ORTON, JOB (1717-1783), English dissenting minister, was born at Shrewsbury on the 4th of September 1717. He entered the academy of Dr Philip Doddridge at Northampton (q.v.), became minister of a congregation formed by a fusion of Presbyterians and Independents at High Street Chapel, Shrewsbury (1741), received Presbyterian ordination there (1745), resigned in 1766 owing to ill-health, and lived in retirement at Kidderminster until his death. He exerted great influence both among dissenting ministers and among clergy of the established church. He was deeply read in Puritan divinity, and adopted Sabellian doctrines on the Trinity. Old-fashioned in most of his views, he disliked the tendencies alike of the Methodists and other revivalists and of the rationalizing dissenters, yet he had a good word for Priestley and Theophilus Lindsey.
Among his numerous works are Letters to Dissenting Ministers (ed. by S. Palmer, 2 vols., 1806), and Practical Works (2 vols., with letters and memoir, 1842).