A Short Biography

Taylor, Jeremy (1613-1667), was chaplain to Laud and Charles I, and was appointed rector of Uppingham in 1638.  He was taken prisoner in the Royalist defeat before Cardigan Castle in 1645, and retired to Golden Grove, Carmarthenshire, where he wrote most of his greater works.  After the Restoration, he was made bishop of Down and Connor and, subsequently, of Dromore.  He died at Lisburn and was buried in his cathedral of Dromore.  His fame rests on the combined simplicity and splendour of his style, of which his “Holy Living” and “Holy Dying” (1650-1651) are, perhaps, the best examples.  Among his other works, the “Liberty of Prophesying,” an argument for toleration, appeared in 1646; his “Eniautos” or series of sermons for the Christian year, in 1653; “The Golden Grove,” a manual of daily prayers, in 1655.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature, John Mulgan, editor (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 511-512.

 

A (Very) Short Biography

Stephen, St., the first Christian martyr, one of the “seven men of honest report” chosen as a deacon at Jerusalem, accused of blasphemy, and stoned to death (Acts 6-7).

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature, John Mulgan, editor (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), p. 498.

 

A Short Biography

The Pilgrim’s Progress, from this world to that which is to come, an allegory by John Bunyan (1678)

The allegory takes the form of a dream by the author.  In this, he sees Christian, on the advice of Evangelist, fleeing from the City of Destruction.  Part I describes his pilgrimage through the Slough of Despond, the Valley of Humiliation, the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Vanity Fair, the Delectable Mountains, the House Beautiful, the country of Beulah, to the Celestial City.

Part II relates how Christian’s wife, Christiana, moved by a vision, sets out, with her children, on the same pilgrimage, accompanied by her neighbor, Mercy.

The work is remarkable for the beauty and simplicity of its language (Bunyan was permeated with the English of the Bible), the vividness and reality of the impersonations, and the author’s sense of humor and feeling for the world of nature.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature, John Mulgan, editor (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), p. 416.

 

A Short Biography

Paradise Lost, an epic poem by Milton (q.v.) originally in ten books, subsequently rearranged in twelve, first printed in 1667.Milton formed the intention of writing a great epic poem, as he tells us, as early as 1639.  A list of possible subjects, some of them scriptural, some from British history, written in his own hand about 1640-1641, still exists, with drafts of the scheme of a poem on Paradise Lost.  The work was not, however, begun in earnest until 1658, and it was finished, according to Aubrey, in 1663.

Book I.  The general subject is briefly stated: man’s disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise, with its prime cause, Satan, who, having revolted from God, has been driven out of Heaven.  Satan is presented, with his angels, lying on the burning lake of Hell.  He awakens his legions, comforts them, and summons a council.  Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, is built.

Book II.  The council debates whether another battle for the recovery of Heaven shall be hazarded, but decides to examine the report that a new world, with new creatures in it, has been created.  Satan undertakes, alone, the search.  He passes through Hell-gates, guarded by Sin and Death, and passes upward through the realm of Chaos.

Book III.  God sees Satan flying towards our world, and foretells his success and the fall and punishment of Man.  The Son of God offers Himself a ransom for man, is accepted, and exalted.  Satan alights on the outer convex of our universe, the future Paradise of Fools (q.v.).  He finds the stairs leading up to Heaven, descends to the Sun, and is directed by Uriel to this Earth, alighting on Mount Niphates.

Book IV.  The Garden of Eden is described, where Satan first sees Adam and Eve, and overhears their discourse regarding the Tree of Knowledge, of which they are forbidden to eat the fruit.  He decides to found his enterprise upon this, and proceeds to tempt Eve in a dream; but is discovered by Gabriel and Ithuriel, and ejected from the Garden.

Book V.  Eve relates her disquieting dream to Adam.  Raphael, sent by God, comes to Paradise, warns Adam of his enemy, and enjoins obedience.  At Adam’s request, he relates how and why Satan incited his legions to revolt.

Book VI.  Raphael continues his narrative, how Michael and Gabriel were sent to fight against Satan.  After indecisive battles, the Son of God, Himself, causing His legions to stand still, alone attacked the hosts of Satan and, driving them to the edge of Heaven, forced them to leap down into the deep.

Book VII.  Raphael relates how, thereafter, God decided on the creation of another world with new creatures to dwell therein, and sent His Son to perform the creation in six days.

Bool VIII.  Adam inquires concerning the motions of the heavenly bodies, and is answered ambiguously.  [The controversy regarding the Ptolemaic and Copernican systems was at its height when "Paradise Lost" was written, and Milton was unable to decide between them, as seen in Book X, 668 et seq.]  Adam relates what he remembers since his own creation, and discourses with the angel regarding the relations of man with woman.  Raphael departs.

Book IX.  Satan enters into the serpent and, in this form, finds Eve alone.  He persuades her to eat of the Tree of Knowledge.  Eve relates to Adam what has passed and brings him of the fruit.  Adam, perceiving that she is lost, from extreme love for her resolves to perish with her, and eats of the fruit.  The effects upon them: they cover their nakedness, and fall to recriminations.

Book X.  God sends His Son to judge the transgressors.  He passes sentence on the man and on the woman.  Sin and Death resolve to come to this world and make a broad highway thither from Hell.  Satan returns to Hell and relates his success; he and his angels are temporarily transformed into serpents.  Adam and Eve confer how to evade the curse upon their offspring, and finally approach the Son of God with repentance and supplication.

Book XI.  The Son of God intercedes for Adam and Eve.  God decides on their expulsion from Paradise.  Michael comes down to carry out the decree.  Eve laments, Adam pleads but submits.  The angel leads him to a high hill and shows him, in a series of visions, the future misery of man and what shall happen till the Flood.

Book XII.  Michael relates what shall follow, and explains the future coming of the Messiah, His incarnation, death, resurrection, and ascension, and foretells the corrupt state of the Church till His second coming.  Adam and Eve, submissive, are led out of Paradise.

From:  The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 397-398. 

 

A Short Biography

Shaw, Robert (1795-1863), theologian.  A native of Perth, he was educated at Edinburgh University and under Archibald Bruce at the divinity hall of the Associate Presbytery in Whitburn, West Lothian.  In 1817, he was ordained to follow Bruce in Whitburn, where he remained until his death.  He was synod clerk for the Original Secession Church from 1834 until he and the majority of the synod joined the Free Church in 1852.  His Exposition of the Westminster Confession (Edinburgh, 1845) is the most thorough commentary by a Scottish Presbyterian.  Writing in sympathy with its writers, Shaw elucidates the opposing views against which the Confession was framed.  Shaw wrote articles for the Biblical Repertory and Princeton Review, and received the DD from the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1851.  Other publications include Reflections on the Translation of Elijah (Edinburgh, 1835); and The New Theology Examined (Edinburgh, 1843), on the nature and extent of the atonement. – Sherman Isbell

From: Dictionary of Scottish Church History and Theology (Organizing editor: Nigel M. de S. Cameron; General editors: David F. Wright, David C. Lachman, and Donald E. Meek) (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1993), p. 770.

 

A Short Biography

S. P. C. K., the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, was founded in 1698.  One of its primary objects was the setting up of charitable schools for the instruction of poor children.  The Society was also a publishing agency for the dissemination of works of a Christian character.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), p. 458.

I don’t know if the Society is still involved in schooling poor children.  However, the past tense does not apply regarding its publishing arm.  The Society is still with us today.

 

A Short Biography

Nestorians, followers of Nestorius, patriarch of Constantinople in A.D. 428, who held that Christ had distinct human and divine persons.  Nestorius was condemned by the Councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon in 451.  A remnant of Nestorian Christians survives in the mountains of E. Anatolia and Kurdistan (driven into Iraq during the Great War).

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), p. 370.

 

A Short Biography

Donne, John (1572-1631), the son of a London ironmonger and of a daughter of J. Heywood (q. v.) was, in the early part of his life, a Roman Catholic.  He was secretary to T. Egerton, keeper of the great seal, from 1598-1602, but alienated his favour by a secret marriage with Ann More, niece of the lord keeper’s wife.  He sailed in the two expeditions of Essex to Cadiz and to the Islands, in 1596 and 1597, an episode of which we have a reflection in his early poems “The Storm” and “The Calm.”  He took Anglican orders in 1615 and preached sermons which rank among the best of the 17th century.  From 1621 to his death, he was dean of St. Paul’s and frequently preached before Charles I.

In verse, he wrote satires, epistles, elegies, and miscellaneous poems, distinguished by wit, profundity of thought and erudition, passion, and subtlety, coupled with a certain roughness of form (“I sing not Syren-like to tempt; for I am harsh”).  He was the greatest of the writers of “metaphysical” poetry, in which passion is interwoven with reasoning.  His best-known poems are some of the miscellaneous ones: “The Ecstasie,” “Hymn to God the Father,” the sonnet to Death (“Death, be not proud”), “Go and catch a falling star,” etc.  They include also a fine funeral elegy (in “Anniversaries”) on the death of Elizabeth Drury.  Thomas Carew described him as

A king who ruled as he thought fit

The universal monarchy of wit

and Ben Jonson wrote of him that he was “the first poet in some things.”

A biography of Donne was written by Izaak Walton (1640).  His name should be pronounced, and was frequently spelt “Dunne.”  Most of his work, though known in MS in his lifetime, was not published until after his death.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 138-139.

 

A Short Biography

Bunyan, John (1628-1688), the son of a tinsmith, was early set to his father’s trade.  On completing his sixteenth year, he was drafted into the parliamentary army, an experience perhaps reflected in his “The Holy War.”  He had profited by two religious books belonging to his first wife (who died c. 1656, leaving four young children) and devoted himself to reading the Bible.  He married his second wife, Elizabeth, c. 1659, and was arrested in November, 1660 for preaching without a license.  He was kept in prison for twelve years, until Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence.  During the first half of this period, he wrote nine of his books, the principle of which as his “Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners” (1666).  In the same year appeared “The Holy War, or, the New Jerusalem,” inspired by a passage in the book of Revelation.  After his release in 1672, he was appointed pastor in the same church in Bedford, but was again imprisoned for a short period, during which he wrote the first part of “The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which is to Come” (q.v.).  The second part, with the whole work, was published in 1678.  His other principal works are, “The Life and Death of Mr. Badman” (1680), and “The Holy War” (1682).  He is remarkable in English literature for his simple and homely style, which can be at times both forceful and eloquent.

From: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Literature (Oxford: At the Clarendon Press, 1939), pp. 61-62.