John Overton (priest)

John Overton (1763–1838) was an English clergyman, known for his defence of evangelicals at the start of the 19th century.

Overton was born at Monk Fryston in Yorkshire, where his father was a small landed proprietor. He attended the village school there, and went to Magdalene College, Cambridge, graduating B.A. in 1790. Magdalene was then beginning to be an evangelical stronghold; he took an ordinary degree.

Having received holy orders, Overton became assistant curate to William Richardson of York, a leading evangelical. He remained with Richardson until 1802, when he was appointed, through the influence of William Wilberforce, to the chancellor's livings of St. Crux and St. Margaret's in the city of York.

In politics Overton was a Tory and admirer of Pitt the younger. He took an active part in promoting the election of Wilberforce to parliament. He died at York on 17 July 1838, and was buried in the chancel of St. Crux, in a vault with his wife.

Overton is best known as the author of The True Churchmen Ascertained (1801). This work was a reply to The Anti-Calvinist (1800) of Robert Fellowes. The evangelicals, Overton contended,

"are the true churchmen; and, in a very fundamental and important sense of the word, Mr. Daubeny and his associates are dissenters from the Church of England."

In 1802 Edward Pearson at Cambridge, published Remarks on the Doctrine of Justification by Faith in a Letter to J. Overton, followed in the same year by Remarks in a Second Letter. Charles Daubeny defended his position in Vindiciæ Ecclesiæ Anglicanæ (1803), largely concerned with The True Churchmen. A negative review of Overton's book appeared in the Christian Observer, ’ an evangelical periodical edited by Zachary Macaulay; Overton replied in Four Letters to the Editor of the "Christian Observer". The book was, however, welcomed by other evangelicals in correspondence: Richard Cecil, Thomas Dykes, William Hey, Professor Parish, and Charles Simeon.

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