John Hutchinson (1674 – 28 August 1737) was an English

theologian Theology is the study of religious belief from a religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of ...

and

natural philosopher Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe, while ignoring any supernatural influence. It was dominant before the developme ...

. He was born at Spennithorne,

Yorkshire Yorkshire ( ) is an area of Northern England which was History of Yorkshire, historically a county. Despite no longer being used for administration, Yorkshire retains a strong regional identity. The county was named after its county town, the ...

, and served as steward in several families of position, latterly in that of the Duke of Somerset, who ultimately obtained for him the post of riding purveyor to the master of the horse, a sinecure worth about £200 a year. In 1700 he became acquainted with Dr. John Woodward (1665–1728), physician to the duke and author of a work entitled ''The Natural History of the Earth'', to whom he entrusted a large number of fossils of his own collecting, along with a mass of manuscript notes, for arrangement and publication. A misunderstanding as to the manner in which these should be dealt with was the immediate occasion of the publication by Hutchinson in 1724 of ''Moses's Principia'', part i., in which Woodward's ''Natural History'' was bitterly ridiculed, his conduct with regard to the mineralogical specimens not obscurely characterized, and a refutation of the Newtonian doctrine of

gravitation In physics, gravity (), also known as gravitation or a gravitational interaction, is a fundamental interaction, a mutual attraction between all massive particles. On Earth, gravity takes a slightly different meaning: the observed force b ...

seriously attempted. It was followed by part ii. in 1727, and by various other works, including ''Moses's Sine Principio'', 1730; ''The Confusion of Tongues and Trinity of the Gentiles'', 1731; ''Power Essential and Mechanical, or what power belongs to God and what to his creatures, in which the design of

Sir Isaac Newton Sir Isaac Newton () was an English polymath active as a mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author. Newton was a key figure in the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment that followed. His book (''Mathe ...

and Dr

Samuel Clarke Samuel Clarke (11 October 1675 – 17 May 1729) was an English philosopher and Anglican cleric. He is considered the major British figure in philosophy between John Locke and George Berkeley. Clarke's altered, Nontrinitarian revision of the 1 ...

is laid open'', 1732; ''Glory or Gravity'', 1733; ''The Religion of Satan, or Antichrist Delineated'', 1736. He taught that the

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contained the elements not only of true religion but also of all rational philosophy. He held that the

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must be read without points, and his interpretation rested largely on fanciful

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ism. Bishop George Horne of Norwich was during some of his earlier years an avowed Hutchinsonian; and William Jones of Nayland continued to be so to the end of his life. A complete edition of his publications, edited by Robert Spearman and Julius Bate, appeared in 1748 (12 vols.); an ''Abstract'' of these followed in 1753; and a ''Supplement'', with ''Life'' by Spearman prefixed, in 1765. Another of Hutchinson's numerous works is ''The Covenant in the Cherubim: So the Hebrew Writings Perfect. Alterations by Rabbies Forged Shewing the Evidence for the Scripture
.
'

Notes

References

* * John C. English, "John Hutchinson's Critique of Newtonian Heterodoxy", ''Church History'' 68 (1999) pp. 581–597 {{DEFAULTSORT:Hutchinson, John 1674 births 1737 deaths English theologians English male non-fiction writers 17th-century Anglican theologians 18th-century Anglican theologians