{{Short description|English nonconformist minister (c. 1639–1697)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=May 2026}} {{Infobox person | name = Nathaniel Vincent | image = Nathaniel Vincent.jpg | image_alt = Portrait of Nathaniel Vincent | birth_date = {{circa|1639}} | birth_place = Probably Cornwall, England | death_date = 22 June 1697 | resting_place = Bunhill Fields, London | education = Corpus Christi College, Oxford; Christ Church, Oxford | occupation = Nonconformist minister and author | known_for = Nonconformist preaching and devotional writing | spouse = Anna Vincent | children = 6 | relatives = Thomas Vincent (brother) }} '''Nathaniel Vincent''' ({{circa|1639}} – 22 June 1697) was an English nonconformist minister and religious writer. Ejected from the rectory of Langley Marish under the Act of Uniformity 1662, he later gathered a congregation in Southwark and was repeatedly imprisoned for nonconformist preaching.<ref name="DNB">{{cite DNB |first=Alexander |last=Gordon |wstitle=Vincent, Nathaniel |volume=58 |pages=362–363}}</ref>
Vincent wrote devotional works, sermons and catechetical texts. His prison work ''A Covert from the Storm'' was published in 1671 after his confinement in the Marshalsea and the Gatehouse, Westminster.<ref name="DNB" /><ref name="covert">{{cite web |title=A covert from the storm, or, The fearful encouraged in times of suffering |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A64957.0001.001 |website=Early English Books Online 2 |publisher=University of Michigan Library Digital Collections |access-date=22 May 2026}}</ref>
==Early life and education== Vincent was probably born in Cornwall about 1639, the son of John Vincent and Sarah Vincent. His father, a minister, was nominated by the committee of the Westminster Assembly to the rectory of Sedgefield, County Durham. Thomas Vincent, also a nonconformist minister, was his elder brother.<ref name="DNB" />
Vincent entered the University of Oxford as a chorister on 18 October 1648, aged about ten. He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, on 28 March 1655, graduated BA from Christ Church, Oxford, on 13 March 1656, and received MA on 11 June 1657. Corpus Christi later chose him as chaplain. Oliver Cromwell appointed him one of the first fellows of the proposed Durham College, though Vincent did not reside there.<ref name="DNB" />
==Ministry and imprisonment== Vincent preached at Pulborough, Sussex, by about the age of twenty. He was ordained and presented to the rectory of Langley Marish, Buckinghamshire, at about twenty-one, but was ejected in 1662. After his ejection he spent three years as chaplain to Sir Henry Blount and Lady Blount at Tyttenhanger House, Hertfordshire.<ref name="DNB" />
Around 1666 Vincent moved to London, where his preaching drew a congregation at a meeting house in Farthing Alley, Southwark. He continued preaching despite fines and attempts by soldiers to remove him from the pulpit.<ref name="DNB" />
In July 1670, shortly after his marriage, Vincent was confined in the Marshalsea and transferred to the Gatehouse, Westminster, on 22 August. He remained imprisoned for six months. Arrested again in 1682, he was brought before magistrates at Dorking and sentenced to three years' imprisonment followed by banishment, but was released after a flaw in the indictment. In February 1686 he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the Monmouth Rebellion.<ref name="DNB" />
Vincent died suddenly on 22 June 1697, in the fifty-ninth year of his age, and was buried at Bunhill Fields. Nathaniel Taylor preached his funeral sermon. Vincent's wife, Anna, and six children were living in 1682; a daughter, also named Anna, married Dennis Herbert junior of London in 1695.<ref name="DNB" />
==Writing== Vincent's published works addressed conversion, prayer, suffering, catechesis and practical divinity. Several were written or shaped by his experience of imprisonment, including ''A Covert from the Storm''.<ref name="DNB" /><ref name="covert" />
He also contributed sermons to Samuel Annesley's ''Continuation of Morning Exercises'' (1683) and ''Casuistical Morning Exercises'' (1690). Vincent edited ''The Morning-Exercise Against Popery'' (1675), a collection of sermons preached by visiting ministers at his Southwark meeting house.<ref name="DNB" />
==Selected works== * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The Conversion of a Sinner Explained and Applied |location=London |date=1669 |oclc=606669248}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=A Covert from the Storm |location=London |date=1671 |url=https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/eebo2/A64957.0001.001 |oclc=606683763}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The Spirit of Prayer |location=London |date=1674 |oclc=228706687}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=A Heaven or Hell upon Earth |location=London |date=1676 |oclc=606752537}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The Little Child's Catechism |location=London |date=1681 |oclc=606722295}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The True Touchstone |location=London |date=1681 |oclc=606752320}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The More Excellent Way |location=London |date=1684 |oclc=606742661}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=A Warning Given to Secure Sinners |location=London |date=1688 |oclc=606762591}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=The Principles of the Doctrine of Christ |location=London |date=1691 |oclc=606748617}} * {{cite book |last=Vincent |first=Nathaniel |title=A Present for Such as Have Been Sick |location=London |date=1693 |oclc=228720032}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
;Attribution {{DNB |first=Alexander |last=Gordon |wstitle=Vincent, Nathaniel |volume=58 |pages=362–363}}
==External links== * {{Wikisource-inline|Vincent, Nathaniel (DNB00)}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vincent, Nathaniel}} Category:1639 births Category:1697 deaths Category:17th-century English male writers Category:17th-century English non-fiction writers Category:17th-century English Presbyterian ministers Category:Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Category:Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Oxford Category:Burials at Bunhill Fields Category:Ejected English ministers of 1662 Category:English male non-fiction writers Category:English Presbyterian ministers of the Interregnum (England) Category:People from Cornwall