Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 58.djvu/369

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Vincent
361
Vincent

expenditure of 200l., Vincent was released, but so weakened from illness that he was long unable to preach (Letter to his Congregation, 24 June 1683). He was again arrested in February 1686, this time on an improbable charge of being concerned in Monmouth's rebellion (Wood, Life and Times, ed. Clark, iii. 179). Some of his books were written in prison; thus 'his pen was going when his tongue could not.'

Vincent died suddenly on 22 June 1697, in the fifty-ninth year of his age. He was buried at Bunhill Fields (Inscriptions on Tombs in Bunhill Fields, 1717, p. 34). His funeral sermon was preached by Nathaniel Taylor. His wife Anna and six children were living in 1682. A daughter Anna married, on 4 Dec. 1695, Dennis Herbert, jun., of London (Harl. Soc. Publ. xxiv. 217).

Wood's encomium on Vincent is unusually high: 'He was of smarter, more brisk, and florid parts than most of his dull and sluggish fraternity can reasonably pretend to; of a facetious and jolly humour, and a considerable scholar.' He wrote: 1. 'The Conversion of a Sinner Explained and Applied,' London, 1669, 8vo; with which is published 2. 'The Day of Grace' (same date). 3. 'A Covert from the Storm,' London, 1671, 8vo (written in prison). 4. 'The Spirit of Prayer,' London, 1674, 8vo; republished, 1677, 8vo; 5th edit. 1699; other edits. Saffron Walden, ed. J. H. Hopkins, 1815, London, 1825. 5. 'A Heaven or Hell upon Earth,' London, 1676, 8vo. 6. 'The Little Child's Catechism, whereunto is added several Short Histories,' 1681, 12mo. 7. 'The True Touchstone,' London, 1681, 8vo. 8. 'The More Excellent Way,' London, 1684. 9. 'A Warning given to secure Sinners,' London, 1688, 8vo. 10. 'The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ: a Catechism,' London, 1691, 8vo. 11. 'A Present for such as have been Sick' (sermons preached after his recovery from sickness), London, 1693. 12. 'The Cure of Distractions in attending upon God.' 13. 'The Love of the World cured.' 14. 'Worthy Walking.' The dates of the last three do not appear. Sermons by Vincent are in Annesley's 'Continuation of Morning Exercises,' London, 1683, and in his 'Casuistical Morning Exercises,' London, 1690; reprinted in vols. iv., v., and vi. of Nichols's edition, London, 1814-5, 8vo. Vincent was much in request for preaching funeral sermons; five or six were printed in quarto. He edited the 'Morning Exercise against Popery' (London, 1675, 4to), twenty- five sermons preached in his pulpit at Southwark by eminent divines.

Another Nathaniel Vincent, of Clare College, Cambridge, graduated M.A. in 1660, and was created S.T.P. and D.D. per literas regias in 1679 (Cantabr. Grad. p. 400), was appointed chaplain in ordinary to Charles II, and on 4 Oct. 1674 gave great offence to the king by preaching before him a sermon, 'The Right Notion of Honour' (London, 1685, 4to), in long periwig and holland sleeves (cf. Wood, Life and Times, ii. 297). He ceased to be a royal chaplain on Charles's death (cf. Addit. MS. 15949, ff. 7, 8).

[Clark's Indexes, vol. ii. pt. i. p. 280, pt. ii. p. 308; Foster's Alumni (1500-1714); Neal's Puritans, iii. 521; Calamy's Continuation, i. 30; Alumni Westmon. p. 129; Burrows's Visitation, pp. 171, 173, 369, 477; Bloxam's Reg. of Magd. Coll. v. 208; Palmer's Nonconf. Mem. i. 304; Wood's Athenae Oxon. iv. 617 ; Wilson's Hist. of Diss. Churches, iv. 304 (this is the most accurate account); Cal. State Papers, Dom. Add. 1660-70 pp. 273, 388, 464, 1671 p. 556; Taylor's Funeral Sermon, 1697, 4to; Wood's Life and Times (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii. 561 ; Hist. MSS. Comm. 11th Rep. App. p. 46; Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. ix. 267.]

C. F. S.

VINCENT, PHILIP (fl. 1638), author, is probably identical with Philip Vincent, baptised on 23 Nov. 1600 at Frisby in the parish of Conisborough in Yorkshire. He was the second son of Richard Vincent (d. 1617), a student of Gray's Inn, and grandson of Richard Vincent who served in the French wars and was a younger son of the family of Vincent of Braywell, near Frisby. Philip's mother, Elizabeth, was a daughter of Thomas Rokeby of Hotham, and was married to Richard Vincent on 23 Sept. 1595. Philip was educated at Peterhouse, Cambridge. In 1625 he was presented by Sir Francis Vincent to the rectory of Stoke D'Abernon in Surrey, which he resigned on 17 Aug. 1629.

Vincent was the author of ‘A True Relation of the late Battell fought in New-England between the English and the Pequet Salvages,’ London, 1638, 8vo. It was prefaced by some Latin verses by the author, signed P. Vincentius. The author states that he had previously visited Guiana, and, as his narrative of the troubles in New England bears many marks of being written by an eye-witness, he in all likelihood arrived in New England not later than 1632. His work was reprinted by the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1836 in their ‘Collections’ (3rd ser. vol. vi.).

In 1638 appeared also ‘The Lamentations of Germany, wherein, as in a Glasse, we may behold her miserable condition. Composed by Dr. Vincent, Theol.,’ London, 4to, with a preface signed ‘P. Vincent.’ The author speaks