John), a most learned English divine, was the son of a divine, and born in March 1602, at Stoke upon Trent in Staffordshire. After having finished his studies at a school on Morton-green near Congleton in Cheshire, he was removed in 1617 to Cambridge, where he applied himself to eloquence, and succeeded so well in it as to be thought the best orator of the undergraduates in the university. He also made an extraordinary proficiency in the Latin and Greek; but neglected the Hebrew, and even lost that knowledge he brought of it from school. His taste for the oriental languages was not yet excited; and as for logic, the study of it, as managed at that time among the academics, was too quarrelsome and fierce. Lightfoot, fierce for his quiet and meek disposition. As soon as he had taken the degree of B.A., he left the university, and became assistant to a school at Repton in Derbyshire. After he had supplied this place a year or two, he entered into orders, and became curate of Norton under Hales in Shropshire. This curacy gave an occasion of awakening his genius for the Hebrew tongue. Norton lies near Bellaport, then the seat of Sir Rowland Cotton; who was his constant hearer, made him his chaplain, and took him into his house. This gentleman being a perfect master of the Hebrew language, engaged Lightfoot in that study; who, by conversing with his patron, soon became sensible that without that knowledge it was impossible to attain an accurate understanding of the scriptures. He therefore applied himself to it with extraordinary vigour, and in a little time made a great progress in it; and his patron removing with his family to reside in London, at the request of Sir Alland Cotton his uncle, who was lord-mayor of that city, he followed his preceptor thither. But he did not stay long there; for, having a mind to improve himself by travelling abroad, he went down into Staffordshire to take leave of his father and mother. Passing through Stone in that county, he found the place destitute of a minister; and the pressing instances of the parishioners prevailed upon him to undertake that cure. Hereupon, laying aside his design of travelling abroad, he began to turn his thoughts upon settling at home. During his residence at Bellaport, he had fallen into the acquaintance of a gentlewoman who was daughter of William Cropperton of Stonepark, Esq.; and now, being in possession of that living, he married her in 1628. But notwithstanding this settlement, his unquenchable thirst after rabbinical learning would not suffer him to continue there. Sion-college library at London, he knew, was well stocked with books of that kind. He therefore quitted his charge at Stone, and removed with his family to Hornsey, near the city; where he gave the public a notable specimen of his advancement in those studies, by his "Eruhkim, or Miscellanies Christian and Judaical," in 1629. He was at this time only 27 years of age; and appears to have been well acquainted with the Latin and the Greek fathers, as well as the ancient heathen writers. These first fruits of his studies were dedicated to Sir Rowland Cotton; who, in 1631, presented him to the rectory of Athley in Staffordshire.

He seemed now to be fixed for life: Accordingly, he built a study in the garden, to be out of the noise of the house; and applied himself with indefatigable diligence in searching the scriptures. Thus employed, the days passed very agreeably; and he continued quiet and unmolested, till the great change which happened in the public affairs brought him into a share of the administration relating to the church; for he was nominated a member of the memorable assembly of divines for settling a new form of ecclesiastical policy. This appointment was purely the effect of his distinguished merit; and he accepted it purely with a view to serve his country, as far as lay in his power. The non-residence, which this would necessarily occasion, apparently induced him to resign his rectory; and having obtained the presentation for a younger brother, he set out for London in 1642. He had now satisfied himself in clearing up many of the abstrusest passages in the Bible, and therein had provided the chief materials, as well as formed the plan, of his "Harmony;" and an opportunity of inspecting it at the press was, no doubt, an additional motive for his going to the capital; where he had not been long before he was chosen minister of St Bartholomew's, behind the Royal Exchange. The assembly of divines meeting in 1643, our author gave his attendance diligently there, and made a distinguished figure in their debates; where he used great freedom, and gave signal proofs of his courage as well as learning, in opposing many of those tenets which the divines were endeavouring to establish. His learning recommended him to the parliament, whose visitors, having ejected Dr William Squirtow from the mastership of Catharine-hall in Cambridge, put Lightfoot in his room, this year 1653; and he was also presented to the living of Much-Munden in Hertfordshire, void by the death of Dr Samuel Ward, Margaret-professor of divinity in that university, before the expiration of this year. Meanwhile he had his turn with other favourites in preaching before the house of commons, most of which sermons were printed; and in them we see him warmly prefling the speedy settlement of the church in the Presbyterian form, which he cordially believed to be according to the pattern in the Mount. He was all the while employed in preparing and publishing the several branches of his Harmony; all which were so many excellent specimens of the usefulness of human learning to true religion; and he met with great difficulties and discouragements in that work, chiefly from that anti-reformation spirit which prevailed, and even threatened the destruction of the universities. In 1655 he entered upon the office of vice-chancellor of Cambridge, to which he was chosen that year, having taken the degree of doctor of divinity in 1652. He performed all the regular exercises for his degree with great application, and executed the vice-chancellor's office with exemplary diligence and fidelity; and, particularly at the commencement, supplied the place of professor of divinity, then undispersed of, as an act which was kept for a doctor's degree in that profession. At the same time he was engaged with others in perfecting the Polyglott Bible, then in the press. At the Restoration he offered to resign the mastership of Catharine-hall; but, as what he had done had been rather in compliance with the necessity of the times, than from any zeal or spirit of opposition to the king and government, a confirmation was granted him from the crown, both of the place and of his living. Soon after this he was appointed one of the assistants at the conference upon the liturgy, which was held in the beginning of 1661, but attended only once or twice; probably disgusted at the heat with which that conference was managed. However, he stuck close to his design of perfecting his Harmony; and being of a strong and healthy constitution, which was assisted by an exact temperance, he prosecuted his studies with unabated vigour to the last, and continued to publish, notwithstanding the many difficulties he met with from the expense of it. However, not long before he died, some book-sellers got a promise from him to collect and methodize his works, in order to print them; but the execution was prevented by his death, which happened Dec. 6, 1675. The doctor was twice married: his first Lightning first wife, already mentioned, brought him four sons and two daughters. His second wife was likewise a widow, and relicf of Mr Austin Brograve, uncle of Sir Thomas Brograve, Bart., of Hertfordshire, a gentleman well versed in rabbinical learning, and a particular acquaintance of our author. He had no issue by her. She also died before him, and was buried in Munden church; where the doctor was himself likewise interred near both his wives. Dr Lightfoot's works were collected and published first in 1684, in two volumes folio. The second edition was printed at Amsterdam, 1686, in two volumes folio, containing all his Latin writings, with a Latin translation of those which he wrote in English. At the end of both these editions there is a list of such pieces as he left unfinished. It is the chief of these, in Latin, which make up the third volume, added to the former two, in a third edition of his works, by John Leuven, at Utrecht, in 1699, fol. They were communicated by Mr Strype, who, in 1700, published another collection of these papers, under the title of "Some genuine remains of the late pious and learned Dr John Lightfoot."