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illustrious philosophers, all men of extraordinary acumen and caution, and all accustomed, from the nature of their pursuits, to take nothing for granted, but to weigh and balance evidence with the most severe exactness, agreed in the intensity of their religious convictions. Those habits of physical investigation, which are so often ignorantly accused as unfavourable to the habit of belief, and are certainly dangerous to its more dogmatic forms, seem to have led the most powerful and enquiring minds only the more irresistibly to a firm conviction of the truths of revealed religion.

§ 12. SIR ISAAC NEWTON was born of a respectable, but not wealthy family, at the hamlet of Woolsthorpe, by Grantham, and was educated at the Grantham grammar school. SIR ISAAC From his early boyhood he showed the greatest NEWTON (1642-1727). taste and aptitude for mechanical invention; and, entering at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1661, he made such rapid progress in mathematical studies that, in 1669, Barrow resigned the Lucasian professorship in his favour. The greater part of Newton's life was passed within the quiet walls of Trinity, where he formed the centre of an illustrious group of mathematicians; at Trinity. and to-day his name is accounted the chief glory of the college. It was in Trinity that he worked out those discoveries and demonstrations in mechanics, optics, and astronomy which have placed him in the very foremost rank of the benefactors of mankind. We ought not to forget that among his Cambridge friends was the precocious genius Roger Cotes (1682-1716), whose fame rests upon Newton's own words, "Had Cotes lived we might have known some

Mathemati cal society

Newton in public affairs.

thing!" Newton sat in more than one Parliament as member for his University; but he appears to have been of too reserved and retiring a character to take an active part in political discussion. In 1695 he was appointed master of the Mint, and presided over its fortunes at the critical period of Montagu's bold recall and re-issue of the specie. With remarkable simplicity and readiness he abandoned his sublime and unique researches and devoted all his energy and attention to the public duties committed to his charge. He even writes with an almost pettish querulousness to upbraid friends who had consulted him about "mathematical things," as he calls them, when he was entirely occupied with public business. In 1703 he was made President of the Royal Society, and, two years later, was knighted by Queen Anne. He lived in London during his later years and took no active part in the terrible quarrels which disturbed Trinity from the opening of Bentley's mastership onwards. He died in 1727. His character, which, as we have already seen in mentioning

Newton's character.

his relations with Locke, was marred by a coldness and suspiciousness of temper, was, in every other respect, the type of patriotic, scholarly, and

intellectual virtue. His modesty was as great as his genius, and he invariably ascribed his discoveries to patient attention rather than to any unusual capacity of intellect. His English writings, discourses on prophecy and the chronology His style. of Holy Scripture, are written clearly and without pedantry, and manifest his intense piety. His theological tendencies were undoubtedly towards a form of Unitarianism: the logical mind is too often incapable of distinguishing between the mysteries of the faith and the fallacies of human experience. As a commentator on the prophecies, he must not be confounded with Bishop Newton, whose work on the prophecies appeared later in the eighteenth century. Newton's literary glory, however, will always rest mainly upon his purely scientific works, of which the Philosophia Naturalis Principia Mathematica (1687) and the invaluable treatise on Optics (1704), the practical foundation of that science, are so well known that to mention them is hardly necessary.

and the

ROBERT
BOYLE

$ 13. JOHN RAY, together with WILLIAM DERHAM (16571735) and FRANCIS WILLUGHBY (1635-1672), combined the descriptive side of natural history with moral and religious eloquence of a very high order; they seem JOHN RAY never to be weary of proclaiming the wisdom, good- (1627-1705) ness, and providence of God in the works of creation. natural Ray was the first to elevate natural history to the historians. rank of a science. ROBERT BOYLE, a son of the first Earl of Cork, born at Lismore Castle, was remarkable as a scientific man and as a pious layman. (1627-1691). His life was a consistent course of self-abnegation and of devotion to his studies. Not only did he decline the presidency of the Royal Society in 1680, but he also refused the offer of the provostship of Eton and of a peerage. "No Englishman of the seventeenth century," said Hallam, “after Lord Bacon, raised to himself so high a reputation in experimental philosophy as Robert Boyle; it has even been remarked that he was born in the year of Bacon's death, as the person destined by nature to succeed him—an eulogy which would be extravagant if it implied any parallel between the genius of the two, but hardly so if we look upon Boyle as the most faithful, the most patient, the most successful disciple who carried forward the experimental philosophy of Bacon. His works occupy six large volumes in quarto (1772). They may be divided into theological or metaphysical, and physical or experimental. The metaphysical treatises, to use the word in a large sense, of Boyle, or rather those concerning natural theology, are very perspicuous, very free from system, and such as bespeak an independent lover of truth. His Disquisition on Final Causes-i.e. The Origin of Forms and Qualities (1666)— was a well-timed vindication of that palmary argument against the paradox of the Cartesians, who had denied the validity of an inference from the manifest adaptation of means to ends

in the universe to an intelligent Providence. Boyle takes a more philosophic view of the principle of final causes than had been found in many theologians, who weakened the argument itself by the presumptuous hypothesis that man was the sole object of Providence in the creation. His greater knowledge of physiology led him to perceive that there are both animal and what he calls cosmical ends in which man has no concern. He was the founder of the Boyle lectures, whose object was the defence of natural and revealed religion. He must not be confounded with his elder brother, Roger Boyle, the author of Parthenissa and the bridegroom of Suckling's Ballad upon a Wedding, nor with his grandnephew, Charles Boyle, the opponent of Bentley.

§ 14. One of the most remarkable writers of this period—at least, from a literary point of view-was THOMAS BURNET, author of The Sacred Theory of the Earth. He was THOMAS a Yorkshireman, born at Croft on the Durham

BURNET

(16357-1715). border, educated Northallerton school, and

at

at Clare Hall, Cambridge, where Cudworth the Platonist was master, and Tillotson tutor. In 1657 he was elected fellow of Christ's, having followed Cudworth thither, and, after a life spent in tuition of various kinds, became Master of the Charterhouse, where he died and was buried. His

"Sacred Theory of the Earth (1680).

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Telluris Theoria Sacra appeared in Latin in 1681; but, following the wishes of Charles II, to whose notice Tillotson had introduced the book, Burnet published a translation of it in 1684. Later on, in 1689, he brought out the second part, which, as the first had dealt with the Deluge and the general destruction then inflicted on the earth, deals with the final conflagration of the material globe, and, in a further sequel, with the new heavens and new earth. No man was ever so fascinated and blinded by his own theories and by the very vastness of his speculation; and the result, if unscientific, is at all events the most eloquent production of its age. The style, with all its extravagance, has an almost indescribable picturesqueness, and there is a weight, a fervour about it that reminds us of Jeremy Taylor. Burnet is, in fact, from the point of view of his style, the relic of an earlier age-the age of glowing and imaginative prose, and of ardent rhetoric.

GILBERT
BURNET

In

We must not confound Thomas Burnet with GILBert Burnet, politician and theologian. He was a native of Edinburgh, and was educated at Marischal College, Aberdeen. 1661 he entered the Church of England, before the (1643-1715). restoration of episcopacy, and, throughout his life, Occupied the middle space between the extreme parties on both sides. He rose to favour at Court, and became a royal chaplain; he apparently won great renown as an extempore preacher. The chief interest of his connection with the Court lies, however, in the account which he gave to the

world of the witty and infamous Rochester's deathbed repentance, the result of his own pious exhortations. But Burnet's favour at Court was of limited duration. He boldly remonstrated with Charles on his profligacy, and steadfastly defended William, Lord Russell, whose execution was the greatest and most senseless political crime of Charles II's reign. Consequently, falling into disgrace, he travelled on the Continent, and attached himself closely to William and Mary at the Hague. He became Mary's spiritual adviser, and his service and counsels were valued so highly by her and her husband that he accompanied William to England, and, after taking a very conspicuous part in controversy and political negotiation, was raised to the bishopric of Salisbury. In 1698 he was appointed preceptor to the Duke of Gloucester, son of the Princess Anne. He was an exemplary bishop, whose politics injured his theology, but not his piety. Dying in 1715, he left behind him the MS. of his most important work, the History of his own Time, which he directed to be published after Burnet's the lapse of six years. It actually appeared in 1723. "History This work, consisting of memoirs of most of the of his own Time" (1721). important transactions in which he had been nearly concerned, is not at all unlike Clarendon's book, and is not of inferior value, although written from a point of view almost entirely opposite. Burnet is minute, familiar, and gossiping, but lively and trustworthy in the main as to facts; and no one who desires to make the acquaintance of a very critical and agitated period in English history can afford to leave him unread. The very ardour of his predilections-especially, of course, for William and Mary-gives a vivacity and value to his pictures of men and things; and, by comparing and weighing his statements with the spiteful criticisms of the opposite party, we learn to appreciate William's character properly. Burnet's other works include his History of the Reformation (1679-1714) and his famous Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles (1699), which remains a classical commentary upon its difficult subject.

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

A.--OTHER THEOLOGICAL

WRITERS.

GEORGE BULL (1634-1710), Bishop of St. Davids, a great opponent of Calvinism and its Augustinian tenets, was one of the greatest of those controversialists who defended Anglican | principles, and is still regarded as a pillar of the English Church. His

Harmonia Apostolica (1669-70) reconciles the apparent discrepancies between St. Paul and St. James, maintaining that the first ought to be interpreted through the second, as through a later authority. His celebrated Defensio Fidei Nicene (1685) was praised by Bossuet, and the Judicium Ecclesiæ Catholicæ (1694) was publicly approved by an

assembly of French clergy, who returned thanks to him through Bossuet's influence.

EDMUND CALAMY (1600-1666) was originally a clergyman of the Church of England and lecturer at Bury St. Edmunds, but afterwards a dissenting minister in London. He took part in Smectymnuus (1641), that attack upon episcopacy which Milton defended in his famous apology. Calamy's sermons practical, although now and then we find political feelings overmastering the calmer style of the divine. His son, grandson, and great-grandson, all made their names in the history of Nonconformity.

are

RALPH CUDWORTH (1617-1688), Master of Clare and afterwards of Christ's College, and Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, was the chief of the Cambridge Platonists, that band of philosophers and scholars which included the pious Henry Mede and the philosophical poet Henry More. (See P. 263.) In 1678 Cudworth published the first part of his great work, The True Intellectual System of the Universe, an enormous folio whose sequel never appeared. As Harrington's Oceana was the political, so Cudworth's Intellectual System, although nominally it was directed against ancient philosophers, atheists and materialists, was the theological attempt to confute Hobbes. "Nor," says Hallam,

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did any antagonist, perhaps, of that philosopher bring a more vigorous understanding to the combat. This understanding was not so much obstructed in its own exercise by a vast erudition, as it is sometimes concealed by it from the reader." Any adequate estimate of Cudworth is prevented by the fact that his voluminous work is merely a preface to a very large scheme which was never completed; and, on that account, it is scarcely fair to underrate him among the philosophers of his time. He deals entirely with the proofs of God's existence, treating the question in a manner which reminds us of the scholastic theologians and their method of statement and refutation. His fair statement of atheistical

arguments laid him open, incredible as it may seem, to the ridiculous charge of favouring the atheists. We can hardly imagine that, had his work been completed, it would have altogether fulfilled its purpose, or that its diffuseness would have helped it. Cudworth left a daughter, Damaris, who married Sir Francis Masham, and is known as the friend of Locke. (See page 365.)

RICHARD CUMBERLAND (16311718) was made Bishop of Peterborough (1691) by William III, and was one of those divines who represented the sluggish churchmanship of the Revolution. He, too, was an anti-Hobbist, and contributed to the literature of the controversy a Latin treatise, De Legibus Nature Disquisitio philosophica (1672). His principal English work was an Essay towards the Recovery of the Jewish Measures and Weights (1686); but, unfortunately, he did not add to this technical subject, with which he was admirably qualified by learning and industry to deal, any of the necessary charms of style. He must not be confused with his grandson, Richard Cumberland, the comedy writer. (See p. 538.)

THOMAS ELLWOOD (1639-1713) learned Latin from Milton, and used to read aloud to the great poet during his blindness. He turned Quaker in 1659, and laboured diligently to extend the principles of his society. His Autobiography (1714), written clearly and attractively, is, without doubt, his best book; but, in addition, he wrote several polemical tracts-e.g. The Foundation of Tithes Shaken (1678), a History of the Old and New Testaments (1705-9), and a sacred poem, Davideis (1712), which, in spite of its title, owed nothing to Cowley's poem of the

same name.

JOHN FLAVEL (1630 ?-1691), a Nonconformist divine at Dartmouth, wrote numerous devotional works which are still read by English Calvinists. Like many of the less political Nonconformists of the day, he was a man of fervent piety.

THEOPHILUS GALE (1628-1678), fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, is known as the author of a

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