Christopher Ness

NPG D29726; Christopher Ness after Unknown artistChristopher Ness (1621-1705) was an English Nonconformist preacher and author.

Ness entered St. John’s College, Cambridge in 1638 where he graduated B.A. and M.A. At age 23 he moved to Yorkshire, where he became a preacher of independent tenets successively at South Cliffe Chapel in his native parish, in Holderness, and at Beverley, where he taught a school.

In 1656, he became a preacher at Leeds, and in 1660 he was a lecturer under the vicar, Dr. Lake, afterwards Bishop of Chichester; but his Calvinism clashed with the Arminianism of Dr. Lake, and on St. Bartholomew’s day in 1662 he was ejected from his lectureship. After this he became a schoolmaster and private preacher at Clayton, Morley, and Hunslet, all in Yorkshire. At Hunslet he took an indulgence as a Congregationalist in 1672, and a new meeting-house was opened by him on June 3, 1672.

He was excommunicated no less than four times, and when in 1674 or 1675 a writ de excommunicato capiendo was issued against him, he moved to London, where he preached to a private congregation in Salisbury Court, Fleet Street. In 1684 he had to conceal himself from the officers of the crown, who had a warrant for his arrest on the charge of publishing an elegy on the death of his friend John Partridge, another Nonconformist minister. He died on December 26, 1705, aged exactly 84 years, and was buried at Bunhill Fields Cemetery. [From The Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge]

The Complete Works of Christopher Ness:

An Antidote Against Arminianism. (149 pages)
{pdf epub via Google Books} {web via the-highway.com}

A Christian’s Walk and Work. (270 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}

A Complete and Compendious Church History. (542 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}

A Complete History and Mystery of the Old and New Testament. (1,958 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
All four volumes in one cover.

The Crown and Glory of a Christian. (170 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “Consisting in a sound conversion, and well-ordered conversation.” Psalm 50:23. Luke 12:33.

A Crystal Mirror, or, A Christian Looking-Glass. (258 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “Wherein the heart’s treason against God, and treachery against man is truly represented, and thoroughly discoursed on and discovered, whereby the soul of man may be dressed up into a comeliness for God, and whereon a duly and daily gazing after a godly sort may prevent the putting of an everlasting cheat upon your immortal soul.” James 1:23-25.

The Devil’s Patriarch. (152 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “A full and impartial account of the notorious life of this present pope of Rome, Innocent the 11th.”

A Distinct Discourse and Discovery of the Person and Period of Antichrist. (254 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}

A Divine Legacy. (440 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “How we may live holily in the fear of God, and how we may die happily in the favour of God; both which duties are of universal concern. The rules here are, how to be truly valourous in warring a good warface, and in fighting the good fight of faith while we live, and to be blessedly victorious when we die.”

A Full and True Account of the Late Blazing Star. (26 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}

A Key (with a Whip) to Open the Mystery and Iniquity of the Poem called Absalom and Ahithophel. (25 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}

The Lord Stafford’s Ghost, or, A Warning to Traitors. (3 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Puritan verse warning against the treason of Edward Stafford, the 3rd Duke of Buckingham.

Peace Offerings and Lamentations. (30 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
A letter of sympathy for a friend who had lost loved ones to the plague. Jeremiah 4:11.

A Protestant Antidote Against the Poison of Popery. (226 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “Clearly proving the religion of the church of Rome to be 1. superstitious, 2. idolatrous, 3. damnable, 4. bloody, 5. novel, 6. inconsistent with the public peace, 7. irreconcilable to true Christianity.” Matthew 15:13.

The Signs of the Times. (100 pages)
{pdf epub mobi txt web via Internet Archive}
Addresses signs and wonders seen in the year 1680, with a call for new repentance from the people.

A Spiritual Legacy. (206 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “Being a pattern of piety for all young persons’ practice, in a faithful relation of the holy life and happy death of Mr. John Draper. Presented out of his own manuscripts; containing his experiences, exercises, self-examinations, and evidences for heaven.”

A Strange and Wonderful Trinity. (50 pages)
{pdf via supralapsarian.com}
Subtitled, “A triplicity of stupendious prodigies, consisting of a wonderful eclipse, as well as of a wonderful comet, and of a wonderful conjunction.”

What Are the Characters of a Soul’s Sincere Love to Christ? And How May That Love to Him be Kindled and Inflamed? (25 pages)
[pdf via Google books]
A sermon on Ephesians 6:24, from the Morning Exercises at Cripplegate.

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