STILLINGFLEET, EDWARD, bishop of Worcester, was b. April 17, 1635, at Crap bourne, in Dorsetshire. lie received his early education at the grammar-school of his native place, and in 1648 became a student at St. John's college, Cambridge. He took his degree as master of arts; and in 1653 succeeded in obtaining a fellowship. For some years after leaving college he was occupied as a private family tutor; and in 1657 he was presented to the rectory of Sutton. In 1659 he came before the world as an author iu the work entitled Irenicum, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church Govern ment Examined. The views here maintained savored somewhat more of latitudinarianism than could be pleasant to the high church party, and he afterward saw reason to modify them. His next performance was the Origines Sacra, or Rational Account of the Christian Faith, as to the Truth and Divine Authority of the a work which made his reputation, and is still had iu estimation as one of the most masterly treatises extant on the subject of which it treats. In 1664 appeared his Rational Account of the Grounds of the Protestant Religion, a defence of the church of England from the charge of schism in its separation from that of Rome, which was received with great favor, and led to the preferment of its author. In 1665 the earl of Southampton presented him to the rectory of St. Andrews, Holborn ; he was also appointed preacher at, the rolls chapel, and shortly after lecturer at the temple, and chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. In 1670 he became,
by favor of the king, canon residentiary of St. Paul's cathedral, and in 1678 was pre ferred to he dean of the same. In the court of ecclesiastical commission instituted by James II., Stillingfieet declined to act; and after the revolution of 1688 he .received, in final acknowledgment of his services to the Protestant cause, his appointment to the bishopric of Worcester. He died at Westminster on Mar. 27, 1699, and was buried in Worcester cathedral.
Stillingfleet's chief works, besides those mentioned, were the Origines.Britannicer, or Antiquities of the British Churches, and a bulky volume entitled The Unreasonableness of Separation, in reply to an attack made upon him by Howe and others. Throughout, he was besides almost constantly engaged in religious controversy, on the one hand with the adherents of the church of Rome, and on the other with the Noncomformists. Of his numerous polemical treatises, however important in their day, it is not here necessary to treat in detail. His collected works, in 6 vols. folio, were published in 1710; and in 1735 a supplementary volume of miscellanies was issued by his son, the rev. James Stillingileet, canon of Worcester. Stillingfleet, though keen and unsparing in conflict, was a good and amiable man, and his unquestioned piety and honesty of intention com manded throughout the respect even of his bitterest opponents.