Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 51.djvu/260

 For some time he was prefect of studies, and in 1652 he was sent on the English mission. His brethren soon after his arrival made him a canon and secretary of their chapter. Finding him well skilled in controversial writing, they encouraged him to undertake the defence of the catholic cause, and this he did with remarkable assiduity for upwards of forty years. He was, indeed, the ‘very genius of controversy,’ and there was no great protestant writer of his time that he did not encounter. In his ‘Literary Life,’ written in 1700, he states that he had printed thirty-two books at a cost of over 800l., which sum he paid out of his own earnings, without burdening catholics or any of his brethren (Catholicon, iii. 127). In 1675 he was at Rouen, where he became well acquainted with the Abbé Walter Montagu [q. v.], and during his residence in France he lived on terms of intimacy with Bossuet, to whom he dedicated his ‘Methodus Compendiosa.’ In 1688 he was engaged in the composition of a second answer to Tillotson's ‘Rule of Faith,’ and seven sheets of it had been struck off by Bennet, the catholic printer, when the mob, rising at the Revolution, plundered the press, seized all the printed sheets, and took away some of the ‘copy.’ For two years after this Sergeant had enough to do to provide for his own safety, passing himself off as a physician and assuming at different times the names of Dodd, Holland, and Smith. ‘He was unmanageable all his life,’ observes one of his friends, Sylvester Jenks, in his unpublished letters to another of Sergeant's friends, Father Fairfax, ‘and ended his days with printing libels, in which he abused, not only me, but many of my betters in a much more scurrilous manner than ever he did you or yours.’ He died, ‘with a pen in his hand,’ in 1707.

Charles Plowden remarks that Sergeant was ‘the author of a system of controversy entirely grounded on the erroneous principles of Blackloe [i.e. Thomas White (1582–1676), q. v.], which he published in a book entitled “Sure Footing.” This book was attacked by catholic and protestant divines, especially by Dr. Peter Talbot, catholic archbishop of Dublin; and it was defended in various tracts by the author. He seems to have possessed a small share of ill-digested knowledge, much presumption, and an ardent temper, suited to the genius of faction and party. He was closely connected, in friendship and error, with Blackloe, and also with … Hobbes. Among the catholics he was usually called “Blackloe's Philip,” in allusion to the secondary part which Philip Melanchthon acted under Luther’ (Remarks on the Memoirs of Gregorio Panzani, 1794, p. 285). An account of Sergeant's theological opinions is given in Peter Talbot's ‘Blackloanæ Heresis … Historia et Confutatio,’ 1675, 4to, published under Talbot's pseudonym, ‘Lominus’ [see ]. He must doubtless be distinguished from the John Sergeant whose evidence with regard to Oates's plot was printed by order of the House of Commons, 1681, fol.

The controversialist's works are: 1. English verses addressed ‘To Sir Kenelme Digby upon his two incomparable Treatises of Philosophy’ [London, 1653], 4to. 2. ‘Schism disarm'd of the Defensive Weapons lent it by Doctor Hammond and the Bishop of Derry,’ Paris, 1655, 8vo. 3. ‘Schism Dispatcht, or a Rejoynder to the Replies of Dr. Hammond and the Ld. of Derry’ [J. Bramhall], [Paris?], 1657, 8vo. 4. ‘Reflections upon the Oath of Supremacy and Allegiance. By a Catholic Gentleman,’ 1661, 12mo (cf., Historical Memoirs, iii. 430). 5. ‘An Answer to Dr. Pierce's Sermon’ [on Matthew, xix. 8], n. p., 1663, 8vo. 6. ‘Sure Footing in Christianity, or Rational Discourses on the Rule of Faith. With three short Animadversions on Dr. Pierce's Sermon; also on some Passages in Mr. Whitby and Mr. Stillingfleet which concern that Rule. By J. S.,’ London, 1665, 8vo; a second edition appeared the same year with ‘an appendix, subverting fundamentally and manifoldly my Ld. of Down's [i.e. Jeremy Taylor's] Dissuasive,’ and a ‘Letter to Dr. Casaubon.’ 7. ‘A Discovery of the Groundlessness and Insincerity of my Ld. of Down's Dissuasive. Being the Fourth Appendix to Svre-Footing. With a Letter to Dr. Casaubon, and another to his Answerer. By J. S.,’ London, 1665, 8vo. 8. ‘Let Common Reason be Judge,’ a treatise on the use of holy images in answer to B. Horwood [1665?]. 9. ‘Sober Advice to Mr. Gataker’ [1666?]. 10. ‘The Solid Grounds of the Roman Catholic Faith,’ in answer to Dr. Matthew Poole's ‘Nullity of the Romish Faith,’ Oxford, 1666, 8vo. 11. ‘A Letter of Thanks from the Author of Sure-Footing to his Answerer, Mr. J. T[illotson],’ Paris, 1666, 8vo. 12. ‘Faith vindicated from Possibility of Falshood’ [anon.], Louvain, 1667, 8vo. 13. ‘The Method to arrive at Satisfaction in Religion’ (anon.) [1671], 12mo. 14. ‘Errour nonplust; or, Dr. Stillingfleet shown to be the Man of no Principles. With an Essay how Discourses concerning Catholick Grounds bear the Highest Evidence’ (anon.), 1673, 8vo. 15. ‘Methodus compendiosa qua recto pervestigatur et certo invenitur Fides Christiana,’ Paris, 1674, 12mo; dedicated to Bossuet. 16. ‘Clypeus Septemplex. Declaratio