Coles, Elisha

, uncle to the preceding, was also a native of Northamptonshire, but became a trader in London, and probably an unsuccessful one, as during the time that Oxford was in possession of the parliamentary forces, we find him promoted to the office of steward to Magdalen college, by Dr. Thomas Goodwin, the famous independent president of that college. On the restoration, he was obliged | to quit this situation, but acquired the preferable appointment of clerk to the East India company, which he probably held to his death, at London, in October 1688, upwards of eighty years old. He is known to this day by his “Practical Discourse of God’s Sovereignty,” London, 1673, 4to, and often reprinted in 8vo. The object of it is to refute the Arminians in those points concerning which they differ most from the Calvinists. ¹