Sherlock, Thomas
Thomas Sherlock (1678 – 18 July 1761) was an English divine who served as a Church of England bishop for 33 years. He is also noted in church history as an important contributor to Christian apologetics.
[edit] Life
He was the son of William Sherlock and was born in London. He was educated at Eton and at St Catharine's College, Cambridge,[1] and in 1704 succeeded his father as Master of the Temple, where he was very popular.
Sherlock died in 1761, and is buried in the churchyard of All Saints Church, Fulham, London.
[edit] Career
In 1714 he became master of his old college at Cambridge and vice-chancellor of the university, whose privileges he defended against Richard Bentley. In 1715, he was appointed dean of Chichester.
He took a prominent part in the Bangorian controversy against Benjamin Hoadly. He himself became bishop of Bangor in 1728; he was afterwards translated to Salisbury in 1734, and to London in 1748. Sherlock was a capable administrator, and cultivated friendly relations with Dissenters. In parliament he was of good service to his old schoolfellow Robert Walpole.
[edit] Writings
Funerary monument, All Saints, Fulham, London
He published against Anthony Collins's deistic Grounds of the Christian Religion a volume of sermons entitled The Use and Interest of Prophecy in the Several Ages of the World (1725); and in reply to Thomas Woolston's Discourses on the Miracles he wrote a volume entitled The Tryal of the Witnesses of the Resurrection of Jesus (1729), which soon ran through fourteen editions. His Pastoral Letter (1750) on the late earthquakes had a circulation of many thousands, and four or five volumes of Sermons which he published in his later years (1754–1758) were also at one time highly esteemed.
A collected edition of his works, with a memoir, in 5 vols. 8vo, by JS Hughes, appeared in 1830.
Sherlock's Tryal of the Witnesses is generally understood by scholars such as Edward Carpenter, Colin Brown and William Lane Craig, to be a work that the Scottish philosopher David Hume probably had read and to which Hume offered a counter viewpoint in his empiricist arguments against the possibility of miracles.
[edit] Apologetics
Since the Deist controversy Sherlock's argument for the evidences of the resurrection of Jesus Christ has continued to interest later Christian apologists such as William Lane Craig and John Warwick Montgomery. His place in the history of apologetics has been classified by Ross Clifford as belonging to the legal or juridical school of Christian apologetics.
[edit] References
- Sherlock, Thomas in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
[edit] Further reading
- Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind, (Exeter: Paternoster/Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, 1984). ISBN 0-8028-3590-2
- Edward Carpenter, Thomas Sherlock 1678-1761, (London: SPCK, 1936).
- Ross Clifford, John Warwick Montgomery's Legal Apologetic: An Apologetic for All Seasons, (Bonn: Verlag fur kultur und Wissenschaft, 2004). ISBN 3938116005
- William Lane Craig, The Historical Argument for the Rsurrection of Jesus During the Deist Controversy, (Lewiston & Queenston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985). ISBN 0-88946-811-7
[edit] External links
| Academic offices |
Preceded by
William Dawes |
Master of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
1714–1719 |
Succeeded by
Thomas Crosse |
| Honorary titles |
Preceded by
Edmund Gibson |
Chancellor of The College of William & Mary
1749–1761 |
Succeeded by
Thomas Hayter |
| Church of England titles |
Preceded by
William Baker |
Bishop of Bangor
1728–1734 |
Succeeded by
Charles Cecil |
Preceded by
Benjamin Hoadley |
Bishop of Salisbury
1734–1748 |
Succeeded by
John Gilbert |
Preceded by
Edmund Gibson |
Bishop of London
1748–1761 |
Succeeded by
Thomas Hayter |
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List of Bishops of London |
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| Pre-Reformation: |
Mellitus · Cedd · Wine · Erkenwald · Waldherus · Ingualdus · Egwolfus · Wighedus · Eadbrightus · Eadgar · Kenwalchus · Eadbaldus · Hecbertus · Osmundus · Ethelnothus · Ceolbertus · Renulphus · Suithulfus · Eadstanus · Wulfius · Ethelwardus · Elstanus · Theodredus · Wolstanus · Brithelmus · Dunstan · Oelfstan · Wulfstan · Aldwin · Alfwy · Elfward Robert of Jumièges · William · Hugh d'Orevalle · Maurice · Richard de Beaumis · Gilbert Universalis · Robert de Sigello · Richard de Beaumis · Robert Foliot · Richard FitzNeal · William of Sainte-Mère-Eglise · Eustace of Fauconberg · Roger Niger · Fulk Basset · Henry Wingham · Richard Talbot · Henry de Sandwich · John Chishull · Fulke Lovell · Richard of Gravesend · Ralph Baldock · Gilbert Segrave · Richard Newport · Stephen Gravesend · Richard de Wentworth · Ralph Stratford · Michael Northburgh · Simon Sudbury · William Courtenay · Robert Braybrooke · Roger Walden · Nicholas Bubwith · Richard Clifford · John Kemp · William Grey · Robert FitzHugh · Robert Gilbert · Thomas Kempe · Richard Hill · Thomas Savage · William Warham · William Barnes · Richard FitzJames
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| Post-Reformation: |
Cuthbert Tunstall · John Stokesley · Edmund Bonner · Nicholas Ridley · Edmund Bonner · Edmund Grindal · Edwin Sandys · John Aylmer · Richard Fletcher · Richard Bancroft · Richard Vaughan · Thomas Ravis · George Abbot · John King · George Montaigne · William Laud · William Juxon · Gilbert Sheldon · Humphrey Henchman · Henry Compton · John Robinson · Edmund Gibson · Thomas Sherlock · Thomas Hayter · Richard Osbaldeston · Richard Terrick · Robert Lowth · Beilby Porteus · John Randolph · William Howley · Charles James Blomfield · Archibald Campbell Tait · John Jackson · Frederick Temple · Mandell Creighton · Arthur Winnington-Ingram · Geoffrey Fisher · William Wand · Henry Campbell · Robert Stopford · Gerald Ellison · Graham Leonard · David Hope · Richard Chartres
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| Name |
Sherlock, Thomas |
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