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flattering titles." He tells us how greatly scandalized he was, when on accepting an invitation from Mr Rundle, a member of his society, “to eat a cheese-cake, as he termed it," he found that the said Mr Rundle had so far passed from the strict letter of his invitation as to set before him "a collation of wine and sweet-meats." In the midst of his many trials, and especially those arising from the indifference with which the public received his statements of primitive doctrine and practice, he says he received great consolation from comparing himself to Milton's Abdiel, whose case he thought "near fitting his own." Yet Whiston appears to have met with rather a generous public after all, for we have numerous notices in his memoirs of his being presented with sums of money by private individuals, and of subscriptions which were made for him. In the latter part of the year 1721 a sum of £470 was raised for him.

In 1724 he published a work on Solar eclipses without parallaxes,' a book which he says is full of mistakes, but declares that he is too old to revise it, and comforts himself with the assurance that the world will excuse him this trouble, "well-knowing that he is about things of much greater consequence." Two years afterwards, we find him delivering a series of public lectures at London, Bristol, Bath, and Tunbridge, upon the temples of Solomon, Zorobabel, Herod, and Ezekiel. These lectures were, in the modern phrase, ilustrated by models made under Whiston's directions at a considerable expense; the lectures he regarded as preparatory to the restoration of the Jews, which subject, says he, in his usual strain of satisfaction and perfect complacency, "I take to be my peculiar business at present; since I have, I think, plainly discovered that it will not be many years before the Messiah will come for the restoration of the Jews and the first resurrection, when the last of these temples, the temple of Ezekiel, will be built upon Mount Sion, as the three former had been upon Mount Moriah." Whiston was greatly delighted, while at Bristol, with the conversion of a Mr Catcot, a schoolmaster there, to his theory on the temples; but, he adds with extreme naïvete, that in a very short time afterwards this hopeful pupil became a proselyte "to that wild Hebrew enthusiast, Mr Hutchinson."

In 1737 Whiston published the work by which he is most generally known to the English public, namely, his translation of Josephus's works, with notes. This is a very able performance, and highly illustrative of the extraordinary erudition of the translator. In 1745 he published a survey of the English coast, which had been executed under his direction by Mr John Renshaw. The board of longitude gave him £500 for this work, but he declares that that sum did not cover his expenses. We next find him engaged in a newspaper controversy about the case of one Christopher Lovel of Bristol, who, Whiston maintained, had been cured of the king's evil, at Avignon, by the touch of "the eldest lineal descendant of a race of kings;" and likewise zealously maintaining the efficacy of extreme unction, one of the primitive ordinances, as he had now discovered, of the Christian church. speculations on these two points are extremely wild and fanciful, and would bear a comparison with those of some enthusiasts of our own day, who have discovered the continued existence of miraculous powers in the church.

His

About the year 1748 Whiston heard of one Dr Gill, and of his pro

found acquaintance with the Oriental languages, and resolved to hear him preach; but, on being informed that he had written a folio book on the Canticles, "I declined," says he, "to go to hear him." He next "had a mind to know somewhat authentically of the Moravians," but was cured of his fancy by the perusal of a small book of Moravian sermons, in which he says he found a mixture of much weakness and great seriousness. His last famous discovery was that the Tartars are no other than the lost ten tribes. He died, after a brief illness, on the 22d of August, 1752.

Towards the close of his career, Whiston was thus spoken of by Bishop Hare:-" He has, all his life, been cultivating piety, and virtue, and learning; he is rigidly constant in all his duties; and both his philosophical and mathematical works are highly useful. But it is the poor man's misfortune (for poor he is, and like to be, not having any preferment) to have a warm head, and to be very zealous in what he thinks the cause of God. He thinks prudence the worldly wisdom condemned by Christ and his apostles; and that it is gross prevarication and hypocrisy to conceal the discoveries he conceives he has made. And thus, though he designs to hurt nobody, he is betrayed into some indiscretions. But he is very hardly dealt by: his performances are run down by those who never read them, and his warmth of temper is denounced as pride, obstinacy, and innate depravity. Some, too, say he is a madman, and, low as he is, will not leave him quiet in his poverty."

Collins, in his Discourse on Christianity,' says of him, “His ardent temper frequently leads him into strange mistakes: for instance, an Arabic manuscript coming into his hands, of which he understood not one word, he fancied it was a translation of an ancient book of Scripture, belonging to the New Testament, styled, The Doctrine of the Apostles; and on this he reasoned and wrote, as if it had been indisputable, till, on its being read by persons skilled in Arabic, it proved quite a different matter. He lives in London, and visits persons of the highest rank, to whom he discourses freely on doctrinal points, and especially about Athanasianism, which seems his chief concern. There is an anecdote told of George II. and Whiston, somewhat similar to one already given in this memoir. The king, conversing with Whiston one day in Hampton Court gardens, observed that, however right he might be in his opinions, it would have been better if he had kept them to himself. "Had Martin Luther done so," replied Whiston, "where, let me ask, would your majesty have been at this moment?"

"He was much esteemed," says his son, "by Queen Caroline, who made him a present of £50 yearly. She usually sent for him once in the summer, whilst she was out of town, to spend a day or two with her. Loving his free conversation, she asked him, at Richmond, what people in general said of her. He replied, that they justly esteemed her a lady of great abilities, a patron of learned men, and a kind friend to the poor. 'But,' says she, 'no one is without faults; pray, what are mine? Whiston begged to be excused speaking on that subject, but she insisting, he said, 'Her majesty did not behave with proper reverence at church.' She replied, 'The king would talk with her.' He said, 'A greater than kings was there only to be regarded.' She owned it, and confessed her fault. Pray,' says she, 'tell me what is my next.'

·

He replied, 'When I hear your majesty has amended of that fault, I will tell you of your next;' and so it ended."

The following anecdote is related on the same authority :-" Being in company with Addison, Steele, Secretary Craggs, and Sir Robert Walpole, they engaged in a dispute, whether a secretary of state could be an honest man. Whiston, being silent, was asked his opinion, and said, 'he thought honesty was the best policy, and if a minister would practise it, he would find it so.' To which Craggs replied, 'It might do for a fortnight, but would not do for a month.' Whiston demanded, 'If he had ever tried it for a fortnight.' To which he, making no answer, the company gave it for Whiston."

Joseph Butler.

BORN A. D. 1692.—died a. d. 1752.

THIS celebrated theologian of the English church was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in 1692. Of his father, Thomas Butler, scarcely any thing is recorded, except that he was a respectable tradesman in that town, and belonged to the Presbyterian communion. The subject of this memoir was the youngest of eight children. Having early given indications of superior capacity and genius, he was destined by his father for the work of the ministry in his own denomination. Accordingly, after the usual course of elementary instruction at the grammar-school of Wantage, Butler was sent to a dissenting academy, then established at Gloucester, but afterwards removed to Tewkesbury. This institution was at that time under the superintendence of Mr Jones, a man of uncommon talents and learning, of whose pupils many attained to great subsequent eminence, both in the church of England and among the dissenters. While a member of this academy, Mr Butler, at the early age of nineteen, entered into a correspondence with Dr Samuel Clarke, on some of the arguments advanced in the doctor's celebrated 'Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God.' This correspondence was anonymous on Butler's side; and the transmission of the letters was managed for him by his friend and fellow-student Secker, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury. The same reach and sagacity of intellect, which characterize all Butler's subsequent performances, are exhibited to the greatest advantage in these letters to Dr Clarke. His objections are aimed at Clarke's (professed) demonstrations of the omnipresence and the unity of God. With regard to the first of these, the doctor's answers seem to have wrought considerable conviction in Mr Butler's mind. And, indeed, if the method of arguing from original and absolute necessity, as the ground or reason of existence, be admitted, it seems impossible to invalidate Dr Clarke's demonstration of the Divine ubiquity. To us, however, it appears, that the fundamental principle of this pretended demonstration is untenable and fallacious.' As to the metaphysical argument in support of the unity of God, Butler remained unsatisfied to the last; and, indeed, if we could forget the influence of system, and the force of that parental affection with which

1 See our notice of Dr Samuel Clarke,

even the most unbiassed minds almost always regard their own opinions, we might be surprised that Clarke himself did not yield to the arguments of his anonymous correspondent. It is only fair to add that all the doctor's letters are written in a friendly and respectful tone; and that, after he ascertained the name of his acute antagonist, he always manifested the greatest esteem and kindness for him. It was about this time that Butler entered upon a serious, and, we doubt not, a conscientious examination of the reasons of non-conformity; the result of which determined him to enter the established church. The accession of so illustrious a proselyte has, of course, been celebrated with the loudest exultation by the apologists of the English hierarchy. But, without detracting one particle from the acknowledged acumen and piety of Butler, no intelligent advocate of independency will find much to wonder at in this conversion, which the zealots of episcopacy have "voiced so regardfully." It was the weakness of this great man to attach a disproportionate, and almost preposterous importance to the external observances of religion. Indeed we suspect that it would be difficult to produce another protestant divine of the eighteenth century, whose sentiments upon this point bordered so nearly upon Romanism. To this It must be added, that the theological system of Butler was never by any means sufficiently evangelical. Though he admitted them into his creed, he seems to have had no idea of giving due weight and prominence to those principles which constitute the spirit and vitality, the very element and essence of the gospel. Hence he would easily be led to acquiesce in an ecclesiastical system of which it is one of the worst features, that it not only does not provide in any adequate degree for the exhibition of those principles, but actually operates, with most calamitous effect, to counteract and destroy them.-After some opposition from his father, Butler was allowed to follow his inclinations, and in 1714 he entered as a commoner of Oriel college, Oxford. Here he became the intimate friend of Edward Talbot, second son of Dr William Talbot, a prelate of some eminence in the English church.

In 1718, through the recommendation of Mr Talbot and Dr Clarke, Sir Joseph Jekyll bestowed upon Butler the appointment of preacher at the Rolls, which he retained till 1725. In the beginning of this year he gave to the world a volume entitled, 'Fifteen Sermons preached at the Rolls' Chapel;' of which a second edition was published in 1729. To these were subsequently added, 'Six Sermons preached upon public occasions.' Of these sermons, considered as disquisitions on the philosophy of morals and religion, it is difficult to speak in terms of proper and commensurate commendation. They exhibit a rare combination of nearly all the excellences of which compositions of this class are susceptible, and are, generally, remarkably free from most of the defects and blemishes of abstrusely argumentative sermons. They are chargeable, however, with one serious and capital deficiency, a deficiency of evangelical statement. Without falling in with those who demand that a man shall empty the whole of his theological system into every sermon, we must unequivocally deplore and condemn the almost total omission of evangelical sentiment and principle which so unfavourably distinguishes the sermons of Butler. As there is scarcely any

Shakspeare's Timon of Athens.

thing in any of his reasonings or remarks inconsistent with the leading truths of the gospel, he might have incorporated those truths with the profoundest of his disquisitions without in the last impairing their scientific exactness, or weakening their impression. On the contrary, it would have been a task entirely worthy of his mighty intellect to show how the deepest researches into the foundation of morals, and the structure and operations of the human mind, only tend to sustain and illustrate the divine philosophy of the gospel. The preface and the first three sermons are chiefly occupied with discussions on the nature and authority of conscience, and on the social nature of man. It is surprising with what depth, comprehensiveness, and clearness he has succeeded in treating these subjects, the native obscurity of which has, in every age, been so greatly augmented, in part by the errors of the wise and the good, but chiefly by the "perverse disputings" of the licentious. We greatly doubt whether there is any thing of importance in the settlement of the first principles of morals which may not be found in the preface and the first three sermons of this volume. The discourses on the character of Balaam, on Self-deceit, on the Love of God, and on the Ignorance of Man, may be noticed as of peculiar excellence. From the last of these we are tempted to extract a short passage, which, for depth of thought and beauty of illustration, has not often been excelled. "Due sense of the general ignorance of man would also beget in us a disposition to take up and rest satisfied with any evidence whatever which is real. I mention this as the contrary to a disposition, of which there are not wanting instances, to find fault with and reject evidence, because it is not such as was desired. If a man were to walk by twilight, must he not follow his eyes as much as if it were broad day and clear sunshine? Or if he were obliged to take a journey by night, would he not 'give heed' to any 'light shining in the darkness, till the day should break, and the day-star arise?' It would not be altogether unnatural for him to reflect how much better it were to have day-light; he might, perhaps, have great curiosity to see the country round about him; he might lament that the darkness concealed many extended prospects from his eyes, and wish for the sun to draw away the veil: but how ridiculous would it be to reject with scorn and disdain the guidance and direction which that lesser light might afford him, because it was not the sun himself."

In 1722 he was presented by his patron, Bishop Talbot, with the benefice of Haughton, which, three years after, he exchanged for that of Stanhope. In this last place he remained for seven years. The retirement of a country parish, however, tended so powerfully to aggravate Butler's constitutional melancholy, that his friends became very desirous to remove him to a superior scene. It is said that when his name was mentioned to Queen Caroline, she asked whether he was not dead; to which it was answered "No, madam, but he is buried." In 1733 Butler was appointed chaplain to the Lord-chancellor Talbot; and in the same year he was admitted to the degree of D. C. L. by the university of Oxford. In 1736 he was made clerk of the closet to her majesty. Shortly after appeared his great work, entitled, "The Analogy of Religion, natural and revealed, to the constitution and course of nature.' great scope and bearing of this immortal treatise is to destroy the force of the chief antecedent exceptions against natural and revealed religion,

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