Caleb Fleming

Caleb Fleming, D.D. (4 November 1698 – 21 July 1779) was an English dissenting minister and Polemicist.

Fleming was born at Nottinghamshire on 4 November 1698. His father was a hosier; his mother, whose maiden name was Buxton, was a daughter of the lord of the manor of Chelmerton, Derbyshire. Brought up in Calvinism, Fleming's early inclination was for the independent ministry. As a boy he learned shorthand, in order to take down sermons. In 1714 John Hardy became one of the ministers of the presbyterian congregation at the High Pavement Chapel, Nottinghamshire, and opened a nonconformist academy. Fleming was one of his first pupils. He was admitted as a communicant in 1715. Hardy (who conformed in 1727) taught him to discard his inheritance in theology. He gave up the idea of the ministry and took to business, retaining, however, his theological tastes.

In 1727 he left Nottingham for London. By this time he had married and had a family. How he maintained himself is not clear. He began to publish pamphlets which attracted some attention, but remained poor.

In 1727 a Catholic tried to make a convert of him, but desisted on discovering that he had to deal with an anti-trinitarian. Some help in further classical and biblical study was given to him by John Holt, then a presbyterian minister in London, later mathematical tutor at Warrington Academy, and he learned Hebrew from a rabbi. Through William Harris, D.D., presbyterian minister at Crutched Friars, an offer was made for his services as a government pamphleteer. He replied that he 'would sooner cut off his right hand.'

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