Sedgwick, Odadiah

, a nonconformist divine, was born at Marlborough in Wiltshire, in 1600, and educated first at Queen’s college, and then at Magdalen-hall, Oxford. After taking his degrees in arts, he was ordained, and became chaplain to lord Horatio Vere, whom he accompanied into the Netherlands. After his return, he went again to Oxford, and was admitted to the reading of the sentences in 1629. Going then to London he preached at St. Mildred’s, Bread-street, until interrupted by the bishop, and in 1639 became vicar of Coggeshall in Essex, where he continued three or four years. The commencement of the rebellion allowing men of his sentiments | unconstrained liberty, he returned to London, and preached frequently before the parliament, inveighing with extreme violence against the church and state: to the overthrow of both, his biographers cannot deny that he contributed his full share, in the various characters of one of the assembly of divines, a chaplain in the army, one of the triers, and pne of the ejectors of those who were called “ignorant and scandalous ministers.” In 1646 he became preacher at St. Paul’s, Covent-garden, where he appears to have continued until the decay of his health, when he retired to Marl borough, and died there in January 1658. As a divine, he was much admired in his day, and his printed works had considerable popularity. The principal of them are, “The Fountain opened,” 1657; “An exposition of Psalm xxiii.” 1658, 4to; “The Anatomy of Secret Sins,” 1660; “The Parable of the Prodigal,” 1660; “Synopsis of Christianity,” &c. &c. He had a brother, John, an ad*, herent to the "parliamentary cause, and a preacher, but of less note; and another brother Joseph, who became batler in Magdalen college in 1634, and B.A. in 1637, and then went to Cambridge, where he took his master’s degree, and, was elected fellow of Christ’s college. After the restora-^ tion he conformed, and was beneficed in the church; in 1675 he was made prebendary of Lincoln, and was also rector of Fisherton, where he died Sept. 22, 1702, in the seventy-fourth year of his age, leaving a son John Sedgwick, who succeeded him in the prebend, and was vicar of Burton Pedvvardine in Lincolnshire, where he died in 1717. ¹