commemorates the connexion of the Molesworths with their quondam residence of Tretawne.
Polwhele says that Dr. John 'was at first puritanically inclined, but afterwards took the engagement,' and in conjunction with Dr. William Clarke and C. G. Cock, Esq., was, in 1653, constituted a Judge of the Admiralty. He seems to have always had a leaning in the direction of polemics, notwithstanding his being a member of the legal faculty, and his having been made one of the King's 'Advocates' at the Restoration; certainly his works on Divinity are more numerous than those on Law. His 'Orphan's Legacy, or Testamentary Abridgment,' which is in three parts—the first treating of Last Wills and Testaments, the second, of Executors and Administrators, and the third of Legacies and Devises—was, no doubt, a useful hand-book of the period; and his 'Repertorium Canonicum' (1687)—'an abridgment of the Ecclesiastical Laws of this Realm consistent with the Temporal: wherein the most material points relating to such persons and things as come within the cognizance thereof are succinctly treated'—is a laborious attempt to exhibit in their legal bearings the relations of Church and State, especially asserting the King's Supremacy.
But probably he will be better remembered by his 'Holy Limbeck, or a Semi-Century of Spiritual Extractions,' and by his 'Holy Arbour' than by either of the foregoing works, or by his 'Συνηγορος Θαλασσιος, or a view of the Admiral's Jurisdiction.' The title of the 'Holy Arbour' runs as follows, in the fantastical, metaphorical style of the time:
'The Holy Arbour—contayning ye whole Body of Divinity, or A Cluster of Spirituall Grapes, gathered from the Vines of certaine Moderne and Orthodox Laborers in the Lord's Viniard; Pressd For the Spirituall delight and benefit of all such as thirst after Righteousness.'
And the Dedication, in similar vein, commences thus:
'To the Truly Honorable, the Poor in Spirit.
'Right Humble,
'The mighty Nazarite's Riddle, Out of the Eater came Meat, and out of the Strong came Sweetness (Judg. xiv. 14) was the second course served in at his Marriage Feast; which by way of Allusion may not unaptly be applied to you. Came not the Spirit of God upon you at the Conquest of that devouring Lyon, in the fierce Assults of his ingenious Temptations? At your return from which Spiritual Combat, began you not to feed on the Peace of Good Consciences, when the Word of the Lord became as Honey in your mouthes? Is not this a Riddle to the Uncircumcised of the World?
'In congratulation of which no common Victory, is this Address no less properly then humbly prostrated to you onely, as the most faithful Guardians of this Holy Arbor; whose unfenced Ambulage, when spiced at your approach by the fragrancy of your Innocency, craves the Subterfuge of your Prayers.'
Our author died in 1678, in or near Fleet Street, and was buried in the north aisle of St. James's Church, Clerkenwell, leaving one son, Francis, who died in 1695, and who was buried with his wife, Grace, at St. Columb Major: down to within the last hundred years their descendants have hovered round the neighbourhood, and found like resting-place for their remains.