A divine then high in repute, born in 1641, educated at Eton and Peterhouse, Cambridge; in 1669 Rector of St. George’s, Botolph Lane, and Prebendary of St. Paul’s; then Master of the Temple, an active preacher and writer against the Roman Catholics. At the time of his deprivation, Sherlock published, in 1689, the most popular of his books, “Practical Discourse concerning Death.” His deprivation was soon followed by his acceptance of the established authority in 1691, when he was restored to his office of Master of the Temple, and made Dean of St. Paul’s. In 1692 appeared his “Practical Discourse concerning a Future Judgment;” and he was involved in a long and bitter controversy upon the Trinity, with Robert South, a learned, zealous, and good-natured divine. Sherlock died in 1707.

General

  He was a clear, a polite, and a strong writer;… but he was apt to assume too much to himself, and to treat his adversaries with contempt; this created him many enemies, and made him pass for an insolent, haughty man.

  Perhaps no single presbyter of the Church of England has ever possessed a greater authority over his brethren than belonged to Sherlock at the time of the Revolution. He was not of the first rank among his contemporaries as a scholar, as a preacher, as a writer on theology, or as a writer on politics; but in all the four characters he had distinguished himself. The perspicuity and liveliness of his style have been praised by Prior and Addison. The facility and assiduity with which he wrote are sufficiently proved by the bulk and the dates of his works. There were indeed among the clergymen of brighter genius and men of wider attainments: but during a long period there was none who more completely represented the order, none who, on all subjects, spoke more precisely the sense of the Anglican priesthood.

  Sherlock’s practical works are better than his controversial.

  His “Discourse concerning Death” is a standing article in second-hand book-stalls. This continued popularity is due more to the matter than to the manner.

  Of his most popular book, his “Practical Treatise on Death,” no less than thirty editions were called for, and Prior expressed the contemporary feeling when he called it “a nation’s food.” Addison also yielded conspicuous praise to Sherlock, who is nevertheless a writer of no great importance.

  He is competent in learning and in ability, well-bred, persuasive, not too enthusiastic, as the age was already beginning to say, and deeply imbued with that not unkindly but somewhat unheroic and intensely commonsense morality which dominated the religion and the literature of the next century. He has not the polish of the younger generation of those who admired him; but, on the other hand, he has still a touch of the older directness and simplicity. Above all, he is completely free from the somewhat arrogant and insulting preponderance of intellect which made his elder contemporary and enemy, South, not exactly loved, and which made his younger contemporary, Bentley, feared and hated. He was too hardened a controversialist to show traces of the almost too abundant milk of human kindness which flowed in Tillotson; but there is nothing savage or overweening about him.

  It [“Discourse”] is a model of clear and forcible writing, but on the lowest plane of unspiritual selfishness. “How unreasonable is it for us to trouble ourselves about this world longer than we are like to continue in it!” exclaims Sherlock, with the air of one apologizing for enunciating a truism.