James Duchal
Encyclopedia
James Duchal, D.D. (1697 — 1761) was an Irish
Presbyterian divine.
. The year is probably correct, but the place mistaken; his baptism is not recorded in the presbyterian register of Antrim. In the Glasgow matriculation book he describes himself as 'Scoto-Hibernus.' His early education was directed by an uncle, and in his studies for the ministry he was assisted by John Abernethy
, the leader of the nonsubscribing section of the presbyterians of Ulster
. Duchal went to Glasgow College, where he entered the moral philosophy class on 9 March 1710, and subsequently graduated M.A. Early in 1721 he became minister of a congregation in Cambridge meeting in Green Street, Cambridge, which had in part seceded in 1696 from Joseph Hussey
's after it became congregationalist. The congregation, numbering three hundred people, was subsidised by a grant from the presbyterian board. Duchal had leisure for study, and lived much among books, with the habits of a valetudinarian. In later life he referred to his Cambridge period as the 'most delightful' part of his career.
In 1730 Abernethy was called from Antrim to Dublin, and Duchal became his successor. An entry in the Antrim records states that on 'agwst the 14 1730 Mr. James Dwchhill cam to Antrim and on the 16 of it which was owr commwnion sabath preached and served tw tabels which was his first work with ws.' He was installed on 6 September. On 7 September, William Holmes was ordained as the first minister of the subscribing section that had seceded from Abernethy 's congregation in 1726. Duchal began (anonymously) a controversy with Holmes, and the pamphlets which ensued formed the closing passage in a discussion which had agitated Ulster presbyterianism from 1720. Abernethy's death on 1 December 1740 was followed early in 1741 by the death of Richard Choppin, his senior colleague in the ministry at Wood Street, Dublin. The sole charge as their successor was offered to Thomas Drennan, father of William Drennan
, M.D., who declined, and recommended Duchal. Duchal moved to Dublin in 1741. His delicate health and shy disposition kept him out of society; he approves the maxim that 'a man, if possible, should have no enemies, and very few friends' (Sermons, 1762, i. 469). His closest intimates were William Bruce (1702-1765) and Gabriel Cornwall (d. 1786), both his juniors. He was affable to young students, and gave medical advice among the poor.
Duchal was assisted at Wood Street in 1745 by Archibald Maclaine, D.D., the translator of Mosheim, but he had no regular colleague till 1747, when Samuel Bruce (1722-1767), father of William Bruce
, D.D. (1757-1841), was appointed. In the opinion of his friends, the demands of his calling shortened Duchal's days. He died unmarried on 4 May 1761, having completed his sixty-fourth year.
. Duchal's studies were classical and philosophical rather than biblical. Late in life he returned to the study of Hebrew, in order to test the positions of the Hutchinsonian system, in which he found nothing congenial to his ideas. Duchal was an indefatigable writer of sermons: discourses in sets, like courses of lectures. A series devoted to 'presumptive arguments' for Christianity gained him when published (1753) the degree of D.D. from Glasgow. He composed aloud, while taking his daily walks, and committed the finished discourse to paper at great speed, in fine crowquill penmanship. He left seven hundred sermons as the fruit of his Dublin ministry.
From a robust Calvinistic orthodoxy Duchal passed by degrees to an interpretation of Christianity from which every distinctive trace of orthodoxy had vanished. Francis Blackburne
(according to Joseph Priestley
) questioned 'his belief of the christian revelation.' Andrew Kippis
observed that William Leechman
plagiarised (1768) the substance and treatment of three sermons by Duchal on the spirit of Christianity (1762).
Duchal is also known as a biographer of Irish non-subscribing clergy. The original draft of seven sketches, without names, was printed (Christian Moderator, April 1827, p. 431) from a copy by Thomas Drennan; the first three are Michael Bruce
(1686-1735), Samuel Haliday, and Abernethy. They were worked up, with some softening of the criticism, in the funeral sermon for Abernethy, with appended biographies (1741). Thomas Witherow erroneously assigns these biographies to James Kirkpatrick, D.D.
He published:
Posthumous were:
Other essays from Duchal's manuscripts sent to Priestley for publication were lost in the passage to Liverpool. Six small volumes, containing forty-seven autograph sermons by Duchal, 1721-40, which on 18 November 1783 were in the possession of William Crawford, D.D., were presented by James Gibson, Q.C., to the library of Magee College, Derry.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
Presbyterian divine.
Life
Duchal is said to have been born in 1697 at AntrimAntrim, County Antrim
Antrim is a town in County Antrim in the northeast of Northern Ireland, on the banks of the Six Mile Water, half a mile north-east of Lough Neagh. It had a population of 20,001 people in the 2001 Census. The town is the administrative centre of Antrim Borough Council...
. The year is probably correct, but the place mistaken; his baptism is not recorded in the presbyterian register of Antrim. In the Glasgow matriculation book he describes himself as 'Scoto-Hibernus.' His early education was directed by an uncle, and in his studies for the ministry he was assisted by John Abernethy
John Abernethy (minister)
Reverend John Abernethy was an Irish Presbyterian church leader, the grandfather of the surgeon John Abernethy.He was born at Coleraine, County Londonderry, where his father was a Nonconformist minister...
, the leader of the nonsubscribing section of the presbyterians of Ulster
Ulster
Ulster is one of the four provinces of Ireland, located in the north of the island. In ancient Ireland, it was one of the fifths ruled by a "king of over-kings" . Following the Norman invasion of Ireland, the ancient kingdoms were shired into a number of counties for administrative and judicial...
. Duchal went to Glasgow College, where he entered the moral philosophy class on 9 March 1710, and subsequently graduated M.A. Early in 1721 he became minister of a congregation in Cambridge meeting in Green Street, Cambridge, which had in part seceded in 1696 from Joseph Hussey
Joseph Hussey
-Life:He was born in Fordingbridge, Hampshire. After studying with the ejected minister Robert Whitaker, he attended Charles Morton's dissenting academy at Newington Green. He attributed a 1686 conversion to the reading of Stephen Charnock's The Existence and Attributes of God.He underwent...
's after it became congregationalist. The congregation, numbering three hundred people, was subsidised by a grant from the presbyterian board. Duchal had leisure for study, and lived much among books, with the habits of a valetudinarian. In later life he referred to his Cambridge period as the 'most delightful' part of his career.
In 1730 Abernethy was called from Antrim to Dublin, and Duchal became his successor. An entry in the Antrim records states that on 'agwst the 14 1730 Mr. James Dwchhill cam to Antrim and on the 16 of it which was owr commwnion sabath preached and served tw tabels which was his first work with ws.' He was installed on 6 September. On 7 September, William Holmes was ordained as the first minister of the subscribing section that had seceded from Abernethy 's congregation in 1726. Duchal began (anonymously) a controversy with Holmes, and the pamphlets which ensued formed the closing passage in a discussion which had agitated Ulster presbyterianism from 1720. Abernethy's death on 1 December 1740 was followed early in 1741 by the death of Richard Choppin, his senior colleague in the ministry at Wood Street, Dublin. The sole charge as their successor was offered to Thomas Drennan, father of William Drennan
William Drennan
William Drennan ,a physician, poet, educationalist and political radical, was one of the chief architects of the Society of United Irishmen...
, M.D., who declined, and recommended Duchal. Duchal moved to Dublin in 1741. His delicate health and shy disposition kept him out of society; he approves the maxim that 'a man, if possible, should have no enemies, and very few friends' (Sermons, 1762, i. 469). His closest intimates were William Bruce (1702-1765) and Gabriel Cornwall (d. 1786), both his juniors. He was affable to young students, and gave medical advice among the poor.
Duchal was assisted at Wood Street in 1745 by Archibald Maclaine, D.D., the translator of Mosheim, but he had no regular colleague till 1747, when Samuel Bruce (1722-1767), father of William Bruce
William Bruce
William Bruce may refer to:* Sir William Bruce, 1st Baronet, of Balcaskie , Scottish architect*William Bruce, 8th Earl of Kincardine , Scottish nobleman* William Bruce , Australian cricketer...
, D.D. (1757-1841), was appointed. In the opinion of his friends, the demands of his calling shortened Duchal's days. He died unmarried on 4 May 1761, having completed his sixty-fourth year.
Works
In 1728 he published a volume of sermons, which show the influence of Francis HutchesonFrancis Hutcheson (philosopher)
Francis Hutcheson was a philosopher born in Ireland to a family of Scottish Presbyterians who became one of the founding fathers of the Scottish Enlightenment....
. Duchal's studies were classical and philosophical rather than biblical. Late in life he returned to the study of Hebrew, in order to test the positions of the Hutchinsonian system, in which he found nothing congenial to his ideas. Duchal was an indefatigable writer of sermons: discourses in sets, like courses of lectures. A series devoted to 'presumptive arguments' for Christianity gained him when published (1753) the degree of D.D. from Glasgow. He composed aloud, while taking his daily walks, and committed the finished discourse to paper at great speed, in fine crowquill penmanship. He left seven hundred sermons as the fruit of his Dublin ministry.
From a robust Calvinistic orthodoxy Duchal passed by degrees to an interpretation of Christianity from which every distinctive trace of orthodoxy had vanished. Francis Blackburne
Francis Blackburne (archdeacon)
Francis Blackburne was an English Anglican churchman, archdeacon of Cleveland and an activist against the requirement of subscription to the Thirty Nine Articles.-Life:...
(according to Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley
Joseph Priestley, FRS was an 18th-century English theologian, Dissenting clergyman, natural philosopher, chemist, educator, and political theorist who published over 150 works...
) questioned 'his belief of the christian revelation.' Andrew Kippis
Andrew Kippis
Andrew Kippis was an English nonconformist clergyman and biographer.The son of Robert Kippis, a silk-hosier, he was born at Nottingham. Having gone to school at Sleaford in Lincolnshire he passed at the age of sixteen to the Dissenting academy at Northampton, of which Dr Philip Doddridge was then...
observed that William Leechman
William Leechman
-Life:The son of William Leechman, a farmer of Dolphinton, Lanarkshire, he was educated at the parish school; theT father had taken down the quarters of Robert Baillie of Jerviswood, which had been exposed after his execution on the tolbooth of Lanark...
plagiarised (1768) the substance and treatment of three sermons by Duchal on the spirit of Christianity (1762).
Duchal is also known as a biographer of Irish non-subscribing clergy. The original draft of seven sketches, without names, was printed (Christian Moderator, April 1827, p. 431) from a copy by Thomas Drennan; the first three are Michael Bruce
Michael Bruce
Michael Bruce was a Scottish poet and hymnist.He was born at Kinnesswood in the parish of Portmoak, Kinross-shire. His father, Alexander Bruce, was a weaver. Michael was taught to read before he was four years old, and one of his favourite books was a copy of Sir David Lyndsay's works...
(1686-1735), Samuel Haliday, and Abernethy. They were worked up, with some softening of the criticism, in the funeral sermon for Abernethy, with appended biographies (1741). Thomas Witherow erroneously assigns these biographies to James Kirkpatrick, D.D.
He published:
- 'The Practice of Religion,' &c., 1728, 8vo (three sermons; one of these is reprinted in 'The Protestant System,' vol. i. 1758).
- 'A Letter from a Gentleman,' &c., Dublin, 1731, (anon., answered by Holmes, 'Plain Reasons,' &c., Dublin, 1732).
- 'Remarks upon "Plain Reasons,"' &c., Belfast, 1732, (anon., answered by Holmes, 'Impartial Reflections,' &c., Belfast, 1732).
- 'A Sermon on occasion of the . . . death of ... John Abernethy,' &c., Belfast, 1741, (preached at Antrim 7 Dec. 1740; appended are Duchal's Memoirs of the Revs. T. Shaw, W. Taylor, M. Bruce, and S. Haliday; the publication was edited by Kirkpatrick, who added a 'conclusion').
- 'Memoir' (anon.) of Abernethy, prefixed to his posthumous 'Sermons,' 1748.
- 'Second Thoughts concerning the Sufferings and Death of Christ,' &c., 1748 (anon.)
- 'Presumptive Arguments for the ... Christian Religion,' &c., 1753, (eleven sermons, with explanatory preface).
- Funeral sermons for: Mrs. Bristow, Belfast, 1736; Rev. Hugh Scot, Belfast, 1736; 10. J. Arbuckle, M.D., Dublin, 1747.
- Prefatory 'Letter' to Cornwall's Essay on the Character of W. Bruce, 1755, (dated 25 August).
Posthumous were:
- 'Sermons,' vol. i., Dublin, 1762, vols. ii. iii., Dublin, 1764.
- 'On the Obligation of Truth, as concerned in Subscriptions to Articles,' &c. (published in Theological RepositoryTheological RepositoryThe Theological Repository was a periodical founded and edited from 1769 to 1771 by the eighteenth-century British polymath Joseph Priestley...
, 1770, ii. 191 sq.) - 'Letter to Dr. Taylor on the Doctrine of Atonement' (' Theol. Repos.' 1770, ii. 328 sq.; reprinted in William Graham's 'The Doctrine of Atonement,' 1772).
Other essays from Duchal's manuscripts sent to Priestley for publication were lost in the passage to Liverpool. Six small volumes, containing forty-seven autograph sermons by Duchal, 1721-40, which on 18 November 1783 were in the possession of William Crawford, D.D., were presented by James Gibson, Q.C., to the library of Magee College, Derry.