Reformed Churchmen

We are Confessional Calvinists and a Prayer Book Church-people. In 2012, we remembered the 350th anniversary of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer; also, we remembered the 450th anniversary of John Jewel's sober, scholarly, and Reformed "An Apology of the Church of England." In 2013, we remembered the publication of the "Heidelberg Catechism" and the influence of Reformed theologians in England, including Heinrich Bullinger's Decades. For 2014: Tyndale's NT translation. For 2015, John Roger, Rowland Taylor and Bishop John Hooper's martyrdom, burned at the stakes. Books of the month. December 2014: Alan Jacob's "Book of Common Prayer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Common-Prayer-Biography-Religious/dp/0691154813/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1417814005&sr=8-1&keywords=jacobs+book+of+common+prayer. January 2015: A.F. Pollard's "Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation: 1489-1556" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-English-Reformation-1489-1556/dp/1592448658/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1420055574&sr=8-1&keywords=A.F.+Pollard+Cranmer. February 2015: Jaspar Ridley's "Thomas Cranmer" at: http://www.amazon.com/Thomas-Cranmer-Jasper-Ridley/dp/0198212879/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1422892154&sr=8-1&keywords=jasper+ridley+cranmer&pebp=1422892151110&peasin=198212879

Saturday, August 16, 2014

16 August 1661 A.D. Rev. Thomas Fuller Dies—Royalist Chaplain, Anglican Clergyman, Scholar, and Historian


16 August 1661 A.D.  Rev. Thomas Fuller Dies—Royalist Chaplain, Anglican Clergyman, Scholar, and Historian


Editors. “Thomas Fuller.”  Encyclopedia Britannica. 25 Jul 2013. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/221911/Thomas-Fuller.  Accessed 17 May 2014.

Thomas Fuller,  (born June 19, 1608, Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, Eng.—died Aug. 16, 1661, London), British scholar, preacher, and one of the most witty and prolific authors of the 17th century.

Fuller was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge (M.A., 1628; B.D., 1635). Achieving great repute in the pulpit, he was appointed preacher at the Chapel Royal, Savoy, London, in 1641. He officiated there until 1643, when the deteriorating political situation, which had led to the first battles of the English Civil Wars a year before, forced him to leave London for Oxford.

For a time during the fighting, he served as chaplain to the Royalist army and, for nearly two years, was in attendance on the household of the infant princess Henrietta at Exeter. He returned to London in 1646 and wrote Andronicus, or the Unfortunate Politician (1646), a satire against Oliver Cromwell. In 1649 he was given the parish of Waltham Abbey, Essex, where he became a friend of the other leading biographer of the age, Izaak Walton.

Fuller was again appointed to a pulpit in London (1652). There he completed The Church-History of Britain (1655), notable for its number of excellent character sketches, and added to it The History of the University of Cambridge and The History of Waltham-Abbey in Essex (1655). In 1658 he was given the parish of Cranford, near London, and continued to preach in the capital. Upon the reestablishment of the monarchy (1660), all Fuller’s ecclesiastical privileges were restored, and he became a doctor of divinity at Cambridge.

By enriching his factual accounts with descriptions of psychological oddities and other details of human interest, Fuller widened the scope of English biographical writing. His History of the Worthies of England, published posthumously in 1662, was the first attempt at a dictionary of national biography. He was also a historian who gathered facts from original sources, producing works that provide much valuable antiquarian information. He acquired a reputation for quaintness because his writings abound with epigrams, anecdotes, puns, and other conceits, but he also paid careful attention to literary form.

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