{{Short description|Welsh theologian (1604–1654)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=July 2021}} '''William Erbery''' or '''Erbury'''<ref>Also Earbury.</ref> (1604 – April 1654) was a [[Welsh people|Welsh]] [[clergyman]] and radical [[Independent (religion)|Independent]] [[theologian]]. He was the father of the militant Quaker [[Dorcas Erbery]].
==Life==
Erbery was born in [[Roath]], Cardiff.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Reece |first1=Richard |title=Compendious Martyrology, Containing an Account of the Sufferings and Constancy of Christians in the Different Persecutions which Have Raged Against Them Under Pagan and Popish Governments |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1hBPAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA459 |publisher=Printed at the Conference office...by Thomas Cordeux |language=en |date=1815}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Misstear |first1=Rachael |title="Heretic" Welsh priest William Erbery is exonerated 350 years on |url=https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/heretic-welsh-priest-william-erbery-2497623 |website=Walesonline |date=21 January 2013}}</ref> He graduated from [[Brasenose College, Oxford]], England in 1623.<ref>''Concise Dictionary of National Biography''</ref>
He was ejected in 1638 from his [[Cardiff]] parish of [[St Mary's Church, Cardiff|St Mary's]], under the [[Bishop of Llandaff]] who had branded him a [[Schism (religion)|schismatic]],<ref>CNDB</ref> after several citations before the [[Court of High Commission]]. His offence was refusing, along with fellow [[Dissenters]] [[Walter Craddock]] and [[William Wroth]], to read the ''[[Book of Sports]]''.<ref>Hill, ''Change and Continuity in 17th-Century England'', p. 21.</ref> He became [[chaplain]], when the [[English Civil War]] broke out in 1642, to the [[regiment]] of [[Philip Skippon]] in the [[Parliamentary Army]]. According to [[John Edward Christopher Hill|Christopher Hill]].<ref>''The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution'' (1993), p. 217.</ref>
{{cquote|William Erbery, near-Ranter, used the familiar concept of Adam as a public personality representing all mankind to argue that the [[New Model Army]] was 'the Army of God, as public persons', representing the people.}}
From there he retired to the [[Isle of Ely]].<ref>Hill, English Bible, p. 146.</ref> He was a [[Seekers|Seeker]];<ref>[http://www.exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/seekers.html] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090219193319/http://exlibris.org/nonconform/engdis/seekers.html |date=19 February 2009 }}; Hill, Change and Continuity p. 229.</ref> in Ely he expanded the Seekers in the 1640s.<ref>Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (Penguin edition) p. 47.</ref>
He expected that a regime of 'saints' would (in the later 1640s) carry out God's will in England.<ref>Hill, ''Experience of Defeat'', p. 82 names [[William Sedgwick (clergyman)|William Sedgwick]], [[Peter Sterry]] and [[Joshua Sprigge]] as highest in Erbery’s estimation.</ref> He looked to the Army and [[Oliver Cromwell|Cromwell]] for reforms such as the abolition of tithes and the [[Disestablishmentarianism|state church]]. In 1646 he took part in a high-profile dispute with the orthodox [[Presbyterian]] and [[heresy]] watchdog [[Francis Cheynell]].
[[Anthony Wood (antiquary)|Anthony Wood]] (1632–1695), the English antiquary, records that Erbery died in London in April 1654 and was buried at either "Ch. Church" or the "[[New Churchyard|Cemiterie joyning to ''Old Bedlam'']] near ''London''".<ref>Wood, Anthony, 1691 ''Athenae Oxoniense'', Vol.2, London, p.105.</ref>
== Views ==
With a disillusioned attitude to the movement of the times, though accepting Cromwell's [[The Protectorate|Protectorate]], he was a suspected [[Ranter]].<ref>Hill, ''A Nation of Change and Novelty'', pp. 188–9: ''William Erbery, for example, had many Ranterish views, and came to visit [[Laurence Clarkson|Clarkson]] in jail. He was examined by Parliament as a suspect Ranter in 1652.''</ref>
He favoured broad [[religious tolerance]], and was dismissive of [[Catholic church|church]]es, believing that 'apostasy' had set in early in [[Christianity|Christian]] times;<ref>Hill, World Upside Down, p. 194; Hill, ''Milton and the English Revolution'' (1977), p. 84.</ref> and criticized much even in the Independent churches of his time.<ref>Hill, ''Liberty Against the Law'' (1996), p. 185.</ref> He attacked the assumption of the sufficiency of scripture, but doubted the Trinity had Biblical support. He believed [[free grace]] had been brought forth by [[John Preston (clergyman)|John Preston]] and [[Richard Sibbes]],<ref>Hill, World Upside Down, p. 186.</ref> preached [[universal redemption]],<ref>Hill, Milton, p. 272-3: ''[[Gerrard Winstanley|Winstanley]], [[William Walwyn|Walwyn]], [[Richard Coppin|Coppin]], [[John Robins (prophet)|John Robins]], Erbery and the author of Tyranipocrit Discovered thought that all men shall be saved.''</ref> and denied the [[divinity of Christ]].<ref>Hill, World Upside Down, p. 192.</ref> His [[millennarian]] views included a [[Second Coming]], but realised by and within 'saints'.<ref>Hill, Milton, p. 309: ''William Erbery, Gerrard Winstanley, [[Joseph Salmon (writer)|Joseph Salmon]], [[Jacob Bathumley]], Richard Coppin, Laurence Clarkson and other Ranters held the [[Familia Caritatis|Familist]] view that the Fall, the Second Coming, the Lat Judgement and the end of the world were all events which take place on earth within the individual conscience.'' Also p. 304.</ref>
He opposed the [[General Baptist|Baptists]], for example in his 1653 pamphlet ''A Mad Man's Plea''.<ref>Hill, World Upside Down, p. 281; Alfred Cohen, ''Two Roads to the Puritan Millennium: William Erbury and Vavasor Powell'', Church History, Vol. 32, No. 3 (Sep., 1963), pp. 322–338.</ref>
==Private life== William married Mary who survived him. Their children included the Quaker preacher [[Dorcas Erbery]]. After William's death, Mary and Dorcas were involved in a show in Bristol with [[Martha Simmonds]] and [[Hannah Stranger]] that resulted in [[James Nayler|James Naylor]] being tried for blasphemy.<ref>{{Cite ODNB |title=Erbery, Dorcas (fl. 1656–1659), Quaker preacher |url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/display/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-61979 |access-date=2023-04-14 |date=2004 |language=en |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/61979}}</ref>
== References == === Notes === <references/>
=== Sources === * [[Christopher Hill (historian)|Hill, Christopher]] (1984). ''The Experience of Defeat: Milton and Some Contemporaries'' Chapter 4 I * Hill, Christopher (1972). ''The World Turned Upside Down'', Chapter 9 II
==External links== * [https://archive.org/details/thetestimonyofwi00erbeuoft ''The Testimony of William Erbery'', online text]
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Erbery, William}} [[Category:1604 births]] [[Category:1654 deaths]] [[Category:Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford]] [[Category:Welsh Caroline nonconforming clergy]] [[Category:Welsh independent ministers of the Interregnum (England)]] [[Category:Welsh military chaplains]] [[Category:English Civil War chaplains]] [[Category:17th-century Welsh theologians]] [[Category:17th-century Welsh clergy]] [[Category:Clergy from Cardiff]]