Fenner, William

, an eminent puritan divine, was born in 1660, and educated at Pembroke-hall, Cambridge, where he took his degree of M. A. and in 1622 was admitted to the same at Oxford. He afterwards took his degree of B. D. and became a preacher at Sedgeley, in Staffordshire. Here he continued for four years, and theu for some time appears to have officiated from place to place, without any promotion, until the earl of Warwick, who was his great friend and patron, presented him to the rectory of Rochford, in Essex, in 1629, which he held until his death, about 1640. Besides his popularity as a preacher, and as a casuist, which was very great, he derived no small posthumous reputation from the sermons and pious tracts which he wrote, none of which appear to have been published in his life-time. They were collected in 1658, in 1 vol. fol. ²