Ellis, Clement

, an English divine, whose writings, in the opinion of a recent biographer, deserve to be more extensively known than, it is apprehended, they now are, or ever have been, was the son of Mr. Ellis, steward to Dr. Barnaby Potter, bishop of Carlisle, and wasjborn in 1630, near Penrith in Cumberland. He became a servitor of Queen’s college, Oxford, under the tuition of Mr. Thomas Tully, in 1649, and was afterwards a tabarder; and when master of arts, became a fellow of the college.

He received several donations towards his subsistence at Oxford from unknown hands, with anonymous letters informing him that those sums were in consideration of his father’s sufferings, and to encourage his progress in his studies; and he received several such presents and letters, both before and after his heingin orders, without his knowing whence they came; but after the restoration, he had some reason to believe he owed them to. Dr. Jeremy Taylor, and Dr. Hammond, being part of those collections of money put into their hands by charitable and welldisposed persons for the support and encouragement of such as had been plundered or oppressed by the republican government. Mr. Ellis, when he had taken orders, was patronized by William, marquis, and afterwards duke of Newcastle, who presented him to the rectory of Kirkhy in Nottinghamshire, of which he was a most laborious, useful, and exemplary minister. In 1693 he was appointed, by archbishop Sharp, a prebendary in the collegiate church of Southwell, merely in reward of his merits and usefulness. He died in 1700, aged about seventy. His writings in practical theology are distinguished for eminent and fervent piety, soundness of doctrine, and a vigorous, unaffected, and manly style. The principal are, 1. “The Gentile Sinner, or England’s brave gentleman characterised, in a letter to a friend,” 1660, 12mo, a work which was written in a fortnight, in the early part of the author’s life, and has considerable merit both in design and exe^ cution. It has gone through many editions. 2. A “Ca^ techism,” 1674, reprinted in 1738, 8vo, by ibr Rev. John Veneer, rector of St. Andrews, Chichester, with a life of | the author, and other additions, by Veneer. 3. “The vanity of Scoffing-, in a letter to a witty gentleman,” 1674, 4to. 4. “Christianity in short, or the short way to be a good Christian,” 1682, 12mo, oftener reprinted than any of his works. He published some other pious, and some controversial tracts of less importance, enumerated by Wood, several single sermons, and two pieces of poetry, one on the death of George Pitt, esq. Oxford, 1653, 4to, the other on the Restoration, London, 1660, fol. ¹