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1706, some booksellers having undertaken to print a collection of English history as far as to the reign of Charles I., Dr Kennett was employed to carry the history down to the reign of Queen Anne, which he did; and the whole was published, in 1706, in three folio volumes, under the title of 'A Complete History of England.' In the following year he was appointed a royal chaplain, and preached a funeral sermon on the first duke of Devonshire, of which it was said, that he had "built a bridge to heaven for men of wit and parts, but had excluded the duller part of mankind from any chance of passing it." This singular charge was grounded on the following passage :-speaking of a late repentance, he says, "This rarely happens but in men of distinguished sense and judgment. Ordinary abilities may be altogether sunk by a long vicious course of life: the duller flame is easily extinguished. The meaner sinful wretches are commonly given up to a reprobate mind, and die as stupidly as they lived; while the nobler and brighter parts have an advantage of understanding the worth of their souls before they resign them. If they are allowed the benefit of sickness, they commonly awake out of their dream of sin, and reflect, and look upward. They acknowledge an infinite Being; they feel their own immortal part; they recollect and relish the holy scriptures; they call for the elders of the church; they think what to answer at a judgment-seat. Not that God is a respecter of persons, but the difference is in men; and the more intelligent nature is, the more susceptible of the Divine grace." Such a passage as this is well calculated to do infinite injury to those whom it may have been originally intended to compliment and soothe.

The new duke of Devonshire now procured for Kennett the deanery of Peterborough. He declined to join in the London clergy's address to the queen in 1710; and surprised and mortified his old tory friends by the part which he took against Sacheverell. Among other offensive expedients adopted by the high-churchmen to render him odious, he was depicted as Judas Iscariot, in an altar-piece, representing the last supper, at Whitechapel church, to which vast crowds were consequently attracted, until the bishop of London properly directed that the painting should be removed.

In 1713, he made a large collection of books and maps, for the purpose of preparing a History of the Propagation of Christianity in English America; and, about the same time, founded an antiquarian and historical library at Peterborough. In 1715, he published a discourse 'On the Witchcraft of the Rebellion;' and, although his conduct and doctrines were in some respects offensive to the new government, he was promoted, in 1718, to the bishopric of Peterborough, which he held during the remainder of his life. He died on the 19th of December, 1728. The marquess of Lansdowne purchased the whole of his valuable manuscripts, which were, eventually, deposited in the British Museum.

Samuel Clarke.

BORN A. D. 1675.-died A. D. 1729.

THIS learned divine of the episcopal church of England, was born at Norwich, October 11th, 1675. His father, Edward Clarke, was an alderman at Norwich, and represented that city in several successive parliaments. The mother of Dr Clarke was the daughter of Mr Samuel Parmenter, merchant in the same city. The subject of this memoir received his early education at the grammar-school of Norwich, a seminary which has sent forth some of our ablest scholars. He is said to have given early promise of his subsequent intellectual greatness; and, in particular, to have been distinguished by his youthful proficiency in the study of the classics. At the age of sixteen he was sent to the university of Cambridge, and became a member of Caius college. Here he was placed under the tuition of Mr, afterwards Sir, John Ellis. At the age of twenty, he engaged in a great and somewhat hazardous undertaking; in which, however, his ingenious audacity was crowned with complete success. The physics of Des Cartes were then the orthodox philosophy of Cambridge; although they had been powerfully assailed by Barrow in one of his college-exercises, and had received a still ruder shock by the publication of the 'Principia' of Newton, in 1687. The university was slow to adopt the demonstrated discoveries of the greatest of her sons; and, some years after, we find Whiston complaining that when Gregory had already introduced the Newtonian physics at Oxford, "we at Cambridge, poor wretches, were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypotheses of the Cartesians." The Cambridge textbook in natural philosophy was at that time the physics of Rohault, “ work," says Professor Playfair, "entirely Cartesian." "A new and more elegant translation of the same book," continues the Professor, was published by Dr (Mr) Samuel Clarke, with the addition of notes, in which that profound and ingenious writer explained the views of Newton on the principal subjects of discussion, so that the notes contained virtually a refutation of the text: they did so, however, only virtually, all appearance of argument and controversy being carefully avoided. Whether this escaped the notice of the learned Doctors or not is uncertain; but the new translation, from its better Latinity, and the name of the editor,' was readily admitted to all the academical honours which the old one had enjoyed. Thus the stratagem of Dr Clarke completely succeeded; the tutor might prelect from the text, but the pupil would sometimes look into the notes; and error is never so sure of being exposed, as when the truth is placed close to it, side by side, without any thing to alarm prejudice, or awaken from its lethargy the dread of innovation." Having fixed upon divinity as his profession, Mr Clarke applied very closely to the study of the scriptures

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The learned Professor here commits an error. "The name of the editor" could have been no recommendation to the book when first published; for Clarke was then a young and undistinguished man. This error probably arose out of Mr Playfair's mistake respecting the date of this publication. It was not 1718, as he states, but 1697, See Hoadly's Life of Clarke. Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton.

in the original tongues, and of the early Christian fathers. Soon after his ordination, he was appointed domestic chaplain to Dr John Moore, bishop of Norwich. This situation he retained twelve years; during which period, and, indeed up to the death of Dr Moore, the warmest friendship subsisted between the bishop and his clerical subaltern. At his death, Dr Moore left all the affairs of his family to be arranged and settled by Mr Clarke,—a striking mark of respect and affection.

In 1699 appeared the first theological works of Mr Clarke; one of them entitled 'Three Practical Essays on Baptism, Confirmation, and Repentance; the other, which was anonymous, 'Some Reflections on a Book called Amyntor." These publications gave little promise of Clarke's subsequent performances. They are destitute of originality and acuteness; nor is there any thing in the style to compensate for mediocrity of thought and illustration. In 1701, he published his paraphrase upon the Gospel of Matthew; which was speedily followed by paraphrases upon those of the other evangelists. Of this work, his biographer Hoadly speaks in terms of high commendation; and it may, without exaggeration, be described as a well-reasoned and luminous exposition of the gospels. It has little, however, that is original, and little that might not have been produced by an understanding greatly inferior to Clarke's. It is certainly by no means free from the besetting sins of all paraphrases, prolixity and repetition. About this time he received from his patron, Bishop Moore, the rectory of Drayton, together with the parish in the city of Norwich; but the aggregate value of both these preferments was small. In 1704, Mr Clarke was appointed to the lecturship then recently instituted by Mr Boyle. Accordingly he delivered a series of lectures on the Being and Attributes of God, which were afterwards published in the form of a continuous dissertation, bearing the following title: A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God; more particularly in answer to Mr Hobbes, Spinoza, and their followers.' Of this celebrated demonstration very different opinions have been entertained. By some it has been extolled as a miracle of metaphysical acumen; by others it has been condemned as a mere mass of verbal subtleties. Bishop Hoadly declares that "all is one regular building, erected upon an unmoveable foundation, and rising up from one stage to another, with equal strength and dignity." says Dr Reid," are the speculations of men of superior genius; but whether they be as solid as they are sublime, or whether they be the wanderings of imagination in a region beyond the limits of human understanding, I am unable to determine." Mr Dugald Stewart, after acknowledging that "the argument, à priori, has been enforced with singular ingenuity by Dr Clarke," confesses that it "does not carry complete conviction to his mind." By Dr Thomas Brown, on the contrary, the subtile speculations of Clarke are treated with the utmost contempt. "The abstract arguments," says he, "which have been adduced to show, that it is impossible for matter to have existed from eternity, by reasonings on what has been termed necessary existence, and the incompatibility of this necessary existence with the qualities of matter, I conceive to be relics of the mere verbal logic of the schools, as little capable of producing conviction, as any of the wildest and most absurd of the technical scholastic reasonings on the properties, or supposed properties, of entity and non-entity." On a subject so profound,

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"These,'

and where so many "doctors disagree," it would be safest for us, perhaps, to say,

"Non nostrum inter vos tantas componere lites."

Our own

We may observe, however, that there is much less originality in this work of Dr Clarke than has generally been supposed. To say nothing of Cudworth and of Henry More, the great non-conformist divine, John Howe, has given in the first part of his 'Living Temple,' the radical principles of nearly all that Clarke has advanced on this subject. He has nothing, indeed, of Dr Clarke's perplexed and self-contradicting argument against the doctrine of moral necessity; the absence of which is, in our opinion, any thing rather than a defect to be lamented. But nearly all the propositions relating to the eternity, the self-existence, the infinity, the independence, &c. of God, are to be found, though in a less expanded form, in the treatise to which we have referred. opinion, as to the value of the a priori argument, leans, we acknowledge, much more to that of Dr Brown, than to those of the encomiasts of Dr Clarke. That something must have existed for ever is, indeed, abundantly clear; nor is it less evident that whatever existed prior to all other beings must be perfectly independent. But, because we perceive that the existence of such a being is necessary in order to account for the existence of other beings, to represent this necessity as the "ground" or" reason" of the being of the Great Original is, in our opinion, altogether unintelligible and absurd. In what sense are the words "ground" and reason to be understood, if they are not synonymous with cause? And if they are, what greater absurdity can be conceived than the assigning of an abstract necessity as the cause of what is acknowledged to be uncaused? That these words are used in some such signification is evident; for our author proposes to deduce the omnipresence of God from the certainty that this necessity cannot be limited to any particular portion of space. We cannot enter further, however, upon a subject

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which has furnished matter for volumes. For an account of the correspondence between Clarke and Butler, on certain parts of the 'Demonstration,' see the article BUTLER.-The following year Dr Clarke was reappointed to the same office, and delivered a course of lectures on the 'Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion.' These, like the former, were re-cast, and published as a continuous treatise. If the first course of Dr Clarke's Boyle Lectures has been over-rated, the second has not, in our judgment, received in general the commendation which it merits. It is a master-piece of clear and cogent reasoning which could have been produced by none but a logician of the highest order, who had surveyed the whole subject in all its bearings. It is not, perhaps, so level to humbler capacities as Leslie's Short and Easy Method with Deists.' It has not the point and vivacity of style which distinguish the 'Evidences' of Dr Paley. But we know of no work upon the subject which we should so unhesitatingly recommend to a serious and thoughtful inquirer, whose mind had been oppressed by speculative difficulties of religion. The theory of virtue, which he developes in this treatise, is confessedly defective; for it embraces only the intellectual principles of morals, without giving any account of the moral emotions. But so far as it

2 For a full and clear discussion of this subject, see Mackintosh's Dissertation on the

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 signally 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, ut, 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 recta 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.

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.

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