ARTHUR ASHLEY SYKES. DR SYKES was a clergyman of the church of England, and held for many years a very high rank as a preacher, a scholar, and a writer. He was born in London about the year 1684, and was educated first at St Paul's school, and afterwards at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. He took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1704, and applied himself to the study of divinity. His first ecclesiastical preferment was a vicarage in Kent, obtained through the favour of archbishop Tennison. This was in the year 1712. He remained in this station two years, when he was transferred to a rectory in Cambridgeshire, where he soon after published the tract entitled the Innocency of Error asserted and vindicated. He had already engaged in a controversy with Mr Brett to refute the notion, that such persons only as had been episcopally ordained could administer christian baptism. Of the treatise on the Innocency of Error, Dr Disney, in his life of the author, speaks as follows. "Mr Sykes was then in the thirty first year of his age, and having diligently studied the Scriptures, ecclesiastical history, and all useful knowledge, which applied to the forming just conceptions of the word and will of God, and of the invaluable and undeniable rights of men and Christians, there are no marks of a premature blossom unseasonably put forth, and likely to be blighted, ere it was set to bear fruit. But, on the contrary, we read a work which would have reflected honour on great abilities and learning, well corrected and digested by matured age. "The subject of this publication was happily chosen, and the tract forms an excellent vindication of its author, and of the liberty he took in all his future writings; affording at the same time incontestible proof that he had fully satisfied himself of the duty of inquiry in its fullest extent, and in all its consequences, before he proceeded in the defence or attack of particular doctrines or opinions.*" This tract met with a most favourable reception, and passed through several editions. It was attacked, however, from different quarters, and especially by Dr Potter, bishop of Oxford. The author defended his performance against every charge, and in reply to the bishop of Oxford he wrote an elaborate vindication.† Dr Sykes received several preferments in the church, but preached for the most part at King's * Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Arthur Ashley Sykes, D. D. By John Disney, D. D. London. 1785. p. 10. + The original title of the tract was the Innocency of Error asserted and vindicated; but in the sixth edition, which was printed after the author's death, the word Involuntary is inserted before Error, as more clearly indicating the nature of the work. |