John Boswell

John Boswell (23 January 1698 – June 1757) was an English writer and clergyman in the Church of England. Boswell's writings, including a two-volume response to John Jones's 1749 Free and Candid Disquisitions, were staunchly Tory and high church works. In his ministry, Boswell was assigned as the vicar of St Mary Magdalene, Taunton, and as prebendary at Wells Cathedral.

Life

John Boswell was born on 23 January 1698 in Dorchester, Dorset, to John Boswell of Puddletown, part of a Gloucestershire family. After attending school at Abbey Milton under George Marsh, Boswell matriculated into Brasenose College at the University of Oxford on 16 July 1715. Ordained as a deacon in the Church of England in Oxford, Boswell was then ordained as a priest at Wells Cathedral. In 1727, Boswell was assigned as vicar of St Mary Magdalene, Taunton. Boswell's response opposed such reforms, offering praise for the Book of Common Prayer as adjacent to early Christian liturgical practices and defending its obligation that the Athanasian Creed be regularly recited. Boswell also approved of the Test Acts, which legally mandated clerical subscription to the doctrines of the Thirty-nine Articles.

Boswell wrote the two-volume The Case of the Royal Martyr Considered with Candour to defend Charles I, who was popularly celebrated by the likeminded Anglicans among Boswell's contemporaries. The works were specifically in reply to criticisms of Charles in George Coades's 1764 A Letter to a Clergyman Relating to his Sermon on 30 January and Thomas Birch's 1747 Enquiry. A defence of King Charles I.