John Dury

John Dury (1596 in Edinburgh – 1680 in Kassel) was a Scottish Calvinist minister and a significant intellectual of the English Civil War period. He made efforts to re-unite the Calvinist and Lutheran wings of Protestantism, hoping to succeed when he moved to Kassel in 1661, but he did not accomplish this. He was a prolific preacher, pamphleteer and writer.

Early life

He was the fourth son of the exiled Scottish presbyterian minister Robert Durie; John was brought up in the Netherlands, at Leiden, attending the university there. He was in Cologne, at the Walloon Church, 1624-6, and subsequently at Elbląg (Elbing). He was a close associate of Samuel Hartlib, a native of Elbląg, whom he met there, and shared his interest in education. According to Richard Popkin, another key influence was Joseph Mede, from whom Dury took a method of scriptural interpretation; this interpretation has been challenged by recent research claiming that Dury developed his "Scriptural Analysis" before meeting with the works of Mede. While at Elbing he translated an anti-trinitarian work of Samuel Przypkowski into English.