Daniel Whitby
Encyclopedia
Daniel Whitby was a controversial English
theologian
and biblical commentator. An Arminian
priest in the Church of England
, Whitby was known as strongly anti-Calvinistic
and later gave evidence of strong Arian
and Unitarian
tendencies.
, Northamptonshire
, then rector of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, he was born at Rushden on 24 March 1638. After attending school at Caster, Lincolnshire, he became in 1653 a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford
, matriculating on 23 July, when his name is written Whitbie. He was elected scholar on 13 June 1655, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
on 20 April 1657, M.A. on 10 April 1660, and was elected fellow in 1664. In the same year he came out as a writer against Roman Catholic doctrine, attacking Serenus Cressy. He was answered by John Sergeant
, to whom he replied in 1666. Seth Ward
, bishop of Salisbury
, made him his chaplain in 1668, giving him on 22 October the prebend of Yatesbury, and on 7 November the prebend of Husborn-Tarrant and Burbage.
In 1669 he became perpetual curate of St. Thomas's and rector of St. Edmund's, Salisbury
. He next wrote on the evidences (1671). On 11 September 1672 he was installed precentor at Salisbury, and at once accumulated B.D. and D.D. (13 September) He resumed his anti-Catholic polemics in 1674, and continued to publish on this topic at intervals till 1689.
Whitby's reputation suffered by his anonymous publication, late in 1682, of The Protestant Reconciler, a plea for concessions to nonconformists, with a view to their comprehension. A fierce paper war followed, in which Lawrence Womock, David Jenner
, and Samuel Thomas
took part. In contemporary pamphlets Whitby, nicknamed Whigby, was unfavourably contrasted with Titus Oates
; ironical letters of thanks were addressed to him, purporting to come from Anabaptist
s and others. The University of Oxford in convocation (21 July 1683) condemned the proposition 'that the duty of not offending a weak brother is inconsistent with all human authority of making laws concerning indifferent things,' and ordered Whitby's book to be burned by the university marshal in the schools quadrangle. Seth Ward extorted from Whitby a retractation (9 October 1683); and he issued a second part of the Protestant Reconciler, urging dissenters to conformity.
In 1689 Whitby wrote in favour of taking the oaths to William and Mary. He took a small part in the Socinian controversy
by publishing (1691) a Latin tract on the divinity of Christ. On 14 April 1696 he received the prebend of Taunton Regis.
Whitby suffered in his later years from failing sight, and employed an amanuensis; otherwise he retained his faculties, including a tenacious memory. He was at church the day before he died; and returning home fainted and died the night following, on 24 March 1726, his eighty-eighth birthday.
thought it preferable to any other commentary. In his commentary he opposes John Tillotson
's view of hell torments. Faith
he defined as mere assent to Gospel facts as true. In 1710, Whitby challenged the critical works of John Mill
and defended Textus Receptus
against thirty thousand textual variants in Mill's edition of the New Testament. Of this Examen variantium Lectionum Johannis Milli use was made by Anthony Collins
; it was reprinted (Leyden, 1724) by Sigebert Haverkamp.
During 1710-11 Whitby was engaged in refuting the Calvinistic positions of John Edwards
. In 1710 he wrote his Discourse on the Five Points (on the Five Points of Calvinism) which eventually drew Calvinist responses from English Baptist John Gill
in his The Cause of God and Truth (1735) and American Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards in his Freedom of the Will (1754).
Whitby is usually ranked as an Arminian, but denial of the imputation of Adam's sin carried him beyond Arminian lines. In the Bangorian controversy
he wrote (1714 and 1718) in defence of Benjamin Hoadly
. On the doctrine of our Lord's deity, which he had defended in 1691 and had upheld throughout his New Testament commentary (1703), he was affected by the treatise (1712) of Samuel Clarke
, as shown by his later criticisms of George Bull
and Daniel Waterland
.
A later Latin dissertation (1714) rejects the authority of the fathers as interpreters of Scripture, or as entitled to determine controversies respecting the Trinity. He had been led to this position by his antagonism (1707) to the arguments on which Henry Dodwell the elder based his rejection of the natural immortality of the soul. He made further use of it in criticisms directed (1718) against Bull and (1720-1) Waterland.
The extent of his departure from conventional opinion was not revealed till the posthumous publication in April 1727 of his Last Thoughts, which he calls his 'retractation,' and which 'clearly shows his unitarianism'.
, even if seeds of this millennialist belief were sown long before with persons such as Augustine
. Although Whitby may have been an Arminian minister, postmillennialism is now commonly associated with Calvinist
and Covenantal
churches, specifically Reconstructionist
churches.
Clarence Larkin
wrote:
Attribution
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
theologian
Theology
Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...
and biblical commentator. An Arminian
Arminianism in the Church of England
Arminianism in the Church of England was a theological strand or tendency within the clergy of the Church of England particularly evident in the second quarter of the 17th century...
priest in the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, Whitby was known as strongly anti-Calvinistic
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
and later gave evidence of strong Arian
Arianism
Arianism is the theological teaching attributed to Arius , a Christian presbyter from Alexandria, Egypt, concerning the relationship of the entities of the Trinity and the precise nature of the Son of God as being a subordinate entity to God the Father...
and Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
tendencies.
Life
The son of Thomas Whitby, rector (1631-7) of RushdenRushden
Rushden is a town and civil parish in the county of Northamptonshire, England.The parish of Rushden covers an area of some and is part of the district of East Northamptonshire. The population of Rushden was estimated at around 28,368, making it the fifth largest town in the county...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, then rector of Barrow-on-Humber, Lincolnshire, he was born at Rushden on 24 March 1638. After attending school at Caster, Lincolnshire, he became in 1653 a commoner of Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
, matriculating on 23 July, when his name is written Whitbie. He was elected scholar on 13 June 1655, graduated with a Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
on 20 April 1657, M.A. on 10 April 1660, and was elected fellow in 1664. In the same year he came out as a writer against Roman Catholic doctrine, attacking Serenus Cressy. He was answered by John Sergeant
John Sergeant (priest)
John Sergeant was an English Roman Catholic priest, controversialist and theologian.-Life:He was son of William Sergeant, a yeoman in Barrow-upon-Humber, Lincolnshire, and was admitted in 1639 as a sub-sizar at St John's College, Cambridge, graduating in 1643...
, to whom he replied in 1666. Seth Ward
Seth Ward (bishop)
Seth Ward was an English mathematician, astronomer, and bishop.-Early life:He was born in Hertfordshire, and educated at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1636 and M.A. in 1640, becoming a Fellow in that year...
, bishop of Salisbury
Bishop of Salisbury
The Bishop of Salisbury is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset...
, made him his chaplain in 1668, giving him on 22 October the prebend of Yatesbury, and on 7 November the prebend of Husborn-Tarrant and Burbage.
In 1669 he became perpetual curate of St. Thomas's and rector of St. Edmund's, Salisbury
Salisbury
Salisbury is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England and the only city in the county. It is the second largest settlement in the county...
. He next wrote on the evidences (1671). On 11 September 1672 he was installed precentor at Salisbury, and at once accumulated B.D. and D.D. (13 September) He resumed his anti-Catholic polemics in 1674, and continued to publish on this topic at intervals till 1689.
Whitby's reputation suffered by his anonymous publication, late in 1682, of The Protestant Reconciler, a plea for concessions to nonconformists, with a view to their comprehension. A fierce paper war followed, in which Lawrence Womock, David Jenner
David Jenner
-Life:He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he proceeded B.A. in 1657–8. Afterwards he became a fellow of Sidney Sussex College and took the degree of M.A...
, and Samuel Thomas
Samuel Thomas (non-juror)
Samuel Thomas was an English nonjuring clergyman and controversialist.-Life:Born at Ubley, Somerset, he was the son of William Thomas , rector of Ubley. He graduated B.A. from Peterhouse, Cambridge, in 1649, and was incorporated at Oxford on 20 August 1651. He became a Fellow of St John's College,...
took part. In contemporary pamphlets Whitby, nicknamed Whigby, was unfavourably contrasted with Titus Oates
Titus Oates
Titus Oates was an English perjurer who fabricated the "Popish Plot", a supposed Catholic conspiracy to kill King Charles II.-Early life:...
; ironical letters of thanks were addressed to him, purporting to come from Anabaptist
Anabaptist
Anabaptists are Protestant Christians of the Radical Reformation of 16th-century Europe, and their direct descendants, particularly the Amish, Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites....
s and others. The University of Oxford in convocation (21 July 1683) condemned the proposition 'that the duty of not offending a weak brother is inconsistent with all human authority of making laws concerning indifferent things,' and ordered Whitby's book to be burned by the university marshal in the schools quadrangle. Seth Ward extorted from Whitby a retractation (9 October 1683); and he issued a second part of the Protestant Reconciler, urging dissenters to conformity.
In 1689 Whitby wrote in favour of taking the oaths to William and Mary. He took a small part in the Socinian controversy
Socinian controversy
The Socinian controversy in the Church of England was a theological argument on christology carried out by English theologians for around a decade from 1687...
by publishing (1691) a Latin tract on the divinity of Christ. On 14 April 1696 he received the prebend of Taunton Regis.
Whitby suffered in his later years from failing sight, and employed an amanuensis; otherwise he retained his faculties, including a tenacious memory. He was at church the day before he died; and returning home fainted and died the night following, on 24 March 1726, his eighty-eighth birthday.
Works
His major work was a 'Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament,' begun in 1688 and published in 1700; last edition, 1822. Philip DoddridgePhilip Doddridge
Philip Doddridge DD was an English Nonconformist leader, educator, and hymnwriter.-Early life:...
thought it preferable to any other commentary. In his commentary he opposes John Tillotson
John Tillotson
John Tillotson was an Archbishop of Canterbury .-Curate and rector:Tillotson was the son of a Puritan clothier at Haughend, Sowerby, Yorkshire. He entered as a pensioner of Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647, graduated in 1650 and was made fellow of his college in 1651...
's view of hell torments. Faith
Faith
Faith is confidence or trust in a person or thing, or a belief that is not based on proof. In religion, faith is a belief in a transcendent reality, a religious teacher, a set of teachings or a Supreme Being. Generally speaking, it is offered as a means by which the truth of the proposition,...
he defined as mere assent to Gospel facts as true. In 1710, Whitby challenged the critical works of John Mill
John Mill
John Mill was an English theologian. He is noted for his critical edition of the Greek New Testament which included notes on many variant readings.-Biography:...
and defended Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus
Textus Receptus is the name subsequently given to the succession of printed Greek texts of the New Testament which constituted the translation base for the original German Luther Bible, the translation of the New Testament into English by William Tyndale, the King James Version, and for most other...
against thirty thousand textual variants in Mill's edition of the New Testament. Of this Examen variantium Lectionum Johannis Milli use was made by Anthony Collins
Anthony Collins
Anthony Collins , was an English philosopher, and a proponent of deism.-Life and Writings:...
; it was reprinted (Leyden, 1724) by Sigebert Haverkamp.
During 1710-11 Whitby was engaged in refuting the Calvinistic positions of John Edwards
John Edwards (divine)
John Edwards was an English Calvinistic divine.- Early life :Edwards was the second son of Thomas Edwards, author of Gangræna. He was born at Hertford 26 February 1637, and admitted into Merchant Taylors' School at the age of ten....
. In 1710 he wrote his Discourse on the Five Points (on the Five Points of Calvinism) which eventually drew Calvinist responses from English Baptist John Gill
John Gill (theologian)
John Gill was an English Baptist pastor, biblical scholar, and theologian who held to a firm Calvinistic soteriology. Born in Kettering, Northamptonshire, he attended Kettering Grammar School where he mastered the Latin classics and learned Greek by age 11...
in his The Cause of God and Truth (1735) and American Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards in his Freedom of the Will (1754).
Whitby is usually ranked as an Arminian, but denial of the imputation of Adam's sin carried him beyond Arminian lines. In the Bangorian controversy
Bangorian Controversy
The Bangorian Controversy was a theological argument within the Church of England in the early 18th century, with strong political overtones. The origins of the controversy lay in the 1716 posthumous publication of George Hickes's Constitution of the Catholic Church, and the Nature and...
he wrote (1714 and 1718) in defence of Benjamin Hoadly
Benjamin Hoadly
Benjamin Hoadly was an English clergyman, who was successively Bishop of Bangor, Hereford, Salisbury, and Winchester. He is best known as the initiator of the Bangorian Controversy.-Life:...
. On the doctrine of our Lord's deity, which he had defended in 1691 and had upheld throughout his New Testament commentary (1703), he was affected by the treatise (1712) of Samuel Clarke
Samuel Clarke
thumb|right|200px|Samuel ClarkeSamuel Clarke was an English philosopher and Anglican clergyman.-Early life and studies:...
, as shown by his later criticisms of George Bull
George Bull
George Bull was an English theologian and Bishop of St David's.-Life:He was born, 25 March 1634, in the parish of St. Cuthbert, Wells, and educated in the grammar school at Wells, and then at Blundell's School in Tiverton under Samuel Butler. Before he was fourteen years old he went into...
and Daniel Waterland
Daniel Waterland
Daniel Cosgrove Waterland was an English theologian.Daniel Waterland was born at Walesby Rectory, Lincolnshire, England, and educated in Lincoln and at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated BA in 1703 and MA in 1706...
.
A later Latin dissertation (1714) rejects the authority of the fathers as interpreters of Scripture, or as entitled to determine controversies respecting the Trinity. He had been led to this position by his antagonism (1707) to the arguments on which Henry Dodwell the elder based his rejection of the natural immortality of the soul. He made further use of it in criticisms directed (1718) against Bull and (1720-1) Waterland.
The extent of his departure from conventional opinion was not revealed till the posthumous publication in April 1727 of his Last Thoughts, which he calls his 'retractation,' and which 'clearly shows his unitarianism'.
Views on the Millennium
Whitby is considered by many to have systematized postmillennialismPostmillennialism
In Christian end-times theology, , postmillennialism is an interpretation of chapter 20 of the Book of Revelation which sees Christ's second coming as occurring after the "Millennium", a Golden Age in which Christian ethics prosper...
, even if seeds of this millennialist belief were sown long before with persons such as Augustine
Augustine of Hippo
Augustine of Hippo , also known as Augustine, St. Augustine, St. Austin, St. Augoustinos, Blessed Augustine, or St. Augustine the Blessed, was Bishop of Hippo Regius . He was a Latin-speaking philosopher and theologian who lived in the Roman Africa Province...
. Although Whitby may have been an Arminian minister, postmillennialism is now commonly associated with Calvinist
Calvinism
Calvinism is a Protestant theological system and an approach to the Christian life...
and Covenantal
Covenant Theology
Covenant theology is a conceptual overview and interpretive framework for understanding the overall flow of the Bible...
churches, specifically Reconstructionist
Christian Reconstructionism
Christian Reconstructionism is a religious and theological movement within Evangelical Christianity that calls for Christians to put their faith into action in all areas of life, within the private sphere of life and the public and political sphere as well...
churches.
Clarence Larkin
Clarence Larkin
Rev. Clarence Larkin was an American Baptist pastor, Bible teacher and author whose writings on Dispensationalism had a great impact on conservative Protestant visual culture in the 20th century...
wrote:
External links
- Works by or about Daniel Whitby at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
and Google Books (scanned books original editions color illustrated)
Attribution