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Bible Dictionaries
Hutchinsonians
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or the followers of John Hutchinson, Esq., a learned and respectable layman, who was born at Spennythorn, in Yorkshire, in 1674. In 1724, he published the first part of that curious work, "Moses's Principia," in which he ridiculed Dr. Woodward's "Natural History of the Earth," and exploded the doctrine of gravitation established in Sir Isaac Newton's "Principia." In the second part of this work, published in 1727, he maintained, in opposition to the Newtonian system, that a plenum, is the principle of the Scripture philosophy. In this work he also intimated that the idea of a Trinity is to be taken from the grand agents in the natural system, fire, light, and spirit. From this time he continued to publish a volume every year or two till his death; and a correct and elegant edition of his works, including the MSS. which he left, was published in 1748, in 12 vols. 8vo. Mr. Hutchinson thought that the Hebrew Scriptures comprise a perfect system of natural philosophy, theology, and religion. He entertained so high an opinion of the Hebrew language, that he thought the Almighty must have employed it to communicate every species of knowledge, human and divine; and that, accordingly, every species of knowledge is to be found in the Old Testament. Both he and his followers laid a great stress on the evidence of Hebrew etymology. After Origen, and other eminent commentators, he asserted that the Scriptures are not to be understood and interpreted in a literal but in a typical sense, and according to the radical import of the Hebrew expressions; that even the historical parts, and particularly those relating to the Jewish ceremonies and Levitical law, are to be considered in this light; and he also asserted that, agreeably to this mode of interpretation, the Hebrew Scriptures would be found amply to testify concerning the nature and offices of Jesus Christ. His plan was to find natural philosophy in the Bible, where hitherto it had been thought no such thing was to be met with, or ever intended. His editors tell us, he found, upon examination, that the Hebrew Scriptures nowhere ascribe motion to the body of the sun, nor fixedness to the earth; that they describe the created system to be a plenum without any vacuum at all, and reject the assistance of gravitation, attraction, or any such occult qualities, for performing the stated operations of nature, which are carried on by the mechanism of the heavens, in their threefold condition of fire, light, and spirit, or air, the material agents set to work at the beginning; that the heavens, thus framed by almighty Wisdom, are an instituted emblem and visible substitute of Jehovah Aleim, the eternal Three, the coequal and co- adorable Trinity in Unity; that the unity of substance in the heavens points out the unity of essence and the distinction of conditions, the personality in Deity, without confounding the persons or dividing the substance; and that, from their being made emblems, they are called in Hebrew shemim, the names, representatives, or substitutes, expressing by their names that they are emblems, and, by their conditions or offices, what it is they are emblems of. He also found that the Hebrew Scriptures have some capital words, which he has proved, or endeavoured to prove, contain, in their radical meaning, the greatest and most comfortable truths. Thus, the word Elohim, which we call God, or, as he reads it, Aleim, he refers to the oath or conditional execration, by which the eternal covenant of grace among the persons in Jehovah was and is confirmed. The word berith, which our translation renders "covenant," signifies, "he or that which purifies," and so the Purifier or purification for, not with, man. The cherubim, which have been thought "angels placed as a guard to deter Adam from breaking into Eden again," he explains to have been a hieroglyphic of divine construction, or a sacred image, to describe, as far as figures could go, the Aleim and man taken in, or humanity united to deity. In like manner, he treats several other words of similar, though not quite so solemn, import.
Hence he drew this conclusion, "that all the rites and ceremonies of the Jewish dispensation were so many delineations of Christ, in what he was to be, to do, and to suffer; and that the early Jews knew them to be types of his actions and sufferings, and, by performing them as such, were in so far Christians, both in faith and practice." His followers maintain, that the cherubim, and the glory around them, with the divine presence in them, were not only emblematical figures, representing the persons of the ever blessed Trinity, as engaged in covenant for the redemption of man, but also that they were intended "to keep or preserve the way of the tree of life, to show man the way to life eternal, and keep him from losing or departing from it." That Melchizedec was an eminent type of Christ, there can be little doubt; but that he was actually the second person of the Trinity, in a human form, is a tenet of the Hutchinsonians, though not entirely peculiar to them. Mr. Hutchinson supposes that "the air exists in three conditions, fire, light, and spirit; the two latter are the finer and grosser parts of the air in motion: from the earth to the sun, the air is finer and finer till it becomes pure light near the confines of the sun, and fire in the orb of the sun, or solar focus." From the earth toward the circumference of this system, in which he includes the fixed stars, the air becomes grosser and grosser till it becomes stagnant, in which condition it is at the utmost verge of this system; from whence, in his opinion, the expression of "outer darkness," and "blackness of darkness," used in the New Testament, seems to be taken. These are some of the principal outlines of this author's doctrines, which have been patronized by several eminent divines, both of the church and among the Dissenters.
2. The followers of Mr. Hutchinson have not erected themselves into a sect or separate community. Among them may be reckoned some eminent and respectable divines, both in England and Scotland; but their numbers seem at present to be rather on the decrease. Of those who, in their day, were ranked in the list of Hutchinsonians, perhaps the most eminent were the following: Mr. Julius Bate, and Mr. Parkhurst, the lexicographers; Mr. Holloway, author of "Originals," and "Letter and Spirit;" Dr. Hedges, provost of Oriel College, Oxford; Mr. Henry Lee, author of "Sophron, or Nature's Characteristics of the Truth;" Dr. Wetherell, late master of University College, Oxford; Mr. Romaine; Bishop Horne; and Mr. William Jones, the bishop's learned friend and biographer.
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Hutchinsonians'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/h/hutchinsonians.html. 1831-2.
