Synopsis
Select Discourses by John Smith presents a late 17th?century collection of Smith’s theological and philosophical discourses issued in a posthumous edition with substantial editorial apparatus by Worthington. The volume includes an Advert to the public, a Memoir of the Author, and Worthington’s Preface explaining how the edition was assembled and how the discourses are to be read, along with a Contents list and brief observations on form and purpose. The Memoir sketches Smith’s life—born 1618, educated at Emanuel College, Cambridge, a fellow of Queen’s College, renowned as a learned, humble, godly tutor and preacher, and his death in 1652—emphasizing his broad learning in law, medicine, history, philosophy, mathematics, and languages, his moral and pastoral virtues, and his commitment to spiritual wisdom over erudition. The editors frame him as a holy and faithful servant of God. The work’s central aims include the true method of attaining divine knowledge through inward holiness rather than verbal argument, a critique of superficial religion, and a defense of true religion against superstition and atheism, with an emphasis on the immortality of the soul and divine revelation through Christ. The contents feature a Prefatory Discourse on the true way to attain divine knowledge, Short Discourses on Superstition and Atheism, and a Discourse on the Immortality of the Soul, all situated within a 17th?century Cambridge Anglican scholastic milieu that blends Scripture with classical philosophy to advocate interior virtue and practical religion.
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