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books, we are not prepared to say, after all that has been written, that there is even now any single work which we would place before it. This remark we make with some deliberation, after almost weekly resort for many years of parochial exposition, and with a distinct reference, not so much to the popular and devotional, as the strictly learned portions. Measured with respect to the apparatus biblicus of the time, Doddridge's Notes remain among the most valuable scholia which we possess on these portions of Scripture; and his suggestions and even conjectures have been confirmed by modern research and comparison as frequently as those of any writer. If sometimes he gives too much place and honour by citations to writers of mediocrity, whose books have not survived, the fault may be forgiven by any one who looks at the catena of hard but perishable German names, adduced by such gatherers after the learned host as Davidson.-ALEXANDER, J. W., 1857, Writings of Doddridge, Princeton Review, vol. 29, p. 250.

His "Family Expositor," of which the first volume appeared in 1739, is a didactic commment on the New Testament, suited to the taste of a past generation, but too colourless and diffuse to be of permanent value. GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xv, p. 162.

THE RISE AND PROGRESS OF RELIGION IN THE SOUL 1745

I have no need to give you a large account of his knowledge in the sciences, in which I confess him to be greatly my superior, and as to the doctrines of divinity and the gospel of Christ, I know not any man of greater skill than himself, and hardly one sufficient to be his second.

If you have read that excellent performance of his, the "Rise and Progress, &c.," you will be of my mind. WATTS, ISAAC, c1746, Letter to Rev. Mr. Longueville.

I may with truth assure you, that I never was so deeply affected with anything I ever met with as with that book; and I could not be easy till I had given one to every servant in my house. -SOMERSET, DUCHESS OF, 1747, Letter to Doddridge.

The religious genius of Doddridge is seen at its best in the powerful addresses which make up his volume "On the Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul," 1745. This work was planned and prompted by Isaac Watts, who revised a portion of it. Its popularity has been steadily maintained; it has been rendered into a great variety of languages, including Tamil and Syriac.-GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. xv, p. 162.

HYMNS

In the number of hymns contributed, Doddridge stands third in the list of contributors to the "New Congregational Hymn Book," having supplied fifty hymns. Like all his other works, they are marked by their self-forgetful devotion to the high cause he served. As hymns, many of them are not above mediocrity, but some are of a high order, and others have some special excellencies. As one thoroughly familiar with the various public occasions in the history of Congregational Churches, Doddridge provided several very useful hymns for such occasions.MILLER, JOSIAH, 1866, Our Hymns, p. 117.

Doddridge's hymns have a character of their own. He had not the poetical genius with which his friend Isaac Watts was endowed, and which he so fully appreciated. None of his own metrical compositions have the grandeur of certain psalms and hymns written by him who has been called "the Poet of the Sanctuary." But there is a sweetness and tenderness in Doddridge's versification on devotional subjects, in admirable harmony with his amiable character, which has made him a favourite with all denominations, and has given him a place in the hymnology of English Christendom which he is not likely to lose.-STOUGHTON, JOHN, 186781, History of Religion in England from the of the Eighteenth Century, vol. VI, p. 94. Opening of the Long Parliament to the End

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Beyond all question, the name of Doddridge is to be classed with the names of the most honored of the Poets of the Sanctuary, Watts, Wesley, Steele, Newton, Cowper, and Kelly-names that will never die. HATFIELD, EDWIN F., 1884, The Poets of the Church, p. 201.

Of the hymns themselves, many, have undergone material alterations before they could be generally adopted. They frequently drop from great heights of pure devotion into prosaic or commonplace expressions. Yet they are so thoroughly excellent in spirit, and oftentimes so admirable in phraseology, that they are indispensable to any collection of sacred verse. They belong with the deepest experiences of the Christian life, and can never be omitted or neglected.— DUFFIELD, SAMUEL WILLOUGHBY, 1886, English Hymns, p. 364.

GENERAL

May I remember that I am not to compose an harangue, to acquire to myself the reputation of an eloquent orator, but that I am preparing food for precious and immortal souls, and dispensing the sacred gospel which my Redeemer brought from heaven and sealed with His Blood.-DODDRIDGE, PHILIP, 1742, The Evil and Danger of Neglecting Men's Souls.

It gave the author singular pleasure to know that these sermons were the means of convincing two gentlemen, of a liberal education, and distinguished abilities, that Christianity was true and divine; and one of them became a zealous preacher, and an ornament of the religion he had once denied and despised.-MIDDLETON, ERASMUS, 1779-86, Biographia Evangelica.

His character and writings will long continue to be revered and honoured by all who prefer scriptural truth to human. systems. MORRELL, REV. T., 1839, ed. Doddridge's Miscellaneous Works.

Much may be learned from this learned and devout writer: he has many judicious criticisms on different authors; but there is a tone of excessive candour, bordering upon Latitudinarianism, especially in giving too great weight to objections, when treating upon the Evidences and Doctrines. His criticisms on theological writers in his preaching Lectures, not duly respecting Evangelical Doctrine, fail in discrimination.-BICKERSTETH, EDWARD, 1844, The Christian Student.

He is always perspicuous, but often at the cost of energy; and generally harmonious, yet in a sort of inelegant way. We know not how to indicate a fault constantly appearing in his style, and that of other Dissenters of that day, otherwise than by saying it is inordinately genteel. Many turns of expression which temporarily floated on the surface of elegant parlance, are incorporated into his works, and now appear undignified, if not ridiculous. Yet there are occasions upon which his native genius and familiarity with good authors got the better of this mannerism, and produced a diction both beautiful and expressive. And it is beyond a question, that his mode of conveying religious truth was so acceptable in his own time, as to gain the attention of many to sacred subjects, who would otherwise have treated them with disgust.-ALEXANDER, J. W., 1857, Writings of Doddridge, Princeton Review, vol. 29, p. 256.

He removed to Market Harborough in 1729, and there opened an Academy, and was ordained pastor over the Church in Castle Hill Meeting House, Northampton, in 1730. The four volumes of sermons printed from his MSS. afford a sample of his preaching in that place. In matter evangelical, in arrangement lucid, in imagery tasteful, in diction perspicuous, they must have secured attention and excited interest. Never very great, they were always very good; reminding one of English valleys full of cornfields, gardens, and brooks of water.-STOUGHTON, JOHN, 1867-81, History of Religion in England, from the Opening of the Long Parliament to the End of the Eighteenth Century, vol. VI, p. 93. .

The solid learning, unquestioned piety, and true catholic liberality and benevolence of Dr. Doddridge, secured for him. the warm respect and admiration of his contemporaries of all sects.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

His divinity lectures have nothing original, but they possess the merit of skilful selection, and an arrangement which is convenient, if artificial. The same may be said of his courses on the kindred topics of pneumatology (psychology) and ethics. -GORDON, ALEXANDER, 1888, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. XV, p. 162.

William Whiston

1667-1752

William Whiston, seceder from the Church of England; born at Norton, Leicestershire, Dec. 9, 1667; died in London, Aug. 22, 1752. He graduated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, 1690; became fellow, 1693; chaplain to Bishop Moore, of Norwich, 169498; Lowestoft, 1698-1701; then deputy of Sir Isaac Newton, whom he succeeded, 1703, as Lucasian professor of mathematics at Cambridge; expelled, 1710, for Arianism, avowed in an essay on the "Apostolical Constitutions," London, 1708, and persistently maintained by him as the faith of the early church. This essay he reprinted in his "Primitive Christianity Revived," 1711-12, 5 vols. The rest of his life was spent in London, writing, lecturing, and preaching in his own house. imbibed Baptist and Millenarian tenets, but did not leave the church till 1747, and then as a protest against the Athanasian Creed. He was a model of honesty and disinterestedness, but wayward, erratic, obstinate, intolerant, and violently prejudiced, especially against the memory of Athanasius, whom one of his books (1712) held "Convicted of Forgery." "Paradoxical to the verge of craziness," he spent his life in constant controversy and industrious efforts to propagate his peculiar opinions. His most valuable works are the translation of Josephus, 1737, and a "Life of Dr. Samuel Clarke, 1730. His autobiography appeared in 3 vols., 1749-50.-BIRD, FREDERIC MAYER, 1889-91, Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazetteer, ed. Jackson, p. 965.

PERSONAL

Think of man, who had brilliant preferment within his reach, dragging his poor wife and daughter for half a century through the very mire of despondency and destitution, because he disapproved of Athanasius, or because the "Shepherd of Hermas" was not sufficiently esteemed by the Church of England! Unhappy is that family over which a fool presides. The secret of all Whiston's lunacies may be found in that sentence of his Autobiography, where he betrays the fact of his liability, from youth upwards, to flatulency. What he mistook for conscience was flatulence, which others (it is well known) have mistaken for inspiration. This was his original misfortune: his second was, that he lived before the age of powerful drastic journals. Had he been contemporary with Christopher North, the knout would have brought him to his sense, and extorted the gratitude of Mrs. Whiston and her children.-DE QUINCEY, THOMAS, 1830, Monk's Life of Bentley, Blackwood's Magazine, vol. 28, p. 451, note.

I may add to what precedes that it cannot be settled that, as Granger says, Desaguliers was the first who gave experimental lectures in London. William William Whiston gave some, and Francis Hauksbee made the experiments. The prospectus, as we should now call it, is extant, a quarto tract of plates and descriptions, without date. Whiston, in his life, gives

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1714 as the first date of publication, and therefore, no doubt, of the lectures. Desaguliers removed to London soon after 1712, and commenced his lectures soon after that. It will be rather a nice point to settle which lectured first; probabilities seem to go in favour of Whiston. DE MORGAN, AUGUSTUS, 1871-72, A Budget of Paradoxes, p. 93.

In Queen Anne's reign his search for a primitive Christianity affected his theology, and brought on him loss of his means of life in the church and university. He taught science; lived, as a poor man, a long and blameless life, until his death, in 1752; and in his writings blended love of nature with the love of God.-MORLEY, HENRY, 1879, A Manual of English Literature, ed. Tyler, p. 555.

Whiston was one of the first, if not the first person, to give lectures with experiments in London. He co-operated in some of them with the elder Francis Hauksbee. The first, upon astronomy, were given at Button's coffee-house by the help of Addison and Steele, both of whom he knew well. He amused great men by his frank rebukes. He asked Steele one day how he could speak for the Southsea directors after writing against them. Steele replied, "Mr. Whiston, you can walk on foot and I cannot." When he suggested to Craggs that honesty might be the best policy, Craggs replied that a statesman might be honest for a fortnight, but that it would not do for a month.

. .

Whiston asked him whether he had ever tried for a fortnight. Whiston's absolute honesty was admitted by his contemporaries, whom he disarmed by his simplicity. Whiston belonged to a familiar type as a man of very acute but illbalanced intellect. His learning was great, however fanciful his theories, and he no doubt helped to call attention to important points in ecclesiastical history. The charm of his simple-minded honesty gives great interest to his autobiography; though a large part of it is occupied with rather tiresome accounts of his writings and careful directions for their treatment by the future republishers, who have not yet appeared. In many respects he strongly resembles the Vicar of Wakefield, who adopted his principles of monogamy. His condemnation of Hoadly upon that and other grounds is in the spirit of Dr. Primrose. It is not improbable that Whiston was more or less in Goldsmith's mind when he wrote his masterpiece.STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1900, Dictionary of National Biography, vol. LXI, pp. 11, 13.

GENERAL

The honest, pious, visionary Whiston. -GIBBON, EDWARD, 1776-78, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xliii, note.

This book ["Short View of Chronology of Old Testament"] partakes largely of the wildness, as well as of the learning, of Whiston, and is now of little importance. The Memoirs of this singular man, published by himself, contain some curious information respecting his times, and afford a view of great honesty and disinterestedness, combined with an extraordinary degree of superstition and love of the marvellous.―ORME, WILLIAM, 1824, Bibliotheca Biblica, p. 467.

This admirable translation ["Josephus"] far exceeds all preceding ones, and had never been equalled by any subsequent attempt of this kind.-LOWNDES, WILLIAM THOMAS, 1834, The Bibliographer's Manual of English Literature, vol. II, p. 1045.

Whiston opposed Burnet's theory, but with one ["New Theory of the Earth"] not less unfounded, nor with less ignorance of all that required to be known. HALLAM, HENRY, 1837-39, Introduction to the Literature of Europe, pt. iv, ch. viii, par. 32.

Much useful information in this Essay,

["Short View"] but fanciful.—BICKERSTETH, EDWARD, 1844, The Christian Student.

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Poor Whiston, who believed in every thing but the Trinity. MACAULAY, THOMAS BABINGTON, 1849, History of England, ch. xiv, note.

A host of speculators, headed by the eloquent Thomas Burnet and the eccentric William Whiston, both men of genius and learning, but of more fancy than either judgment or knowledge of the subjects which in this instance they undertook to discuss, produced in the last years of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth century many theories of the earth, which explained not only its structure, but its origin and its destiny,-in other words, its whole history, past, present, and future, as well as such a task could be accomplished by the imagination working without materials, and without the aid of any other faculty.-CRAIK, GEORGE L., 1861, A Compendious History of English Literature and of the English Language, vol. II, p. 184.

Whiston's theological works are now almost forgotten, and he is remembered. almost exclusively by his translation of Josephus. This translation has gone. through a number of editions, and is still much read, although superseded by the work of Dr. Robert Traill.-HART, JOHN S., 1872, A Manual of English Literature, p. 245.

Had he confined himself to mathematical studies, he would have earned a high name in science; but his time and attention were dissipated by his theological pursuits, in which he evinced more zeal than judgment, &c.-CHAMBERS, ROBERT, 1876, Cyclopædia of English Literature, ed. Carruthers.

Yet we feel for him something of the pitying kindness which he generally excited in his contemporaries. With a childlike simplicity worthy of the Vicar of Wakefield, he was ready to sacrifice all his prospects rather than disavow or disguise a tittle of his creed. Had that creed been one of greater significance, disciples would have revered him as a worthy martyr, and adversaries regarded him as dangerous in proportion to his virtue. Unluckily it was a creed untenable by any man of sound intellect. It was filled with queer crotchets picked up in various. byways of learning, and valued by the

collector in proportion to their oddity. Friends and opponents-for he had no enemies-regarded his absurdities with a pitying smile, and were glad to see him pick up a harmless living by giving astronomical lectures and publishing pamphlets on a vast variety of subjects.--STEPHEN, LESLIE, 1876, History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, vol. I, p. 212.

Whiston, notwithstanding the vagaries which characterised his "Theory of the Earth" (an attempt to harmonise the Bible and the Newtonian discoveries), discharged his duties as Lucasian professor with credit, even though appearing as the successor of Newton. -MULLINGER, J. BASS, 1888, A History of the University of Cambridge, p. 169.

Joseph Butler

1692-1752

Born, at Wantage, 18 May 1692. Educated at Wantage Latin School, and at Dissenting School at Gloucester and Tewkesbury. To Oriel Coll., Oxford, March 1715; B. A., 11 Oct. 1718; B. C. L., 10 June 1721. Ordained Deacon at Salisbury, Oct. 1718; Priest, Dec. 1718. Preacher at Rolls Chapel, July 1719 to autumn of 1726. Prebendary of Salisbury, 1721. Rector of Houghton-le-Skerne, near Darlington, 1722. Rector of Stanhope in Weardale, 1725. Lived secluded life, mainly occupied in writing "Analogy," published 1736. Chaplain to Lord Talbot, 1733. D. C. L., Oxford, 8 Dec. 1733. Prebendary of Rochester, and Clerk of Closet to Queen Caroline, July 1736. Bishop of Bristol, Aug. 1738. Continued to hold Rochester prebend and Stanhope rectorship till appointed Dean of St. Paul's, 24 May 1740. Clerk of Closet to King, 1746. Bishop of Durham, July 1750. To Bristol and Bath for health. Died, at Bath, 16 June 1752. Buried in Bristol Cathedral. Works: "Several Letters to the Rev. Dr. Clarke, from a Gentleman in Gloucestershire" (anon.), 1716; "Letters of Thanks from a Young Clergyman to the Rev. Dr. Hare" (anon.), 1719; "Fifteen Sermons," 1726; "The Analogy of Religion," 1736; "Sermons preached before the Society for Propagating the Gospel," 1739; "Sermon preached before the Lord Mayor," 1740; "Sermon preached before the House of Lords," 1741; "Sermon preached at the annual meeting of the Charity Children," 1745; "Sermon preached before the House of Lords," 1747; "Sermon preached before the Governors of the London Infirmary," 1748; Visitation Charge at Durham, 1751. Posthumous: "Some Remains, hitherto unpublished," ed. by E. Steere, 1853. Collected Works: ed. by Dr. Kippis, 1804; ed. by Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone (2 vols.), 1896. Life: by T. Bartlett, 1839; by Samuel Butler, 1896.-SHARP, R. FARQUHARSON, 1897, A Dictionary of English Authors, p. 43.

PERSONAL

H. S.

REVERENDUS ADMODUM IN CHRISTO PATER

JOSEPHUS BUTLER, LL. D.
HUJUSCE PRIMO DICECESEOS
DEINDE DUNELMENSIS EPISCOPUS.
QUALIS QUANTUSQUE, VIR ERAT
SUA LIBENTISSIMO AGNOVIT ETAS;
ET SI QUID PRÆSULI AUT SCRIPTORI AD
FAMAM VALENT

MENS ALTISSIMA, INGENII PERSPICACIS ET
SUBACTI VIS

ANIMUSQUE PIUS SIMPLEX CANDIDUS

LIBERALIS

MORTUI HAUD FACILE EVANESCET MEMORIA.
OBIIT BATHONIÆ

XVI KAL. JUL. A. D. 1752,

ANNOS NATUS 60.

FORSTER, NATHANIEL? 1752, Original Inscription on Tomb, Bristol Cathedral.

He was my father's friend. I could almost say my remembrance of him goes back some years before I was born, from the lively imagery which the conversations I used to hear in my earliest years have imprinted on my mind. But from the first of my real remembrance, I have ever known in him the kind affectionate friend, the faithful adviser, which he would condescend to when I was quite a child; and the most delightful companion, from a delicacy of thinking, an extreme politeness, a vast knowledge of the world, and a something peculiar to be met with in nobody else. And all this in a man whose sanctity of manners, and sublimity of genius, gave him one of the first ranks among men, long before he was raised to that rank in the world, which must still, if what I painfully fear should

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