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Oxlee, John

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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a distinguished English divine, was born at Gisborough, in Cleveland, Sept. 25, 1779. In 1802, owing to his knowledge of the Greek and Latin languages, he was selected as second master of Tunbridge Grammar School by the eminent Dr. Vicesimus Knox, its first master. There Oxlee's Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac studies were begun. From 1816 to 1826 he held the rectory of Scawton, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, for the Rev. Thomas Worsley, afterwards master of Downing. In 1836 the archbishop of York presented him to the rectory of Molesworth, Hunts. He died Jan. 30,1854. Mr. Oxlee, though self-taught, became master of more than 120 languages or dialects, the last being the Yuroba. He wrote The Christian Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation (Lond. 1850, 3 vols. 8vo): — Three Sermons on the Christian Hierarchy, deducing an uninterrupted Triple List of Bishops, etc.: — Three Letters to the Archbishop of Cashel on the Apocryphal Books of Enoch, etc.: — Three Letters to Mr. C. Wellbeloved: on Unitarian Error: — Three Letters to the Rev. F. Nolan, and Two Letters to the Bishop of Salisbury, on the Spurious Text of the Heavenly Witnesses: A Reply to the Rev. R. Towers, the Roman Catholic Head of Ampleforth College, near York: — Three Letters to the Archbishop of Canterbury, on the Impropriety of requiring Jews to forsake the Law of Moses. etc.: — Three more Letters on the Inutility of any Attempt to Convert the Jews to the Christi in Faith in the Manner hitherto practiced, with a Confutation of the Diabolarchy. He was also a contributor to Valpy's Classical Journal; the Christian Remembrancer for 1822; the Voice of Israel; the Voice of Jacob; Jewish Chronicle; but more particularly of seven letters addressed to S. M., the Jew, occupying 110 pages in The Jewish Repository. In his work on The Christian Doctrines, etc., the mass of learning is astonishing; through more than 1000 pages we are presented with correct extracts from early and late Jewish writers, accompanied with an exact English translation. The Letters to archbishop Lawrence are filled with exceedingly rare extracts, and Dr. Nicholls, the late regius professor of Oxford, is said to have expressed his wonder how the works quoted bad been obtained, considering that the author's benefice was worth but £228 a year. Nearly up to the day of his death Mr. Oxlee was engaged in literary pursuits. He left behind him many works yet unpublished. — See Gent. Mag. Feb. 1855, p. 203 sq.; Darling, Cyclop. Bibliog. 2, 2268; Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Auth. s.v.; Kitto, Journal of Sac. Lit. April, 1854; Coleridge, Works, p. 457. (J. H.W.)