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"antecedent necessity, whence it is? why it is? what prior ground was there for it? You must content "yourself with saying, So it is, you know not why, you "know not how. Please to resolve me, therefore, whe"ther your prior necessity be necessary because it ex"ists? or whether it is, because its existence is necessary? and your answer, I presume, in one case, will "be as pertinent and useful as in the other." The author pursues this train of reasoning through the several different acceptations of the term necessity, ideal or physical; and contends that Dr. C.'s endeavours to establish upon that principle the eternity, infinity, immensity, and unity of God, are unsatisfactory and fallacious. Some extracts are subjoined, in an Appendix, from Letters between Mr. Locke and his friends; tending to shew, that neither Locke nor Limborch could satisfy themselves as to the possibility of demonstrating the Divine unity by any such arguments.

Dr. Waterland had incidentally animadverted on this work of Dr. Clarke's, in his first and second Defences. Dr. Clarke, in his Observations on the second Defence, noticed this with some asperity; and Waterland, perceiving how sensibly his adversary felt the attack, renewed it still more forcibly in his farther Vindication.

But if we may give credit to Mr. Jackson's pretended Memoirs of Dr. Waterland, the commencement of this dispute was of earlier date. Jackson says, "Soon after the controversy of the Trinity was

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begun between the Doctor and the Country Clergy"man, another debate arose between them, relating to "Dr. Clarke's Boyle's Lecture Sermons. Dr. W. first

VOL. I.

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suggested, and soon took upon him to shew the "Country Clergyman, that Dr. C. had failed in the "proof of the being and attributes of God, drawn "from arguments à priori." He then adds, that a correspondence took place between Waterland and Jackson, "in a private manner;" and it was agreed, "that neither side should print without mutual con"sent;" but afterwards, "the Country Clergyman pro

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posed to the Doctor to have their papers printed," in order that Dr. Clarke might have an opportunity, if he pleased, of "taking the cause into his own hands:" to which Dr. W. would not consent, though the debate was generally known amongst the learned in the University; till at length, within a year or two after Dr. Clarke's death, Dr. W.'s principal objections were published at the end of Mr. Law's book.

This narrative (similar in its circumstances to the account before given by the same author, of the publication of the Queries relating to Clarke's ScriptureDoctrine of the Trinity) renders it probable, that Waterland's correspondence with the Country Clergyman on the argument à priori was communicated by the Country Clergyman to Dr. Clarke himself: and that the Answer to the seventh Letter, annexed to the 6th edition of his work, is an Answer to what Dr. W. had thus privately written to Jackson. This seems to be adverted to by Mr. Gretton, in his Preface above-mentioned; where, after observing how much Dr. Clarke had been irritated by Waterland's severe censures of his Demonstration; he adds, "the first opportunity which pre"sented itself, he sends forth a Letter without a "name, directed to a person who could not well be

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"misunderstood, in maintenance of the argument à priori." If this were the case, the transaction differed little from that relating to the Queries, excepting in this circumstance, that Dr. C. kept back Waterland's Letter, and committed the Answer only to the public eye.

After all, the question respecting the argument à priori to prove the existence of a First Cause, was only a collateral point in the Arian controversy; and this may account for Waterland's unwillingness to make it a matter of public debate. But Dr. Clarke having thus attempted a refutation of his objections, an opportunity was not to be lost of discussing the subject more at large; and this opportunity was offered, not very long afterwards, when Mr. Law (Waterland's intimate friend") published his Enquiry, and added to it, as a Supplement, the Dissertation, which, though anonymous, was well known to be our author's performance.

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Dr. W. begins this Dissertation with observing, "that those who had appeared as advocates for that argument à priori seemed to have had no clear no❝tion of the thing itself, or of the terms they made "use of; that the thought, however, was not a new thought, though perhaps it might be justly called a “new tenet, as having been constantly exploded for 'many centuries upwards, and never once maintained "by metaphysicians or divines; that moreover it was

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n Dr. Paley, in a short Memoir of Bishop Law, states, that "his acquaintance, during his first residence in the University, was principally with Dr. Waterland, the learned Master of Magdalen college; Dr. Jortin, a name known to every scholar; "and Dr. Taylor, the editor of Demosthenes."

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absolutely untenable, yea and carried its own con"futation along with it, as soon as understood; and "lastly, that such principles might be prejudicial, in some measure, both to religion and science, if they "should happen to prevail."

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To establish these positions, our author proceeds, first, to give an historical account of the matter; 2dly, an argumentative consideration of it; 3dly, a view of its bearing and tendency, with respect to religion and science.

The historical inquiry shews great research into the scholastic writings of the middle ages, and some earlier productions in theology and metaphysics. The authorities adduced are of high reputation; and the quotations from most of them are decisive against attempting to rest the proof of the Divine existence and attributes upon such precarious grounds.

The argumentative view of the subject is conducted with equal ability. It proves that the term necessity, as applied to these discussions, is comparatively of recent date; and that the improper introduction of it into Christian theology made it requisite to distinguish carefully the several senses commonly affixed to it; of which, one only can properly be applied to God, as opposed to mutable, precarious, contingent, dependent existence; but in no sense can it be predicated as antecedent, in the order of nature or of reason, to that Being who is self-existent, necessarily existent, and emphatically, the First Cause of all things. In some of these arguments, our author does justice to the able reasoning of Dr. Gretton in his Review, and professes his obligations to him. The pleas alleged by Dr. C. in

his Answer to the seventh Letter are also considered seriatim, and shewn to be of insufficient weight.

In the third section, on the hurtful tendency of insisting so much on à priori reasoning, Dr. W. strongly deprecates the "ill consequence of resting

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any important and unquestionable truth upon pre"carious principles too weak to support it. This "tends," he observes, "to expose, rather than to "serve the cause so pleaded; to render it suspected, "rather than to bring credit to it; and to give the "adversaries a handle for ridicule or triumph." "Still worse," he adds, "is it to rest such a cause upon principles, which are not only too weak to "bear it, but which also in their obvious natural "tendency threaten to overturn it: such is really "the case with respect to the argument à priori; "which is so far from establishing the existence of "a First Cause, (the point aimed at,) that it pro"ceeds upon such premises as admit no First Cause "at all. The pleas made for it directly strike at the very notion of a First Cause, proving (if they proved any thing) that there can be no such thing "as a being uncaused."

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From the summary view which has thus been taken of Dr. Waterland's labours in the Trinitarian controversy, his claims to that distinction and preeminence which, both by his contemporaries and by eminent Divines of later date, have, for the most part, been readily acceded to him, may be deemed unquestionable. He has shewn the unsoundness and fallacy of the Arian hypothesis; that it is neither reconcileable with Scripture nor with the faith of the primitive Church; that it is inconsistent with the Divine unity, properly un

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