Daniel Whitby

1638-1726. Anglican scholar. An erudite clergyman trained at Oxford, he engaged in several controversies, including an attack on Roman Catholicism, an attempt to gain concessions for Nonconformists so that they would join the Church of England, and a refutation of Calvinism. Among his thirty-nine published works the most famous is a Paraphrase and Commentary on the New Testament (2 vols., 1703). This work continued to be used throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Its area of great significance was in popularizing Postmillennialism. Whitby held that the world would be converted to Christ, the Jews restored to the Holy Land, and pope and Turks defeated, after which the world would enjoy a time of universal peace, happiness, and righteousness for a thousand years. At the close of this millennium Christ would personally come to earth again and the last judgment would be held. This view was adopted by most of the leading eighteenth-century ministers and commentators.