Sheldonian Theatre on 9 July 1669. He was elected fellow of his college on 17 Oct. 1670. During 1670 he was ordained and became tutor. He was also for some time chaplain to Sir William Palmer of Warden in Bedfordshire, whose daughter Priscilla, he married at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 1684. Her surname does not appear on the register; that of her mother (daughter of Sir John Bramston, 1577–1654 [q. v.]) was substituted in error. In 1676 he was chosen by Dr. Thomas Lamplugh [q. v.], on his promotion to the see of Exeter, to be his chaplain; on 29 Oct. 1677 he was made prebendary of Exeter; in August 1681 was presented by his college to the rectory of Bletchington, Oxfordshire, and about the same time became chaplain in ordinary to Charles II. Mill was a benefactor to his parish. In 1686 he was instrumental in restoring to their proper use the funds and lands of a local charity, which had been misappropriated for some years by the lord of the manor. He drew up an account of the land (glebe and other), rates, and advowson of his parish, with a copy of the original grant to the provost and scholars of Queen's College by Edward III. His manuscript is still preserved by the rector of Bletchington.
Mill vacated his fellowship at Queen's College towards the end of 1682. On the removal of Thomas Crosthwait he was elected principal of St. Edmund Hall, and was admitted on 5 May 1685. He was not popular there, and his duties were chiefly performed by his vice-principal. His political vacillations gained him the nickname of ‘Johnny Wind-Mill.’ Although upholding the doctrine of passive obedience and non-resistance, he disliked the practical inconveniences of turning nonjuror, and he became the subject of a jingle, sung by the children in the streets of Oxford:
Wilt thou take the oaths, little Johnny Mill?
No, no, that I won't, Yes but I will.
In 1694 he was proctor for the clergy of the diocese of Canterbury, in the lower house of convocation. On 14 Aug. 1704 he obtained the fourth prebend at Canterbury, and on 1 Aug. 1705 he resigned his prebend at Exeter.
Mill was seized with apoplexy on the evening of Saturday, 21 June 1707, and, without recovering consciousness, died about 7 a.m. on Monday, 23 June, exactly a fortnight after the appearance of his great work on the New Testament (cf. Gibson MSS. 933, f. 42, in Lambeth Palace; Gent. Mag. 1801, p. 587). He was buried in the chancel of Bletchington Church, where monuments to his memory and to that of his wife (who had predeceased him on 1 April 1685) are still preserved.
While principal of St. Edmund Hall, Mill continued to prosecute with diligence the great work of his life, his edition of the New Testament in Greek. To this his attention had been first directed by the Savilian professor, Dr. Edward Bernard [q. v.], in 1677; and Dr. John Fell [q. v.], who had previously recognised his abilities, placed all his own notes at Mill's disposal. The printing of the work was commenced at Fell's expense, but on his death in 1686 only fifteen sheets were completed, and the burden of carrying on the work fell on Mill, who also refunded all that Fell had laid out. Hearne at a later date gave Mill some assistance. After thirty years of labour, the work was given to the world on 9 June 1707. It was dedicated to the queen in somewhat fulsome terms, but was the most beautiful edition (fol.) that had hitherto appeared. The text, that of Stephens of 1550, was left untouched, and the various readings were added at the bottom of each page. Mill had collated many valuable manuscripts in England, and procured collations of the principal ones on the continent; the result was a masterpiece of scholarship and critical insight. Prefixed are valuable ‘Prolegomena,’ divided into three parts; the first treating separately of each book of the New Testament, the second containing the history of the text from the time of the apostles, and the third giving a review of his own labours.
Mill was the first editor of the New Testament who attempted to give a clear and accurate description of the manuscripts used, and was also the first to draw up a genealogy of the editions of the Greek text. The edition met with much adverse criticism. His small acquaintance with the oriental languages was the most fruitful source of error. For references to the Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic, he had recourse, as he avows (Proleg. 1707, p. clxii), to the Latin translations in Walton's ‘Polyglott.’ His extracts from the Coptic and Anglo-Saxon, on the contrary, were taken partly from the papers of Thomas Marshall [q. v.], and partly from the communication of Ludovicus Piques, and may be regarded as authentic.
The most famous attack on Mill was that by Dr. Daniel Whitby, who, in his ‘Examen variantium lectionum J. Millii,’ London, 1709, sought to show that the great number of readings (amounting it is said to over thirty thousand) endangered the authority of the printed text. This view was eagerly taken up by Anthony Collins [q. v.] in his ‘Discourse of Free Thinking.’ pp. 87–90. Bentley, under
