John Biddle (Unitarian)

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For other people named John Biddle, see John Biddle (disambiguation).

John Biddle or Bidle (14 January 1615 – 22 September 1662)

nontrinitarian, and Unitarian. He is often called "the Father of English Unitarianism".[2][3]

Life

Biddle was born at

Magdalen Hall, Oxford, taking an M. A. in 1641.[4] At the age of 26, he became headmaster of the Crypt Grammar School, Gloucester. The school had links to Gloucester Cathedral, and since he was obliged to teach his pupils according to the Catechism of the Church of England, he immersed himself in the study of the Bible. He concluded from his studies that the doctrine of the Trinity was not supported by the Bible, and set about publishing his own views on the nature of God.[4]

He was imprisoned in Gloucester in 1645 for his views,

Leveller pamphlet Englands New Chaines Discovered.[6] Biddle was strongly attacked by John Owen,[citation needed
] in his massive work Vindiciae Evangelicae; or, The Mystery of the Gospel Vindicated and Socinianism Examined.

He was again in trouble with the

Scilly Isles, out of the jurisdiction of any hostile English Parliaments. By exiling Biddle, Cromwell avoided a test case that could have put significant numbers of the sects at risk of prosecution.[9] He was released in 1658.[10] He was imprisoned once more, and became ill, leading to his death.[4] His body was "conveyed to the burial place joyning to Old Bedlam in Moorfields near London, was there deposited by the Brethren, who soon after took care that an altar monument of stone should be erected over his grave with an inscription thereon."[11][12]

A biography of Biddle by Joshua Toulmin was published in 1789.[13]

Works

He is believed to have translated the Polish Racovian Catechism into English.[14]

Views

He denounced

Socinian, denying the pre-existence of Christ but accepting the virgin birth.[19] Biddle's denial of the pre-existence of Christ was the main target of works including Puritan theologian John Owen's A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity (1669).[20]

Legacy

Biddle's appeal for conscience was one of the major milestones of the establishment of religious freedom in England. More recently Biddle's combination of

Socinian Christology and millennialism has led to a rediscovery of his work among Christadelphians and other non-Trinitarian groups in the 1970s and 1980s.[21][22]

Explanatory notes

  1. ^ The case against Biddle was as significant as the better known case against the Quaker James Nayler in the following parliament, but is now less well known because the Biddle case was recorded in much less detail in the parliamentary diary.[8]

References

  1. ^ "John Biddle". Britannica. Retrieved 21 September 2018.
  2. ^
    Christopher Hill
    , Milton and the English Revolution, p. 290.
  3. ^ mentioned in: A Liberal Religious Heritage Archived 29 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine, Bartleby Archived 30 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine, The Role of the Fourth Commandment in the Historical Sabbath-keeping Churches of God – Christian Churches of God, Woden Australia, History A SHORT UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST HISTORY By Dr. John W. Baros-Johnson April, 2003, Exlibris "Socinians" Archived 24 June 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  4. ^ a b c d e Grosart, Alexander Balloch (1886). "Biddle, John" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 5. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
  5. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Biddle, John" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  6. ^ Hill, Milton, p. 293.
  7. ^ "Guibon Goddard's Journal: January 1654–5". British History Online. Retrieved 28 November 2017.
  8. ISBN 9780199570492
  9. ISBN 9780199570492
  10. ^ Hill, Change and Continuity in Seventeenth-Century England, p. 267.
  11. ^ Wood, Anthony, 1691 Athenae Oxoniense, Vol.2, London, p. 202.
  12. ^ Robert Hartle, 2017 The New Churchyard: from Moorfields marsh to Bethlem burial ground, Brokers Row and Liverpool Street, Crossrail: London, p. 37.
  13. ^ Toulmin, Joshua (1789). A Review of the Life, Character and Writings of the Rev. John Biddle, M.A. London: J. Johnson, Bookseller.
  14. Socinian
    , something he was often accused of being.
  15. ^ Hill, Milton, p. 313.
  16. ^ Hill, The World Turned Upside Down, p. 177.
  17. ^ Milton Hill, p. 320.
  18. ^ Hill, A Nation of Change and Novelty, p. 189.
  19. ^ Biddle's TWOFOLD SCRIPTURE CATECHISM, Chapter 4. Online Archived 12 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  20. ^ Kevin Giles The Eternal Generation of the Son: Maintaining Orthodoxy in Trinitarian Theology 0830839658 2012 p. 188 "John Owen (1616–1683) is widely recognized as the greatest of the seventeenth-century Puritan theologians.... A Brief Declaration and Vindication of the Doctrine of the Trinity, as also of the Person and Satisfaction of Christ (1699).81 In these two works, one of Owen's primary concerns is to establish by appeal to Scripture the preexistence and eternity of the Son.82 He directs most of his arguments to John Biddle, a Socinian who is often called 'the father of English Unitarianism'."
  21. ^ John Botten, The Captive Conscience, Birmingham.
  22. ^ A. Eyre. The Protestors Birmingham

External links

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