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goes it is invulnerable; and the objections which have been raised against it have originated either in a perverse misunderstanding of figurative terms, as "fitness" and the like, or in an utter ignorance of the whole subject.

In 1706, Mr Clarke, through the interest of his patron, obtained the rectory of St Bennett's, Paul's Wharf, London. About the same time arose a controversy in which Dr Clarke was one of the chief combatants, and in which he is generally conceived to have gained the victory. In 1706, appeared an Epistolary Discourse' from the pen of Henry Dodwell, a nonjuring layman of immense erudition, but sig nally deficient in judgment. The object of this Epistolary Discourse was to prove "that the soul" (we quote from Dodwell's title-page) "is a principle naturally mortal, but immortalized actually by the pleasure of God, to punishment, or to reward, by its union with the Divine Baptismal Spirit; wherein is proved that none have the power of giving the Divine Immortalizing Spirit, since the Apostles, but only the BISHOPS." To this Dr Clarke replied with great ability. His arguments in favour of the immateriality and consequent immortality of the soul, called out, however, a far more formidable antagonist than Dodwell, in the person of Anthony Collins, an English gentleman of singular intellectual acuteness, , unhappily, of infidel principles. The controversy between Clarke and Collins was continued through several short treatises. On the whole, though Clarke in some instances laid himself open to the keen and searching dialectics of his gifted antagonist, the victory certainly remained with the divine; and his pamphlets in this controversy will ever rank among the ablest defences of the immateriality of the human soul. In the same year Mr Clarke gave to the world a Latin translation of Sir Isaac Newton's Optics; with which the great philosopher was so much satisfied, that he presented Clarke with the sum of one hundred pounds for each of his five children. About this time Mr Clarke was made one of Queen Anne's chaplains in ordinary, and, soon after, presented with the rectory of St James's. Soon after the receipt of this last preferment he went to Cambridge, to take the degree of Doctor in Divinity. On this occasion he is said to have enacted wonders in delivering and maintaining an elaborate thesis on the following proposition: Nullum Fidei Christianæ Dogma, in S. Scripturis traditum est rectæ Rationum dissentaneum.' 'No Article of the Christian Faith, propounded in the Holy Scriptures, is repugnant to right Reason.' The disputation which he held, on this occasion, with Dr James the public examiner and regius professor of divinity, is said to have afforded a wonderful display of his logical acuteness, his readiness of thought, and command of classical and nervous diction.

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In 1712, Dr Clarke published an elegant and useful edition of Cesar's Commentaries, which was very favourably noticed in the Spectator. "It is no wonder," says Addison, "that an edition should be very correct, which has passed through the hands of one of the most accurate, learned, and judicious writers this age has produced." (Spect. No. 367.) In the same year commenced a long, and, in some respects, unhappy controversy between Dr Clarke on the one hand, and a multitude of opponents on the other, on the subject of the Trinity. The sentiments

History of Ethical Science, in the new edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, more especially the section devoted to Dr Clarke.

of Clarke upon this point were undoubtedly Arian; but it was an Arianism which approached as closely as possible to the doctrine of the Trinity. He regarded the Son and the Holy Spirit as emanations from the Father, endowed by him with every attribute of Deity, self-existence alone excepted. His collection and arrangement of scripture-texts upon the subject are so admirable as to be recommended by Bishop Horsley himself, and that too in his work against Priestly. His reasonings and illustrations are replete with ingenuity, and unquestionably exhibit the full strength of his system. His principal antagonist was Dr Waterland, - a clear-headed and close reasoning divine, who, in our judgment, completely overthrew the scheme of Clarke, and placed the catholic doctrine of the Trinity upon an indestructible foundation. Many other writers, however, engaged in the controversy, among whom, Mr Nelson, the biographer of Bishop Bull, merits honourable mention as a powerful defender of the faith. In 1714, the lower house of convocation preferred to the bench of bishops a complaint of the heretical and pernicious principles contained in Dr Clarke's work on the Trinity. After some delay, Dr Clarke was induced to sign a declaration that he believed the doctrine of the Trinity as it was commonly held ;—a great and lamentable inconsistency, beyond a doubt, which he afterwards endeavoured to explain away. In connection with this part of the life of Dr Clarke, may be mentioned a striking anecdote preserved in the first volume of the Reminiscences of Charles Butler.' By the desire of Queen Caroline a conference was held in her presence, between Dr Clarke and Dr Hawarden, an eminent Roman catholic theologian, for the purpose of discussing the doctrine of the Trinity. Dr Clarke, with great clearness and caution, explained his own system. Dr Hawarden, in reply, said that he should confine himself to a single question; in which if there were any ambiguity, he wished it to be cleared away in limine; but to which he desired a categorical answer, yes or no. Το this, Dr Clarke consented. "I ask, then," said Dr Hawarden, God the Father annihilate the Son and the Holy Ghost?" Dr Clarke, after an interval apparently employed in deep meditation, replied that he had never considered the question. Here the interview terminated.

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In the years 1715 and 1716, Dr Clarke was engaged in a controversy with Leibnitz, in which the principal points of discussion were the question of liberty and necessity, and the manner in which the Deity sustains and actuates the universe. Our limits prevent us from entering into a review of this interesting correspondence, in which both disputants displayed both the strength and the weaknesses by which each was respectively distinguished. The victory, in our opinion, was gained by Leibnitz, to whom, in all the higher qualities of a metaphysical genius, Dr Clarke was unquestionably and greatly inferior. In 1718, a new controversy was raised by certain alterations introduced by Dr Clarke into the doxologies which were sung in his church. The bishop of London, on this occasion, published a pastoral letter to his clergy, in which he warned them against these (undoubtedly Arian) innovations. About this time, Dr Clarke was presented by Lord Lechmere to the master-ship of the Wigston hospital, in Leicester. On the death of Sir Isaac Newton, the situation of master of the mint was offered to Dr Clarke, but he declined it. In the year 1729 he published a new edition of the first twelve books of the Iliad, with a new Latin version,

and an accompanying body of notes. The remaining books were published by his son, who informs us that his father's annotations extended through the 13th, 14th, and 15th. Of this work it is sufficient praise that Dr Bentley declared it to be "supra omnem invidiam." A pleurisy, by which he was attacked in the month of May 1729, brought this great man to his grave in a few days. His exposition of the Church Catechism, and his sermons in ten volumes, were published after his death. The characteristic excellence of Dr Clarke as a writer, consists in the vigour and clearness of his understanding. As a metaphysician, he has, we think, been greatly overrated. His abstruser speculations remind us rather of the intricate and unmeaning subtilties of the schoolmen, than of the depth and comprehensiveness of Bacon, Leibnitz, Locke, or Edwards. But when a sound and manly sense is all that is required to elucidate a question, there Dr Clarke appears almost without a rival. He appears, as a writer, entirely destitute of imagination and sensibility. His theological system was, in one point, as we have already seen, very erroneous. In other respects he appears, though an Arminian, to have held the leading principles of the gospel. His sermons are clear and well-arranged: but, on the whole, much inferior to the best of his other works. In life and warmth of evangelical sentiment they are especially defective.'

Francis Atterbury.

BORN A. D. 1662.-died A. D. 1731.

ATTERBURY, bishop of Rochester, was born in 1662, at MiltonKeynes, near Newport-Pagnel, in Buckinghamshire, where his father, Dr Lewis Atterbury, was rector. He had his early education at Westminster school, whence he was elected off to Christ-church college, Oxford. He soon distinguished himself by his classical attainments and taste for polite literature. He took the degree of M. A. in 1687, and, in the same year, made his public appearance as a controversialist in favour of the Reformation by answering Obadiah Walker's 'Considerations on the Spirit of Martin Luther,' &c. In this piece Atterbury vindicated the German reformer in a very able and lively

manner.

During his stay at the university, he had a considerable share in the famous controversy between Bentley and Boyle, afterwards earl of Orrery, concerning the genuineness of Phalaris's Epistles; it appears that more than half of the book published under the name of Boyle was written by Atterbury. He was not quite satisfied, however, with his situation at the university, and thought himself qualified for more active and important scenes. In a letter to his father, dated Oxford, Oct. 24, 1690, he says: "My pupil I never had a thought of parting with till I left Oxford. I wish I could part with him to-morrow on that score, for I am perfectly wearied with this nauseous circle of small affairs that can now neither divert nor instruct me. I was made, I am

See Whiston's Life of Dr Clarke. Hoadly's Preface to the folio edition of Clarke. Biographia Britanica, &c.

sure, for another scene, and another sort of conversation; though it has been my hard luck to be pinned down to this. I have thought and thought again, Sir, and for some years, nor have I ever been able to think otherwise, than that I am losing time every minute I stay here. The only benefit I ever propose to myself by the place, is studying; and that I am not able to compass. Mr Boyle takes up half my time,

and I grudge it him not, for he is a fine gentleman, and while I am with him, I will do what I can to make him a man; college and universitybusiness take up a great deal more, and I am forced to be useful to the dean in a thousand particulars; so that I have very little time."

In 1690, he married Miss Osborne, a lady of great beauty and some fortune. In 1690 and 1691, he appears to have held the office of censor, or president, in the classical exercises. At the same time he held the catechetical lecture founded by Dr Bushy. About this period he took orders, but being disappointed in his desire of succeeding to his father's rectory, he came, in 1693, to the metropolis, where he was immediately elected lecturer of St Bride's church, and preacher at Bridewell chapel, and soon after he was appointed chaplain to King William and Queen Mary. His sermons were from the first distinguished for their boldness of sentiment as well as for their elegance of language. One of them, 'On the Power of Charity to Cover Sin,' drew down the animadversions of Hoadly, afterwards bishop of Winchester, and another on the character of 'The Scorner,' met with a more acrimonious censurer. Controversy, however, was no very formidable thing in the estimation of our divine, for we find him in 1700 encountering Dr Wake, afterwards archbishop of Canterbury, and others, in a dispute concerning the rights and privileges of convocations, which was carried on for four years with no small degree of acrimony and bitterness on both sides. Atterbury took the high-church side of the question, and displayed so much zeal for the interests of his order that the lower house of convocation returned him their thanks, and the university of Oxford complimented him with the degree of D. D. His first piece upon this subject was intituled: "The Rights, Powers, and Privileges, of an English Convocation, stated and vindicated, in answer to a late book of Dr Wake's, intituled, The Authority of Christian Princes,' &c." This piece appeared at first without the author's name; but the year following, Atterbury published a second edition, with his name prefixed to it, and very considerable additions. In this piece he treated Dr Wake's book as "a shallow empty performance, written without any knowledge of our constitution, or any skill in the particular subject of debate; apon such principles as are destructive of all our civil as well as ecclesiastical liberties; and with such aspersions on the clergy, both dead and living, as were no less injurious to the body than his doctrine." "The very best construction (he tells us) that has been put upon Dr Wake's attempt by candid readers, is, that it was an endeavour to advance the prerogative of the prince in church matters as high, and to depress the interest of the subject-spiritual as low, as ever he could, with any colour of truth." Bishop Burnet wrote against this performance of Atterbury's. He says, "that he (Atterbury) had so entirely laid aside the spirit of Christ, and the characters of a Christian, that, without large allowances of charity, one can hardly think that he did once reflect on the obligations he lay under to follow the humility, the

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meekness, and the gentleness of Christ. So far from that, he seems to have forgot the common decencies of a man, or of a scholar." His lordship adds, that "a book written with that roughness and acrimony of spirit, if well received, would be a much stronger argument against the expediency of a convocation than any he brings or can bring for it." Dr Wake, in the preface to his State of the Church and Clergy of England, in their Councils, Synods, Convocations, &c.' says, that, "upon his first perusal of Dr Atterbury's book, he saw such a spirit of wrath and uncharitableness, accompanied with such an assurance of the author's abilities for such an undertaking, as he had hardly ever met with in the like degree before." He afterwards says, "in my examination of the whole book, I find in it enough to commend the wit, though not the spirit of him who wrote it. To pay what is due even to an adversary, it must be allowed, that Dr Atterbury has done all that a man of forward parts and a hearty zeal could do, to defend the cause which he has espoused. He has chosen the most plausible topics of argumentation; and he has given them all the advantage, that either a sprightly wit, or a good assurance, could afford them. But he wanted one thing; he had not Truth on his side: and Error, though it may be palliated, and by an artificial manager-such as Dr Atterbury without controversy is-be disguised so as to deceive sometimes even a wary reader, yet it will not a bear strict examination. And accordingly I have shown him, notwithstanding all his other endowments, to have deluded the world with a mere romance; and, from the one end of his discourse to the other, to have delivered a history, not of what was really done, but of what it was his interest to make it believed had been done."

On the 29th of January, 1700, Atterbury was installed archdeacon of Totness, having been promoted to that dignity by Sir Jonathan Trelawney, then bishop of Exeter. The principles of this prelate, both respecting church and state, were those of Dr Atterbury, who frequently corresponded with him concerning the transactions of the convocation. In one of Atterbury's letters to the bishop, is the following passage: "Things go not well here; the spirit of moderation prevails to an immoderate degree, and the church is dropped by consent of both parties. Carstaires, and the agent for the Irish Presbyterians, are more familiarly seen, and more easily received, at the levees of some great ministers (who are called our friends) than honester men." In another letter, dated March 11th, 1700-1, Atterbury says: "Dr Jane has taken the chair in the committee for inspecting books written against the truth of the Christian religion. We sat to-day; and several books were brought in to be censured, and an extract from one Toland's Christianity not mysterious' laid before us. Dr Jane is very hearty in it, and moved, that we might sit de die in diem till we had finished our business. I bring in to-morrow a book of one Craig, a Scotchman, chaplain to the bishop of Sarum, (Dr Burnet,) to prove by mathematical calculcation, that, according to the pretension of the probability of historical evidence, in such a space of time the Christian religion will not be credible. It is dedicated to the bishop. We have made a previous order, that nothing done in this committee shall be divulged till all is finished; and therefore I must humbly beg your lordship to keep these particulars secret." The same year he was engaged, with some

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