Brief History of English and American Literature

by Henry A. Beers

Of the Non-conforming authors deserving notice Richard Baxter (1615-1691) is the most voluminous, if not also the most luminous. Controversy engaged his pen almost constantly, but his most permanent works were his Call to the Unconverted and The Saints' Everlasting Rest. John Owen (1616-1683) was a leading Puritan writer, and under Cromwell was vice-chancellor of Oxford University. His Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews and his book on The Holy Spirit are still in use and highly prized. His pen was strong rather than elegant. John Bunyan's immortal allegory throws a halo on universal literature. John Howe (1630-1705), the chief author among the Puritans, wrote many strong works, among which of special note are The Living Temple and The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit. He was Cromwell's chaplain.

The spiritual writings of Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661), the Scotch divine; the Annotations on the Psalms by Henry Ainsworth (died 1662), an Independent, who was an exile in Holland for {306} conscience' sake; the expository writings of Thomas Manton (1620-1677); the Synopsis of Matthew Poole (1624-1679), later abridged into his celebrated Annotations upon the Bible; the sermons of Stephen Charnock (1628-1680), particularly the one on "The Divine Attributes;" and An Alarm to Unconverted Sinners, by Joseph Alleine (1633-1688), which has had an immense circulation, form a galaxy in the theological firmament of the time of Milton.

A later group of theological writers in the latter part of the seventeenth century contains the commanding figures of Symon Patrick (1626-1707), bishop and author of a Commentary on the Old Testament; John Flavel (1627-1691) and his works on practical piety; John Tillotson (1630-1694), the Anglican archbishop, whose eloquent sermons are still held in high repute; Robert South (1633-1716), the great pulpit orator, whose discourses are an ornament to the English tongue; Edward Stillingfleet (1635-1699), from whose prolific pen came several valuable treatises, one of which was The Antiquities of the British Churches; and William Beveridge (1637-1708), whose Private Thoughts upon Religion is still in much esteem. To these we may add Thomas Ken (1637-1710), the good bishop now best known as the author of Praise God, from Whom all Blessings Flow; Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), a Baptist preacher of much note and author of Gospel Mysteries Opened, which, like his other writings, is marred by an {307} excessive use of figures; Gilbert Burnet (1643-1709), the writer and bishop, who mingled freely in the political affairs of the day and wrote much on a variety of subjects, one being a History of the Reformation of the Church of England; William Wall (1646-1728), the prominent defender of infant baptism; Humphrey Prideaux (1648-1724), who wrote the Connection of the Old and New Testaments; and Matthew Henry (1662-1714), still valued for his quaint and suggestive Commentary on the Scriptures.

Here, too, belong George Fox (1624-1690) and Robert Barclay (1648-1690), the heroic founder and the learned champion of the Society of Friends, the former's Journal and the latter's Apology for the True Christian Divinity being worthy of special note. William Penn (1644-1718), more eminent as the chief colonizer of Pennsylvania, also wrote many powerful works in advocacy of Quaker teachings; and William Sewel's (1650-1726) History of the Quakers is a notable contribution to the literature of that much-misunderstood and persecuted people.

Among those who graced the first half of the eighteenth century we find the Irish man of letters, Charles Leslie (1650-1722), who gave among others a celebrated treatise on A Short and Easy Method with the Deists; Francis Atterbury (1662-1732), Bishop of Rochester, whose Sermons still survive; William Wollaston (1659-1724), known as the author of The Religion of Nature, a plea for truth; Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), the {308} philosophical writer of The Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God; Matthew Tindal (1657-1733), the leading deist of his day, whose chief work was Christianity as Old as Creation; Robert Wodrow (1679-1734), a Scotch preacher who wrote a History of the Sufferings of the Church of Scotland; and Thomas Wilson (1663-1755), Bishop of Sodor and Man for fifty-seven years and the author of many useful works on the Scriptures and Christianity. Bishop Joseph Butler (1692-1752) appeared as the champion of Christianity and successfully answered the deistical tendency of Tindal and others by his Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of Nature, which, though obscure in style, is still in high repute for its massive thought and mighty logic.

Thomas Stackhouse (1680-1752) and his History of the Bible; John Bampton (1689-1751), whose estate still speaks at Oxford in defense of Christianity in the annual lectures on Divinity; Daniel Waterland (1683-1740), in his defense of the divinity of Christ; and Joseph Bingham (1668-1723), in his learned treatise on The Antiquities of the Christian Church, are also in the front rank of this period. Daniel Neal (1678-1743), in his History of the Puritans; John Leland (1691-1766), the Dublin preacher, in his View of the Deistical Writers; and Philip Doddridge (1702-1751), in his Family Expositor and his briefer and more famous Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, furnished valuable contributions to theological literature.

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The latter half of the eighteenth century was prolific of letters. Noteworthy among those who wrote on religious themes are the following: Nathaniel Lardner (1684-1768), who wrote The Credibility of the Gospel History; William Law (1687-1761), whose Serious Call to a Holy Life and Christian Perfection are still powerful works; Richard Challoner (1691-1781), a Roman Catholic author of many practical and devotional works and of a Version of the Bible, much prized in his own Church; Alban Butler (1700-1773), who compiled The Lives of the Saints; William Warburton (1698-1779), in his Divine Legation of Moses; Alexander Cruden (1701-1770), the Scotch author of the famous Concordance to the Holy Scriptures; and Lord George Lyttleton (1708-1773), the author of Observations on the Conversion and Apostleship of St. Paul.

In the same category belong: Robert Lowth (1710-1787), whose book on Hebrew Poetry is still consulted; James Hervey (1713-1758), whose Meditations became very popular; Hugh Blair (1718-1800), the Scotchman whose Sermons for many years rivaled his Lectures on Rhetoric in popularity; Joseph Priestley (1733-1804), illustrious in the annals of chemical discovery, who wrote Institutes of Natural and Revealed Religion, and is one of the most distinguished Socinian writers; and William Paley (1743-1805), whose Natural Theology and Horae Paulinae are still standard works.

During this period also came the great impulse {310} to the literature of the common people through the tireless pen of John Wesley (1703-1791), whose Sermons and Notes on the New Testament have had a powerful influence wherever the Wesleyan revival has spread. James McKnight (1721-1800), the scholarly commentator and harmonist; John Fletcher (1729-1785), the sweet-souled defender of Methodism and author of Checks to Antinomianism; Bishop Richard Watson (1737-1816), the learned apologist; Augustus M. Toplady (1740-1778); the hymnist and polemic; Joseph Milner (1744-1797), the Church historian; Thomas Coke (1747-1814), in his Commentary on the Old and New Testaments; and Andrew Fuller (1754-1815) were authors of marked force and ability.