CAWTON, THOMAS, a learned English divine, and son of an eminently learned Puritan of the same name, was born in 1637. He studied first at Utrecht, where he soon rose into reputation for his extensive acquirements, and subsequently at Oxford, where, having completed his studies under Samuel Clarke, he soon after received ordination from the bishop of the diocese. But so much dissatisfied did he soon become with the party then dominant in the establishment, that after having officiated as chaplain first to Sir Anthony Irby, and after wards to Lady Arnim, he left it to become the pastor of a Nonconformist congregation in West minster, where he died in 1677. It was while a student at Utrecht that he wrote and published the two following learned dissertations:—Dirputatio de Version Syriaca Vet. et Novi Testamenti, Ultraj. 5657, 4to ; Dissertatio de aunt Lingua in Philosophia Thcoretica, Ibid. 1657, 4to. Onne's account of these works is not more succinct than it is correct. He says, That on the Syriac Scrip tures is more valuable, though not more curious than the one on the Hebrew language. Cawton
discusses the Syriac versions both of the 0. and N. T. On the former he endeavours to shew that there were anciently two Syriac translations, one made from the Septuagint, and the other from the Hebrew text. It was a copy of the latter which Usher obtained, and which is printed in Walton's Polyglot. The author of it, he conceives, cannot now be ascertained; but the age of it he considers to be about the time of the Apostles, and its authority he ranks very high. The Syriac version of the N. T., he thinks, was made about the second or third century. He gives a short account of the editions of it published by Plantin, H utter, Gut birius, and in the Polyglot; and makes some ob servations on the translations of it by Tremellius and Boderianus.' Cawton was greatly celebrated for his extensive acquirements in the oriental lan guages, especially in the Hebrew and its cognate dialects, Chaldaic, Syriac, and Arabic.—W. J. C.