Henry Grove
Henry Grove(4 January 1684 – 27 February 1738) was an English nonconformist minister, theologian, and dissenting tutor.
Life
[edit]He was born atTaunton,Somerset,on 4 January 1684. His grandfather was the ejected vicar ofPinhoe,Devon,whose son, a Taunton upholsterer, married a sister ofJohn Rowe,ejected from a lectureship atWestminster Abbey;Henry was the youngest of fourteen children, most of whom died young. Grounded in classics at the Tauntongrammar school,he proceeded at the age of fourteen (1698) to the Tauntondissenting academy.Here he went through a course of philosophy and divinity underMatthew Warren.The text-books wereDavid Derodon,Franco Burgersdyck,andEustachius de Saint-Paul;Grove devoted himself toJean Leclerc,Richard Cumberland,andJohn Locke.In 1703, he moved to London to study under his cousinThomas Rowe,in whose academy he remained two years. Rowe was aCartesian;Grove became a disciple ofIsaac Newton.He studied Hebrew, and formed his style of preaching onRichard LucasandJohn Howe.WithIsaac Wattshe began a close friendship, which survived many differences of opinion.[1]
In 1705 Grove returned to Somerset, where his preaching attracted attention. He married, and probably settled for a short time atIlchester.Warren died on 14 June 1706. The Somerset presbyterians met to arrange for carrying on the Taunton Academy, and appointed Grove, in his twenty-third year, tutor in ethics andpneumatology.He lived at Taunton, and took charge of the neighbouring congregations ofHull Bishop'sandWest Hatch,with James Strong.[2]
The resignation of Darch, his colleague at the academy, threw on him the conduct of the departments of mathematics and physics. Early in 1725 Stephen James, the divinity tutor, died, and Grove, without relinquishing his other work, took his place, with the assistance of his nephew,Thomas Amory.He resigned his congregations to succeed James as minister atFullwood(or Pitminster), near Taunton. He declined invitations to Exeter and London. He refused to take any share in the doctrinal disputes which spread from Exeter to London in 1719, and produced the rupture at Salters' Hall. His orthodoxy was called in question byJohn Ball,especially because of his discourse on saving faith (1736); but though he laid great stress on the reasonableness of Christianity, and on the moral argument for a future state, he avoided speculations on the doctrine of the Trinity.[2]
The Taunton Academy sustained its reputation during his tutorship. A list of ninety-three of his students is given by James Manning;[2][3]twenty-two extra names are given inJoshua Toulmin's manuscript list.
Grove preached on 19 February 1738, and was seized the same night with a violent fever, of which he died on 27 February. He was buried at Taunton, where there is a tablet to his memory in Paul's Meeting, bearing a Latin inscription from the pen ofJohn Wardof Gresham College. James Strong of Ilminster and William May of London preached funeral sermons. His wife died insane in 1736; he had thirteen children, of whom five survived him.[2]
Works
[edit]He took care over his sermons, and systematised his lectures on metaphysics and ethics; his ethical system (published posthumously and in an unfinished state) was his favourite work. His first publication, on the "regulation of diversions" (1708), was designed to produce in his pupils the love of a high morale. He wrote hymns; his poetical flights were stimulated by the friendship ofElizabeth Singer.[2]
In 1708 he corresponded withSamuel Clarkeon the defects of his argument for theexistence of God.For Clarke, as a Newtonian, he had respect, but thought him inferior as a metaphysician toAndrew Baxter.In 1714 he contributed four papers to the revived issue (eighth volume) ofThe Spectator.Grove published (1718) an essay on the immateriality of the soul.[2]
Grove's publications included:
- An Essay towards a Demonstration of the Soul's Immateriality,&c., 1718; has apreface on the reality of an external world againstArthur Collier.[2]
- The Evidence for our Saviour's Resurrection,1730, commended by Lardner.[2]
- Some Thoughts concerning the Proofs of a Future State from Reason,1730, againstJoseph Hallet III.[2]
- Queries proposed to… all such as think it an injury to Religion to show the Reasonableness of it,1732, (anon.)[2]
Posthumous were:
- Miscellanies in Prose and Verse, most of them formerly published,1739.[2]
- Sermons and Tracts,&c., 1740, 4 vols.; second series, 1741–2, 6 vols.; the two series reissued asPosthumous Works,1745, 10 vols.[2]
- A System of Moral Philosophy,1749, 2 vols., edited, and the last eight chapters written, by Amory, who edited the other posthumous works.[2]
Some of his verses were included in the continuation ofJohn Dryden'sMiscellany Poems,1706, vol. vi., and in similar collections. His letters on free will and immortality and in defence of the Presbyterians (againstJohn Trenchard) appeared in the 'St. James's Journal,' 1722. His lastSpectatorwas included by BishopEdmund Gibsonin his edition (1731) ofJoseph Addison'sEvidences of the Christian Religion.[2]
At the time of his death Grove was writing the life of Elizabeth Rowe. The lists of subscribers to his posthumous works include the names of ArchbishopThomas Herring,with Hoadly, Secker, and Hutton among the bishops.[2]
Notes
[edit]References
[edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain:Gordon, Alexander (1890). "Grove, Henry".InStephen, Leslie;Lee, Sidney(eds.).Dictionary of National Biography.Vol. 23. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 295–296.
