowed his habituated abstinence on all the rest He had in his narrow Chappel two Audiences one without the pale the other within the windows of that little Church and the Sextonry so crowded as if Bees had swarmed to his mellifluous discourse He continued here to the great satisfaction of his people and the neighbouring Nobility Gentry till our unhappy unnaturall warres had made a dismall progress through the whole Nation labouring all that while in private and in publique to beget a right understanding among all men of the Kings most righteous cause which through seduction and popular fury was generally maligned His exhortations to peace and obedience were his constant subjects in the Church all his Sermons were such Liturgies while his secular daies were spent in vigorously promoting the Kings affairs either by a sudden reconciliation or potent assistance To this end on the Anniversary day of his late Majesties inauguration which was the day of March 1642. hee preached at St. Peters Westminster on this Text 2 Sam. 19. 30. Yea let him take all so that my Lord the King return in peace A Theam so distastfull to the
that they might prove such as he in his best thoughts had wished them He was most earnest in this duty of Prayer and his often Accesses to that Mercy Seate had made it a place of acquaintance and free reception As his Study importuned him at very unreasonable Hours so it opportuned his Devotion in the early and late Sacrifices which he indispensably and firstly offered to the God of Heaven a phrase for its comprehensiveness of the Divine Majesty in the Glory and perfection of it above all other his Creatures very Familiar and usuall with the Doctor by way of Emphasis or Reverend instance If it may passe here without any Rigid Adversion a very excellent passage of the Doctors in the beginning of the Anarchy under a Commonwealth would seek admittance having relation to this Duty in hand Soon after the Kings Death he Preached in a Church near London and a Person then in great power now Levelled with his Fellowes was present at the Sermon In his Prayer before which he said God in his due Time settle our Nation on the true Foundation thereof The then Great Man demanded of him what he meant by the true Foundation he Answered he was no Lawyer nor Statesmen and therefore skill in such matters could not be expected from him But being pressed further to explain himselfe whether thereby he did not intend the King Lords and Commons he answered that It was a part of his Prayer to GOD who had more knowledge then he ignornce in all things that he knew what was the True Foundation and so remitted the Factious Querist to Gods Wisedome and Goodness This was a kind of his experiments in Prayer which were many and very observable GOD often answering his desires in kind and that immediately when he was in some distresses and Gods providence in taking care and providing for him in his whole course of Life wrought in him a firme resolution to depend upon him in what Condition so ever he should be and he found that providence to continue in that Tenour to his last end Indeed he was wholy possest with a holy Fear of and relyance in GOD was conscionable in his private Duties and in sanctifying the Sabbath being much offended at its Prophanation by disorderly Men and that both in reference to the Glory of GOD and the scandal brought on the Church of England as if it allowed as some have impudently affirmed such wicked Licentiousnesse For his own particular very few Sundaies there were in the year in which he Preached not twice besides the duties performed in his own house or in his attendance on those Noble persons to whom successively he was Chaplain So that if he had not been helped by a more then Officious Memory which devoured all the Books he read and digested them to easie nutriment that supplyed all the parts and the whole body of his Learning for his service and furtherance of his Labours it had been impossible but that the Duties he performed as a Divine must have hindred and justled out those his happy productions as a most Compleat Historian which study being tyed to the Series and Catenation of Time and Truth could ill brook or breake through those Avocations though no doubt it thrived the better under the kindly influence of his Devotion It will make it also the lesse wonder why a Man of so Great merit and such conspicuous worth snould never arrive to any eminent Honour and Dignity or Church Revenue save that of Prebend in Salisbury being also of competent Age to become the Gravity of such preferments For he could not afford to seek great matters for himself who designed his All for the publique good and the concerns of his precious Soule Questionlesse he could not have wanted Friends to his advancement if he would have pursued such ends who would have been as great furtherers of himselfe out of a particular affection which is alwaies ambitious of laying such obligations upon Vertue to his person as they had assisted him in his works and Labours He was reward and recompence enough to himself and for his fame and Glory certainly he computed it the best way t is the Jewel that graces the Ring not so contrary High places are levelled in death and crumble into dust leaving no impression of those that possessed them and are onely retrievable to posterity by some excellent pourtraits of their nobler part wherein it will on all hands be confest the Doctor hath absolutely drawn himself beyond the excellentest counterfeit of Art and which shall outlive all addition of monument and outflourish the pomp of the lasting'st sepulchrall glory But had the worthy Doctor but some longer while survived to the fruition of that quiet and settlement of the Church of which by Gods goodnesse and favour we have so full a prospect and that the crowd of suiters for Ecclesiastical promotions had left thronging and importuning their great friends to the stifling and smothering of modest merit it may be presumed the Royal bounty would favourably have reflected on and respected that worth of the Doctor which was so little set by and regarded of himself in his contented obscurity by a convenient placing and raising of that light to some higher Orb from whence he should have dilated and dispenced his salutiferous rayes and influences Some little time after his death his course would have come to have preached before his Majesty for which the Doctor made preparations and that most probably would have proved a fit opportunity of notifying himself to the King whose most judicious and exact observation the remarques of the Doctors learned preaching would have happily suted This honour was designed him before by a Right Noble Lord in whose retinue as Chaplain he went over to the Hague at the reduction of his Majesty into these his Kingdoms But the hast and dispatch which that great Affair required in the necessity of the Kings presence here afforded him not the effect of that Honourable intendment But what he was disappointed of here is fully attained by his happy appearance before the King of Kings to praise and magnifie him and to sing Halelujahs for ever So ADIEV to that Glory of the Doctor which is incommunicable with the World and Ave and all Prosperity be to those his remains which he hath to the General advantage of Learning and Piety most Liberally imparted Too Customary were it to recite the several kinds and sorts of Honourable Epithets which his equal Readers have fixt on him but this under Favour may be assigned peculiarly to him that no man performed any thing of such difficulty as his undertakings with that Delight and Profit which were as the Gemelli and Twins of his hard Labour and superfaetations of wit not distinguishable but by the thred of his own Art which clued men into their several and distinct appartiments And so impertinent it will be to engage further in a particular account of his Books whose sure and perpetual Duration needs not the Minutes of this Biography especially that his ultimate piece and partly Posthumous his often mentioned Book the Worthies Generall of England whose designe was drawn by Eternity commencing from their before unknown Originalls and leading into an Ocean of New Discoveries And may some happy as hardy Pen attempt the Continuation The Names of his other Books having had their due Reception need no other mention to Posterity then what you have in this ensuing Catalogue Books of Dr. Fuller Poems HAinousnesse of sinne Heavy punishment and Hearty Repentance 8. Holy War 2 Folio Josephs Party Coloured Coate and Sermons on the Corinths 4. Holy state and prophane state Folio Sermon of Reformation 4. Truth maintain'd or an answer to Mr. Saltmarsh that writ against his Reformation Sermon 4. Inauguration Sermon Preached at St. Westminster Abbey 4. A Sermon of Assurance 4. Good thoughts in bad times in 12. Thoughts in worse times 12. Life of Andronicus 8. Cause and cure of a wounded Conscience 8. Infants Advocate 8. Pisgah sight of Palestine or a description of the holy land Folio with Cuts Fullers Triple Reconciler stating the Controversies 8. Whether 1. Ministers have an Exclusive power of barring Cōmunicants from the Sacrament 2. Any person Unordained may Lawfully preach 3. The Lords prayer ought not to be used by all Christians A fast Sermon◠preacht upon Innocents Day 4. Sermons on Matthew upon the Temptations 8. A Sermon of Life out of Death 8. Sermons on Ruth 8. Best name on Earth 8. Another 8. of Sermons Speeches of the Beast and Flowers 8. Church History of Brittaine Folio Mixt Contemplations in these times Folio Lives of several Modern Divines in the 4to book by Fuller 4. The Appeale of Injured Innocence to the Learned and Impartial Reader In Answer to some Animadversions of Dr. Heylins on his Church History Fullers History of the Worthies General of England now finisht Folio An excellent Piece A Tract in Latine concerning the Church not perfected by him These Elegant pieces are the best Epitaph can be inscribed on his Tomb where though he Rest himselfe yet shall the World never see an end of his Labours FINIS