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A65136
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The Visor pluckt off from Richard Thompson of Bristol, clerk in a plain and true character of him.
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1680
(1680)
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Wing V661; ESTC R9173
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4,445
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4
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Redcliff and St. Thomas two Eminent Churches within the City of Bristol even from the time of his first appearance to officiate in those Churches hath been privily traduced and now of late openly and maliciously branded by the multiforme Fanaticks of this City for a Church-Papist and Jesuite for the Rector of St. Omers so Nick-naming St. Thomas and with many like Terms of Obloquy and Slander the Invention whereof may be reckon'd upon as the very first and peculiar gift of that Party whose great and only Master-piece it hath been and still is by like Maliciously Witty and Wicked Methods and Artifices to expose alike His Loyalty and Ministry and to lessen that Esteem and Reputation he hath thereby gained in the Hearts and Affections of all the Kings Majesties Loyal and Loving Subjects within this City These are therefore at the Request of and just Due to the said Richard Thompson to Certifie unto all unto whom these Presents shall come that the said Richard Thompson is well known to me John Lloyd Knight and Major of the said City and to all the Kings Majesties Loyal and Loving Subjects therein to be a Person of most Innocent and Exemplary Life and Conversation a most Constant and Careful Dispenser of Gods most Holy Word unto the People under his Charge a most Diligent and Zealous Assertor of the Kings Majesties Supremacy in all Causes Ecclesiastical and Civil in opposition to all Schismatical and Factious Persons and Principles under what Names soever they pass or prevail amongst us and also of all the Christian Doctrines together with the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England as they are now Owned and Established by Law In Testimony whereof I have caused the Seal of my Office of Majoralty to be affixed Dated the Eighteenth Day of September Anno Dom. 1679. John Lloyd Major The Lord Bishop of Chichester lately of Bristol his Certificate THese are to Certifie whom it may concern That Mr. Richard Thompson Minister of St. Mary Redcliff in the City of Bristol is a Person of much more than ordinary Endowments for Learning an Excellent Preacher and which crowns both the former a man of a Clean Life and Unreprovable Conversation A Person free from Novelties in Religion but very Sound and Orthodox in the Doctrins he Preaches and thorowly Conformable as to Discipline Those Parishioners when he came to them were a perverse Ill-principled People His Convincing Arguments together with his modest and prudent Behaviour among them hath brought them to Conformity and made some Christians indeed who before he came were only reputed so He hath Converted Quakers and brought many Non-Conformists home again to the Church The Truth is his Learning Industry in his Calling and his most Exemplary Life may be an Excellent Pattern for all that City Minsters to Imitate And it would be both for their Credit and Comfort to do after his most Laudable Example I could say much more of him because whilst I was Bishop of Bristol he lived under my own Eye I was Witness to that Great and Good Success God did Bless the Great Pains he took in the place where yet he is Himself and one Clergy-man or two more was all I could boast of in that City whilst I was their Bishop But in Conclusion I know no Man of his Years that better deserves very good Preferment in our Church than this Young Man doth And this I do Testifie sincerely from my heart and give under my hand this fourteenth day of September in the Year of our Lord 1679. at my Palace in Chichester Guy Chichester The Dean and Chapter of Sarum their Certificate OMnibus quorum interest innotescat per Praesentes Ricardum Thompson in Artibus Magistrum Vicarium de Bedminster juxta Bristoliam quamdiu apud nos commoratus est pie vitam sobrieque laudabiliter traduxisse In concionibus saepe habendis sedulo curam adhibuisse strenue studiis Theologicis navasse operam Nec unquam quod scimus docuisse quicquam vel tenuisse quod Ecclesia Anglicana non etiam approbat atque tuetur Cujus praesertim Disciplinae superioribus quibuscunque ab omni parte conformem morigerumque se praestitit In quorum omnium Testimonium fidem iisdem faciendam nomina nostra cognomina plane ex animo opposuimus Sept. 13. Annoque Salutis reparatae 1679. Thomas Pierce Dec. Sarum Daniel Whitby Praecentor Sarum Ricardus Drake Cancellarius Sarum Ricardus Hill Can. Resid Sarum Franciscus Horton Can. Resid Sarum A Certificate Signed by several of his Auditors upon the Thirtieth of January 1679. being Persons of great Reputation for Loyalty as well as Fortune THese are to Certifie all whom it may concern That we whose Names are hereunto Subscribed were present at the Parish Church of St. Thomas within the City of Bristol on the Thirtieth Day of January 1679. where we then heard Mr Richard Thompson Preach very solemnly on the Occasion of that Days Fast To which Sermon every one of us for himself doth Declare he was very attentive And we do all hereby Certifie and Declare that we do not remember that the said Mr. Thompson did then say in his Prayer or Sermon That there was no Popish Plot but a Presbyterian Plot or any thing to that or the like effect And we are ready to make Oath of the same if required But on the contrary we have heard him detest and abhor the Popish Plot. And we do further Certifie that the said Mr. Thompson is and by all the time we have known him hath been a True and Loyal Subject to our Most Gracious Sovereign and of a very Sober and Pious Life and Conversation amongst us every way suitable to his Function Witness Our Hands this Thirteenth day of November 1680. John Hicks Alderman Richard Crump Alderman John Knight George Morgan Thomas Davidge Edmond Brand John Broadway Walter Gunter John Hellier John Oliff John Yeomans John Combes George Bourchier Thomas Turner George Hart James Millerd Ralph Oliff James Twyford Daniel Pym Thomas Hartwell Edmund Arundel Richard Benson Francis Yeomans Thomas Durbin Charles Allen. THE END
The Visor pluckt off FROM Richard Thompson of Bristol Clerk In a Plain and True Character of Him RICHARD THOMPSON was descended of Honest Protestant Parentage both by Father and Mothers side and whilst he was yet but very Green in years he was sent by them from Wakefield-School in Yorkshire about the year 1663. unto Vniversity Colledge in Oxford and thereof he was a Member and a Scholar in the Old Foundation by the space of six or seven years Before he had fully performed his Exercise for his Masters Degree which he afterwards went to compleat at Cambridge forasmuch as he took himself unjustly put by a Fellowship in Vn Coll. Oxon he entred into Deacons Orders Dr. Fuller Bishop of Lincoln Ordaining him in S. Margarets Church Westminster about the year 1668. and he received his Orders of Priesthood from the same hands in King Henry the Seventh's Chappel the fourteenth of March 1670. He was no sooner thus qualified but he was sent by the then President of Magdalen Colledge the Reverend Dr. Thomas Pierce to serve in his Cure of Brington in Northamptonshire and continued there some years not without some special Marks of Favour from the Right Honourable the Earl of Sunderland who lived in that Parish But Dr. Pierce being made Dean of Sarum about the year 1675. he quitted that Curacy as the other did his Living and went upon Invitation given him to live with the Dean in his own House at Sarum where he soon after in the year 1676. bestowed upon him First a Prebend and then a Presentation to St. Maries in Marlborough In the year following 1677. he Travelled with Mr. Jo Norborne of Calne in Wiltshire But before he had spent full twelve months in France with him he was recalled back into England upon the Vacancy of Bedminster by Bristol which is the Name of that Living whereof he is now Possest Whilst he was abroad he neither Studied at St. Omers nor Doway neither ever saw those Places neither ever Travelled over any part of Flanders or Italy but of France only At Paris chiefly and in the Academy of Monsieur Foubert a Protestant he spent near seven months of the time he stayed there And all that time frequented the English Embassadors Chappel received the Sacrament whenever it was administred Preacht twice and Read Prayers often in that Chappel during his stay there At Gien upon the Loyre he sojourned in Monsieur Du Paizy the Protestant Ministers House and all the time he stayed there which was about six weeks he went constantly to the Protestant Church and to that only And moreover received the Sacrament from Monsieur Du Paizyes Hands chiefly to make the Papists there despair of warping him to their Communion unto which he had been sollicited by some offers of Preferment At Blois he frequented the Protestant Church in like manner and lodged in a Protestants House by the space of six weeks more and never lodged in a Papists but when the Necessities of Travel would admit of no other Yet he doth not deny but he sought curiously the Acquaintance of any men more famous than other within the several Orders that are in the Church of Rome as well as of those in the Protestant Churches And that he frequently heard the Peres Bourdalou and Menestrie as well as the Reverend Clode and Daille c. forasmuch as they were great Masters of the Language and of the Pulpit He doth not deny but that he saw Mass performed twice or thrice whilst he was abroad having never seen it performed in England But saith 't was Curiosity not Religion carried him thither And that he only went to See and Observe not to Partake and much less to Assist at that Most Idolatrous Sacrifice He declareth that he is so far from being Staggered in his Religion by what he saw that he is but the more Confirmed and Rooted in it And shall choose to live out of an Alms-Basket within the Communion of the Church of England rather than be tempted by the Offâ—r of any Preferment be it never so Great to Apostatize from Her Since his return in England 1678. He hath made it his Business more than ever to serve this Churches Interest and Lives and Acts in all humble Obedience unto all Her Laws Owns Her Homilies and Articles the Standard of True Protestant Religion Hath frequently Subscribed to them and to the Book of Canons and Constitutions and perhaps few men vary less from the Rubrick in performing all the Offices contained within the Book of Common-Prayer He hath taken the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy at least Eight several times as his Circumstances have required him and how he hath Preacht and Acted in Conformity thereto there are Thousands in the City of Bristol will bear him witness He hath hitherto refused no Tests to assure him to the Government for a True Protestant and is farther ready to embrace any future Tests that shall lawfully be imposed on him So that 't is mightily to be wondred at How it comes about that he is traduced for a Papist or any ways Popishly Affected For besides that even his Enemies that now persecute him cannot deny but though he be very Young yet he leadeth a most Strict and Severe Life and someway Answerable to his High Character and Calling He hath a Cloud of Friends to attest that he hath been always most Industrious to serve the King and the Church of England notwithstanding the Many Difficulties which he hath had to wrestle with and some more than Ordinary Discouragements too since he came to Bristol For Example I. It is Notoriously known there that in less than two years space he Proselyted many Anabaptists and Quakers Baptizing them Publickly II. That in the same space of Time he hath perfectly grounded near two hundred Children in the Church of Englands Catechism and it is not long since he carried up near an hundred of them to the Colledge there to be Confirmed by the Present Bishop III. It is certain that whether he Preach or Read the Prayers only he is never without a full Auditory and that there are three times the number of Communicants that used to be whensoever he hath administred the Holy Sacrament IV. There are many most worthy Gentlemen in that City that will not be Ashamed to own their Establishment in the Church of England to the great pains which he hath taken with and among them V. Lastly Forasmuch as his present Circumstances do require it he may dare to Boast farther That as no Young Man was ever more persecuted by the Church of Englands Enemies within that City and particularly by Day Young Young the Preacher Whitehead Hort Roe Read Tyley Crosley their Factors So hath no Young Man been ever more belov'd there among hers and our Gracious Sovereigns most obedient Subjects and Friends Sir John Lloyd's Certificate concerning Mr. Thompson under the Seal of the Office of his Majoralty WHereas Richard Thompson Vicar of St. Mary