Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/52

Firmin of his ejection (1662), Shalford Church was closed for some months.

Firmin retired to Ridgewell, Essex, perhaps on the passing of the Five Mile Act (1665). He supported himself by medical practice, and was much in request. The neighbouring justices, who valued his professional services, took care that he should not be molested, though he regularly held conventicles, except once a month, when there was a sermon at Ridgewell Church which he attended. On 22 July 1672 Daniel Ray, who had been ejected from Ridgewell, took out licenses qualifying him to use his house as a 'presbyterian meeting-place.' Firmin on 1 Dec. took out similar licenses. Ray removed in 1673, and Firmin remained till his death in sole charge of the congregation. It still exists, and now ranks with the independents.

Firmin retained robust health as an octogenarian, and was always ready to take his part in polemics. He had broken a lance with his old friend Baxter in 1670, and in 1693 he entered the lists of the Crispian controversy, which was then breaking up the newly formed 'happy union' of the London presbyterians and independents. He was a well-read divine, if somewhat captious. Calamy reckons him at his best in an experimental treatise. He was taken ill on a Sunday night after preaching, and died on the following Saturday, in April 1697. He married, in New England, Susanna, daughter of Nathaniel Ward, pastor of the church at Ipswich, Massachusetts. Davids gives an imperfect list of seventeen of Firmin's publications.

His chief pieces are: 1. 'A Serious Question Stated,' &c., 1651, 4to (on infant baptism). 2. 'Separation Examined,' &c., 1651 [i.e. 15 March 1652], 4to. 3. 'Stablishing against Shaking,' &c., 1656, 4to (against the quakers; the running title is 'Stablishing against Quaking; ' answered by Edward Burrough [q. v.] 4.'Tythes Vindicated,' &c., 1659, 4to. 5.' Presbyterial Ordination Vindicated,' &c., 1660, 4to. 6. 'The Liturgical Considerator Considered,' &c., 1661, 4to (anon., in answer to Gauden). 7. 'The Real Christian,' &c., 1670, 4to; reprinted, Glasgow, 1744, 8vo (in this he criticises Baxter; it is his best piece according to Calamy). 8. 'The Question between the Conformist and the Nonconformist,' &c., 1681, 4to. 9. 'Πανουργία,' &c., 1693 (against Davis and Crisp). 10. 'Some Remarks upon the Anabaptist's Answer to the Athenian Mercuries,' &c. (1694), 4to (apparently his last piece). He wrote also in defence of some of the above, and in opposition to John Owen, Daniel Cawdry [q. v.], Thomas Grantham (d. 1692) [q. v.], and others.

[Calamy's Historical Account of his Life and Times, 1713, p. 295; Continuation, 1727, p. 458; Davids's Annals of Evang. Nonconf. in Essex, 1863, pp. 440, 449, 457; Dexter's Congregationalism of the last Three Hundred Years, 1880, p. 574 n.; Firmin's letters to Baxter, in the collection of Baxter MSS. at Dr. Williams's Library (extracts, occasionally needing correction, are given by Davids); Hunter's manuscripts, Addit. MSS. 24478, p. 114 b.]  FIRMIN, THOMAS (1632–1697), philanthropist, son of Henry and Prudence Firmin, was born at Ipswich in June 1632. Henry Firmin was a parishioner of Samuel Ward, the puritan incumbent of St. Mary-le-Tower, by whom in 1635 he was accused of erroneous tenets; the matter was brought before the high commission court, but on Firmin's making satisfactory submission the charge (particulars of which are not disclosed) was dismissed. Thomas was apprenticed in London to a mercer, who attended the services of John Goodwin [q. v.] the Arminian, then vicar of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street. He learned shorthand, and took down Goodwin's sermons. As an apprentice his alacrity gained him the nickname of ‘Spirit.’ An elder apprentice accused him of purloining 5l., but afterwards confessed that the theft was his own. The late story according to which Firmin, during his apprenticeship, presented a petition in favour of John Biddle [see ], and was dismissed by Cromwell as a ‘curl-pate boy,’ does not tally with earlier accounts. Kennett, however, gives as his authority John Mapletoft, M.D. [q. v.], who was a relative of Firmin.

With a capital of 100l. Firmin began business as a girdler and mercer. His shop was at Three Kings Court, in Lombard Street; he had a garden at Hoxton, in which he took great delight. Slender as were his means he contrived to keep a table for his friends, especially ministers. His frank hospitality brought him (after 1655) into relations with such men as Whitchcote, Worthington, Wilkins, Fowler, and Tillotson. In this way, somewhat earlier, he became acquainted with Biddle, whose influence on Firmin's philanthropic spirit was important. It was from Biddle that he learned to distrust mere almsgiving, but rather to make it his business to fathom the condition of the poor by personal investigation, and to reduce the causes of social distress by economic effort. Biddle also deepened Firmin's convictions on the subject of religious toleration, and without converting him to his own specific opinions made him heterodox in the article of the Trinity. Biddle was Firmin's guest in 1655, prior to his banishment, and it was largely through Firmin's exertions that a