broad, and indeed he was the pioneer of a principle which afterwards became the symbol of the most liberal section of English dissent. His ‘Christology’ (1705–8) shows that while himself orthodox on the person of Christ, he was resolutely opposed to any form of subscription. He held the tenet of the pre-existence of our Lord's human soul.
Fleming inherited from his father a strong taste for studies directed by the aim of tracing the divine hand in history. To the speculations advanced in his ‘Apocalyptical Key’ (1701) he chiefly owes his posthumous fame. In 1793, and again in 1848, attention was directed to the apparent historical verification of some of his conjectures. He predicted the fall of the French monarchy by 1794 at latest, and fixed on a period ‘about the year 1848’ as the date at which the papacy would receive a fatal, though not immediately destructive blow. Fleming makes no pretensions to the character of a prophet; his speculations are put forward with the modesty of a devout student of history and scripture.
A serious illness laid Fleming aside for a time. On his recovery he paid a visit to Holland, where he took some part in political negotiations in the protestant interest. He returned, shortly before the accession of King George, in improved but still uncertain health. His weakness increased, and he died on 21 May 1716. Joshua Oldfield, D.D., preached his funeral sermon. He left a widow and several children.
He published: 1. ‘The Mirror of Divine Love … a poetical Paraphrase on the .., Song of Solomon … other Poems,’ &c., 1691, 8vo. 2. ‘An Epistolary Discourse … with a Second Part,’ &c., 1692, 8vo. 3. ‘A Discourse on Earthquakes,’ &c., 1693, 8vo; reprinted 1793. 4. ‘The Rod and the Sword,’ &c., 1694, 8vo; reprinted 1701 and 1793. 5. ‘Apocalyptical Key. An extraordinary Discourse on the Rise and Fall of Papacy,’ &c., 1701, 8vo (dedicated to Lord Carmichael); reprinted 1793, and Edinb. 1849, with memoir by Thomas Thomson. 6. ‘Discourses on Several Subjects,’ 1701, 8vo (includes No. 5). 7. ‘A Brief Account of Religion,’ &c., 1701, 8vo. 8. ‘Christology,’ &c., vol. i. 1705, 8vo (dedicated to Queen Anne); vols. ii. and iii., 1708, 8vo; an abridgment was published in one vol., Edinb. 1795, 8vo. 9. ‘The History of Hereditary Right,’ &c., 8vo (anon.; not seen; mentioned by Wilson). Also eight separate sermons at funerals and special occasions between 1688 and 1716.
[General Preface to Fleming's Christology, 1701 (many biographical details); Oldfield's Funeral Sermon, 1716; Protestant Dissenter's Magazine, 1799, p. 431; Wilson's Dissenting Churches, 1808, ii. 468 sq.; Calamy's Hist. Acc. of My Own Life, 1830, i. 441, ii. 63, 363; Thomson's Memoir, 1849; Anderson's Scottish Nation, 1870, ii. 222 sq.]
FLEMING, Sir THOMAS (1544–1613), judge, son of John Fleming of Newport, Isle of Wight, by his wife, Dorothy Harris, was born at Newport in April 1544. He entered Lincoln's Inn on 12 May 1567, and was called to the bar there on 24 June 1574. In 1579 he was sent to Guernsey as commissioner to inquire into certain alleged abuses connected with the administration of the island. He entered parliament in 1584 as member for Winchester, of which place he was then recorder. He was re-elected for the same borough in 1586 and 1588. In 1587 he was made a bencher of his inn, and in Lent 1590 discharged the duties of reader there. He retained his seat for Winchester at the election of 1592. On 29 Nov. 1593 he was called to the degree of serjeant-at-law. On 27 March 1594 he succeeded Serjeant Drew as recorder of London (Index to Remembrancia, 93). A speech delivered by him in that capacity on presenting the lord mayor, Sir John Spencer, to the court of exchequer will be found in Nichols's ‘Progresses of Elizabeth,’ iii. 254. It is eminently judicious in tone, as may be judged by the following extract: ‘He that taketh upon him the office of a magistrate is like to a good man to whose custody a precious jewel is committed; he taketh it not to retain and challenge it for his own, nor to abuse it while he hath it, but safely to keep, and faithfully to render it to him that deposed it when he shall be required. He must do all things not for his private lucre, but for the public's good preservation and safe custody of those committed to his charge, that he may restore them to him that credited in a better and more happy state, it may be, than he received them.’ On 5 Nov. 1595 he was appointed to the solicitor-generalship over the head of Bacon, who acknowledged that he was an ‘able man’ (Spedding, Letters and Life of Bacon, i. 365, 369). In this capacity, in 1596, he assisted Sir Edward Coke, attorney-general, in taking the confession of Sir John Smith [q. v.], sometime ambassador to the king of Spain in the Netherlands, who had been committed to the Tower for having, as by his confession he admitted, on 12 June 1596, in company with his kinsman, Seymour, the second son of the Earl of Hertford, incited the militia in the neighbourhood of Colchester to mutiny. He also assisted in the examination of John Gerard, a jesuit charged with blasphemy, on 13 May 1597 (Strype, Annals (fol.), iv. 297–300). On 26 Sept. following he was
