The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox: Anglicanism in the Age of Enlightenment and Romanticism

Abstract

Alexander Knox (1737–1851), or ‘Dear Alleck’ as John Wesley affectionately called him, is perhaps best known in Wesleyan and Methodist circles for his remarkable yet underappreciated rebuttal of Robert Southey's Life of Wesley, or for his status as among one of Wesley's favoured students. But of the substance of Knox's thought, little has been said. Into this gap, David McCready's new monograph, The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox, offers a timely, illuminating bridge between Knox as student of Wesley and Knox as theologian in his own right.The monograph, expanding on what must have been a daunting doctoral dissertation, divides its labour according to its title: one half biography and the other half theology. The biographical material traverses the signal events of Knox's diverse life as touchstones in the development of Knox's ‘system’: from his relationship to Wesley, to the Church of England, to his context between Enlightenment and Romanticism, and to the legacy of the ‘Christian Platonist’ tradition. All this narrative positioning enables a sustained reflection on Knox's theology, proceeding according to Knox's preferred arrangement of doctrinal loci. The monograph ends with an account of Knox's influence and argument for his significance. The volume is indeed a compelling invitation to look again at Knox.The image of Knox that McCready portrays—Anglican, Christian Platonist, Wesleyan (of course with clarification), enlightenment and proto-romantic theologian—brings the reader through an extensive body of literature. The image of Knox gives a measure of stability to what may, at first glance, seem a nebulous and eclectic mind, showing that there is a demonstrable order, consistency, and tradition in Knox's theological reasoning (107). Noteworthy is the commitment to highlight the ‘Anglican moderates’ (82), a phrase McCready uses to refer to the Cambridge Platonists and their associates of the seventeenth century, who form the backbone of Knox's theology and, by association, a strong case is made that they are a dominant source for Wesley as well, corroborating a small undercurrent in the reception of Wesley. McCready does well to remind the reader that Wesley was Knox's most influential teacher who likely introduced Knox to these figures. Noteworthy also is the ambition of this case for Knox the theologian. The opening pages of the volume urge the reader to think of Knox alongside and, assumedly, on par with towering figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Friedrich Schleiermacher (1).But the project's ambitions uncover its shortcomings, however few. The structure of the project, being more expository analysis and less critical evaluation, necessarily limits the constructive claims that such a project can yield. So, the invitation to compare Knox to Schleiermacher and Coleridge, John Smith and Henry More, John Chrysostom and Clement of Alexandria, as an ecumenical theologian, a forerunner and influence on the Oxford Movement, generates the sense, perhaps the ‘intuition’, to use Knox's idiom (138), that the appeals to significance overextend the nature of the project itself. Nonetheless, for what the book is, as an undoubtedly thorough reappraisal of Knox, an invitation to press deeper into Knox's theology, and a demonstration that Knox is, as McCready shows, a theologian worth further study, this is an excellent volume.Especially of value for Wesley studies is the pressure McCready's work places on the nature, extent, and presence of a collection of figures upon the theology of John Wesley. McCready's substantiation of Knox's interpretation of Wesley, an interpretation already noted as one of the most penetrating analyses of Wesley, invites Wesleyan scholarship in two directions. On the one hand, Knox's reasoning distilled here warrants reflection on understanding Wesley as not only a kind of Anglican moderate, but as downstream of the Cambridge Platonists, making a strong case for the location of Wesley within this specific intellectual tradition, or, at least, another piece of evidence for those inclined to such a hermeneutic. On the other hand, McCready's exposition is an important reminder that Wesley's most able interpreters are, in fact, often those who knew him. Thus, there is enduring value in interrogating the more proximate inheritors of Wesley's teaching.The Life and Theology of Alexander Knox is a helpful scholarly intervention into an important theological moment. Its insights apply gentle but necessary pressure on deficits in scholarship in a number of areas at the end of the eighteenth century. I recommend this fine volume to anyone with a stake in Wesleyan, Methodist, Anglican, or Episcopal history.