Sectaries of this Time, vented and acted in England in these four last Years,' which appeared on 10 Feb. 1646. Sixteen sorts of sectaries were enumerated, 180 errors or heresies, and twenty-eight alleged malpractices, the book concluding with an outcry against toleration, which wellnigh exhausted the language of abuse. The sensation produced by 'Gangraena' was immense. A second edition was called for immediately, and answers to it were published in great numbers. The most important of these were from the pens of Lilburne, Saltmarsh, Walwyn, and John Goodwin (whose 'Cretensis; or a briefe Answer to an Ulcerous Treatise . . . intituled "Gangraena," 'was published anonymously), and to these Edwards replied the same year with 'The Second Part of Gangraena; or a fresh and further Discovery of the Errours, Heresies, Blasphemies, and dangerous Proceedings of the Sectaries of this Time.' In this work there is a catalogue of thirty-four errors not previously mentioned, and a number of letters from ministers throughout the country giving evidence in support of Edwards's charges against the independents. The publication was followed by a fresh crop of pamphlets, and again Edwards retaliated with 'The Third Part of Gangraena; or a new and higher Discovery of Errours,' &c. The resentment created by these successive attacks on the dominant party was so great that Edwards in 1647 judged it wise to retire to Holland, where, almost immediately on his arrival, he was seized with an ague, from which he died on 24 Aug. He left a daughter and four sons, the second of whom was John Edwards, 1637-1716 [q. v.].
Any controversial value which Edwards's work might possess is almost entirely set at nought by the unrestrained virulence of his language, and the intemperate fury with which he attacked all whose theological opinions differed, however slightly, from his own. He did not hesitate to make outrageous charges on the personal character of his opponents, and throughout his manner is far more maledictory than argumentative. Fuller (Appeal of Injured Innocence, pt. vii. p. 602, ed. 1659) remarks: 'I knew Mr. Edwards very well, my contemporary in Queens' Colledge, who often was transported beyond due bounds with the keenness and eagerness of his spirit, and therefore I have just cause in some things to suspect him.' Milton, whose doctrine of divorce was error No. 154 in the first part of 'Gangraena,' refers to him in his lines 'On the New Forcers of Conscience under the Long Parliament:' —
Men whose life, learning, faith, and pure intent
Would have been held in high esteem by Paul,
Must now be named and printed heretics
By shallow Edwards.
Jeremiah Burroughes (Vindication, p. 2, ed. 1646) writes of him: 'I doubt whether there ever was a man who was looked upon as a man professing godliness that ever manifested so much boldness and malice against others whom he acknowledged to be religious persons. That fiery rage, that implacable, irrational violence of his against godly persons, makes me stand and wonder.'
Minor works written by Edwards were: 1. 'Reasons against the Independent Government of particular Congregations,' 1641, answered by Katherine Chidley . 2. 'A Treatise of the Civil Power of Ecclesiasticals, and of Suspension from the Lord's Supper,' 1642. 3. 'The Casting down of the last Stronghold of Satan, or a Treatise against Toleration and pretended Liberty of Conscience' (the first part), 1647. 4. 'The Particular Visibility of the Church,' 1647. Of these Nos. 2 and 4 are not in the library of the British Museum, but are assigned to Edwards by Wood (Fasti Oxon, i. 413).
[Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ed. 1813, iii. 82; Hook's Eccl. Biog. ed. 1847, iii. 557; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, iii. 120, 310; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), i. 413; Biog. Brit. (Kippis), sub voc. and sub 'Edwards, John; ' Gangraena, passim.]
EDWARDS, THOMAS (1652–1721), divine and orientalist, born at Llanllêchid, near Bangor, Carnarvonshire, in 1652, was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, where he took the two degrees in arts. B.A. 1673, M.A. 1677 (Cantab. Graduati, 1787, p. 128). In the early part of his life he lived with Dr. Edmund Castell [q. v.], and in 1685 he was engaged by Dr. John Fell, dean of Christ Church and bishop of Oxford, to assist in the impression of the New Testament in Coptic, almost finished by Dr. Thomas Marshall. At the same time he became chaplain of Christ Church. He was presented to the rectory of Aldwinckle All Saints, Northamptonshire, in 1707, and died in 1721. He left a Coptic lexicon ready for the press, and published 1 . 'A Discourse against Extemporary Prayer,' 8vo, London, 1703. Edmund Calamy referred to this book in support of his charge of apostasy against Theophilus Dorrington [q. v.] (Defence of Moderate Nonconformity, 1703, pt. i. p. 257). Edwards retorted fiercely in 2. 'Diocesan Episcopacy proved from Holy Scripture; with a letter to Mr. Edmund Calamy in the room of a dedicatory epistle,' 8vo, London, 1705.
[Works; Bridges's Northamptonshire (Whalley), ii. 210, 211.]
