John Dury
Encyclopedia
John Dury was a Scottish Calvinist minister and a significant intellectual of the English Civil War
period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism
, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was a prolific preacher, pamphleteer and writer.
; John was brought up in the Netherlands, at Leiden, attending the university there. He was in Cologne, at the Walloon Church, 1624-6, and subsequently at Elbląg
(Elbing). He was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib
, a native of Elbląg, whom he met there, and shared his interest in education. According to Richard Popkin
, another key influence was Joseph Mede
, from whom Dury took a method of scriptural interpretation; this interpretation has been challenged by recent research claiming hat Dury developed his "Scriptural Analysis" before meeting with the works of Mede. While at Elbing he translated an anti-trinitarian work of Samuel Przypkowski
into English.
From 1628 he petitioned Gustavus Adolphus for help in the cause of Protestant unity. He spent much time wandering Europe. He met Comenius
, who, spent some years in Elbląg as well, with an introduction from Hartlib.
Up to 1633, he had Anglican support from George Abbot
. In that year, Abbot died and was replaced by William Laud
, with whom Dury had a much more difficult relationship; Christopher Hill states Laud had no use for the efforts of Comenius, Dury and Hartlib to reunite Protestants. He was ordained in 1634, and went to Sweden, supported by 38 English Puritans. The networking of Dury and Hartlib in the 1630s brought them close to Oliver Cromwell, through Oliver St John
(a relation by marriage, and friend) and the Godmanchester
preacher Walter Welles, a neighbour.
He then travelled widely in northern Europe, and was tutor to Mary, Princess of Orange in the Hague. He had a long though unproductive meeting with René Descartes
in 1635; also in the Netherlands he was an associate of Adam Boreel
and Petrus Serrarius
, and an influential figure.
was writing to Dury, in the context that the situation in particular of German Protestants was being mooted and linked to the possibility of the English and Scottish churches could organise or broker such a union.
In 1645, Dury and Comenius came to England; an invitation had been mooted in a sermon by John Gauden
in 1641, at the start of the Long Parliament
. The backers of the scheme to bring Comenius then included John Pym
and Lord Brooke
as well as Mandeville.
Dury gave a well-known sermon to the Parliament on 26 November 1645, Israels Call to March out of Babylon into Jerusalem. He was given an official appointment, as tutor to the younger children of Charles I; from 1646 these had been in the care of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland
.
After the war in England had ended, he argued both for religious toleration
, and for acceptance of the Parliamentarian regime. He incurred the displeasure of the Westminster Assembly
, to which he belonged, for his part in the 1648 publication (with Hartlib and John Goodwin
) in translation of part the theological work Satanae Strategemata of Jacob Acontius
on toleration. He called on the Ranter
Abiezer Coppe
to repent, and helped in drafting his recantation. He provided arguments in pamphlets of March and October 1649 for supporting the Rump Parliament
. Hill places Dury with Anthony Ascham
and Marchamont Nedham as propounding the theory that Parliament had legitimacy conferred by God because it held power de facto. Barbara Lewalski calls Dury's arguments 'Hobbesian'. Hill considers that the failure of Cromwell's plan to create a unified Protestant church in England of the 1650s put paid to Dury's ecumenical ideas.
In 1652 he translated John Milton
's Eikonoklastes
into French as Eikonoklastēs, ou, Réponse au livre intitulé Eikon basilikē. In 1655 Milton quoted from letters of Dury in his Pro se defensio contra Alexandrum Morum.
In 1654 he was sent as a diplomat by Oliver Cromwell
to Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1652/3 he had travelled with Bulstrode Whitelocke
to Sweden.
He also worked with Whitelocke as a deputy librarian, from 1649, of the collection going back to Jane Lumley
. His book of 1650 on librarianship, sometimes said to be the first such work, came out of his experience in this post.
's alleged discovery of the Ten Tribes in America. In 1649 he addressed a further inquiry to Manasseh on the subject, which resulted in the publication of The Hope of Israel. In 1650 appeared Thomas Thorowgood's Jewes in America; Dury read it in manuscript, and contributed to later editions. A year or so before, Dury had written in favour of a Hartlib Circle project, for a College of Jewish Studies. Parliament was lobbied for funds.
Dury is considered to have been one of those around Cromwell influencing the decision to allow Jews to enter England officially (they were expelled by Edward I). He was the cautious author of a pamphlet of 1656, A Case of Conscience: Whether It Be Lawful to Admit Jews into a Christian Commonwealth. To a question put to him by Hartlib, as to the general lawfulness of their admission, Dury replied in the affirmative; but from the point of view of expediency he considered that circumstances as to a particular time and place might render their admission unwise. He took a particular interest in the Karaites
.
. Dury made contact with Grotius through his follower Samson Johnson (1603–1661). That relationship soured, since Dury had a hand in Johnson's dismissal as chaplain to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, suspected of Socinianism
. According to Trevor-Roper,
Richard Popkin and Jefferey Jue have argued that Dury was a millenarian. His millenarian views are said to have pointed to 1655 as apocalyptic. Against that view it has been argued that Dury warned readers about attempts to predict the onset of the Millennium. In his preface to the millenarian tract Clavis Apocalyptica Dury came out against the idea of millenarianism.
was within the interests of the Hartlibian group, and both Dury and his wife were involved. In 1649 they were quizzing Worsley on distillation
. In the first half of 1651 Dury was a witness to George Starkey
, in an apparent transmutation, and then recommended Starkey to Moriaen.
(1615–1691), daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork
, and wife of Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh
. To be precise on the somewhat tenuous relationship, Arthur Moore, Dorothy's first husband, and Frances Jones née Moore, mother of Arthur Jones, were half-brother and half-sister, children of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda, by different wives. By this marriage Dury was connected to Robert Boyle
, brother of Lady Ranelagh.
Their daughter Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77) was Henry Oldenburg
's second wife.
English Civil War
The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...
period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism
Protestantism
Protestantism is one of the three major groupings within Christianity. It is a movement that began in Germany in the early 16th century as a reaction against medieval Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, especially in regards to salvation, justification, and ecclesiology.The doctrines of the...
, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was a prolific preacher, pamphleteer and writer.
Early life
He was the fourth son of the exiled Scottish presbyterian minister Robert DurieRobert Durie
-Life:Durie was second son of John Durie. He studied at St. Mary's College, St. Andrews and visited La Rochelle. He stayed with James Melville, whose wife is assumed to be his sister; accompanied Melville to the parliament of Linlithgow in December 1585, and to Berwick-on-Tweed in September 1586...
; John was brought up in the Netherlands, at Leiden, attending the university there. He was in Cologne, at the Walloon Church, 1624-6, and subsequently at Elbląg
Elblag
Elbląg is a city in northern Poland with 127,892 inhabitants . It is the capital of Elbląg County and has been assigned to the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship since 1999. Before then it was the capital of Elbląg Voivodeship and a county seat in Gdańsk Voivodeship...
(Elbing). He was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib
Samuel Hartlib
Samuel Hartlib was a German-British polymath. An active promoter and expert writer in many fields, he was interested in science, medicine, agriculture, politics, and education. He settled in England, where he married and died...
, a native of Elbląg, whom he met there, and shared his interest in education. According to Richard Popkin
Richard Popkin
Richard H. Popkin was an academic philosopher who specialized in the history of enlightenment philosophy and early modern anti-dogmatism. His 1960 work The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Descartes introduced previously unrecognised influence on Western thought in the seventeenth century,...
, another key influence was Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede
Joseph Mede was an English scholar with a wide range of interests. He was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he became a Fellow from 1613. He is now remembered as a biblical scholar. He was also a naturalist and Egyptologist...
, from whom Dury took a method of scriptural interpretation; this interpretation has been challenged by recent research claiming hat Dury developed his "Scriptural Analysis" before meeting with the works of Mede. While at Elbing he translated an anti-trinitarian work of Samuel Przypkowski
Samuel Przypkowski
Samuel Przypkowski was a Polish Socinian theologian, a leading figure in the Polish Brethren and an advocate of religious toleration. In Dissertatio de pace et concordia ecclesiae, published in 1628 in Amsterdam, he called for mutual tolerance by Christians...
into English.
From 1628 he petitioned Gustavus Adolphus for help in the cause of Protestant unity. He spent much time wandering Europe. He met Comenius
Comenius
John Amos Comenius ; ; Latinized: Iohannes Amos Comenius) was a Czech teacher, educator, and writer. He served as the last bishop of Unity of the Brethren, and became a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica...
, who, spent some years in Elbląg as well, with an introduction from Hartlib.
Up to 1633, he had Anglican support from George Abbot
George Abbot (Archbishop of Canterbury)
George Abbot was an English divine and Archbishop of Canterbury. He also served as the fourth Chancellor of Trinity College, Dublin, between 1612 and 1633....
. In that year, Abbot died and was replaced by William Laud
William Laud
William Laud was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1633 to 1645. One of the High Church Caroline divines, he opposed radical forms of Puritanism...
, with whom Dury had a much more difficult relationship; Christopher Hill states Laud had no use for the efforts of Comenius, Dury and Hartlib to reunite Protestants. He was ordained in 1634, and went to Sweden, supported by 38 English Puritans. The networking of Dury and Hartlib in the 1630s brought them close to Oliver Cromwell, through Oliver St John
Oliver St John
Sir Oliver St John , was an English judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1653. He supported the Parliamentary cause in the English Civil War.- Early life :...
(a relation by marriage, and friend) and the Godmanchester
Godmanchester
Godmanchester is a small town and civil parish within the Huntingdonshire district of Cambridgeshire, in England. It lies on the south bank of the River Great Ouse, south of the larger town of Huntingdon, and on the A14 road....
preacher Walter Welles, a neighbour.
He then travelled widely in northern Europe, and was tutor to Mary, Princess of Orange in the Hague. He had a long though unproductive meeting with René Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
in 1635; also in the Netherlands he was an associate of Adam Boreel
Adam Boreel
Adam Boreel was a Dutch theologian and Hebrew scholar. He was one of the founders of the Amsterdam College; the Collegiants were also often called Boreelists, and regarded as a small sect...
and Petrus Serrarius
Petrus Serrarius
Petrus Serrarius was a Dutch millennarian theologian. He was a merchant by profession. He has been called the dean of the independent, dissident religious thinkers of Amsterdam. He was a close associate and protector of Baruch Spinoza...
, and an influential figure.
In Civil War and Commonwealth England
At a key moment in English and European politics, Dury in August 1641 published Concerning the Work of Peace Ecclesiastical, urging Protestants to unite across national boundaries. This work was dedicated to his patron Sir Thomas Rowe, and had been written in 1638. In 1639 Viscount MandevilleEdward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester
Edward Montagu, 2nd Earl of Manchester KG, KB, FRS was an important commander of Parliamentary forces in the First English Civil War, and for a time Oliver Cromwell's superior.-Life:...
was writing to Dury, in the context that the situation in particular of German Protestants was being mooted and linked to the possibility of the English and Scottish churches could organise or broker such a union.
In 1645, Dury and Comenius came to England; an invitation had been mooted in a sermon by John Gauden
John Gauden
John Gauden was an English bishop of Exeter then bishop of Worcester and writer, and the reputed author of the important Royalist work Eikon Basilike.-Life:...
in 1641, at the start of the Long Parliament
Long Parliament
The Long Parliament was made on 3 November 1640, following the Bishops' Wars. It received its name from the fact that through an Act of Parliament, it could only be dissolved with the agreement of the members, and those members did not agree to its dissolution until after the English Civil War and...
. The backers of the scheme to bring Comenius then included John Pym
John Pym
John Pym was an English parliamentarian, leader of the Long Parliament and a prominent critic of James I and then Charles I.- Early life and education :...
and Lord Brooke
Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke
Robert Greville, 2nd Baron Brooke was an English Civil War Roundhead General.Greville was the cousin and adopted son of Fulke Greville, 1st Baron Brooke, and thus became 2nd Lord Brooke, and owner of Warwick Castle. He was born in 1607, and entered parliament for Warwickshire in 1628...
as well as Mandeville.
Dury gave a well-known sermon to the Parliament on 26 November 1645, Israels Call to March out of Babylon into Jerusalem. He was given an official appointment, as tutor to the younger children of Charles I; from 1646 these had been in the care of Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland
Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland
Algernon Percy, 10th Earl of Northumberland, 4th Baron Percy, KG was an English military leader and a prominent supporter of constitutional monarchy.-Family background:...
.
After the war in England had ended, he argued both for religious toleration
Religious toleration
Toleration is "the practice of deliberately allowing or permitting a thing of which one disapproves. One can meaningfully speak of tolerating, ie of allowing or permitting, only if one is in a position to disallow”. It has also been defined as "to bear or endure" or "to nourish, sustain or preserve"...
, and for acceptance of the Parliamentarian regime. He incurred the displeasure of the Westminster Assembly
Westminster Assembly
The Westminster Assembly of Divines was appointed by the Long Parliament to restructure the Church of England. It also included representatives of religious leaders from Scotland...
, to which he belonged, for his part in the 1648 publication (with Hartlib and John Goodwin
John Goodwin (preacher)
John Goodwin was an English preacher, theologian and prolific author of significant books.-Early life:Goodwin was born in Norfolk and educated at Queens' College, Cambridge, where he graduated M.A. and obtained a fellowship on 10 November 1617. He left the university and married, took orders and...
) in translation of part the theological work Satanae Strategemata of Jacob Acontius
Jacob Acontius
Jacob Acontius Aconcio; 7 September 1492 – around 1566) was an Italian jurist, theologian, philosopher and engineer. He is now known for his contribution to the history of religious toleration.-Life:...
on toleration. He called on the Ranter
Ranter
The Ranters were an alleged sect in the time of the English Commonwealth who were regarded as heretical by the established Church of that period...
Abiezer Coppe
Abiezer Coppe
Abiezer Coppe was one of the English Ranters and a writer of prophetic religious pamphlets.He was born in Warwick on May 20, 1619, and was a pupil of Thomas Dugard at The King's School, Warwick. From there he went to All Souls College, Oxford and also Merton College, Oxford...
to repent, and helped in drafting his recantation. He provided arguments in pamphlets of March and October 1649 for supporting the Rump Parliament
Rump Parliament
The Rump Parliament is the name of the English Parliament after Colonel Pride purged the Long Parliament on 6 December 1648 of those members hostile to the Grandees' intention to try King Charles I for high treason....
. Hill places Dury with Anthony Ascham
Anthony Ascham
Anthony Ascham was a British academic, political theorist, Parliamentarian and diplomat.-Life:He was probably born on 6 March 1613/1614, the younger son of Thomas Ascham, an alderman of Boston, Lincolnshire...
and Marchamont Nedham as propounding the theory that Parliament had legitimacy conferred by God because it held power de facto. Barbara Lewalski calls Dury's arguments 'Hobbesian'. Hill considers that the failure of Cromwell's plan to create a unified Protestant church in England of the 1650s put paid to Dury's ecumenical ideas.
In 1652 he translated John Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes
Eikonoklastes is a book by John Milton, published October 1649. In it he provides a justification for the execution of Charles I, which had taken place on 30 January 1649. The book's title is taken from the Greek, and means "iconoclast" or "breaker of the icon", and refers to Eikon Basilike, a...
into French as Eikonoklastēs, ou, Réponse au livre intitulé Eikon basilikē. In 1655 Milton quoted from letters of Dury in his Pro se defensio contra Alexandrum Morum.
In 1654 he was sent as a diplomat by Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell
Oliver Cromwell was an English military and political leader who overthrew the English monarchy and temporarily turned England into a republican Commonwealth, and served as Lord Protector of England, Scotland, and Ireland....
to Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. In 1652/3 he had travelled with Bulstrode Whitelocke
Bulstrode Whitelocke
Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke was an English lawyer, writer, parliamentarian and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England.- Biography :...
to Sweden.
He also worked with Whitelocke as a deputy librarian, from 1649, of the collection going back to Jane Lumley
Jane Lumley
Jane , Lady Lumley was the first person to translate Euripides into English. She was the eldest child of Henry Fitzalan, 19th Earl of Arundel , patron of the arts, and his first wife, Katherine Grey Fitzalan...
. His book of 1650 on librarianship, sometimes said to be the first such work, came out of his experience in this post.
His views on the Jews
He met Manasseh ben Israel in 1644, and heard from him an account of Antonio de MontesinosAntonio de Montezinos
Antonio de Montezinos was a Portuguese traveler and a Marrano Sephardic Jew who in 1644 persuaded Menasseh Ben Israel, a rabbi of Amsterdam, that he had found one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel living in the jungles of the "Quito Province" of Ecuador. This supposed discovery gave a new impulse...
's alleged discovery of the Ten Tribes in America. In 1649 he addressed a further inquiry to Manasseh on the subject, which resulted in the publication of The Hope of Israel. In 1650 appeared Thomas Thorowgood's Jewes in America; Dury read it in manuscript, and contributed to later editions. A year or so before, Dury had written in favour of a Hartlib Circle project, for a College of Jewish Studies. Parliament was lobbied for funds.
Dury is considered to have been one of those around Cromwell influencing the decision to allow Jews to enter England officially (they were expelled by Edward I). He was the cautious author of a pamphlet of 1656, A Case of Conscience: Whether It Be Lawful to Admit Jews into a Christian Commonwealth. To a question put to him by Hartlib, as to the general lawfulness of their admission, Dury replied in the affirmative; but from the point of view of expediency he considered that circumstances as to a particular time and place might render their admission unwise. He took a particular interest in the Karaites
Karaite Judaism
Karaite Judaism or Karaism is a Jewish movement characterized by the recognition of the Tanakh alone as its supreme legal authority in Halakhah, as well as in theology...
.
Irenicism and millenarianism
Dury's long ecumenical efforts have earned him a name as an irenicist. This territory he shared, to an extent, with his contemporary Hugo GrotiusHugo Grotius
Hugo Grotius , also known as Huig de Groot, Hugo Grocio or Hugo de Groot, was a jurist in the Dutch Republic. With Francisco de Vitoria and Alberico Gentili he laid the foundations for international law, based on natural law...
. Dury made contact with Grotius through his follower Samson Johnson (1603–1661). That relationship soured, since Dury had a hand in Johnson's dismissal as chaplain to Elizabeth, Queen of Bohemia, suspected of Socinianism
Socinianism
Socinianism is a system of Christian doctrine named for Fausto Sozzini , which was developed among the Polish Brethren in the Minor Reformed Church of Poland during the 15th and 16th centuries and embraced also by the Unitarian Church of Transylvania during the same period...
. According to Trevor-Roper,
- Dury, like Grotius, was an idealist, but their ideals were not quite the same. He wished to achieve not reunion for the peace of the Church but union of all Protestants for the holy war: in particular union of Lutherans and Calvinists.
Richard Popkin and Jefferey Jue have argued that Dury was a millenarian. His millenarian views are said to have pointed to 1655 as apocalyptic. Against that view it has been argued that Dury warned readers about attempts to predict the onset of the Millennium. In his preface to the millenarian tract Clavis Apocalyptica Dury came out against the idea of millenarianism.
Pansophism and alchemy
AlchemyAlchemy
Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...
was within the interests of the Hartlibian group, and both Dury and his wife were involved. In 1649 they were quizzing Worsley on distillation
Distillation
Distillation is a method of separating mixtures based on differences in volatilities of components in a boiling liquid mixture. Distillation is a unit operation, or a physical separation process, and not a chemical reaction....
. In the first half of 1651 Dury was a witness to George Starkey
George Starkey (alchemist)
George Starkey, born George Stirk , was an American alchemist, medical practitioner, and writer of numerous commentaries and chemical treatises that were widely circulated in Europe and influenced prominent men of science, including Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton...
, in an apparent transmutation, and then recommended Starkey to Moriaen.
Family
In 1645 he married Dorothy Moore, an Irish Puritan widow. The match was arranged by Dorothy's niece, Katherine Jones, Viscountess RanelaghKatherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh
Katherine Jones, Viscountess Ranelagh was a leading Anglo-Irish intellectual in London of the Interregnum period. She was sister to Robert Boyle, and in her own right a political and social figure closely connected to the Hartlib Circle.-Life:...
(1615–1691), daughter of Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork
Richard Boyle, 1st Earl of Cork , also known as the Great Earl of Cork, was Lord Treasurer of the Kingdom of Ireland....
, and wife of Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh
Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh
Arthur Jones, 2nd Viscount Ranelagh was an Irish politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1640 to 1643.Jones was the son of Roger Jones, 1st Viscount Ranelagh and his wife Frances Moore, daughter of Sir Garret Moore, eventual 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda. He succeeded to the titles of...
. To be precise on the somewhat tenuous relationship, Arthur Moore, Dorothy's first husband, and Frances Jones née Moore, mother of Arthur Jones, were half-brother and half-sister, children of Garret Moore, 1st Viscount Moore of Drogheda, by different wives. By this marriage Dury was connected to Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle
Robert Boyle FRS was a 17th century natural philosopher, chemist, physicist, and inventor, also noted for his writings in theology. He has been variously described as English, Irish, or Anglo-Irish, his father having come to Ireland from England during the time of the English plantations of...
, brother of Lady Ranelagh.
Their daughter Dora Katherina Dury (1654–77) was Henry Oldenburg
Henry Oldenburg
Henry Oldenburg was a German theologian known as a diplomat and a natural philosopher. He was one of the foremost intelligencers of Europe of the seventeenth century, with a network of correspondents to rival those of Fabri de Peiresc, Marin Mersenne and Ismaël Boulliau...
's second wife.
Works
- Analysis Demonstrativa
- Paraenesin
- Answer to the Lutherans
- De pace inter evangelicos procuranda sententiæ quatuor quarum tres a reverendis Dominis episcopis (1638) with Thomas MortonThomas Morton (bishop)Thomas Morton was an English churchman, bishop of several dioceses.-Early life:Morton was born in York on 20 March 1564. He was brought up and grammar school educated in the city and nearby Halifax. In 1582 he became a pensioner at St John's College, Cambridge from which he graduated with a BA in...
, John DavenantJohn DavenantJohn Davenant was an English academic and bishop of Salisbury from 1621.-Life:He was educated at Queens’ College, Cambridge, elected a fellow there in 1597, and was its President from 1614 to 1621...
, Joseph Hall - A Briefe Relation of That Which Hath Been Lately Attempted to Procure Ecclesiasticall Peace Amongst Protestants (1641)
- A summary discourse concerning the work of peace ecclesiasticall (1641)
- Consultatio theologica super negotio pacis ecclesiasticæ promovendo (1641)
- Good counsells for the peace of reformed churches (1641) with John Davenant, Thomas Morton, Joseph Hall and James UssherJames UssherJames Ussher was Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh and Primate of All Ireland between 1625–56...
- A motion tending to the publick good of this age and of posteritie (1642)
- An epistolary discourse (1644)
- A model of church-government (1647)
- Considerations tending to the happy Accomplishment of Englands Reformation in Church and State (1647) with Samuel Hartlib
- The Reformed School (1648), edited by H. M. Knox (1958)
- Considerations Concerning the Present Engagement (1649)
- A Seasonable Discourse (1649)
- The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650) Online text at Project Gutenberg
- The unchanged, constant, and single-hearted Peace-maker drawn forth into the world (1650)
- Objections Against the Taking of The Engagement Answered (1650)
- Jvst re-proposals to humble proposals (1650)
- The Reformed Spiritual Husbandman (1652)
- A summarie platform of the heads of a body of practicall divinity which the ministers of the Protestant churches abroad have sued for, and which is farther enlarged in a treatise intituled, An earnest plea for gospel-communion (1654)
- A Declaration of John Dury, to make known the Truth of his Way and Deportment in all these Times of Trouble (1660)
- Irenicorum Tractatuum Prodromus (1662)
- Extractum ex harmonia confessionum oblatum ecclesiis reformatis ut examinetur antequam opus ipsum Lutheranis offeratur (1671)
- Touchant l'intelligence de l'Apocalypse par l'Apocalypse même (1674)
- Le Vrai Chrestien (1676)