FLEETWOOD, William, a learned English bishop, descended of an ancient family in Lancashire, was born in the Tower of London, where his father resided, on the 21st of January 1656. He received his education at Eton, and at King’s College, Cambridge. About the time of the Revolution he entered into holy orders, and having soon become a distinguished preacher, was appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary. By the interest of Dr Godolphin, vice-provost of Eton, and residentiary of St Paul’s, he was appointed rector of St Austin’s, London, which is in the gift of the dean and chapter of St Paul’s; and soon afterwards he also obtained the lectureship of St Dunstan’s in the West. In 1691 he published his Inscriptionum Antiquarum Sylloge, in two parts; one containing remarkable Pagan inscriptions, and the other ancient Christian monuments. In 1692 he published a translation of Jurieu’s Plain Method of Christian Devotion, the twenty-seventh edition of which was printed in 1750. In 1701 appeared his Essay on Miracles, which called forth the animadversions of several writers, particularly Hoadly. In 1704 he published anonymously, The Reasonable Communicant; and in 1705, Sixteen Practical Discourses on the relative duties of parents and children, husbands and wives, masters and servants, with three sermons on the case of self-murder. Having a natural inclination for the study of British history and antiquities, he gave a specimen of his skill in these pursuits by publishing, in 1707, his Chronico Preciosum, containing an account of the English money, the price of corn and other commodities, for the preceding six hundred years. In the previous year he had, without any solicitation on his part, been nominated to the see of St Asaph, upon the death of Beveridge; but he was not consecrated until June 1708. His conduct as a bishop was highly exemplary, and such as became the episcopal character. In 1710 he published a vindication of the thirteenth chapter to the Romans, upon the authority of which the regal dignity had been so magnified by some as to make tyranny seem an ordinance of God, an to represent the most abject slavery as founded upon the principles of religion. This degrading doctrine was highly offensive to Bishop Fleetwood, who, in this tract, contends that, in the chapter referred to, St Paul requires of no pθθ ple any more submission to the higher powers than t a which is enjoined by the laws of their several countries.
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In 1712 he published Four Sermons, one on the death of Queen Mary in 1694, another on that of the Duke of Gloucester in 1700, a third on that of King William in 1701, and a fourth on the accession of Queen Anne; and also, the same year, an anonymous tract on Lay Baptism, according to the Church of England, a subject which then engaged a good deal of attention. The Life and Miracles of St Wenefrede, together with her Litanies, appeared in 1713, likewise without his name; the object of which was to expose the absurd superstitions by which weak minds are apt to be influenced, and, in particular, to show the delusions which had been practised under the names of pretended saints. In 1714 he was translated from the see of St Asaph to that of Ely, vacant by the death of Dr Moore, and continued there till his death, which took place at Tottenham, Middlesex, on the 4th of August 1723. The remaining works of Bishop Fleetwood are these: 1. The Chancellor’s Plea in the Divorce of Sir G. Downing, 1715; 2. Papists not excluded from the Throne on account of Religion, 1717; 3. A Letter from Mr T. Burdett, executed at Tyburn for the murder of Captain Falkner, to some attorneys’ clerks of his acquaintance, 1717; 4. A Letter to an Inhabitant of the Parish of St Andrews, Holborn, about New Ceremonies in the Church, 1717; and, 5. A Defence of Praying before Sermon, as directed by the fifty-fifth canon. All these tracts, however, were published without the author’s name. Bishop Fleetwood’s character stood deservedly high in general estimation. His virtue was without any alloy of fanaticism, and his piety wholly untinctured with superstition. He was the friend of liberty and learning, equally zealous in defending the one and in encouraging the other. He assisted Dr Hickes in his great work, Linguarum veterum Septentrionalium Thesaurus; and Hearne confesses himself to have been under many obligations to the same excellent person. In a professional point of view he was unquestionably the best preacher of his time; and his occasional sermons exhibit a felicity of adaptation to the circumstances that had called them forth, which we should perhaps seek for in vain in any other compositions of the kind. In a word, Dr Fleetwood was an honour to the church, of which he was a distinguished member, and an ornament to a hierarchy which has been illustrated by some of the greatest names to be found in the history of English literature. (a.)