Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Mosse, Miles

by William Albert Samuel Hewins

MOSSE or MOSES, MILES (fl. 1580–1614), divine, educated at Cambridge University, proceeded D.D. between 1595 and 1603. About 1580 he became a minister at Norwich, where John, earl of Mar, and other Scottish nobles were afterwards among his congregation. 'It was my hap,' he says, 'through their honourable favour often to be present with some of them while they lay in the city of Norwich. There they many times partaked my publique ministry and I their private exercises' (Scotland's Welcome, 1603, p. 64). He afterwards became pastor of Combes, Suffolk. He published

1. 'A Catechism,' 1590, which is now only known by an answer by Thomas Rogers [q. v.], entitled, ' Miles Christianus: a Defence … written against an Epistle prefixed to a Catechism made by Miles Moses,' London, 1590, 4to.
2. 'The Arraignment and Conviction of Vsury,' &c., London, 8vo, 1595: sermons, preached at St. Edmundsbury, and directed against the growth of usury.

Mosse shows great familiarity with the Canonist writers, and well represents the views of the clergy on usury at the end of the sixteenth century. He appears to have been greatly influenced by the teaching of Calvin and his school.

3. 'Scotland's Welcome,' London, 1603, 8vo; a sermon preached at Needham, Suffolk, and dedicated to John, earl of Mar.
4. 'Justifying and Saving Faith distinguished from the Faith of the Devils in a Sermon preached at Pauls Crosse, in London, 9 May 1613,' contains an account of the death of Queen Elizabeth (p. 77).

[Strype's Life of Whitgift, ii. 468; Ashley's Economic History, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 469. Mosse's autograph is in the Tanner MSS. (Bodleian Library), cclxxxiii. 69; Davy's manuscript Athenæ Suffolc. in Brit. Mus. i. 279.]

W. A. S. H.