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, a Puritan divine of the seventeenth century, was born in 1585> of an obscure family, at Cassington or Chersington, near Woodstock in Oxfordshire* He was educated in grammar learning at a private school, under the vicar of Yarnton, a mile distant from Cassington and was admitted a student of Brazen-nose college in Oxford in 1602. He continued there about five years, in the condition of a servitor, and under the discipline of a severe tutor and from thence he removed to St. Mary’s hall, and took the degree of bachelor of arts in 1608. Soon after, he was invited into Cheshire, to be tutor to the lady Cholmondeley’s children and here he became acquainted witli some rigid Puritans, whose principles he imbibecL About this time, having got a sum of money, he came up to London, and procured himself to be ordained by an Irish bishop, without subscription. Soon after, he removed into Staffordshire, and in 1610 became curate of Whitmore, a chapel of ease to Stoke. Here he lived in a mean condition, upon a salary of about twenty pounds a year, and the profits of a little school. Mr. Baxter tells us, “he deserved as high esteem and honour as the best bishop in England yet looking after no higher things, but living comfortably and prosperously with these.' 7 He has, among the Puritan writers, the character of an excellent schooldivine, a painful preacher, and a learned and ingenious author and, though he was not well affected to ceremonies and church discipline, yet he wrote against those who thought such matters a sufficient ground for separation, He died the 20th of October, 1640, aged about fifty-five, and was buried in the church of Whitmore. Although he is represented above, on the authority of Ant. Wood, as living in a mean condition, it appears by Clarke’s more ample account, that he was entertained in the house of Edward Mainwaring, esq. a gentleman of Whitmore, and afterwards supplied by him with a house, in which he lived comfortably with a wife and seven children. He was likewise very much employed in teaching, and particularly in, preparing young men for the university. His works are, 1.” A short treatise concerning all the principal grounds of the Christian Religion, &c.“fourteen times printed before the year 1632, and translated into the Turkish language by William Seaman, an English traveller. 2.” A treatise of Faith, in two parts the first shewing the nature, the second, the life of faith,“London, 1631, and 1637, 4to, with a commendatory preface, by Richard Sibbs. 3.” Friendly trial of the grounds tending to Separation, in a plain and modest dispute touching the unlawfulness of stinted Liturgy and set form of Common Prayer, communion in mixed assemblies, and the primitive subject and first receptacle of the power of the keys, &c.“Cambridge, 1640, 4to. 4.” An Answer to two treatises of Mr. John Can, the first entitled A necessity of Separation from the Church of England, proved by the Nonconformist’s principles; the other, A stay against Straying; wherein^ in opposition to Mr. John Robinson, he undertakes to prove the unlawfulness of hearing the ministers of the church of England,“London, 1642, 4to, published by Simeon Ash. The epistle to the reader is subscribed by Thomas Langley, William Rathband, Simeon Ash, Francis Woodcock, and George Croft, Presbyterians. After our author had finished this last book, he undertook a large ecclesiastical treatise, in which he proposed to lay open the nature of schism, and to handle the principal controversies relating to the essence and government of the visible church. He left fifty sheets of this work finished. The whole was too liberal for those of his brethren who were for carrying their nonconformity into hostility against the church. 5.” Trial of the new Church- way in New-England and Old, &c.“London, 1644, 4to. 6.” A treatise of the Covenant of Grace,“London, 1645, 4to, published by his great admirer Simeon Ash. 7.” Of the power of Godliness, both doctrinally and practically handled,“&c. To which are annexed several treatises, as, I. Of the Affections. II. Of the spiritual Combat. III. Of the Government of the Tongue. IV. Of Prayer, with an exposition on the Lord’s Prayer, London, 1657, fol. 8.” A treatise of Divine Meditation," Lond. 1660, 12mo.

, bishop of Edinburgh, was born in 1585, at Aberdeen, where he went through the courses of classical learning and philosophy. He was admitted master of arts at sixteen, and immediately afterwards made professor of logic: he applied himself to support Aristotle’s logic against the Ramists. Afterwards he went to travel, and made a great progress in divinity and the Hebrew language, in the universities of Germ-ant, during the four years he passed in that country. He then visited the university of Leyden, where he was greatly esteemed. His ill state of health not permitting him to undertake a journey into France and Italy, as he would willingly have done, he went over to England. The fame of his learning soon proclaimed him there, so that the university of Oxford offered him a professorship of Hebrew; which, however, he did not accept, because the physicians advised him to return to his native country. The magistrates of Aberdeen expressed a particular esteem for him. He recovered his health, and accepted at first a private cure; but afterwards, being strongly solicited by the inhabitants, went to be preacher in his native city. He was admitted doctor of divinity, when king James, among other regulations, had settled it with the deputies of the clergy, that the academical degrees and dignities should be restored to their ancient course. The labour of preaching hurting his health, they gave him a less painful employment, making hint principal of Markchal-college. He was afterwards dean of the faculty of divinity, and then rector of the university; a post immediately under the chancellor. Then he became pastor at Edinburgh, and was received there with every mark of friendship; but people’s dispositions being changed, from their warm attachment to the antiepiscopal discipline of Geneva, he withdrew himself, and retired to his own country. He was sent for some years after by Charles I. who had caused himself to be crowned at Edinburgh in 1633; and he preached before the monarch with great eloquence and learning. That prince, having founded an episcopal church at Edinburgh, knew of none more worthy to fill the new see than Dr. Forbes. He was consecrated with the usual ceremonies, and applied himself wholly to the functions of his dignity: but fell sick soon after, and died in 1634, after having enjoyed his bishopric only three months.

, born in 1585, was one of the three fanatics whose visions were published at Amsterdam in 1657 (by Comenius, as noticed in his life), with the following title: “Lux in Tenebris.” He lived at Sprottow in Silesia; and his visions began in June 1616. He fancied he saw an angel, under the form of a man, who commanded him to go and declare to the magistrates, that, unless the people repented, the wrath of God would fall dreadfully upon them. His pastor and friends restrained him for some time, nor did he execute his commission, even though the angel had appeared six times; but in 1619, being threatened by the same spirit, he divulged his commission. This brought upon him some ridicule, but his visions continued, and were followed by extasies and prophetic dreams. He waited on the elector Palatine, whom the protestants had declared king of Bohemia, at Breslaw, in 1620, and informed him of his commission, and published it in other places, and, in 1625, at Brandenburg, He became acquainted, the same year, with Comenius, who greatly favoured his prophecies but, as they chiefly presaged happiness to the elector-palatine, and the reverse to the emperor, he became at length obnoxious, and, in 1627, was closely imprisoned, as a seditious impostor, afterwards set on the pillory, and banished the emperor’s dominions. Upon this he went to Lusatia, which was then subject to his electoral highness of Saxony; and lived there unmolested till his death, in 1647. Whether fool, or knave, he was not discouraged from prophesying, though his predictions were continually convicted of falsehood by the event.

, son to the preceding Dr. Peter, and grandson to Dr. William Turner, was born in 1585, and was admitted a probationer fellow of Merton college, Oxford, in 1607, where he proceeded in arts, and not being restricted to any particular faculty, as the fellows of other colleges are, became, according to Wood, versed in all kinds of literature. His first preferment was the professorship of geometry in Gresham college, in July 1620, but he continued to reside mostly at Oxford, and held this place together with his fellowship. In 1629, by the direction of Laud, then bishop of London, he drew up a scheme for the annual election of proctors out of the several colleges at Oxford in a certain order, that was to return every twenty-three years, which being approved of by his majesty, Charles I. was called the Caroline cycle, and is still followed, and always printed at the end of the “Parecbolae sive Excerpta, e corpore statutorum universitatis Oxon.” In the same year he acted as one of the commissioners for revising the statutes, and reducing them to a better form and order. In 1630, on the death of Briggs, Mr. Turner was chosen to succeed him as professor of geometry at Oxford, and resigned his Gresham professorship. How well he was qualified for his new office appears by the character archbishop Usher gives of him, “Savilianus in academia Oxoniensi inatheseos professor eruditissimus.” In 1634 the new edition of the statutes was printed in fol. with a preface by Mr. Turner; and to reward him for his care and trouble, a new office was founded, that of “custos archivorum,” or keeper of the archives, to which he was appointed, and made large collections respecting the antiquities of the university, which were afterwards of great use to Anthony Wood. In 1636, on a royal visit to Oxford, Mr. Turner was created M. D. but having adhered to his majesty in his troubles, and even taken up arms in his cause, he was ejected from his fellowship of Merton, and his professorship. This greatly impoverished him, and he went to reside with a sister, the widow of a Mr. Watts, a brewer in Southwark, where he died in Jan. 1651, and was interred in St. Saviour’s church. He was a man of extensive learning, and wrote much, but being fastidious in his opinion of his own works, he never could complete them to his mind. We have mentioned the only writings he published, except a Latin poem in the collection in honour of sir Thomas Bodley, called the “Bodleiomnema,” Oxf. 1613. Wood also mentions “Epistolae variae ad doctissimos viros;” but we know of no printed letters of his Dr. Ward, however, gives extracts from three ms letters in English to Selden, chiefly relating to some Greek writers on the music of the ancients.