John Lewis (29 August 1675 – 16 January 1747) was an English clergyman and antiquary.
Born in the parish of St. Nicholas, Bristol, on 29 August 1675, he was the eldest son of John Lewis, wine cooper in the city. Francis Lewis, vicar of Worth Matravers, Dorset, was his paternal grandfather. His mother was Mary, eldest daughter of John Eyre, merchant, of Poole. He received his education first under Samuel Conant, rector of Lichet-Matravers, next at Wimborne grammar school, under John Moyle and afterwards under John Russel in the grammar school at Poole. He acted as assistant to Russel, who, after he had moved to Wapping, obtained for Lewis admission to the free school of Ratcliff Cross, belonging to the Coopers' Company.[1]
On leaving school Lewis became tutor to the sons of Daniel Wigfall, a Turkey and lead merchant, and afterwards, 30 March 1694, was admitted a bachelor of Exeter College, Oxford, under the tuition of George Verman, a friend of Conant. While at the university he became assistant in the free school of Poole in 1696. After graduating B.A. on 14 October 1697 he returned to Russel at Wapping, and shortly afterwards was ordained deacon.[1]
In April 1698 he became curate of Acrise, Kent, and was collated to the rectory of the parish on 4 September 1699. In 1702, Archbishop Thomas Tenison having ordered the sequestration of the rectory of Hawkinge, near Dover, licensed Lewis to serve the cure, and in 1705 presented him to the vicarage of St. John the Baptist, Margate. The archbishop collated him to the rectory of Saltwood, with the chapel of Hythe, and to the desolate rectory of Eastbridge in 1706, and subsequently removed him to the vicarage of Minster, to which he was instituted on 10 March 1709.[1]
Lewis was appointed to preach at the archiepiscopal visitation on 28 May 1712, when his Whiggish and Low Church views excited open hostility from his hearers. He commenced M.A. in 1712 as a member of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.[2] In 1714 he offended a former friend, John Johnson of Cranbrook, by attacking, in his 'Bread and Wine in the Holy Eucharist not a proper Material Propitiatory Sacrifice,' Johnson's 'Unbloody Sacrifice & Altar Unvailed,' which presented the high-church position. Archbishop Tenison, Daniel Waterland, and Samuel Bradford approved of Lewis's reply, and when he re-enunciated his views in Canterbury Cathedral on 30 January 1717, Archbishop William Wake rewarded him with the mastership of Eastbridge Hospital, Canterbury. From this time until his death he engaged on works on biography and topography.[1]
Dying on 16 January 1747, he was buried in the chancel of his church at Minster. He composed more than a thousand sermons, but he ordered his executor to destroy them, 'lest they might contribute to the laziness of others.'[1]
He married Mary, the youngest daughter of Robert Knowler of Herne, Kent. She died in 1720, leaving no issue.[1]
Lewis is mainly known as a biographer of John Wyclif, William Caxton, Reginald Pecock, and Bishop John Fisher, leaving heavy works of research written with a Protestant slant:
Lewis also edited Roper's Life of More, 1729, and he left in manuscript lives of Servetus (written in answer to Sir Benjamin Hodges's biography, Lond. 1724, and formerly in Sir Peter Thompson's possession); of John Wallis, 1735; of George Hickes, 1744–5; and of John Johnson of Cranbrook. Part of an autobiography by Lewis, which he continued till near his death, is extant in a copy transcribed for Sir Peter Thompson (British Library Add MS 28651).[1]
Lewis also made contributions to religious history and bibliography. Pursuing his study of Wiclif he published in 1731 The New Testament, translated out of the Latin Vulgat by John Wiclif, S.T.P., about 1378: to which is præfixt a History of the Translations of the Bible and New Testament, &c. into English, London. The History of Translations was the first history of the English Bible since Miles Smith wrote in 1611;[3] it was issued separately with additions as A Complete History of the several Translations of the Holy Bible and New Testament into English, both in MS. and in print, 2nd edit., with additions, Lond. 1739; 3rd edit., with an appendix drawn from William Newcome's Historical View of English Biblical Translations, Lond. 1818.[1]
In 1738 appeared A brief History of the Rise and Progress of Anabaptism in England; to which is prefixed some account of Dr. John Wicliffe, with a Defence of him from the false Charge of his denying Infant Baptism, London. A Reply to the work, by Thomas Crosby, is dated 1738. Lewis pursued the subject in A Vindication of the Ancient Britons and the Pighards of Bohemia from the false accusation of being Anabaptists, London 1741. Richard Chilton published Some Observations on this work, 1743.[1]
Lewis's topographical works deal mainly with Kent. They include:
Richard Gough ascribed to Lewis The History and Antiquities of the cathedral church of Rochester, London 1717; but it was by Richard Rawlinson.[1]
Lewis wrote many tracts on theological and antiquarian topics. The major ones are:
Many of Lewis's tracts remained unprinted. Among the Rawlinson's Manuscripts are: Popish Cruelty exemplified in the persecution of the English Lollards from 1382 to 1507; and three tracts on the Eucharist. A catalogue of Lewis's manuscripts sold by Abraham Langford of Covent Garden, December 1749, is copied with the prices in Add MS 28651, f. 46.[1]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Cooper, Thompson (1893). "Lewis, John (1675-1747)". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 33. London: Smith, Elder & Co.