Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/280

 became disabled from preaching. John Weatherley (d. May 1752), a general baptist minister, who supplied Foster's place, met Fleming at Hamlin's Coffee-house, and engaged him for a Sunday at Pinners' Hall (independent). He attracted the notice of Timothy Hollis, was soon afterwards elected as Foster's assistant, and on Foster's death (5 Nov. 1753) as pastor. The Bartholomew Close congregation then came to an end, its few remaining members joining Pinners' Hall. For nearly a quarter of a century Fleming remained at his post; his ministry, though painstaking, was not popular, and when he ceased to preach, in December 1777, his congregation became extinct, the lease of their meeting-house expiring in 1778. He had admirers, who left him considerable legacies, among them being a bequest by a Suffolk gentleman (Reynolds), who had once heard him preach but did not know his name. A wealthy widow placed her whole fortune at his disposal. Fleming, however, declined to be enriched at the expense of her needy relatives.

Fleming's chief work is ‘A Survey of the Search after Souls,’ 1758, 8vo, dedicated to Nicolas Munckley, M.D. The title and topic were suggested by the writings of William Coward (1657?–1725) [q. v.] To prove, against Coward, the existence of a separate soul, Fleming employs the arguments of Clarke, and especially of Andrew Baxter [q. v.] He does not contend that the soul is inherently immortal, but simply that it possesses a ‘capacity of immortality.’ His view of the resurrection was adopted by John Cameron (1724–1799) [q. v.]

Fleming was an unwearied writer of argumentative and combative pamphlets, the greater part of them being anonymous. His political brochures, in defence of civil liberty and against the Jacobites, church establishments, and the toleration of popery, are tart enough. Against the theological writers of his time, high and low, he entered the field with confident vigour. He attacked Sherlock, Soame Jenyns, Wesley, the Sabbatarians as represented by Robert Cornthwaite, and the Muggletonians. His most severe, and perhaps his best remembered, publication is his ‘character’ of Thomas Bradbury [q. v.], ‘taken from his own pen.’ The topics to which he most frequently recurred were the defence of infant baptism and of the authority of the New Testament against the deists, especially Chubb, whom he is said to have impressed. His own theology, as may be seen in his ‘True Deism, the Basis of Christianity,’ 1749, 8vo, was little more than a specially authenticated deism. He retains the ‘supernatural conception,’ minimised after a fashion of his own, and the miracles of our Lord, which ‘did not introduce a single unnatural phenomenon,’ but ‘removed defects in nature’ (True Deism, p. 14). In a manuscript sermon (10 Oct. 1773) he ranks Confucius, Socrates, Plato, Cicero, and Seneca among organs of divine revelation. Many of his pamphlets and sermons attempt to deal with the problem of a general depravity of morals. Under the title of ‘A Modern Plan,’ 1748, 8vo, he drew up ‘a compendium of moral institutes,’ in the shape of a catechism in which the learner asks the questions.

In his old age his ‘dear friend,’ William Dalrymple, D.D., of Ayr (Burns's ‘D'rymple mild’), procured for him the degree of D.D. from St. Andrews. Fleming was inclined to reject this ‘compliment;’ but his friend Thomas Hollis ‘put it into the public papers,’ so Fleming accepted it in a very characteristic letter (6 April 1769).

After completing his seventy-ninth year Fleming retired from public duty. He died on 21 July 1779, and was buried in Bunhill Fields. He married a daughter of John Harris of Hardstoft, Derbyshire, and had ten children, of whom one survived him. He left an epitaph for his gravestone, in which he describes himself as ‘dissenting teacher,’ and expresses a conditional hope of immortality. For this, however, was substituted a eulogistic inscription by Joseph Towers, LL.D. His funeral sermon was preached by John Palmer at New Broad Street. A fine portrait of Fleming, by William Chamberlain, was bequeathed by him to Dr. Williams's Library. An engraving by Hopwood is given in Wilson.

Wilson enumerates sixty of Fleming's publications. It may suffice to add such as are not included in Wilson's list. Most of them will be found in Dr. Williams's Library, Grafton Street, W.C.; others are from a collection formed by Fleming's nephew: 1. ‘The Parent Disinherited by his Offspring,’ &c., 1728, 8vo. 2. ‘Observations on Some Articles of the Muggletonians' Creed,’ &c., 1735, 8vo (answered in ‘The Principles of the Muggletonians,’ &c., 1735, 8vo, by A. B., i.e. Arden Bonell). 3. ‘An Appeal to the People of England,’ &c. [1739], 8vo. 4. ‘The Challenge … on … Baptism,’ &c., 1743, 8vo. 5. ‘A Fine Picture of Enthusiasm,’ &c. 1744, 8vo. 6. ‘A Letter to the Rev. Charles Willats upon his Assize Sermon,’ &c., 1744, 8vo. 7. ‘Remarks upon the Life of John Duke of Argyle,’ &c., 1745, 8vo. 8. ‘Tracts on Baptism,’ &c., 1745, 8vo (a collection of six previous pieces, with an introduction). 9. ‘A Fund raising for the Italian Gentleman,’ &c.,