STILLINGFLEET, EDWARD, bishop of Worcester, was the son of Samuel Stillingfleet, gentleman, and was born at Cranborn in Dorsetshire in 1635. He was educated at St John's College, Cambridge; and having received holy orders, was in 1657, presented to the rectory of Sutton in Nottinghamshire. By publishing his Origines Sacrae, one of the ablest defences of revealed religion that has ever been written, he soon acquired such reputation, that he was appointed preacher of the Rolls Chapel; and in January 1665 was presented to the rectory of St Andrew's, Holborn. He was afterwards chosen lecturer at the Temple, and appointed chaplain in ordinary to King Charles II. In 1668 he took the degree of doctor of divinity; and was soon after engaged in a dispute with those of the Romish religion, by publishing his discourse concerning the idolatry and fanaticism of the church of Rome, which he afterwards defended against several antagonists. In 1680 he preached at Guildhall chapel a sermon on Phil. iii. 26. which he published under the title of The Mischief of Separation; and this being immediately attacked by several writers, he in 1683 published his Unreasonableness of Separation. In 1685 appeared his Origines Britannicae, or the Antiquities of the British Church, in folio. During the reign of King James II. he wrote several tracts against popery, and was prolocutor of the convocation, as he had likewise been under Charles II. After the revolution he was advanced to the bishopric of Worcester, and was engaged in a dispute with the Socinians, and also with Mr Locke; in which last contest he is generally thought to have been
unsuccessful. He died at Westminster in 1699, and was interred in the cathedral of Worcester, where a monument was erected to his memory by his son. Dr Stillingfleet wrote other works besides those here mentioned, which, with the above, have been reprinted in 6 vols. folio.