was descended from an ancient family, which is said to remain in Norfolk and Somersetshire, and was born in 1576. He was educated at Christ-church college, in Cambridge,
, a divine in the reigns of king James
and Charles I. and famous for his casuistical and controversial writings, but much more so abroad than in his own
country, was descended from an ancient family, which is
said to remain in Norfolk and Somersetshire, and was born
in 1576. He was educated at Christ-church college, in
Cambridge, under the celebrated champion of Calvinism,
Mr. William Perkins, and this gave a rigid strictness to
his opinions, which was not agreeable to some of his associates in the university. One instance of this is given by
Fuller, which we shall transcribe as recording a feature in
the manners of the times. He says, that “about the year
1610-11, this Mr. Ames, preaching at St. Mary’s, took
occasion to inveigh against the liberty taken at that time;
especially in those colleges which had lords of misrule, a
Pagan relique; which, he said, as Polydore Vergil has
observed, remains only in England. Hence he proceeded
to condemn all playing at cards and dice anirming that
the latter, in all ages, was accounted the device of the
devil and that as God invented the one-and-twenty letters
whereof he made the bible, the devil, saith an author,
found out the one-and-twenty spots on the die that canon
law forbad the use of the same saying Inventio Diaboli
nulla consuetudine. potest validari. His sermon,
” continues
our author, “gave much offence to many of his auditors
the rather because in him there was a concurrence of much
nonconformity insomuch that, to prevent an expulsion
from Dr. Val. Gary, the master, he fairly forsook the col
lege, which proved unto him neither loss nor disgrace
being, not long after, by the States of Friesland, chosen
Professor of their university.
” There seems, however,
some mistake in this, and Dr. Maclaine has increased it by
asserting in his notes on Mosheim’s Ecclesiastical history,
that Ames fled to Franeker to avoid the persecution of
archbishop Bancroft. This prelate certainly pressed conformity on the Puritans as much as he could, but a
man who only preached against cards and dice could
have nothing to fear from him. The fact was, that
the archbishop died some months before this sermon at
St. Mary’s.
, a learned divine, was born in 1576, at Cobelen in Misnia, of a noble and ancient family.
, a learned divine, was born in
1576, at Cobelen in Misnia, of a noble and ancient family.
He was appointed minister at Eisleben, then preacher to
the duchess dowager of Saxony, and afterwards superintendant of Weimar, where he died in 1643, leaving, “Harmonia Evangelistarum
” “Examen Libri Christianas Concordiae
” “Historiae Ecclesise compendium
” and a valuable paraphrase on the book of Jeremiah and the Lamentations, which is in the Bible of Weimar.
, son of the preceding, born in 1576, at Pavia, entered among the Jesuits at the age of seventeen,
, son of the preceding,
born in 1576, at Pavia, entered among the Jesuits at the
age of seventeen, and died at Rome, February 4, 1656,
aged eighty, leaving, “Institutions, political and ceconomical,
” taken from the Holy Scriptures a good treatise
“On the Hebrew Republic
” and a “Commentary on the
Bible,
” the best edition of which is by Pere Tournemine,
a Jesuit, 1719, 2 vols. folio. All the above are in Latin.