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Job Orton (4 September 1717 – 1783) was anEnglishdissentingminister.
He was born atShrewsbury, Shropshire. He entered the academy of DrPhilip Doddridge atNorthampton, became minister of a congregation formed by a fusion ofPresbyterians andIndependents atHigh Street Chapel, Shrewsbury (1741), received Presbyterian ordination there (1745), resigned in 1766 owing to ill-health, and lived in retirement atKidderminster, Worcestershire, until his death.[1] Between 1745 and 1747 he served as the first board secretary, as well as a trustee, of theSalop Infirmary in Shrewsbury.[2][3] He was buried in Shrewsbury in the churchyard of oldSt Chad's Church.[3]
He exerted great influence both among dissenting ministers and among clergy of the established church. He was deeply read inPuritan divinity, and adoptedSabellian doctrines on theTrinity. Old-fashioned in most of his views, he disliked the tendencies alike of theMethodists and other revivalists and of the rationalizing dissenters, yet he had a good word forJoseph Priestley andTheophilus Lindsey.[1]
Among his numerous works which include sermons, discourses and essays areMemoirs of Doddridge (published 1766),[3]Letters to Dissenting Ministers (ed by S. Palmer, 2 vols., 1806), andPractical Works (2 vols., with letters and memoir, 1842).[1] He was also involved in editing the unpublished works ofPhilip Doddridge after he died in 1751. He was encouraged in this work by his widow,Mercy Doddridge.[4]
In an 1887 publication of the Sword and the Trowel (the magazine ofCharles Spurgeon), a columnist accused Orton ofSocinianism: "The Rev. Job Orton, one of Dr. Doddridge’s students, and for a short time an assistant tutor with him at Northampton, was the minister of the united congregation of Presbyterians and Independents, meeting at High Street, Shrewsbury, from 1741 to 1765. He was not considered fully orthodox, though many of his sentiments were sound and good. Many of his hearers suspected him of heresy concerning the Godhead of Christ, and when, in preaching those expositions of the Bible, which were afterwards published in six volumes, he came to Isaiah 9:6, “Unto us a son is born,” […] and they were listening with breathless attention as to what he would say on that part, “The mighty God,” they were sadly disappointed when he passed the glorious declaration over by saying, “The mighty God. The meaning of this I cannot tell; and how should I, when his name is called Wonderful?” It need be no matter of surprise that his successor at High Street was a Socinian, and that the orthodox part of his congregation founded the Independent church at Swan Hill, which retains, in all essential things, its primitive soundness.”[5]
Attribution:
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Orton, Job".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 20 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 342.| International | |
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