Roger Flexman
Encyclopedia
Roger Flexman was an English Presbyterian minister, known also as a chronological and historical scholar, and published as an indexer and bibliographer.

Life

He was born on 22 February 1708 at Great Torrington
Great Torrington
Great Torrington is a small market town in the north of Devon, England. Parts of it are sited on high ground with steep drops down to the River Torridge below...

, Devon
Devon
Devon is a large county in southwestern England. The county is sometimes referred to as Devonshire, although the term is rarely used inside the county itself as the county has never been officially "shired", it often indicates a traditional or historical context.The county shares borders with...

, where his father was a manufacturer. He showed early promise, and at the age of fifteen (1723) was admitted to the academy of John Moore, presbyterian minister at Tiverton, Devon, to study for the ministry. He declined an offer from Moore of the post of tutor in the academy, and applied to the Exeter
Exeter
Exeter is a historic city in Devon, England. It lies within the ceremonial county of Devon, of which it is the county town as well as the home of Devon County Council. Currently the administrative area has the status of a non-metropolitan district, and is therefore under the administration of the...

 assembly on 7 May 1728 to admit him to examination for license. His application was granted, in spite of his youth, after examination by the Calvinist John Ball. He was licensed at Tiverton in the course of the summer. According to the records of the Exeter assembly he began his ministry at Great Torrington. He was ordained at Modbury
Modbury
Modbury is a town and parish in the South Hams region of the English county of Devon. It is situated on the A379 road, which links it to Plymouth and Kingsbridge...

, Devon, on 15 July 1730. In 1731 he became minister at Bow
Bow, Devon
Bow is a village and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon, England, about 8 miles west of Crediton. According to the 2001 census it had a population of 1,093. There is an adjoining hamlet of Nymet Tracey which shares a church with Bow and much common history.-History:There is a 3rd...

, near Crediton
Crediton
Crediton is a town and civil parish in the Mid Devon district of Devon in England. It stands on the A377 Exeter to Barnstaple road at the junction with the A3072 road to Tiverton, about north west of Exeter. It has a population of 6,837...

, Devonshire, and appears to have assisted Josiah Eveleigh, the presbyterian minister at Crediton. In 1735 he moved to Chard, Somerset
Chard, Somerset
Chard is a town and civil parish in the Somerset county of England. It lies on the A30 road near the Devon border, south west of Yeovil. The parish has a population of approximately 12,000 and, at an elevation of , it is the southernmost and highest town in Somerset...

, and in 1739 to Bradford, Wiltshire.

He came to London in 1747, having accepted a call to the presbyterian congregation in Jamaica Row, Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe
Rotherhithe is a residential district in inner southeast London, England and part of the London Borough of Southwark. It is located on a peninsula on the south bank of the Thames, facing Wapping and the Isle of Dogs on the north bank, and is a part of the Docklands area...

. In 1754 he was chosen one of the preachers of the Friday morning lecture, founded in 1726 at Little St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, by William Coward
William Coward (merchant)
William Coward was a London merchant in the Jamaica trade, remembered for his support of Dissenters, particularly his educational philanthropy.-Life:...

 (died 1738). Flexman for some time a minister at Rotherhithe. In 1770 he received the degree of D.D. from Marischal College
Marischal College
Marischal College is a building and former university in the centre of the city of Aberdeen in north-east Scotland. The building is owned by the University of Aberdeen and used for ceremonial events...

, Aberdeen.

Preferment was offered him in the established church. Owing partly to the failure of his health, partly, perhaps, to his adoption of Arian
Arian
Arian may refer to:* Arius, a Christian presbyter in the 3rd and 4th century* a given name in different cultures: Aria, Aryan or Arian...

 views, his congregation declined, and on his resignation in 1783 became extinct. He retained his lectureship into old age. Heterodox in theology, Flexman was conservative in his religious philosophy, and in later life opposed materialists and necessarians. He was a trustee of Dr. Daniel Williams
Daniel Williams (theologian)
The Revd. Dr. Daniel Williams was a Welsh Presbyterian benefactor, minister and theologian.-Early ministry:Williams was born in Wrexham, Denbighshire, and was a cousin of Stephen Davies, minister at Banbury...

's foundations from 1778 to 1786, and librarian from 1786 to 1792.

During his last years Flexman was in bad physical and mental health. He died on 14 June 1795, at the house of his daughter in Prescot Street, Goodman's Fields. His funeral sermon was preached by Abraham Rees
Abraham Rees
Abraham Rees was a Welsh nonconformist minister, and compiler of Rees's Cyclopaedia .- Life :He was the second son of Lewis Rees, by his wife Esther, daughter of Abraham Penry, and was born at born in Llanbrynmair, Montgomeryshire. Lewis Rees Abraham Rees (1743 – 9 June 1825) was a Welsh...

 of the Cyclopædia. He married (1747) a daughter of a member of his congregation at Bradford, named Yerbury.

Works

Flexman was noted for a minute knowledge of the constitutional history of England. His reputation introduced him to some of the leading politicians of his day, and, having already shown skill as an index-maker, he was appointed (1770) one of the compilers of the general index to the journals of the House of Commons of Great Britain
House of Commons of Great Britain
The House of Commons of Great Britain was the lower house of the Parliament of Great Britain between 1707 and 1801. In 1707, as a result of the Acts of Union of that year, it replaced the House of Commons of England and the third estate of the Parliament of Scotland, as one of the most significant...

. His plan was adopted by a committee of the house, and the period 1660–97 was assigned to him. He completed his work in four folio volumes (viii–xi.) in 1780.

Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...

 grumbled that in indexing The Rambler
The Rambler
The Rambler was a periodical by Samuel Johnson.-Description:The Rambler was published on Tuesdays and Saturdays from 1750 to 1752 and totals 208 articles. It was Johnson's most consistent and sustained work in the English language...

Flexman had included 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...

 simply as "Milton, Mr. John." Flexman compiled a bibliography appended to his edition of Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet
Gilbert Burnet was a Scottish theologian and historian, and Bishop of Salisbury. He was fluent in Dutch, French, Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Burnet was respected as a cleric, a preacher, and an academic, as well as a writer and historian...

's ‘Own Time,’ 1753–4, 4 vols.; a memoir and bibliography prefixed to the ‘Twenty Sermons,’ 1755, of Samuel Bourn the younger
Samuel Bourn the Younger
-Life:He was the second son of Samuel Bourn the elder, born at Calne, Wiltshire. He was taught classics at Bolton, and trained for the ministry in the Manchester dissenting academy of John Chorlton and James Coningham. His first settlement was at Crook, near Kendal, in 1711...

; and bibliographies annexed to the funeral sermons for Samuel Chandler
Samuel Chandler
Samuel Chandler was an English Nonconformist minister.-Life:He was born at Hungerford in Berkshire, where his father was a minister. He was sent to school at Gloucester, where he began a lifelong friendship with Bishop Butler and Archbishop Secker; and he afterwards studied at Leiden...

, 1766, and Thomas Amory, 1774.

In ‘Psalms and Hymns for Divine Worship,’ 1760, edited by Michael Pope, presbyterian minister of Leather Lane, are four compositions, signed ‘F.,’ and contributed by Flexman. One of them appears, with improvements, in Andrew Kippis
Andrew Kippis
Andrew Kippis was an English nonconformist clergyman and biographer.The son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, he was born at Nottingham. Having gone to school at Sleaford in Lincolnshire he passed at the age of sixteen to the Dissenting academy at Northampton, of which Dr Philip Doddridge was then...

's ‘Collection,’ 1795, 12mo, and in later collections.

Besides the above he published:
  • ‘The Connexion and Harmony of Religion and Virtue,’ &c., 1752, (charity sermon).
  • ‘Critical, Historical, and Political Miscellanies,’ &c., 1752; 1762.
  • ‘The Plan of Divine Worship in the Churches of Protestant Dissenters,’ &c., 1754, (against forms of prayer).
  • ‘The Nature and Advantage of a Religious Education,’ &c., 1770, (sermon).


Also the funeral sermon for Thomas Amory, 1774.
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