Alexander Knox (theologian)

Alexander Knox ((1757-03-17)March 17, 1757–(1831-01-17)January 17, 1831) was an Irish lay theological writer. He has been described as "an exemplar of the often-neglected High Church tradition within the Church of Ireland" and as "one of the most formative figures in the development of Anglicanism as a distinctive form of church life".

Life

As a boy and young man, Alexander Knox befriended and corresponded with John Wesley. Although he asserted his theological independence from Methodism, later, he published defences of Wesley against John Walker and Robert Southey.

In the 1790s Knox entered political life, briefly (in 1798) becoming private secretary to Lord Castlereagh and publishing Essays on the political circumstances of Ireland (1799) before retiring from politics in 1799.

Knox lived in or near Dublin for the final three decades of his life, becoming known as the "sage of Bellevue". Together with his friend John Jebb, bishop of Limerick, Knox developed a distinctive style of high-churchmanship (evidenced in his theology of sacraments) which also respected strains in evangelicalism, Methodism and seventeenth-century latitudinarianism. Knox wrote in defence of Catholic emancipation.

Works

• Essays on the political circumstances of Ireland during the administration of Lord Camden; with an appendix containing thoughts on the will of the people (1799)
• An Answer to the Rt Hon. P. Duigenan's Two Great Arguments Against the Full Enfranchisement of the Irish Roman Catholics (1810)
• On the Doctrine Respecting Baptism Held by the Church of England (1820)
• An Enquiry on Grounds of Scripture and Reason into the Use and Import of the Eucharistic Symbols (1824)
• Letters on the Re-Union of the Churches of England and Rome (1824)

A collection of Knox's papers were published posthumously in four volumes of collected writings from 1834 onwards titled Remains of Alexander Knox.

External links

• Nockles, Peter B. (2004). "Knox, Alexander (1757–1831), theological writer". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15778. ISBN 978-0-19-861412-8. Retrieved 1 June 2007. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox, Anglicanism in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism at Google Books
• Hughes, George Wynn (1937). Life and work of Alexander Knox (1757 - 1831) (PhD thesis). hdl:1842/10304.
• Taylor, G.W. (1905). "John Wesley and the Anglo-Catholic Revival". Project Canterbury. Archived from the original on 5 February 2022. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
• "The Wesley Center Online: Wesley's Letters: Volume Six Events". Archived from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
• "Dictionary of National Biography: Wesley, John (1703-1791)". Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Archived from the original on 18 January 2021. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
• "Anglican Authors Part Two". Trinity College, Toronto. Archived from the original on 31 August 2005. Retrieved 24 February 2022.
• "Chapter 20 - Daniel Deronda by George Eliot at literature.org". literature.org. Archived from the original on 24 February 2022. Retrieved 24 February 2022.