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Francis Blackburne (9 June 1705 – 7 August 1787) was an English
Anglican clergyman
The Anglican ministry is both the leadership and agency of Christian service in the Anglican Communion. "Ministry" commonly refers to the office of ordained clergy: the ''threefold order'' of bishops, priests and deacons. More accurately, Anglica ...
,
archdeacon of Cleveland and an activist against the requirement of subscription to the
Thirty Nine Articles.
Life
Blackburne was born at
Richmond, Yorkshire
Richmond is a market town and civil parish in North Yorkshire, England, and the administrative centre of the district of Richmondshire. Historically in the North Riding of Yorkshire, it is from the county town of Northallerton and situated on t ...
, on 9 June 1705. He was educated at
Kendal,
Hawkshead
Hawkshead is a village and civil parish in Cumbria, England, which attracts tourists to the South Lakeland area. The parish includes the hamlets of Hawkshead Hill, to the north west, and Outgate, a similar distance north. Hawkshead contains on ...
, and
Sedbergh School
Sedbergh School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) in the town of Sedbergh in Cumbria, in North West England. It comprises a junior school for children aged 4 to 13 and the main school for 13 to 18 year olds. I ...
, and was admitted in May 1722 at
Catherine Hall, Cambridge.
A follower of
John Locke's politics and theology, he was refused a college fellowship; he was ordained deacon 17 March 1728, and became "conduct" of his college.
Leaving his college, Blackburne lived with an uncle in Yorkshire till 1739, when he was ordained priest to take the
rectory of Richmond in Yorkshire, which had been promised to him on the first vacancy. He resided there till his death. He was collated to the archdeaconry of Cleveland in July 1750, and in August 1750 to the prebend of Bilton, by Archbishop
Matthew Hutton. His principles prevented any further preferment, and he decided never again to subscribe to the Thirty-nine Articles.
In 1772 a meeting was held at the Feathers Tavern, and a petition signed by 200 persons for giving effect to Blackburne's proposal in ''The Confessional''. It was rejected by 217 to 71 after a speech in condemnation by
Edmund Burke
Edmund Burke (; 12 January NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS">New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">NS/nowiki>_1729_–_9_July_1797)_was_an_NS.html"_;"title="New_Style.html"_;"title="/nowiki>New_Style">N ...
, published in his ''Works''.
Theophilus Lindsey
Theophilus Lindsey (20 June 1723 O.S.3 November 1808) was an English theologian and clergyman who founded the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in the country, at Essex Street Chapel.
Early life
Lindsey was born in Middlewich, Cheshire, ...
, who married a stepdaughter of Blackburne's, and
John Disney, who married his eldest daughter, joined in this agitation, and both of them later left the church of England to become
Unitarians. Blackburne was said to sympathise with their views, to have declined an offer to succeed the nonconformist
Samuel Chandler
Samuel Chandler (1693 – 8 May 1766) was an English Nonconformist minister and pamphleteer. He has been called the "uncrowned patriarch of Dissent" in the latter part of George II's reign.
Early life
Samuel Chandler was born at Hungerford in ...
at the Old Jewry meeting house at a salary of £400.
In 1787 Blackburne performed his thirty-eighth visitation in Cleveland, and died, 7 August 1787, a few weeks later.
Works
In 1749
John Jones, vicar of
Alconbury
Alconbury is a village and civil parish in Cambridgeshire, England. Alconbury is situated within Huntingdonshire which is a non-metropolitan district of Cambridgeshire as well as being an historic county of England.
Alconbury lies approximately ...
, published his ''Free and Candid Disquisitions relating to the Church of England'', proposing modifications of the church services and ritual with a view to meeting difficulties of the
latitudinarian
Latitudinarians, or latitude men, were initially a group of 17th-century English theologiansclerics and academicsfrom the University of Cambridge who were moderate Anglicans (members of the Church of England). In particular, they believed that ...
s. Blackburne read the book in manuscript, but denied that he had any share in the composition. He defended it in an apology (1750). In 1752 he published anonymously an attack on Bishop
Joseph Butler
Joseph Butler (18 May O.S. 1692 – 16 June O.S. 1752) was an English Anglican bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher, born in Wantage in the English county of Berkshire (now in Oxfordshire). He is known for critiques of Deism, Thom ...
's well-known charge (1751), called ''A Serious Inquiry into the Use and Importance of External Religion'', and accusing Butler of deficient Protestantism. This was first printed with his name in 1767 in the ''Pillars of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy shaken'', a collection by
Richard Baron. He supported the semi-materialist theory of the
sleep of the soul of his college friend
Edmund Law
Edmund Law (6 June 1703 – 14 August 1787) was a priest in the Church of England. He served as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge, as Knightbridge Professor of Philosophy in the University of Cambridge from 1764 to 1769, and as bishop of Carlisl ...
, in a tract called ''No Proof in the Scriptures of an Intermediate State'', 1755; and in 1758 he argued against the casuistry which would permit subscription to the articles to be made with latitude of meaning, in ''Remarks on the Rev. Dr. Powell's Sermon in Defence of Subscriptions''.
The debate that followed led to Blackburne's major work, ''The Confessional, or a full and free inquiry into the right, utility, and success of establishing confessions of faith and doctrine in protestant churches''. The manuscript had remained unpublished for some years, when a friend who had seen it mentioned it to the republican
Thomas Hollis, through whom
Andrew Millar
Andrew Millar (17058 June 1768) was a British publisher in the eighteenth century.
Biography
In 1725, as a twenty-year-old bookseller apprentice, he evaded Edinburgh city printing restrictions by going to Leith to print, which was considered be ...
the bookseller was introduced to the author, and published the book anonymously in May 1766; a second edition appeared in June 1767. ''The Confessional'' argues from
William Chillingworth
William Chillingworth (12 October 160230 January 1644) was a controversial English churchman.
Early life
He was born in Oxford, where his father served as mayor; William Laud was his godfather. In June 1618 he became a scholar of Trinity Coll ...
's principle—"The Bible is the religion of protestants"—that a profession of belief in the scriptures as the word of God, and a promise to teach the people from the scriptures, should be the sole pledges demanded from Protestant pastors. This is supported by historical considerations, and the device of lax interpretation of the articles is denounced as a casuistical artifice of
William Laud
William Laud (; 7 October 1573 – 10 January 1645) was a bishop in the Church of England. Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury by Charles I in 1633, Laud was a key advocate of Charles I's religious reforms, he was arrested by Parliament in 1640 ...
's in defence of
Arminianism. A controversy arose. A list of the pamphlets is given in the ''
Gentleman's Magazine
''The Gentleman's Magazine'' was a monthly magazine founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term '' magazine'' (from the French ''magazine' ...
''
and in a ''Short View of the Controversy'' (1773, by John Disney). A third edition of ''The Confessional'' appeared in 1770.
On Disney's secession from the Church of England, Blackburne drew up a paper called ''An Answer to the Question, Why are you not a Socinian?'' He declares his belief in the divinity of Christ, though he confesses to certain doubts and guards his assertions.
Blackburne had worked on a life of
Martin Luther
Martin Luther (; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, theologian, author, hymnwriter, and professor, and Augustinian friar. He is the seminal figure of the Protestant Reformation and the namesake of Lutherani ...
, but abandoned it to write the memoirs of his friend Thomas Hollis. These appeared in 1780. His ''Works, Theological and Miscellaneous, including some pieces not before printed'', with a memoir, were published by his son Francis in 1804, in seven volumes; ''The Confessional'' makes up the fifth volume. The third volume contains ''A Historical View of the Controversy concerning an Intermediate State'', of which the first edition appeared in 1765, and the second in 1772. It brought him into collision with Bishop
William Warburton
William Warburton (24 December 16987 June 1779) was an English writer, literary critic and churchman, Bishop of Gloucester from 1759 until his death. He edited editions of the works of his friend Alexander Pope, and of William Shakespeare.
Li ...
, and prompted his ''Remarks on Dr. Warburton's Account of the Sentiments of the Jews concerning the Soul''. The fourth volume of the Works contains his charges, as archdeacon, in 1765, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1771, and 1773. They show that he was not prepared to extend full toleration to Catholics. The other volumes contain miscellaneous pamphlets.
Family
In 1744 Blackburne married a widow, Hannah, formerly Hotham, who had (in 1737) married Joshua Elsworth; she died 20 August 1799. He left four children:
*Jane, married to
John Disney;
*Francis, vicar of
Brignall;
*Sarah, married to the Rev. John Hall, vicar of Chew Magna; and
*William, a physician in London.
A son, Thomas, a physician, died, aged thirty-three, in 1782.
References
Citations
Sources
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackburne, Francis
1705 births
1787 deaths
18th-century English Anglican priests
Alumni of St Catharine's College, Cambridge
Archdeacons of Cleveland
People from Richmond, North Yorkshire
18th-century Anglican theologians