Works
His first published work, entitled Erubhin, or Miscellanies, Christian and Judaical, written in his spare time and dedicated to Cotton, appeared in London in 1629.
In 1643 Lightfoot published A Handful of Gleanings out of the Book of Exodus. Also in 1643 he was appointed to preach the sermon before the House of Commons on occasion of the public fast of March 29. It was published under the title of Elias Redivivus, the text being Luke 1. 17; in it a parallel is drawn between the John the Baptist's ministry and the work of reformation which in the preacher's judgment was incumbent on the parliament of his own day.
In 1644 the first instalment of an unfinished work was published in London. The full title was The Harmony of the Four Evangelists among themselves, and with the Old Testament, with an explanation of the chiefest difficulties both in Language and Sense: Part I. From the beginning of the Gospels to the Baptism of our Saviour. The second part, From the Baptism of our Saviour to the first Passover after, followed in 1647, and the third, From the first Passover after our Saviour's Baptism to the second, in 1650. On August 26, 1645 he again preached before the House of Commons on the day of their monthly fast. His text was Rev. xx. I, 2.
In these books he dated Creation to 3929 BC, see Ussher chronology#Lightfoot's Creation. His precise year and meaning is complicated by a partially fabricated 1896 misquote of him by Andrew Dickson White.
Rejecting the doctrine of the millenarian sects, Lightfoot had various practical suggestions for the repression of current "blasphemies", for a thorough revision of the authorized version of the Scriptures, for the encouragement of a learned ministry, and for a speedy settlement of the church. A Commentary upon the Acts of the Apostles, ironic and critical; the Difficulties of the text explained, and the times of the Story cast into annals. From the beginning of the Book to the end of the Twelfth Chapter. With a brief survey of the contemporary Story of the Jews and Romans (down to the third year of Claudius) was published later that year. In 1647 came The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order of the Old Testament, followed in 1655 by The Harmony, Chronicle, and Order of the New Testament, inscribed to Cromwell.
He helped Brian Walton with the Polyglot Bible (1657). His own best-known work was the Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae, in which the volume relating to the Gospel of Matthew appeared in 1658, that relating to the Gospel of Mark in 1663, and those relating to 1 Corinthians, John and Luke, in 1664, 1671 and 1674 respectively.
The Horae Hebraicae et Talmudicae impensae in Acta Apostolorum et in Ep. S. Pauli ad Romanos were published posthumously.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“We have not all had the good fortune to be ladies. We have not all been generals, or poets, or statesmen; but when the toast works down to the babies, we stand on common ground.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“In doing good, we are generally cold, and languid, and sluggish; and of all things afraid of being too much in the right. But the works of malice and injustice are quite in another style. They are finished with a bold, masterly hand; touched as they are with the spirit of those vehement passions that call forth all our energies, whenever we oppress and persecute..”
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“Again we mistook a little rocky islet seen through the “drisk,” with some taller bare trunks or stumps on it, for the steamer with its smoke-pipes, but as it had not changed its position after half an hour, we were undeceived. So much do the works of man resemble the works of nature. A moose might mistake a steamer for a floating isle, and not be scared till he heard its puffing or its whistle.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)