This bio comes from the 8th edition of Flavel’s works, published in 1770, when it was printed by A. Weir, at his shop ‘near the Cross.’ Part one comes today. Part 2, fingers willing, tomorrow.
THE
LIFE
Of the late Reverend
Mr. JOHN FLAVEL
Minister of DARTMOUTH
Those of the name of Flavel derive their pedigree from one who was the third great Officer than came over with William the Conqueror; but this worthy Divine was far from the that weakness and vanity to boast of any thing of that nature; being of the Poet’s mind, who said.
Et genus, et proavos, et quae non fecimus ipsi
Vix ea nostra voco —-*
His father was Mr. Richard Flavel, a painful and eminent minister. He was first minister at Broomsgrove in Worcestershire, then at Hasler, and removed from thence to Willersey in Gloucestershire, where he continued till 1660, when he was outed upon the restoration of king Charles II because it was a sequestered living, and the Incumbent then alive: This did not so much affect Mr. Flavel, as that he wanted a fixed place for the exercise of his pastoral function. Her was person of such extraordinary piety, that those who converted with him, said, They never hear one vain word drop from his mouth. A little before the turning out of the Nonconformist ministers; being near Totness in Devon, he preached from Hosea 7:6
, The days of visitation are come. the days of recompense are come, Israel shall know it. His application was so close, that it offended some people, and occasioned his being carried before the Justices of the Peace; but they could reach him, so that he was discharged. He afterwards quitted that country, and his son’s house, which was his retiring place, and came to London, where he continued in a faithful and acceptable discharge of his office, till the time of the dreadful plague in 1665, that he was taken and imprisoned in the manner following. He was at Mr. Blake’s house in Covent-Garden, when some people had met privately for worship: whilst he was at prayer, a party of soldiers brake in upon them, with their swords drawn and demanded their preacher, threatening some, and flattering others to discover him, but in vain. Some of the company threw a coloured cloak over him., and in this disguise, he was, together with his hearers, carried to Whitehall; the women were dismissed, but the men detained, and forced to ly all that night upon the bare floor; and because they would not pay five pounds each, were sent to Newgate, where the pestilence raged most violently, as in other places of the city. Here Mr. Flavel and his wife were shut up, and seized with the sickness: They were bailed out, but died of the contagion; of which their son John had a divine monition given him by a dream, as we shall observe in its proper place. Mr. Richard Flavel left two sons behind him. both ministers of the gospel, viz. John and Phineas.
John the eldest was born in Worcestershire. It was observable, that while his mother lay-in with him, a nightingale made her nest in the out-side of the chamber-window, where she used to sing most sweetly. He was religiously educated by his father, and having profited well at the grammar schools, was sent early to Oxford, and settled a commoner in University-College. He plied his studies hard, and exceeded many of his contemporaries in university learning.
Soon after his commencing Bachelor of Arts, Mr. Walplate, the minister of Diptford in the county of Devon, was rendered uncapable of performing his office by reason of his age and infirmity, and sent to Oxford for an applicant:Mr. Flavel, tho’ but young, was recommended to him as a person duly qualified, was was accordingly settled there by the standing committee of Devon, April 27, 1650, to preach as a probationer and assistant to Mr. Walplate.
Mr. Flavel considered the weight of his charge, applied himself to the work of his calling with great diligence: and being assiduous in reading, meditation and prayer, he increased in ministerial knowledge daily, (for he found himself that he came raw enough in that respect from the university) so that he attained to an high degree of eminency and reputation for his useful labours in the church.
About six months after his settling at Diptford, he heard of an ordination to be at Salisbury, and therefore went thither with his testimonials, and offered himself to be examined and ordained by the presbytery there. They appointed him a text, upon which he preached to their general satisfaction; and having afterwards examined him as to his learning &c. they set him apart to the work of the ministry with prayer and imposition of hands, on the 17th of October, 1650
Mr. Flavel being thus ordained, returned to Diptford, and after Mr. Walpate’s death succeeded in the rectory. To avoid all incumbrances from the world, and avocations from his studies and ministerial work, he chose a person of worth and reputation on the parish (of whom he had a good assurance the would be faithful to himself, and kind to his parishioners) and let him the wholes tithes much below the real value, which was very well pleasing to his people. By this means he was the better able to deal with them in private, since the hire of his labours was no way a hindrance to the success of them.
Whilst he was at Diptford he married one Mrs. Jean Randal, a pious gentlewoman, of a good family, who died in travail of her first child without being delivered. His year of mourning being expired, his acquaintance and intimate friends advised him to marry a second time, wherein he was again very happy. Sometime after this second marriage, the people of Dartmouth (a great and noted seaport in the county of Devon, formerly under the charge of the Reverend Mr. Anthony Hartford deceased) unanimously chose Mr. Flavel to succeed him. They urged him to accept their call, (1) Because there were exceptions made against all the other candidates, but none against him. (2) because, being acceptable to the whole town, he was the more like to be an instrument of healing the breaches among the the good people there. (3) Because Dartmouth, being a considerable and populous town, required and able and eminent minister, which not so necessary for a country-parish, that might besides be more easily supplied with another pastor than Dartmouth.
That which made them more pressing and earnest with Mr. Flavel, was this; at a provincial synod in that county, Mr. Flavel, tho’ but a young man, was voted into the chair as moderator, where he opened the assembly with a most devout and pertinent prayer; he examined the candidates who offered themselves to their trials for the ministry with great learning, slated the vases and questions proposed to them with much acuteness and judgment, and in the whole demeaned himself with that gravity, piety and seriousness, during his presidency, that all the ministers of the assembly admired and loved him. The Reverend Mr. Hartford, his predecessor at Dartmouth, took particular notice of him, from that time forward contracted a strict friendship with him, and spoe of him among the magistrates and people of Dartmouth, as an extraordinary person, who was like to be a great light in te church. This, with their having several times heard him preached, occasioned their importunity with Mr. Flavel to come and be their minister; upon which having spread his case before the Lord, and submitted to the decision of his neighbouring ministers, he was prevailed upon to remove to Dartmouth, to his great loss in temporals, the rectory of Diptford being at much greater beneficence.
Mr. Flavel being settled at Dartmouth by the election of the people, and an order from Whitehall by the commissioners for approbation of public preachers of the 10th of December, 1656, he was associated with Mr. Allein Geere, a very worthy, but sickly, man. The ministerial work was thus divided betwixt them; Mr. Flavel was to preach on the Lord’s day at Townstall, the mother church standing upon a hill without the town: and every fortnight in his turn at the Wednesday Lecture in Dartmouth. Here God crowned his labours with many conversions. One of his judicious hearers expressed himself thus concerning him;
I could say much, tho’ not enough, of the excellency of his preaching; of his seasonable, suitable and spiritual matter; of his plain expositions of scripture, his taking method, his genuine and natural deductions, his convincing arguments, his clear and powerful demonstrations, his heart-searching applications, and his comfortable supports to those that were afflicted in conscience. In short, that person must have a very soft head, or a very hard heart, or both; that could sit under his ministry unaffected.
By his unwearied application to study, he had acquired a great stock of both divine and human learning. He was master of the controversies betwixt the Jews and Christians, Papists and Protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, and betwixt the Orthodox, and the Arminians and Socinians: He was like-wise well read in the Controversies about Church discipline, Infant-Baptism, and Antinomianism. The was well acquainted with the School-divinity, and thre up a judicious and ingenious scheme of the whole body of that Theology in good Latin, which he presented to a person of quality, but it was never printed. He had one way of improving his knowledge, which is very proper for young divines; whatever remarkable passage he heard in private conference, if he was familiar with the relator, he would desire him to repeat it again, and insert into it his Adversaria**: By these methods he acquired a vast stock of proper materials for his popular sermons in the pulpit, and his more elaborate works for the press.
He had an excellent gift of prayer, and was never at a loss in all his various occasions for suitable matter and words: and. which was the most remarkable of all, he always brought with him a broken heart and moving affections; his tongue and spirit were touched with a live coal from the altar, and he was Evidently assisted by the holy Spirit of grace and supplication in that divine ordinance. Those who lived in his family, say, that he was always full and copious in prayer, seemed constantly to exceed himself, and rarely made use twice of the same expressions.
When the act of uniformity turned him out with the rest of his nonconforming brethren, he did not thereupon quit his relation to the church, he thought the souls of his flock to be more precious than to be so tamely neglected: he took all opportunities of ministering the word and sacraments to them in private meetings, and joined with other ministers in solemn days of fasting and humiliation, to pray that God would once more restore the ark of his covenant unto his afflicted Israel. About four months after that fateful Bartholomew day, his reverend colleague, Mr. Allein Greere died: sp that the whole care of the flock devolved upon Mr. Flavel, which tho’ a heavy and pressing burden, he undertook very cheerfully.
Upon the execution of the Oxford act, which banished all nonconformist ministers five miles away from any towns which sent members to parliament, he was forced to leave Dartmouth, to the great sorrow of his people, who followed him out of town; and at Townstall church-yard they took such a mournful farewell of one another, as the place might very well have been called Bochim. He removed to Slapton, a parish five miles from Dartmouth, or any other corporation, which put him out of the legal reach of his adversaries: here he met with signal instances of God’s fatherly care and protection, and preached twice every Lord;s day to such as durst adventure to hear him, which many of his own people and others did, notwithstanding the rigour and severity of the act against conventicles. He many times slipped privately into Dartmouth, where by preaching and conversation he edified the flock, to the great refreshment of his own soul and theirs, tho’ with very much danger, because of his watchful adversaries, who constantly laid wait for him, so that he could not make any long stay in the town.
In those times, Mr. Flavel being at Exeter, was invited to preach by many good people of that city, who for safety chose a wood about three miles from the city so to be the place of their assembly, where they were broke up by their enemies by the time the sermon was begun. Mr. Flavel, by the care of his people, made his escape through the middle of his enraging enemies: and tho’ many of his hearers were taken, carried before Justice Tuckfield, and fined: yet the rest, being nothing discouraged, re-assembled, and carrying Mr. Flavel to another wood, he preached to them without any disturbance; and, after he had concluded, rode to a gentleman’s house near the wood, who, tho’ an absolute stranger to Mr. Flavel, entertained him with great civility that night, and the next day he returned to Exeter in safety. Amongst those taken at this time, there was a Tanner who had a numerous family, and but a small stock; he was fined notwithstanding in forty pound; at which he was nothing discouraged, but told a friend, who asked him how he bore up under his loss, That he took the spoiling of his goods joyfully, for the sake of his Lord Jesus, for whom his life and all that he had was too little.
(Part 1 of 3)
* Birth and ancestry, and that which we have not ourselves achieved, we can scarcely call our own. Ovid’s Metamorphoses (XIII, 140) [ed.]
** A miscellaneous collection of notes, remarks, or selections; a commonplace book; also, commentaries or notes. "adversaria." Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary. MICRA, Inc. 28 Jan. 2008. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adversaria>.
