St John's College O.81 (James 579)

Edward Stillingfleet, Sermons. English, 1682-3 and undated

Edward Stillingfleet, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, afterwards Dean of St Paul's and Bishop of Worcester (1635-99): four sermons, on Jeremiah xvii.9 (fo. 1r, preached at the Mercers' Chapel, 11 Nov. 1682), Luke xvi.31 (fo. 25r, preached at Whitehall, 23 Feb. 1683), 2 Timothy iii.5 (fo. 50r, preached at St Clement's, 'a Lent Sermon', 4 Apr. 1683), and John xx.29 (fo. 75r, preached at Whitehall, Easter Day 1683), with a number of further notes or sermons in an unbroken cipher, written for the most part upside-down, from the end of the volume. According to a nineteenth-century pencilled note on the flyleaf signed by Edward William Stillingfleet, 'the Sermons in short-hand I cannot decypher: the other four are not included amongst the printed sermons of Bishop Stillingfleet'.

Manuscript extra information

185x115 mm. ii+100+xvii fos (contemporary foliation). College bookplate (early twentieth century) inside front cover. On the flyleaf, with the note above, is an earlier inscription signed by Ed[ward] Stillingfleet (perhaps the Bishop's son of that name): 'This Book is Bp Stillingfleet's Hand-writing'. Presumably the book descended in the family. It was presented to the College by Robert Forsyth Scott, then a Fellow, and subsequently Master of St John's College, in 1895 (label on flyleaf).

Autograph, a neat hand for both English text and the shorthand, with a few cancellations and corrections. Paper. Near-contemporary leather binding, gold tooling, with marbled end-papers.