Hutchinson, JOHN

Hutchinson, JOHN, an English theological writer, born in 1674 at Spennithorne, in Yorkshire. He was for some time steward of the household of the Duke of Somerset, and left his service to devote himself to his religious studies, the duke procuring for him a sinecure appointment of £200 a year from government. In 1724 he published the first part of a work called Moses' Principia, in which he defended what he regarded as the Mosaic cosmogony, and assailed Newton's theory of gravitation. He continued to publish a succession of works till his death, which took place on 28th August 1737. His religious system is best exhibited in his Thoughts concerning Religion. The leading principle of it is that the Holy Scriptures contain the elements not only of true religion, but of all rational philosophy, which, however, was to be derived only from the original Hebrew; and it, for that purpose, was subjected to strange critical or rather fanciful processes. His followers were called HUTCHINSONIANS, and among them were persons of considerable learning and celebrity. Ministers of some of the Scottish Presbyterian churches are yet required explicitly to renounce the errors of the Hutchinsonians.