Having spent a year and a half there, he obtained from the company of Mercers in London, a lecturer's place in Huntingdon, though he had eleven competitors. He preached the lecture there on Saturday (which was the market day) for the benefit of the country people, and gave the town a sermon every Lord's day in the great church, gratis. Some years afterwards, the lecture being supplied by neighbouring ministers, he preached twice every Lord's day. In this place he continued eleven years, till the troubles of the war forced him to London, from whence, after a year and a half, he was called to Buers in Essex, where he continued six years; till a fever, (which afterwards returned every spring and fall,) occasioned him to remove with his family to Oxford. There he continued three years without any stated employment, being unwilling to accept any sequestered living, though he had the offer of about twenty of that sort. At length he preached for Dr. French in his turn at Whitehall. When the doctor died, Cromwell, without any application, put him into the vacant canonry of Christ-Church, Oxford, making him promise that he would take as much pains in the ministry here as he had done at Huntingdon; which he did, by preaching once in six weeks in the college, and every Lord's-day at St. Thomas's church gratis. He kept his turn also at St. Mary's, and in four towns in the country. After the Restoration, he was cast out, and he never preached afterwards; but he visited the sick with great assiduity. He died Jan. 2, 1683, in his 84th or 85th year. Mr. Pointer left two sons who were clergymen, settled near Oxford; one of them rector of Slapton, Northamptonshire: the other, the author of a treatise on the weather. They were both good men. Mr. Orton.

GEORGE PORTER, B. D. Canon; and Proctor of the University in the second year of Dr. Owen's vice-chancellorship. In 1662, he was cast out from his fellowship in MagdalenCollege. He was a man of good learning, great gravity, integrity, self-denial and charity. In church-government he was what might be called a sort of an Interpendent. He could not allow that the ruling of church affairs should be by popular suffrage; or that the people should govern their officers. And yet he held that the people had just rights and privileges which must not in the least be infringed; and that therefore the due satisfaction of the church would and ought to be sought by every wise and just governor. In a word, he held that it was the pastor's or elder's part to rule, and the people's part to obey; but both "in the Lord." He took

4

notice

notice that this was thrice commanded in one chapter, Heb. Xiii. 7, 17, 24. He was greatly pleased with Mr. Giles Firmin's Weighty Questions Discussed. He was a great enemy to highflown expressions in sermons, and would say to those who used them, to discover their learning, that "Learning did not consist in hard words, but in depth of matter." He was of a melan

choly constitution, which sometimes prevailed to such a degree, that for several years he had little enjoyment of his friends, himself, or his God: but at length he had comfort. He resided some time at Lewes in Sussex, and afterwards freely preached the gospel at East-Bourn in the same county, near the place of his nativity. He was at last pastor of a church at Clare in Suffolk; where he died, July 1697, in the 74th year of his age. He was a very devout man, and had a due respect both to the substance and circumstances of worship. He used to speak of common sleepers at sermons with great severity, as equally criminal with swearers or drunkards. There are three letters of his in Mr. T. Rogers's Discourse of Trouble of Mind.

Mr. JOHN SINGLETON, Student. He was turned out after he had been at this college eight years, by the commissioners, in 1660. He then went into Holland and studied physic. It is not certain whether he took his degree in that faculty or not, but he was always afterwards called Dr. Singleton; though he did not practise any farther than giving his advice to particular friends. He lived with Lady Scot in Hertfordshire, and preached to some Dissenters at Hertford, before Mr. Haworth fixed there. He was afterwards pastor to a congregation in London: and when the meetings there were generally suppressed, and there was a breach among his people, he went into Warwickshire, and lived with his wife's brother, Dr. Timothy Gibbons, a physician, a pious man, who had been educated at Christ Church in Oxford. Upon king James's giving liberty to the Dissenters, he preached at Stretton §, a small hamlet about eight miles from Coventry, to a congregation that came from different places in the neighbourhood. From thence he removed to Coventry to be pastor to the Independent congregation there, who had been under Mr. Basnet, and afterwards under Mr. Boon *. From Coventry

§ "I have often heard some good people in Northamptonshire (from "whence Stretton is not far distant) speak of him with great respect." Mr. Orton.

* Mr. Boon was a pious and learned gentleman of a good estate, who had been educated in Eman. Col. Camb. and followed the law; but being chosen

Pastor

Coventry he was again called to London, to be pastor to a congregation there in the room of Mr. Thomas Cole. He has a sermon in the Morning Exercises.

JOHN THOMPSON, M. A. Student, A native of Dorches ter. He had spent nine years in Oxford, and was well esteemed for learning and virtue by his contemporaries. He was as willing to have kept his place as others, if he could with a safe conscience have conformed. He studied the points in debate with great deliberation, conversed freely with such as were most likely to increase his light, and seriously begged divine direction; but upon the whole he could not comply with what was required through fear of offending God. He thereupon quitted the university and all hope of preferment, and returned to Dorchester, where he applied himself diligently to the study of divinity. He married the daughter of worthy Mr. Benn the ejected minister of that place, and often preached for him with great acceptance. In 1670, upon the call of a congregation in Bristol, he removed to that city, where he exerted himself in his ministerial work, preaching statedly thrice a week, and maintained an unblameable conversation; none being able to lay any thing to his charge but his Nonconformity. In 1675, he was apprehended upon the Corporation-act, and carried before the mayor, at whose house he found the Bishop of the diocese and several justices, who treated him roughly, which he bore with great meekness. Refusing to take the Oxfordoath, he was committed to gaol, Feb. 10th, and about the 25th of that month began to be indisposed. A physician whom he consulted, seeing a fever coming on, advised to attempt a removal; the place where he was being annoyed by a nasty privy, besides other inconveniencies. A person of quality went to the sheriffs, and offered a bond of 500l. for security. Application was also made to the Bishop, but no removal could be obtained. He languished there till March 4, (though not without all the help the place would afford) and then expired.

He was chearful in his sickness, and well satisfied in his sufferings and the cause of them. He declared "that from pastor to that people, he gave himself wholly to the work of the ministry was an excellent practical preacher, and exposed himself to much danger of sufferings: but some who came with a design to inform against him, were affected and awed with his preaching, so as not to offer him any harm. He was descended from some who were martyrs in queen Mary's days. His principles were congregational, but his zeal was for the great things of reli gion, faith and holiness.

"his heart he forgave his enemies; and should rejoice to "meet those in heaven, who had treated him as if he were "not fit to live on earth." A little before he died, he thus expressed himself: "As for my bonds, I bless God for them; “and if I had known, when I came in, that I should die "here, I would have done no otherwise than I have done. "The time will come when I shall be freed from the asper"sions of faction." He breathed his last while Mr. Weeks (a minister of another congregation in Bristol, and then his fellow-prisoner) was by prayer commending his soul into the hands of Jesus Christ.

The preceding account of the cruel treatment which Mr. Thompson met with, corresponds with that contained in the church-book belonging to the Baptist-church, in Broad-street, Bristol. It is there added, "That being a corpulent man, the corpse could not be kept, and that the next day, March 5, he was honourably interred at Philip's church-yard, being carried from the prison to the grave, accompanied, it was judged, by five thousand people, which made adversaries admire."

RICHARD DYER, M. A. of Magd. Hall; afterwards Student of Christ-Church, whence he was ejected in 1660, for his Nonconformity. He was the son of Mr. Gower Dyer, of Aldermanbury, and elder brother to Mr. Samuel Dyer, of Alhallows, London-Wall. He had been chaplain to three lord-mayors, Frederick, Viner, and Kendrick. He never preached after he was silenced; but was some time chaplain to Conyers, Esq. of Walthamstow, and tutor to his son. He afterwards lived in St. Katherine's by the Tower, and kept a grammar school about seven years. He was a very pious but melancholy man. He had transcribed for the press, several sermons preached at the university, and at St. Paul's, with other theological discourses, which were burnt by a fire that happened in St. Katherine's. This he laid more to heart than his loss in the great fire of London, though that was very considerable. He died in 1695, aged 70.

Mr. SAMUEL ANGIER, Student. Born at Dedham in Essex, Aug. 28, 1639, and brought up in Westminster-school, from whence he removed to this college, Dec. 8, 1659, where he continued student till he was cast out by the Act of uniformity. After his ejectment, he lived with Dr. Owen, for whom he always entertained a most profound respect. In 1667, he visted his uncle Mr. John Angier of Denton, and became his assistant, which he continued to be till his un

cle's

cle's death, Sept. 1667. He was ordained Oct. 29, 1672. His preaching afterwards exposed him to many troubles and difficulties. Warrants were often taken out against him; and in 1680, he was excommunicated at Stockport church. Being requested to draw up an account of his ejectment and sufferings, for the author's use, his answer was, "The ill treatment he then met with would blacken the characters of some who were dead, and be very offensive to some still living, and therefore he was for declining it." He preached for several years in an out-building near his house but on Aug. 19, 1708, he began to preach in a commodious place which his congregation erected for him, where he continued his labours till the Sabbath before his death, Nov. 8, 1713, in the 75th year of his age. His funeral sermon was preached by Mr. Aldred, on 2 Cor. i. 12.

He was an excellent scholar, and retained much of his school-learning. He was a judicious and lively preacher, and a zealous asserter of the doctrine of free-grace. He was an eminent christian, and zealous of good-works: much in prayer, and very particular in praying for his friends and neighbours, especially in affliction. When his sight failed. him, he frequently entertained himself with repeating the greatest part of David's psalms and Paul's epistles from hist memory. He was all his days a close student, a great lover of Bible-knowledge, an exact preacher, and one who lived as he spoke, and spoke as he lived. Notwithstanding all his sufferings he was fully satisfied with his Nonconformity to the last. He was buried in the chapel erected for him in Dukenfield, where, upon a marble tomb stone, there is a Latin inscription.

Mr. WILLIAM SEGARY, Student. A good disputant. When he left Oxford, he retired into the country, where he taught school, and died very old.

Mr. WILLIAM WOODWARD. Probably the person mentioned at Whitchurch, Herefordshire.

Mr. STAFFORD. Of whom no other account is to be procured than that he had taken his degree of M. A.

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE:

He was

EDMUND STAUNTON, D. D. President. born in 1600, of the ancient and worshipful family of the Stauntons in Bedfordshire. His father, Sir Francis Staunton, had several sons, of whose education he was peculiarly.

careful.