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The Reception of a Science of Texts in England, 1658–1740

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 November 2012

Gerard Reedy, S.J.*
Affiliation:
Fordham University

Extract

When Oliver Cromwell died on 3 September 1658, addresses of sympathy poured in from across the country. Formal ceremonies channeled sincere anxiety about what would happen to England now that the binding force of the Lord Protector was absent. Yet Gilbert Burnet tells us, in a piece of clerical gossip, that the scene taking place inside Whitehall Palace was, at times, comical.

Type
ARTICLES
Copyright
Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2012

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References

1 Gilbert, Burnet, A History of His Own Time (6 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1823) 1:141.Google Scholar

2 See Isabel Rivers's two-volume survey, Reason, Grace and Sentiment: A Study of the Language of Religion and Ethics in England, 1660–1780 (2 vols.; Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1991–2000Google Scholar). Her work is more detailed than many of its predecessors and supersedes all other general treatments. See also Spellman, William M., The Latitudinarians and the Church of England, 1660–1700 (Athens, Ga.: University of Georgia Press, 1993Google Scholar) and J, ohn, The Post-Reformation: Religion, Politics, and Society in Britain, 1603–1714 (London: Pearson Longman, 2006).Google Scholar

3 For background to the polyglot Bibles, see Robert, MathiesenThe Great Polyglot Bibles: The Impact of Printing on Religion in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Providence, R.I.: John Carter Brown Library, 1985Google Scholar), and Feingold, Mordechai, “Oriental Studies,” in Seventeenth-Century Oxford (ed. Tyacke, Nicholas; 8 vols.; vol. 4 in The History of the University of Oxford; Oxford: Clarendon, 1997) 4:448501.Google Scholar

4 The Latin titles of the first four polyglot Bibles can be confusing; it is easier to come to the polyglots through a Latin and English description of each. The four Bibles are: 1) the Alcalá de Henares polyglot (the “Complutensian” Bible) (ed. Diego López de Zúñiga et al.; 6 vols.; under the sponsorship of Cardinal Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros; 1515–1517); 2) the Antwerp polyglot (the “Biblia regia”) (ed. Christopher Plantin and Arias Montano; 8 vols.; 1572); 3) the Paris polyglot (ed. Guy-Michel LeJay and Antoine Vitré; 10 vols.; 1645); and 4) the London polyglot (the Biblia sacra polyglotta) (ed. Brian Walton; 6 vols; 1655–1657). The Antwerp and Paris polyglots each added little to contemporary knowledge of how to edit manuscripts; also, the Paris polyglot cost so much to print that its sales could not cover the costs, an outcome that Walton was determined to avoid.Google Scholar

5 Miller, Peter N., “The ‘Antiquarianization’ of Biblical Scholarship and the London Polyglot Bible (1653–57)JHI 62 2001 463–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 465–66.

6 See Katz, David S., God's Last Words: Reading the English Bible from the Reformation to Fundamentalism (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2004) 93Google Scholar. Katz has written a definitive introduction to Walton's major work. See also Kroll, Richard W. F., The Material Word: Literate Culture in the Restoration and Early Eighteenth Century (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991) 247–48.Google Scholar

7 Walton's high-churchmanship is evident in the charges of The Articles and Charge Proved in Parliament against Doctor Walton … (London, 1641).Google Scholar

8 The history of the publication of the London polyglot is fully described by Henry, John Todd, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of the Right Rev. Brian Walton, D.D…. (2 vols.; London, 1821) 1:3188.Google Scholar

9 Biblia Sacra Polyglotta (ed. Walton, Brian; 6 vols.; London: 1655–1657). The prolegomena precede the biblical text in the first folio volume (1:3538, 3944).Google Scholar

10 Ibid., 1:36.

11 Ibid.

12 Ibid., 1:36, 42.

13 Ibid., 1:39.

14 Ibid., 1:39.

15 John, Owen, Of the Divine Originall, Authority, Self-Evidencing Light, and Power of the Scriptures ….(Oxford: printed by Henry Hall, printer to Oxford University, 1659).Google Scholar

16 Ibid., 149–51.

17 Ibid., 34.

18 Ibid., 82.

19 Ibid., 114.

20 Ibid., 189.

21 Ibid., 17.

22 Ibid., 160.

23 Ibid., 161.

24 Ibid., 191.

25 Ibid., 207.

26 Ibid., 103.

27 Ibid., 6.

28 Ibid., 320–21.

29 , Spurr, Post-Reformation, 144–52.Google Scholar

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33 , Spinoza, Theological-Political Treatise, 101–5.Google Scholar

34 Richard, Simon, A Critical History of the Old Testament (trans. Anon.; London, 1682)Google Scholar; trans. of Histoire critique du Vieux Testament (Paris, 1678).

35 John, Dryden, “Religio Laici,” in The Works of John Dryden: Poems 1681–1684 (ed. Swedenberg, H. T. and Dearing, Vinton A.; vol. 2 of The Works of John Dryden; Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press, 1972) 97122Google Scholar, at 113–14, lines 142–49.

36 Phillip, Harth, Contexts of Dryden's Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) 174225.Google Scholar

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38 , Simon, Critical History, sig. (a) 1.Google Scholar

39 Ibid., 141.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., 141, 150.

42 , Dryden, “Religio Laici,” 117–20Google Scholar, lines 252–349.

43 Ibid., 118–19, lines 316–69.

44 See McLachlan, H. John, Socinianism in Seventeenth-Century England (London: Oxford University Press, 1951) 124.Google Scholar

45 , Dryden, “Religio Laici,” 118, lines 311–13.Google Scholar

46 The Faith of One God, Who is only the Father; and of One Mediator between God and Men, Who is only the Man Christ Jesus; … (London, 1691); A Second Collection of Tracts: Proving The God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only True God; … (London [?], 1693 [?]); A Third Collection of Tracts, Proving The God and Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only True God; … (London [?], 1695). This pamphlet was first published in 1694. The pagination of these texts is irregular.Google Scholar

47 John, Biddle, “The Preface,” in The Faith of One God.Google Scholar

48 “An Accurate Examination of the Principal Texts …,” in A Second Collection of Tracts, 1455.Google Scholar

49 “Considerations on the Explications of the Doctrine of the Trinity …,” in A Third Collection of Tracts …, 29.Google Scholar

50 See note 2.Google Scholar

51 , Stillingfleet, Works, 1:452–66.Google Scholar

52 Ibid., 1:454.

53 Ibid., 1:456.

54 John, Tillotson, Sermons Concerning the Divinity and Incarnation of Our Blessed Saviour: Preached in the Church of St. Lawrence Jewry (London, 1693) 58.Google Scholar

55 Ibid., 31, 116–18, 131.

56 Gilbert, Burnet, Four Discourses Delivered to the Clergy of the Diocess of Sarum … (London, 1694) iiiv.Google Scholar

57 Robert, South, Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions (new ed.; 7 vols.; Oxford: Clarendon, 1823) 4:276–93.Google Scholar

58 Ibid., 4:290.

59 Ibid., 4:300.

60 Ibid., 4:280.

61 For the contents of Boyle's will, see Thomas, BirchLife of the Honourable Robert Boyle (London, 1744) 353–55.Google Scholar For a list of the Boyle Lectures, see Fulton, John Farquhar, “A Bibliography of the Honourable Robert Boyle,” Oxford Bibliographical Society Proceedings and Papers 3 (1931–1933) 1172.Google Scholar

62 A Defence of Natural and A Defence of Natural and Revealed Religion … (3 vols.; London, 1739)Google Scholar. Defence contains the Boyle Lectures given from 1691 to 1732.

63 See Jacob, Margaret C., The Newtonians and the English Revolution, 1689–1720 (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976) 143–61Google Scholar for a description of the lectures.

64 Oliver, Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield (Salisbury, 1766).Google Scholar

65 Defence, 1:252.Google Scholar

66 Ibid., 1:557.

67 Ibid., 2:284.

68 Ibid., 2:764.

69 Ibid., 1:253, 260–61.

70 Ibid., 2:762–64.

71 Ibid., 2:765, 767.

72 Ibid., 2:764–66.

73 Ibid., 1:132–33.

74 Ibid., 1:560.