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Robert Nelson (22 June 1656 – 16 January 1715) was an English lay religious writer and nonjuror.


Life

He was born in London on 22 June 1656, the only surviving son of John Nelson, a merchant in the Turkey trade, by Delicia, daughter of Sir Lewis and sister of Sir
Gabriel Roberts Gabriel Roberts (c. 1665–c.1744) of Ampthill, Bedfordshire, was an official of the East India Company and politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1713 and 1734. Roberts was the second son of William Roberts, vintner, of St. Katherin ...
, who, like John Nelson, were members of the
Levant Company The Levant Company was an English chartered company formed in 1592. Elizabeth I of England approved its initial charter on 11 September 1592 when the Venice Company (1583) and the Turkey Company (1581) merged, because their charters had expired, ...
. John Nelson died on 4 September 1657, leaving a good fortune to his son. His mother sent Robert for a time to St Paul's School, but then took him home. She settled at Driffield Gloucestershire, the home of her sister Anne, wife of George Hanger, also a member of the Levant Company. Here George Bull, then rector of Siddington in the neighbourhood, acted as his tutor. He entered Trinity College, Cambridge, as fellow commoner in 1678, but never resided. As early as 1680 he began an affectionate correspondence with John Tillotson, who was a friend of Sir Gabriel Roberts. He was chosen a fellow of the Royal Society on 1 April 1680. He then went to Paris, accompanied by his schoolfellow, Edmund Halley, and afterwards made the grand tour, returning in August 1682. During his travels he met at Rome Lady Theophila Lucy, widow of Sir Kingsmill Lucy, 2nd Baronet, of Broxbourne, Hertfordshire, and second daughter of George Berkeley, 1st Earl of Berkeley. She had
a son ''A Son'', also known as ''Bik Eneich: Un fils'' (a combination of the original Arabic and French titles: ar, بيك نعيش, Byk n'eysh; french: Un fils) is a 2019 film directed by Mehdi Barsaoui in his feature film debut and co-produced betwee ...
twelve years old by her first husband, and was two years Nelson's senior. He married her on 23 November 1682, the marriage having been postponed for a time in consequence of the elopement of her sister with Lord Grey of Werke. She had, it is said, been converted to Catholicism at Rome by Cardinal Philip Howard, and Nelson was not aware of this until after their marriage; but it may have been later. A ''Discourse concerning a Judge of Controversy in matters of Religion'', published in 1686, upon the Roman Catholic side of the question, is ascribed to her, and in the next year Nelson wrote against transubstantiation. He took Theophila to
Aix-la-Chapelle Aachen ( ; ; Aachen dialect: ''Oche'' ; French and traditional English: Aix-la-Chapelle; or ''Aquisgranum''; nl, Aken ; Polish: Akwizgran) is, with around 249,000 inhabitants, the 13th-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia, and the 28th- ...
on account of her health. He left her there during a visit to England in 1688; but the
Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution; gd, Rèabhlaid Ghlòrmhor; cy, Chwyldro Gogoneddus , also known as the ''Glorieuze Overtocht'' or ''Glorious Crossing'' in the Netherlands, is the sequence of events leading to the deposition of King James II and ...
made him return to the continent. He travelled, with his wife and her son and daughter by her first marriage, to Rome. He lived for a time at Florence, and corresponded with
John Drummond, 1st Earl of Melfort John Drummond, 1st Earl of Melfort, styled Duke of Melfort in the Jacobite peerage (8 August 1650 - 25 January 1715), was a Scottish politician and close advisor to James II. A Catholic convert, Melfort and his brother the Earl of Perth consiste ...
, James II's envoy to the Pope. He was a Jacobite in his sympathies, though not engaged in any active measures. He returned by way of Germany and the Hague to England in 1691, and settled at
Blackheath Blackheath may refer to: Places England *Blackheath, London, England ** Blackheath railway station **Hundred of Blackheath, Kent, an ancient hundred in the north west of the county of Kent, England *Blackheath, Surrey, England ** Hundred of Blackh ...
. Tillotson died in his arms on 22 November 1694. He had meanwhile joined the nonjurors. He became very intimate after 1691 with John Kettlewell, the nonjuring divine, and Kettlewell, dying in 1695, made him his executor. It was by Kettlewell's advice that he began the religious writings by which he is best known, and he supplied
Francis Lee Francis Lee may refer to: *Francis Lee (director), English actor and film director of ''God's Own Country'' *Francis Lee (footballer) (1944–2023), English professional footballer. *Francis Lee (physician) (1661–1719), English writer known for h ...
with materials for Kettlewell's life. Through Kettlewell he came to know
George Hickes George Hickes may refer to: * George Hickes (divine) (1642–1715), English divine and scholar * George Hickes (Manitoba politician) (born 1946), Canadian politician * George Hickes (Nunavut politician) George Hickes, Jr. is a Canadian politi ...
, and he was soon in close communication with all the nonjuring circle: Henry Dodwell, Jeremy Collier, Charles Leslie, Francis Brokesby, and others. He remained, however, on good terms with many of the clergy of the established church, and took an active part in various charitable enterprises. He supported the religious societies founded by Anthony Horneck, and the allied
Societies for the Reformation of Manners The Society for the Reformation of Manners was founded in the Tower Hamlets area of London in 1691.Thomas Bray; the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, founded 1698; the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, founded 1701; and the 'Associates of Dr. Bray,' a society which especially aimed at providing parochial libraries. He was active in the movement for establishing charity schools, originally begun by Archbishop Thomas Tenison in the time of James II, and carried on with great success during the reign of Queen Anne. In 1710 he was one of the commissioners appointed by the tory House of Commons to build fifty new churches in London. He had left Blackheath in 1703, and lived in Ormond Street. His mother died at the end of 1703, and his wife on 26 January 1706, leaving her fortune to him. Nelson, with Dodwell and Brokesby, left the nonjurors on the death of William Lloyd, the last of the deprived bishops except Thomas Ken. Ken expressed to Nelson his desire that the schism should end, and Nelson on Easter Day 1710 received the sacrament from his friend John Sharp, the Archbishop of York . He did not join, however, in the prayers for the royal family, and in 1713 he helped to prepare for the press the Jacobite treatise of
George Harbin George Harbin (c.1665-1744) was an English clergyman, a nonjuror and significant political writer. Life He graduated B.A. at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, in 1686, took holy orders, and became chaplain to Francis Turner, Bishop of Ely. At the Gl ...
on ''Hereditary Right''. He died at
Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...
in the house of his cousin, Delicia, then Mrs. Wolf, daughter of Sir Gabriel Roberts, on 16 January 1715. He was the first person buried at a new cemetery in
Lamb's Conduit Fields Lamb's Conduit Field, also known as Lamb's Conduit Fields was an open area in what is now the London Borough of Camden. The fields lay north of the Lamb's Conduit water feature that gave it its name, and lay mostly in the parish of St Pancras. It ...
. A monument was erected on the spot, with a long inscription by George Smalridge, bishop of Bristol. It was restored in 1839, when threatened with demolition by the vestry of St. George the Martyr.


Works

Nelson became known during the reign of Queen Anne for his religious writings, some of which were circulated by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. On the death of his old tutor George Bull, on 27 February 1710, Nelson undertook to write a life, which appeared in 1713. Nelson had been acquainted with Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet, to whom he had sent Bull's writings, and a letter written to Nelson by Bossuet in 1700 contained the challenge to which Bull replied in a letter published in Hickes's ''Controversial Letters'', 1705. Nelson's investigation, in his life of Bull, of the use made of Bull's work on the
Nicene Creed The original Nicene Creed (; grc-gre, Σύμβολον τῆς Νικαίας; la, Symbolum Nicaenum) was first adopted at the First Council of Nicaea in 325. In 381, it was amended at the First Council of Constantinople. The amended form is a ...
by Samuel Clarke led to a controversy with Clarke in the next year. Nelson's works are: * 'Transubstantiation contrary to Scripture; or the Protestant's Answer to the Seeker's Request,' 1687. * 'The Practice of True Devotion, in relation to the End as well as the Means of Religion, with an Office for the Holy Communion,' 1698 (anon.); 2nd ed. 1715, preface dated 23 August 1708. * 'An earnest Exhortation to Householders to set up the Worship of God in their Families . . .' 1702 (anon.) * 'Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England, with Collects and Prayers for each Solemnity,' 1704. In this book, a popular manual of Anglican theology, Nelson was helped by his friends Kettlewell, Lee, Brokesby, and William Cave. In four and a half years ten thousand copies were printed. A thirty-sixth edition appeared in 1826; it was translated into German twice, and Welsh. * 'The whole Duty of a Christian by way of Question and Answer, exactly pursuant to the Method of the Whole Duty of Man, for the use of Charity Schools about London,' 1704 (anon.) * 'The Necessity of Church Communion vindicated from the scandalous Aspersions of a late pamphlet, entituled "The Principles of the Protestant Reformation, &c.,"' 1705 (anon.) * 'A Letter to an English Priest of the Roman Communion at Rome,' 1705 (in Hickes's collection of that year). * 'The great Duty of frequenting the Christian Sacrifice,' 1707 (enlarged from the chapter on
vigil A vigil, from the Latin ''vigilia'' meaning ''wakefulness'' (Greek: ''pannychis'', or ''agrypnia'' ), is a period of purposeful sleeplessness, an occasion for devotional watching, or an observance. The Italian word ''vigilia'' has become genera ...
s in 'Companion'). * 'Instructions for those that come to be confirmed by way of Question and Answer,' 1706 (also prefixed to 'Christian Sacrifice' in 1712). * 'The Life of Dr. George Bull . . . with the History of those Controversies in which he engaged, and an Abstract of those fundamental Doctrines which he maintained,' &c., 1713. * Letter prefixed to James Knight's anonymous 'Scripture Doctrine of the . . . Trinity, vindicated from the Misrepresentations of Dr. Clarke,' 1714. * 'An Address to Persons of Quality and Estate,' with an appendix of papers, 1715 (reprinted Dublin, 1752), contains many proposals on hospitals, theological colleges, and schools. Nelson also published Thomas à Kempis's ''Christian Exercises'', Fenelon's ''Pastoral Letter'', and notices in the posthumous works of Kettlewell and Bull.


References


Sources

*


External links


''A Companion for the Festivals and Fasts of the Church of England: With Collects and Prayers for Each Solemnity''
by Robert Nelson. 26th ed. London: J. C. Rivington, etc., 1791.
Robert Nelson (1656-1715) Find A Grave memorial
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nelson, Robert 1656 births 1715 deaths English religious writers Nonjurors of the Glorious Revolution Fellows of the Royal Society Early modern Christian devotional writers 17th-century Anglican theologians 18th-century Anglican theologians