Daniel Whitby (1638–1726) 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 Unitarian tendencies.

thumb|Engraving of Daniel Whitby c.1708 by [[Michael Vandergucht, after E. Knight.]]

Life

The son of Thomas Whitby, rector (1631–7) of Rushden, 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, Wiltshire, 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. use was made by Anthony Collins; it was reprinted (Leyden, 1724) by Sigebert Haverkamp. 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.

Concerning the Whitby's position in respect of the Roman Catholic Church, he published the 1674 pamphlet A discourse concerning the idolatry of the Church of Rome, which was followed by A treatise in confutation of the Latin service practised and, by the order of the Trent Council, continued in the Church of Rome and also by The fallibility of the Roman Church : demonstrated from the manifest error of the 2d Nicene & Trent councils : which assert that the veneration and honorary worship of images is a tradition primitive and apostolical (London, 1687). At least from 1699 until 1702, Whitby was also a close friend and an epistolary correspondent of John Locke (1632 – 28 October 1704), which a short time before was returned from Netherlands to the Lady Masham's country house in Essex.

Views on the Millennium

Whitby is considered by many to have systematised postmillennialism, 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:

See also

  • Textus Receptus

Notes

References

;Attribution