Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Moore, John (1642?-1717)
MOORE, JOHN (1642?–1717), dissenting minister, was born about 1642 at Musbury, Devonshire, and was educated at Colyton. In July 1660 he entered Brasenose College, Oxford, where John Prince [q. v.], author of the 'Worthies of Devon,' was a friend and fellow-student. He received episcopal ordination and became curate of Long Burton, Dorset, with the chapelry of Holnest, in 1662. His daughter Margaret was baptised at Long Burton on 2 Aug. 1667 Making the acquaintance of certain dissenting ministers, among them 'T. Crane of Rampesham,' he declared himself of their number, and was in consequence silenced in 1667 under the Act of Uniformity. He retired to a small paternal estate at Ottery St. Mary, and there preached occasionally to the people, but a second persecution obliged him to move again into Dorset. In 1676 he became pastor to a large dissenting congregation at Christ Church Chapel, Bridgwater, Somerset, and remained in charge there for thirty-six years. The union of the Somerset followed by that of the Devonshire, dissenting ministers, in imitation of the work already begun among the London ministers, was initiated by Moore, 'Mr. Weeks of Bristol, and a Mr. Sinclair.' In his later years, from 1688, he also kept an academy at Bridgwater, which enjoyed some repute. Moore died on 23 Aug. 1717, leaving two sons, of whom the elder, John (1673–1747), graduated B.A. from Brasenose, 1695, succeeded his father at Bridgwater and in the superintendence of the academy, and published 'A Piece called Propositions, or Natural and Revealed Religion.'
Another John Moore (fl. 1721) also kept a seminary at Bridgwater. He entered the ministry at Wattisfield in Suffolk, but about 1687 removed to Tiverton in Devonshire. He published 'A calm Defence of the Deity of Jesus Christ, in Remarks on a Letter to a Dissenter at Exeter, 1721.'
A third John Moore (fl. 1696), a stout episcopalian, born at Worcester in 1621, was in 1696 curate of Brislington and Queen Charlton (diocese of Bath and Wells), and published ' The Banner of Corah, Dathan, and Abiram displayed and their Sin discovered,' 1696 (with portrait of the author), being the substance of several sermons preached at Bristol, and probably also (1) 'Protection proclaimed,' London, &c., 1656; (2) 'A Leaf pulled from the Tree of Life, medicinal for the healing of England's Division, or a Glimpse at the Excellency of a Kingly Government,' London, 1660; (3) 'Of Patience and Submission to Authority,' 1684.
A fourth John Moore (fl. 1669), of West Cowes, Isle of Wight, published at London in 1669, 'Moses revived, or a Vindication of an ancient and righteous Law of God [against the eating of blood], and 176 sacred Observations upon the several Verses of the … 119th Psalm.'
[Hole's Correct Copy of some Letters written to J. M., a Nonconformist Teacher, concerning the Gift and Forms of Prayer, London, 1698; Calamy's Account and Continuation; Murch's Presbyterian and General Baptist Churches in West of England; Bogue and Bennett, iii. 289; Hutchins's Dorset, iv. 139; R. N. Worth's Puritanism in Devon, in the Transactions of the Devonshire Association, 1877, containing the early Minutes of the Exeter Assembly; a loose sheet of ordinations pasted in the minute-book of the Exeter Assembly in possession of Mr. Hill of Moreton Hampstead, Devonshire; Granger's Biog. Hist.; Foster's Alumni Oxon. 1500-1714; P. C. C. (175, Whitfield); information from the Revs. C. H. Mayo, vicar of Long Burton, A. W. Milroy of West Cowes, Howard McCririck of Wiveliscombe, and J. H. Green of Mowsley.]