Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
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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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Favour the Doctor modestly declined continuing his attendance on the Princesse till the Rendition of the City of Exeter to the Parliament Notwithstanding the Doctor accepted not of that other Preferment of Dorchester for that London was in his eye as the most necessary and expedient place for finishing his aforesaid Book to which place the Expiration of the War promised some kind of Accesse which since it could not otherwise be the Doctor did gladly submit to For General Fairfax having by Treaty reduced and disbanded my Lord Hoptons Army in Cornwall came directly back to besiege Exeter which Garrison upon consideration that no relief could be expected and that Resistance would but defer the resetling of the King and Kingdome pressed also by the Enemy as a cogent argument for their Rendition having very Honourable and comprehensive Articles both for their Conscience and Estates delivered up the City to the Parliament Forces In these Articles the Doctor was included and by the benefit of them was without molestation or hindrance permitted to come to the City of London where he presently recommenced his laborious Enterprize and by the additional helps of Books the confluence and resort of Learned men his acquaintance to their sleecing Tyrannical Courts and Committees newly Erected made such a progresse that from thence he could take a fair prospect of his whole work Upon his first Arrival he came to his own the Parish of Savoy but they received him not the face of things was so altered many of his parishioners dead others removed all of them generally so overawed by an Imperious Rabbi of both Factions Presbytery and Independency one Mr. Bond formerly a Preacher at Exeter then made by the pretended Powers Master of the Savoy The Doctor and he having countermarched and changed ground wherein different seed was sown of loyall Obedience and treasonable Sedition that the Doctor might have said of his parish what a Learned Historian said in another greater Case Parochia in parochia quaerenda erat But a Living was not the Design of the good Doctor who knew how incompatible the Times and his Doctrine must needs be However as oft as he had private opportunities he ceased not to assert the purity of the Church of England bewailing the sad condition into which the grievous abominable sins of the Nation had so far plunged it as to make it more miserable by bearing so many reproaches and calumnies grounded onely upon its calamity But some glimmering Hopes of a settlement and understanding betwixt the King and the pretended Houses appearing the pious Doctor betook himself to earnest prayers and petitions to God that he would please to succeed that blessed work doing that privately as a Christian which he might not publiquely doe as a Subject most fervently imploring in those Families where his person and devotions were alike acceptable the blessing of Restauration on this afflicted Church and its defencelesse Defendor the King That desired Affaire went on slowly and uncertainly but so did not the Doctors Book for having recommended the first to the Almighty wisedome he stood not still expecting the issue but addrest himself to his study affording no time but the leisure of his Meals which was short to the hearing of News with which the minds and mouths of men were then full employed by the changeablenesse of the Army who plaid fast and loose with the King and Parliament till in conclusion they destroyed both Then indeed such an amazement struck the Loyal pious Doctor when he first heard of that execrable Design intended against the Kings person and saw the villany proceed so uncontroulably that he not onely surceased but resolved to abandon that lucklesse work as he was then pleased to call it For what shall I write said he of the Worthies of England when this Horrid Act will bring such an infamy upon the whole Nation as will ever cloud and darken all its former and suppresse its future rising glories But when through the seared impiety of those men that parricide was perpetrated the good Doctor deserted not his study alone but forsook himself too not caring for or regarding his concerns though the Doctor was none of the most providential Husband by having store before-hand untill such time as his prayers tears and fasting having better acquainted him with that sad dispensation he began to revive from that dead pensivenesse to which he had so long addicted himself He therefore now again renewed his former study setting about it with unwearied diligence About this time also it happened that the Rectory of Waltham Abby being vacant and in the disposal of the Right Honourable Earl of Carlile since deceased he voluntarily and desirously conferred it on the Doctor and together made him his Chaplain both which he very piously and profitably performed being highly beloved by that Noble LORD and other Gentlemen and Inhabitants of the Parish About this time also many of the Orthodox Clergy began to appear again in the Pulpits of London through the zeal of some right worthy Citizens who hungred after the true and sincere Word from which they had so long been restrained among the Chiefe of whom was our good Doctor being settled Lecturer for a time at St. Clements lane neer Lumbard-street where he preached every Wednesday in the afternoon to a very numerous and Christian Audience and shortly after from thence he was removed to St. Brides in Fleetstreet in the same quality of Lecturer the day being changed to Thursday where he preached with the same efficacy and successe The Doctor having continued some 12 years a Widdower the War finding him so had the better relisht the losse of his first Wife by how much the freer it rendred him of care and trouble for her in those tumultuous times so as by degrees it had almost setled in him a perswasion of keeping himselfe in that state But now an honourable and advantagious Match presenting it self and being recommended to him by the desires of his noble Friends he consented to the Motion taking to wife one of the Sisters of the right Honourable the Viscount Baltingtasse by whom he hath issue one onely Son now six years old a very hopeful Youth having had by his former wife another Son of the age of 21 years or thereabouts now a hopeful Student in Cambridge In the year 1655 when the usurping Protector had published an Interdict against Ecclesiasticall persons Schoolmasters and others who had adhered to his late sacred Majesty or assisted the present whereby they were prohibited to perform any Ministerial Office teach School c. upon several pains and forfeitures the good Doctor forbore not to preach as he did before The convincing power either of his Doctrine or his worth defending and keeping him out of the hands of that unreasonable Man This unchristian barbarous cruelty of that Tryal sorely afflicted the good Doctor in his first apprehensions of it though after a little consulration and the encouragement of
teaching it was in some kind different from the usuall Preachers method of most Ministers in those times for he seldome made any excursions into the handling of common places or drew his subject matter out at length by any prolixely continued discourse But the maine frame of his publique SERMONS if not wholy consisted after some briefe and genuine resolution of the Context and Explication of the Termes where need required of Notes and Observations with much variety and great dexterity drawn immediately from the Text and naturally without constraint issuing or flowing either from the maine body or from the several parts of it with some useful Applications annexed thereunto which though either of them iong insisted upon yet were wont wirh that vivacity to be propounded and pressed by him as well might and oft did pierce deep into the Hearts of his Hearers and not only rectifie and clear their Judgements but have a powerful work also upon their Affections Nor was it his manner to quote many Scriptures finding it troublesome to himselfe and supposing it would be so to his Auditors also besides deeming it the lesse needfull in regard that his observations being grounded immediately on the Scripture he handled by necessary consequence thence deduced seemed to receive proof sufficient from it A Constant form of prayer he used as in his Family so in his publique Ministry onely varying or adding upon speciall occasions as occurrences intervening required because not only hesitation which the Good Doctor for all his strength of Memory and invention was afraid of before so awful a presence as the Majesty of Heaven was in prayer more offensive then other discourse but because such excursions in that Duty in the Extempore way were become the Idol of the Multitude In his mixt Contemplations read these words Let such new Practises as are to be brought into our Church be for a time Candidates and Probationers on their good behaviour to see how the temper of people will fit them and they fadge with it hefore they be publiquely enjoyned Let them be like Saint Paul's Deacons 1 Tim. 3. first be proved then be used if found blamelesse I cannot therefore but commend the Discretion of such Statesmen who knowing the directory to be but a stranger and considering the great inclination the Generality of our Nation had to the Common-Prayer made their Temporary Act to stand in force but for three years He could as well declare his mind and errand and of all others likewise with as much plainnesse clearnesse and which is more reverence as any of those who cryed up the Spirit and their own way in opposition to the Laws and the Judgement of Antiquity so to take the people with their new Fangled words and licentious easinesse of discoursing with GOD Almighty whose Attributes they squared to their Petitions that it be not said Wills As he was an Enemy to the inventions of men obtruded upon the Blessed Spirit in that irreverend and profane manner of praying and revelation so was he likewise on the other side a professed and avowed adversary to the Masse and Traditions which caused him no little Slander and Obloquie But the Spirit of this pious Doctor was exceedingly stirred in him against all Popish Insinuators because he was too sensible that through the mad zeale of the Vulgar whom they had by Jesuitical practises inflamed the House of God in these Kingdomes was set in combustion Therefore with much Prudence Courage and Boldnesse did he every where in his Books as occasion offered Unmasque the deceits and designes resist and curb the pride convince and lay open the errors of the Church of Rome though he never wrote any thing particularly by way of Controversie against it because as he said there was no end of it and more then sufficient had already been wrote if any ingenuity had been in the adherents of that Sea to have submitted to Truth Nor was there ever any of that Religion who were so hardy as to Challenge or Tax the Doctor but Obliquely for any thing wherewith he had charged them either of Apostacy Heresie or manifest Idolatry their abuse of Antiquity in their Rasures and Additions which did very often occurr to him in most of his books from which they were sure to hear of them to the purpose It much rejoyced the Roman Party when that misunderstanding hapned betwixt Doctor Heylin and himself about his Ecclesiastical History though they caught no fish in those Troubled Waters while they tossed of their proud billowes forward and backward the Protestant Cause was safely Anchored and Moared between them And as he never had occasion to engage in any Polemical discourse with any of that Party so in these miserable bandyings of our late unhappy times did he alwaies refrain from stickling in any side though it was sufficiently known how firmly grounded and addict to the true Protestant Religion in opposition to the innovations of Presbytery and the Schisme of Independency against whom also he had a zeale but allayed with a greater compassion then to the Papist distinguishing betwixt the Seducers and the Seduced whom not withstanding he did very severely deal withal in his writings one instance whereof take in his mixt Contemp. I am sad that I may add with too much truth that one man will at last be divided in himself distracted often betwixt many Opinions that what is reported of Tostatus lying on his Death Bed In multitudine controversiarum non habuit quod crederet amongst the Multitude of perswasions through which he had passed he knew not where to cast Anchor and fix himself at Last So that he may be said to have been a Right-Handed Enemy to the stubborn Romanist and a Left Handed one to the cunning Sectary He was wont to call those controversies concerning Episcopacy and the new invented Arguments against the Church of England with the Answers and Refutation thereof 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things of a daies Life and of no permanency the Church being built upon a Rock as no stormes could shake or move it so needed it not any Defences of Art or Learning Being of the same mind with Sir Henry Wootton Disputandi pruritus Scabies Ecclesiae He was wholy conversant dūring the Broiles and Dissentions of the Clergy in the thoughts and considerations of that Text Let your Moderation be known to all men on which place he once Preached a while before his Majesties Restitution to a very great Auditory little imagining the subsequent words for the Lord is at hand were so near the fulfilling in the merciful Visitations of GOD towards these Miserable Nations In this he was the same still but more sollicitous in the Glimmering of that happy Revolution when he plainly saw how indispensably necessary the mutuall condiscentions of all parties were to the establishment consolidating of Peace Mixt Contemplation to this purpose againe Peace in our Land like St. Paul at Athens betwixt two Sects of Philosophers