Bond, John

, LL. D. was the son of Dennis Bond, esq. of Dorchester, a violent adherent of the republican party in the seventeenth century, and at whose death, a little before that of the protector, the wits said Oliver Cromwell had given the devil Bond for his appearance. Our author was educated under John White, commonly called the patriarch of Dorchester, and was afterwards entered, not of St. John’s college, Cambridge, as Wood reports, but of Catherine-hall, of which he was afterwards chosen fellow, and took the degree of B. A. in 163 1, commenced M. A. in 1635, was nominated LL. D. in 1645, and completed the year following, while he was yet a member of that society. But, although he took his doctor’s degree in law, he was by profession a divine, and had before this preached for some years, first as a lecturer in Exeter, and frequently afterwards before the long parliament at Westminster. In 1643, both he and his tutor, Mr. White, were chosen of the assembly of divines; and when Mr. White took the rectory of Lambeth, Dr. Bond succeeded him as minister of the Savoy, and on Dec. 11, 1645, hfc was made master of the Savoy hospital under the great | seal. On the decease of Dr. Eden, master of Trinity-hall, Cambridge, the fellows made choice of the celebrated Selden, and the choice was confirmed by parliament, but he declining the office, Dr. Bond was chosen, chiefly by the authority or interference of parliament, March, 1646. In 1649 he was chosen law professor of Gresham college, and in 1654 was made assistant to the commissioners of Middlesex and Wesminster, for the ejection of scandalous and ignorant ministers; and in 1658 served as vice-chancellor of Cambridge. He held his mastership and law professorship until the restoration, when he was ejected from both for his adherence to the politics by which he had obtained them. He then retired into Dorsetshire, and died at Sandwich in the isle of Purbeck, July 1676. Wood, who has committed several mistakes in his life, corrected by Dr. Ward, gives a list of his works, which are few: 1. “A Door of Hope,” Lond. 1641, 4to. 2. “Holy and Loyal Activity,” Lond. 1641, 4to, and some sermons preached before the long parliament, to whose measures he adhered with great zeal. He appears, however, to have been a man of real learning. Calamy, we know not why, has mentioned his name, without one word of life. ¹