Flechiere, de la. See Fletcher, John.
Fledgling would be a proper rendering for ^Tia, gozal' (so called from its peeping ; the Arab, and Syr. use essentially the same word in the sense of nestling')., a '■'■ younf bird, e. g. of the dove [squab], or pigeon (Gen. XV, 9), or eagle [eaglet] (Deut. xxxii, 11. The Greek corresponding term is vtoaauc, ("young" pig- eon, Luke ii, 24). See Bird.
Fleece (t3, gez, so called from shearing, Deut. xviii, 4; Job xxxi, 20; or il"?, the fem. form, Judg. vi, 37, 39, 40), the wool of a sheep, whether on the back of the animal, or shorn ofl^, or attached to the flayed skin, which last appears to have been the case in the passage last cited. The threshing-floor of Gid- eon appears to have been an open uncovered space, upon which the dews of heaven fell without interrup- tion. See Threshing-floor. The miracle of Gid- eon's fleece consists in the dew having fallen one time upon the fleece, without any on the floor, and that at another time the fleece remained dry while the ground was wet with it. See Gideon. It may appear a lit- tle improbable to us who inhabit northern climates, where the dews are inconsiderable, how Gideon's fleece in one night should contract such a quantity of water that, when he came to wring it, a bowl-full was pro- duced ; but Kitto observes {Pict. Bible, note ad loc), " AVe remember, while travelling in Western Asia, to have found all the baggage, which had been left in the open air, so wet, when we came forth from the tent in the morning, that it seemed to have been exposed to heavy rain, and we could with difficulty believe that no rain had fallen. So also, when sleeping in the open air, the sheep-skin cloak which served for a covering has been found in the morning scarcely less wet than if it had been immersed in water." See Dew.
FleetTWOOd, Williasi, bishop of Ely, and one of the most eloquent preachers of his time, was'born Jan- uary, 1656, in the Tower of London, and was educated at Eton and King's College, Cambridge. After hav- ing held the preferments of rector of St. Austin's and canon of Windsor, he was made bishop of St, Asaph in 1706, and was translated to Ely in 1714. He died at
FLEMING
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Tottenham, Middlesex, Aug. 4, 1723. In politics he held liberal views. His principal works are, An Essay on Miracles (1701, 8vo) : — Inscriptionum Antiquarum Sylloge (1691, 8vo) : — Chronicon Pretiosum, or an Ac- count of Eiujlish Money (1707): — Method of Devotion, translated from Jurieu (1692; of which the 27th edi- tion appeared in 1750): — The Judgment of the Church of England concerning Lay Baptism (1712): — The Life and Miracles of St. Winifred (1718). His sermons, etc., are gathered in A complete Collection of the Sermons, Tracts, etc., of Bp. Fleetwood (London, 1737, fol.) ; and there is a new edition of his Whole Works from the University Press (Oxford, 1854, 3 vols. 8vo). — New Gen. Biog. Diet, v, 373; AUibone, Dictionary of Au- thors, p. 604.
Fleming, Robert, sen., an eminent Scotch di- vine, was born at Tester in 1630. He studied philos- ophy at the University of Edinburgh, and -divinity at St. Andrew's, under Kutherford. His first pastoral charge was at Cambuslang, in Clydesdale. He was one of four hundred ministers ejected by the Glasgow Act after the restoration of Charles II. He was im- prisoned in the Tolbooth of Edinburgh, but was liber- ated in 1673, and went to Holland, where he succeeded Mr. Brown as pastor of the Scots congregation at Rot- terdam. He died July 15, 1694, leaving behind him several works, of which the most remarkable is The futfilling of the Scriptures, complete in three parts : 1. Providence ; 2. in the word ; 3. in the Church (Lond. 1726, 5th ed. fol.), with memoir of the author by D. Burgess. — Middleton, Biog. Evang. iv, 69.
Fleming, Robert, jun., son of the above, was born at Cambuslang, and was educated at Leyden and Utrecht. In 1692 he became minister of the Scottish church at Leyden. In 1694 he succeeded his father at Rotterdam, and in 1698 became minister at Loth- bury, London, where he died in 1716. He wrote a re- markable Discourse on the Rise and Fall of the Papacy, the predictions of which have received a singular ful- filment. In this sermon, published in 1701, Fleming ventures his opinion that the French monarch)^ would be humbled in 1794, that the period of the fifth vial extended from 1794 to 1848, and that in the last-men- tioned j^ear the papacj' would receive its most signal blow, and that it would be followed by the destruction of the Turk. The sermon was reprinted in 1848. He publislied also Christology, a Discowse concerning Christ (Lond. 1705-8, 3 vols. 8vo), in which he main- tains the eternal pre-existence of the human soul of Christ. — Jamieson, Religious Biography, p. 200 ; Dor- ner, Person of Christ, Edinb. transL, div. ii, vol. ii, p. 329.
Fleming, Thornton, a Methodist Episcopal min- ister, was born at Williamsburg, Va., Oct., 1764; was converted at about twenty ; entered the itinerant min- istry in 1788. He was set off with the Pittsburg Con- ference from the Baltimore Conference in 1825, super- annuated in 1834, and died at Elizabethtown, Pa., in 1846. He was fifty-eight years in the ministrj-, fif- teen of which he was presiding elder. He possessed rare endowments as a man and a minister, and was widely useful in his life and labors. — Minutes of Con- ferences, iv, 139 ; Stevens, Hist, of the Methodist Epis- copal Church.