Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Everard, Robert

by Thompson Cooper

EVERARD, ROBERT (fl. 1664), catholic writer, was a gentleman of liberal education who had been engaged in the civil war with the rank of captain in the reign of Charles I, and who, 'according to the enthusiastical disposition of those times, had listed himself under different sects.' Eventually he joined the Roman catholic church.

He wrote:

1. 'Baby-baptism Routed,' Lond. 1650, 4to. This elicited a reply from Nathaniel Stephens, a presbyterian preacher, whose work was criticised by John Tombes in his 'Antipaedobaptism.'
2. 'Nature's Vindication; or a check to all those who affirm Nature to be Vile, Wicked, Corrupt, and Sinful,' Lond. 1652, 16mo.
3. 'Three questions propounded to B. Morley about his practice of Laying on of Hands,' Lond. n. d. 8vo. This led to a controversy between Everard, Morley, and T. Morris, a baptist.
4. 'The Creation and the Fall of Man,' Lond. n. d. 8vo, Nathaniel Stephens replied to this in ' Vindiciae Fundamenti; or a Threefold Defence of the Doctrine of Original Sin,' 1658.
5. 'An Epistle to the several Congregations of the Non-Conformists' [Lond. ?], 2nd edit. 1664, 8vo. In this work the author states the reason of his conversion to the catholic church. Replies to it were published by 'J. I.,' Matthew Poole, and Francis Howgill.

[Dodd's Church Hist, iii. 283; Gillow’s Bibl. Dict.; Cat. of Printed Books in Brit. Mus.]

T. C.