Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bisby, Nathaniel
BISBY or BISBIE, NATHANIEL, D.D. (1635–1695), divine, son of the Rev. John Bisbie, of Tipton, Staffordshire, who was ejected from a rebend in Lichfield Cathedral about 1644, and of Margaret, daughter of Anthony Hoo, of Bradely Hall in the same county, was born 5 June 1635. He was elected student of Christ Church, Oxford, from Westminster School, in 1654, proceeded B.A. 1657 and M.A. 1660, and accumulated his degrees in divinity on 7 June 1668. At the Restoration he was resented to the rectory of Long Melford, Sudbury, Suffolk. He was then, says Anthony à Wood, ‘esteemed an excellent preacher and a zealous person for the church of England.' He married Elizabeth, daughter of John Wall of Radwater Grange, Essex, in 1672. He published a number of occasional sermons, entitled ‘The Modern Pharisees,’ 1673; ‘Prosecution no Persecution, or the Difference between Suffering for Disobedience and Faction and Suffering for Righteousness and Christ’s sake,’ 1682; ‘Mischiefs of Anarchy,' 1682; ‘Korah and his Company proved to be the Seminary and Seed-plot of Sedition and Rebellion,’ 1684; ‘The Bishop visiting,' 1686. On the accession of William and Mary he refused to take the oath of allegiance, and as a nonjuror was deprived of his rectory of Melford in February 1690. His publications consist nearly wholly of violent invectives against the nonconformists. He died 14 May 1695, and was buried at Long Melford.
[Wood's Athenæ (Bliss), iv. 640; Walker’s Sufferings; Rawlinson MSS., Bodleian Library; Fuller's Worthies; Welch's Scholars of Westminster (1852), 142–3.]