History ....
'John Flavel was the son of a well-respected Presbyterian minister. He
obtained his BA at Oxford at the age of 20 and was appointed to his first post
at Salisbury. In 1656 he became minister at Dartmouth ("a great and noted
sea-port"). But in 1660, when the Act of Uniformity was brought in, he was
ejected and began to teach in a small dissenting academy in the town.
Three years later the Five Mile Act prohibited ejected ministers from living
within five miles of any corporate borough. Arrests were commonplace. John
Flavel's own father and mother were thrown into Newgate prison with their flock,
where his parents died of the plague.
John continued to preach on beaches, in private houses, in woods, often escaping
soldiers at the last moment, at one time riding his horse into the water in one
Dartmouth cove and swimming it round the headland to the next to make his
escape. Persecution became so bad that he took flight for London, calling
all to prayer during a terrific storm off off Portland, whereupon a changed wind
took the ship off the rocks and they were saved.
After preaching whilst in much danger in London he returned to Dartmouth but was
closely confined to his house, certain magistrates carrying his effigy through
the streets with the covenant and Bill of Exclusion pinned to it, to the
derision of the crowd.
In 1687 King James II dispensed with the penal laws against noncomformists and
Flavel was free to preach to his followers in peace. Four years later, after
presiding, as Moderator, over an assembly of nonconformist ministers, he died
suddenly after a stroke. Amidst "floods of tears and bitter
lamentation" he was buried near the chancel in St.Saviour's Church,
Dartmouth. The memorial stone bearing his name was later removed at the
behest of a small group of magistrates and re-erected in Flavel Church.
He was by all accounts a most effective preacher, one hearer remarking that
"a person must have had a very soft head or a very hard heart, or both,
that could not sit under his ministry unaffected." His lasting legacy
is in the number of sermons and works that were published in his lifetime, and
in the Flavel Church and Flavel Hall that still bear his name.
(Extracted from a longer paper on the life of John Flavel, available from
the
church)
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Torbay Methodist Churches,
Devon, UK
