John Flavel
Famous Sons & Daughters No.7: Rev John Flavel
Married four times, famous for speaking and writing the language of the working man and beloved by the people of Dartmouth, the Rev John Flavel was a man who refused to bow to convention or law and preached the gospel his way, only to be driven from the town as his congregation openly wept.
John Flavel, who famously gives his name to the Flavel Church in Dartmouth, now the United Reformed Church, and The Flavel Arts and Community centre complex, was born in 1628 at Bromsgrove in Worcestershire.
He was the elder son of Richard Flavel, described in contemporary records as “a painful and eminent minister.” Richard Flavel and his wife were best known for being arrested and sent to Newgate Prison after taking part in an unlawful prayer meeting in Covent Garden in 1665. Records describe Flavel the elder as “an old minister from the country” who contracted the plague in prison, where it was rife. The couple both became fatally ill, and they were released to die.
John Flavel’s mother had hoped her son would become a musician or a poet, but his father’s influence drew him to the church. After receiving his early education, partly at home and partly at the grammar schools of Bromsgrove and Haslar, he entered University College, Oxford. Soon after taking orders in 1650 he obtained a curacy at Diptford and on the death of the vicar, he was appointed to succeed him. From Diptford he came to Dartmouth in 1656.
He was well loved for going amongst his parishioners and really getting to know them. Records state: “With his fund of striking incidents, with his faculty of happy illustration, with a temperament in which cheerfulness and solemnity were remarkably blended, and with a style of address in which friendly encouragement alternated with grave remonstrance and melting pathos, except among the worst reprobates, his ministry was boundlessly popular.”
But these were difficult times in which to preach, and he was ejected from his living at St Saviour’s Church by the passing of the Act of Uniformity in 1662. John Flavel was a Puritan preacher and his style favoured farm, field and village, so that he often went beyond the bounds of his parish to spread the word.
The Act was brought in over four years in the 1660s and demanded all church officials take Anglican communion and that non-conformists be excluded from public office, the Book of Common Prayer was made compulsory in religious services and unauthorised meetings for worship were forbidden. Non-conformist ministers were banned from coming within five miles of towns, especially their former parishes, and were forbidden from teaching in schools.
John Flavel was one of more than 2,000 clergy who refused to comply with the act and were forced to resign their livings. He continued to preach and administer the sacraments privately until spies and penal laws finally defeated him. When the Five Mile Act of 1665 was passed, he retired to Slapton, and then lived for a time in London.
“On the day of his departure, the inhabitants accompanied him as far as the churchyard of Townstall, where, amidst prayers and tears, they parted. Nevertheless, his heart was still with his beloved people. He took up his abode as near them as the letter of the law allowed; and, sometimes in Dartmouth itself, sometimes in a quiet apartment in a neighbouring village, and sometimes in a wood or other sheltered spot in the open air, he contrived to meet a detachment of them almost every Sabbath day.”
But Dartmouth drew him back, like so many others before and since, and he continued to write and preach here until his death in 1691.
Under King James’ Indulgence, open resumption of his ministry was permitted. A church was built and he preached there with a fervor and enthusiasm that attracted large congregations. It is said he spoke directly to the farmer and the fisherman in a language they could understand. His prayers were described as wonderful, filled with emotion.
Towards the end of June, 1691, he presided at a meeting of the Nonconformist ministers of Devonshire with the aim of bringing about a union of Presbyterians and Independents. The preliminary resolutions passed unanimously and John Flavel closed the work of the day with prayer and praise, with his usual spirit and affection. His final written work was an account sent to a London minister about this successful meeting. That evening he was taken ill with the palsy, and he died soon after in Exeter. His body was brought back to Dartmouth for burial.
John Flavel lived and worked in a fruitful time for religious literature and was himself described as a vigorous and voluminous writer. He produced a number of works famed for their kind, affable and earnest tone, and with their use of anecdotes and metaphors, were written for the common man.
His principal works are his Navigation Spiritualized (1671); The Fountain of Life, in forty-two Sermons (1672); The Method of Grace (1680); Pneumatologia, a Treatise on the Soul of Man (1698); A Token for Mourners; Husbandry Spiritualized (1699).
First Published December 2009 By The Dart
