Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bushell, Seth
BUSHELL, SETH, D.D. (1621–1684), divine, the only son of Adam Bushell, of Kuerden, near Preston, by his wife Alice, daughter of John Loggan, of Garstang, was born in the year 1621. At the age of eighteen he became a commoner of St. Mary Hall, Oxford, and lived at the university until Oxford was garrisoned by King Charles's forces, when he returned to Lancashire. In 1654 he is mentioned as minister of Whitley, in Yorkshire, a living which has not been identified. In that year he was at Oxford, and took his B.A. and M.A. His further degrees of B.D. and D.D. were conferred in 1665 and 1672. In 1664 he was vicar of Preston, and continued there until 1682. He was also incumbent of Euxton before 27 Nov. 1649, to which place he succeeded by an order from the committee for plundered ministers. In 1682 he was appointed vicar of Lancaster, where he died 6 Nov. 1684, aged 63. He was a loyal, pious, and charitable man, courteous to the dissenters and respected by them. 'He discouraged persecution for religion, or prosecution of any of his parish for what was customary due,' as one of his quaker parishioners records. He was twice married—first to Mary, daughter of Roger Farrington, and secondly to Mary, daughter of William Stansfield, of Euxton—and was father of the Rev. William Bushell, incumbent of Goosnargh 1715–1721, and rector of Heysham, and grandfather of William Bushell, M.D., founder of the Goosnargh Hospital. There is a Latin epitaph to the memory of Dr. Seth Bushell in Lancaster parish church.
His published writings are: 1. 'A Warning-piece for the Unruly; in two Discourses, at the Metropolitical Visitation of Richard, Lord Archbishop of York, held at Preston, in Lancashire, and there preached May 8,' London, 1673 (4to). 2. 'The Believer's Groan for Heaven; in a Sermon at the Funeral of the Honourable Sir Rich. Hoghton, of Hoghton, Baronet, preached at Preston in Amounderness,' London, 1678 (4to). 3. A sermon preached on 25 Jan. 1658, which George Fox answered in his book, 'The Great Mystery of the Great Whore Unfolded,' 1659. 4. 'Cosmo-Meros, the Worldly Portion; or the best Portion of the Wicked and their Misery in the Enjoyment of it Opened and Applied. Together with some Directions and Helps in order to a Heavenly and Better Portion, enforced with many useful and divine considerations,' London, 1682 (12mo). He also wrote the preface to R. Towne's 'Reassertion of Grace,' &c. 1654, 4to. Bliss mentions a Latin dissertation, 'De Redemptions,' by him in the Cole MSS. in the British Museum.
[Wood's Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, iv. 161–2; Raines's Notitia Cestriensis (Chetham Society), xxii. 384, 428, 442; Lancashire and Cheshire Church Surveys (Record Society), p. 102; Fishwick's Hist, of Goosnargh, pp. 122–4; Fishwick's Lancashire Library, pp. 385–6; Autob. of William Stout, ed. Harland, p. 12.]
Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.46
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
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| 35 | i | 35 | Bushell, Seth: for and M.A. read He proceeded M.A. 1655 |