Frank E. Manuel - The Religion of Isaac Newton - The Fremantle Lectures - 1973.pdf

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1974

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PREFACE THE Fremantle Lectures were deliyered at Halliol College 011 successive .l\Iondays in February of 197:3. The)' arc hne reproduced substantially as they were gi Vt:ll , except ii)r the amplification of quotatiollS li'om Newton's papers ..-\s it happened, I had been in JCfusalem during the previous two springs and there examined the extensive collection of Newton manuscripts in the Jewish National and Uniwrsil), Library which had only recently become available. The present work-my third, and I hope tinal, attempt to grapple with the personality and non-scientific thought of Isaac Newton-is in large measure based upon those manuscripts. Two earlier books, Isaac Newton Historian (1963) and A Portrait qf Isaac Newton (1968), were equipped with an extensive bibliographical and scholarly apparatus. It has not seemed necessary in publishing these lectures to repeat documentation already in print, and I have tended to limit the footnotes to manuscript signatures. Those athirst {Cll' references to works about Newton will find them regularly duplicated in the writings of I. B. Cohen, A. Rupert and Marie Boas Hall, John Herivel, Richard S. Westfall, and D. T. \Vhiteside. Whatever the shortcomings of contemporary scholarship on Newton, it does not sufrer li'om bibliographical insufficiency. A working inventory of Newton's manuscripts in Jerusalem was prepared for the Library's Department of;\-Ianusrripts by David Castillejo, and any student of these papers is indebted to him. I should also like to express my warm thanks to the Director of the Department, Dr. 1\1. Nadav, and members of his stair fi)r the mallY kindnesses they extended to me. Two appendixes have been added to the lectures. They are fragments from the Newton papers in Jerusalem that are intended to provide the reader with some sense of how Newton proceeded in his 'methodising' of scriptural

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PREFACE

prophecy, and in framing conjectures about the world to rome. l\Iy commentary on Newton's commentAry on the Apocalypse follows an old exegetical tradition, and I trust that the catena will yet be prolongcd. In the body of the text Newton's obvious mis-spellings and inadequacies of punctuation have been silently correrted. The appendixes are faithful renderings of the manuscripts with all their idiosyncrasil's. \\' ords and phrases crossed ou t by Newton have been placed in angle brackets. Finally, I should like to dedicate this libellus to the I\Iaster and Fellows of Balliol College, among whom I lived as Eastman Visiting Professor to Oxford University in 1972-3. Lecturing in the great hall of Balliol, with the portraits or austere past l\lasters peering over my shoulder, to an audience stiffly rangcd on backless wooden benches was an unforgettable l'xpl'rience. But the presence of John \Vyclifin a far corner gave me comfort. FRANK E. MANUEL

Washington Square, }-lew York

CONTENTS I. HIS FATHER IN HEAVEN

II. GOO'S WORD AND GOn'S WORKS III. CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND MODERN IV. PROPHECY AND HISTORY

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APPENDIXES A. B.

Fragments £i'om a Treatise all Revelatioll 'or the Day of Judgment and \Vorld to CUI1\l"

INDEX

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137

I HIS FATHER IN HEAVEN

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I HIS FATHER IN HEAVEN T HAT the task of searching into the religion of Isaac Newton should fall to a historian rather than a theologian may require an apology. Fortunately I discovered one among Newton's manuscripts. In a treatise on the language of Scripture he remarked on the similarity between the historian's method of periodization and the system of chaplt'rs in the books of prophecy. 'For if Historians', he wrote, 'divide their histories into Sections, Chapters, and Books at such periods of time where the less, greater, and greatest revolutions begin or cnd; and to do otherwise would be improper: much more ought we to suppose that the holy Ghost observes this rule accurately in his prophetick dictates since they are no other then histories o/" things to come." In an area where the Holy Ghost operates according to the prescribed historical canon, we historia lIS are on familiar ground and need not fear to tread. Since it will be one of the contentions of these lectures that Newton's was a historical and a scriptural religion, that the metaphysical disputations in which he was sometimes enmeshed ranked quite low in his esteem, a historian migh t be as good an expositor as a philosopher or a theologian. Newton's scriptural religion was of course not a dry one; it was charged with emotion as intense as the effusions of mystics who seek direct communion with God through spiritual exercises and illuminationa path to religious knowledge that for Newton was far too facile and subjective to be true. Newton's printed religious views havc exerted no profound influence on mankind, and I doubt whether the witness of his manuscripts, upon which I hope to draw, will contribute 1 Jerusalem,Jewish National and UniversilY Library, i'ahuda rvlS. r. .6'. See Appendix A below, p. '22.

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HIS FATHt:R IN HEAVEN

anything to a religious revival. In the eighteen th and nineteenth centurie s Newton was occasionally cited by English apologists to illustrate the compati bility of science and faith. If the greatest of all scientists was a believer, ran the argumen t, how could any ordinary mortal have the impuden ce to doubt? German theologians of the Enlighte nment leaned heavily upon Newton' s confession of belief in a personal God in the General Scholium to the Principia, and Albrech t von Haller, the paragon of science in the German ic world of his day, reverent ly quoted Newton as authorit y to support his own reconciliation of science and religion.> There are even a few recordt'd instances of conversion inspired by Newton' s Observations upon the Prophecies of Daniel, and the Apocalypse of St. John. Johann Georg Hamann , the great Magus of the North, who chanced upon the book in London in the 1750s, testified to his sudden enlighte nment upon reading it.3 lYfore recently, Aleksan dr Solzhenitsyn, in spiritual combat with his governm ent, resurrec ted Newton as an ally: one of the characte rs in the Pirst Circle defends the sincerity of Newton' s beliefin God and refutes Marx's allegation that Newton was a covert material ist. But it must be admitted from the outset that an interest in Newton' s religion can hardly be justified by its power as an instrum ent for the propaga tion of faith. His scientific discoveries and what Newtoni ans made of them, not his own religious utteranc es, helped to transform the religious outlook of the West-a nd in a way that would have mortifie d him. My dedicati on to the man himself and to his reputedl y esoteric religious writings rests on the assumpt ion that everythi ng about him is worthy of study in its own right, for he remains one of those baffling prodigies of nature that arouse our curiosity and continue to intrigue us by virtue of their very existence. Isaac the son of Isaac, a yeoman , was born prematu rely on Christm as Day of 1642, and was baptized in the small ancient church of Colsterw orth, Lincolnshire, on 1 January . wichtigstm JVahrhcilen der Ojfcllharurlg 2 Albrecht von Haller, Briife uher die (Bern. J 772), p. 6. von

tiber Newtons Abhandlun g J Johann Georg Hamann, 'Betrachtu ngen -19, den \Veissagungen', Samtliche lVerke, ed. Jusef Nadlt'r, i (Vienna, 1949),315 and 'Tagebuch eines Christen~, op. cit. g.

HIS FATHER IN HEAVEN

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Some eighty-five years later Sir Isaac Newton, 1I1aster of the l\1int and President of the Royal Society, was burn.· to his grave in Westminster Abbey by great lords of lhe realm and eminent prelates who were his friends. The country boy\ strict Church of England religion of rGGI, when he first went up to Cambridge, as centred round the Bible as any Dissenter's, as repeJled by Papists and enthusiasts as allY young Englishman's of the Restoration, is still discernihle in the latitudinarian religion of the aged autocrat of science who received French Catholic abbes, a notorious Socinian, HighChurchmen, and, thanks to his last illness, just nlissed a confrontation with Beelzebub himself in the person flf an importunate visiting Frenchman nallled Voltaire. HlIt between. the womb and the tomb Newton underwent a great variety of religious experiences. As he stron, mighlily to acquire a knowledge of his God and to ward off evil, different kinds of religious concerns were successively in the forefront of his consciousness. Nul' was he immune to shifting winds of theological doctrine. Over the decades the Church to which he belonged suffered many vicissituclt:s. In the course of a series of dynastic changes it was bereft of its head, restored, imperilled, established, and more firml y established; its prevailing temper (if not the articles ofl;lith) was modified. In Augustan Anglicanism, undergoing a subtle movement towards a moralist and rationalistic religion, the sacrificial and redemptive quality of Christ was sometimes left by the wayside. Open theological controversies and l'eports of private conversations among clergymen of all ranks in the hierarchy of the Church of England cunvey the impression that by the early eighteenth century this Church was suffering what present day popularizers would call an identity crisis: the labclsArminian, Arian, Sorinian, Unit arian were bandied about and all manner of serret heterodoxies were tolerated behind a stolid verbal fa.;-ade, which olien betokened indifference. In examining the religion of the man Isaac Nnlton, one could investigate the measure of outward conformity of this member of the Anglican Church to those rituals minimally required by his communion. When and how often did he go

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to church and take the sacrament? Did he genuflect? The record holds no great surprises. He occasionally skipped chapel as an undergraduate in Cambridge; and during the height of his feverish creativity, his amanuensis Humphrey Newton (no relation) tells us that Newton was so absorbed with his 'indefatigable studies' that he 'scarcely knew the house ofprayer'.4 There exists an attestation of his receiving the sacrament of the Last Supper before he went up to London to become Warden of the ]'dint in 1696.5 He paid for the distribution of Bibles among the poor,6 and sharply censured any expressions of levity in matters of religion voiced in his pr('sence. Late in life he was a member of a commission to build fifty new churches in the London area. John Conduitt, who married Newton's niece, was somewhat dismayed that Newton on his death-bed had failed to ask for the final rites, but he consoled himself with the reflection that Newton's whole life had been a preparation for another state.' In one critical incident relating to the fortunes of the Anglican Communion under the Restoration, Newton took an uncompromising-one might almost say defiant-public stand. In the Father Alban Francis case, he pushed his more reluctant Cambridge colleagues to ignore an order l.mder James II's sign-manual instructing them to admit a Benedictine monk to the degree of :Master of Arts without taking the oath of loyalty to the Established Church. Newton and other members of the University ended up before the Court of High Commission for Inspecting Ecclesiastical Affairs under the redoubtable George, Lord Jeffreys, who fired the Vice-Chancellor and intimidated the rest of them with a menacing 'Go your way and sin no more lest a worse thing befall yoU'.8 "" David Brewster, A1ernoirs f!(lhc Lift, It'ritillgs and Di.JlOl'eries of Sir Isaac Newlon (Edinburgh, 1855), ii. 94. 5 Royal Commission on Historic-al .Manuscripts, Ej~hth Report, Pt. I (London,

1881),61, official certificate of the vicar and churchwarden of St. Botolph's Church, (,.ambridge, 18 Aug. 1695. • Oxford, Bodleian Library, New College MSS. 361,11, foJ. 39'. 7 Cambridge, King'. College Library, Keyne. MS. 130. • T. B. Howell, compil", A Complele Coll"t;o"
HIS I'ATHEI{ IN HEA V EN

To be sure, when Newton lived in London, Illany of his chosen disciples and most intimate friends were suspect in matters of religion. Edmond Halley and David Gregory wcre reputed to be unbelievers; John Locke's views on Christianity were severely censured by the orthodox; the heloved Nicolas Fatio dc Duillicr was condemned to sland in the pillory lelf acting as secretary to the Huguenot prophets I.·om the Cevennes who were proclaiming the imminellt destruction of London in a bloody holocaust; \Villiam \Vhistoll, whum Newton had chosen as his succt'ssor to the Lucasian Chair, was ejected from Cambridge University lor flagrant heresy and he continued to raise tumults in London churches; Hopton Haynes, Newton's dose aid at the .rvlillt I'll" thirty years, was, his writings indicatc, a theological humanitarian; Dr. Samuel Clarke, Newton's mouthpiece in the conTSpondence with Leibniz, was formally rhargTCI with spreading antitrinitarian doctrine by thc lower house of the Anglican clergy, though the case was quashed by the bishops after a humiliating retraction on Clarke's part. Newton's latter-day irenics even extended far enough to embrace a wildly heterodox Balliol man: James Stirling, a Snell Exhibitioner, a brilliant mathematician and a J awbile, who had got into trouble for refusing to take an oath to George J, was one of the last of his proteges. Although the list of deviationists of every kind Ji-om lhe recognized Establishment who were NeWlUn's sometime favourites is rather long, guilt by association was not invoked, and during Newton's lifetime nobody cast aspersions on his Anglican orthodoxy. Never did he join lois friends in any public manifesto on matters of donrine, and when Fatio became entangled in the thickets of activist millenarianisIll, Whiston of outright Arianism, he pushed them away. In the privacy of his chamber Newton seems to have thought that the Anglican clergymen among whom he dwelt and prospered were not a bad lot alter all. \Vhile compiling notes on the gross immorality of churchmen ill the age of Constantine, he digressed into a comparative study of the clergy in various ages: 'And whilst I compare these times with Ollr own it makes me like our own the better and honour Ollr Clergy the

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more, accounting them not only men of better morals but also far more judicious and knowing. Tis the nature of man to admire least what he is most acquainted with: and this makes us always think our own times the worst. lv1en are not sainted till their vices be forgotten.'9 Overt actions and private testimonials of this kind will not preoccupy us overmuch. In public Newton was a reasonable conformist and, so far as I know, it did not occur to him to break with his communion. As for the motives and feelings that underlay his conduct-that, as David Hume would say, is 'exposed to some more difficulty'. How can one recapture the religious experience of a man who died almost 250 years ago? \Vhat can I really know about my neighbour's God? If for the moment we narrow the horizon and play the positivist, we have two kinds of evidence about Newton's inward religion: those sentiments that he actually published' during his lifetime or voiced to reliable witnesses orally and in correspondence; and those manuscripts on religion-more than a million words-that were never printed, nor even intended for publication, but that allow a historian to make inferences about Newton's religious sensibility. Direct expressions of religious emotion are sparse-he was not effusive with intimate revelations. He wrote no autobiography, no Pensles; he left no map of Christian experience with technical terms and categories such as seventeenthcentury English Puritans and German Pietists drew. But there are occasional documents both public and private that record outbursts of religious passion whose authenticity is compelling. And he had a plan of salvation uniquely his own. Despite the refractory nature of the materials, with the aid of these papers one may he able to catch a reflection of his actual religious emotion. Customarily, Newton's religion has been examined in rationalistic terms, framed propositions setting forth what he did and did not believe in matters of theological doctrine or what he thought about God's relation to the physical universe, about time and about space. In an atmosphere heavy with • Yahuda MS, 18.

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verbose disputation and pretensions to learning, self-aware men like Isaac Newton lelt called upon to make rxplicit their religious position, if only lor themselves, to difl'Tentiate their beliefs about Christ and the creed from thuse or uther s('cts and persuasions in the Christian community of We,teru Europe and from dominant tendencies within their own Anglican Church. Such propusitions arc largely ('mbc:dded in polemical writings that Newtun directed against opiniollS he held to be dangerous to the true faith, and they s('}'ve as a form of self-definition by negation. But while these dogmatic assertions concern us, they hardly exhaust the content of his religion. And perhaps enough has already be(~1l said on the puerile question uf whether ur nut NcwtOJl adually implied that space was the scnsorium of God. Finally, if Newton's faith be turned on e\'cry side, the relationship of his religion to his work as a scientist may be uncovercd. What religious implications did hc himself draw from his scientific discoveries? And then a question that ji> lcss frequently posed: \Vhat eHect did his scientilic method have on his mode of inquiry into mattns of religion? Wllile it is self-evident that Newton was born into a scientilic world at a given stagc of its development, it may sometimes be forgotten that he was also born into a European religious world which for more than half a century had been grappling with the problem of how to assimilate the growing body oj' scientific knowledge and that, in England at !l'asl, a bid), stablc rhetoric governing the relatiollSilips betwecn Ihe lIew science and religion had been evolved. Newtoll could alter the rhetoric, amend it in fact while adhering to it ill principle, but he could never completely escape it. Were we confined in our considerations of Newton's religion within the boundaries of the widely knowlI printed documents that have been chewed and re-chewed ad I/aUJeam -queries 20 and 23 in the 1706 Latin edition of the Optics, the prefaces and scholia to the later eclitions of the Principia, and the Clarke-Leibniz correspondence-Newton's religion might appear rather stereotyped. In 1729, shortly after his death, the rejected disciple \ViIIiam Whiston asselllbled in a little pamphlet everything that Newton had in fact 826tH05

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published all religion under his o\\n name, and it ran to a paltry thirty-one small pages. IO Fortunately, there is that vast manuscript legacy that may now allow us to breathe new life: illto tl!csc bones. :lviost of Newton's manuscripts on religion were long concealed from the world's notice. Of the major non-scicntific works now in print, only one, the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, was prepared for the press by Newtoll himself. The Obsel'M/iollS upon tlte Prophecies of DaJliel, amI tI,e Apocalypse f!f St. John was put together after Newton's death by his nephew Benjamin Smith, a cleric not renowned for his piety, a dilettante who had hobnobbed with artists ill Paris and Rome and was nOl very sympathetic to this kind of literature, a man intercsted ill making some mOlley out or his late uncle's papers. In the plan worked out li'orn a heap of manuscripts, the Reverend 1'vlr. Smith lilVoured the blandest, most conventional, and most commoJlsensical materials, ignoring the more imaginative excursions. What he sent to the press in 1733 is only an insignificant selectioll from the vast archive at his disposal. And for two hundred years thereafter most of the manuscripts were suppressed, bowdlerized, neglected, or sequestered, lest what were believed to be shady lucubrations tarnish the image of the perfect scientific genius. In the Sotheby sale oC the Portsmouth Collection in 1930, Newton's non-scientiilc manuscripts were strewn about rather haphazardly. But since that date, the bulk or them ha\'e been reassembled and arc now iIl safe keeping, thanks to the zeal of three ingenious collectors, a most improbable trio, a renowned British ecoIlomist, an American stockmarket analyst, and an orientalist born in the l\1iddle East who ended up at Yale: special collections in Cambridge, England, \Vellesky, .Massachusetts, and Jerusalem now bear the names of Keynes, Babson, and Yahuda respectively. Isolated papers still turn up occasionally in American universities and private collections, and there are documents from the Royall",lint (in the Public Record Office) in which 10 ,,'illialll '\'hj~lon, Sir lltla(.' }\'~>Il'iull'S Coro/lllricJ fnJm !tis Plti/VJO/I/£}' (lud Chronology ill hi.1 (H1.'1I Jfurdl I I,IIJldOll, 17~~j).


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accounts of the coinage are intersperseu with rd1ections on the Gnostics and the Cabbala, but they do nut materially alter conclusions based on the major repositories. For the first time since the great dispersion, virtually everything tllat Newton wrote on religion is fredy available. There are extant four separate comll1entari,"s on Daniel and the Apocalypse, a church history cumplete in Illultiple versions, rules for reading the language of the prophets, many drafts of an Irenicum, a treatise 'Dc Annis Praedictiunis Christi', and extensive notes on Christian heresies through the ages-all this in addition tu hundreds of pages of excerpts from contemporary works of scholarly divinity, from Latin translations of the Talmud, and from the writings of the Church Fathers, to say nothing uf a coIllIllonplace houk devoted mainly to theological subjects and papers in the Cambridge University Library that appear to be related to Samuel Clarke's replies to Leibniz. If Nl'wtun was Puritan ill his devotion to the text of the Bible he was Anglican in his acceptance of the witness of those Fathers of tlte Church who were closest to the apostolic tradition, and he spent years scrutinizing their testimony. Iv£anuscripts that are !lOW labelled 'chronology' and even some of those called 'philosuphical alchemy' were detached from the theological manuscripts proper by nineteenth-century cataloguers. There were no such rubrics and compartmentalizations in Newton's mind, and wherever possible I shall try to reknit connections among them. The Keynes collection in King's Cullq:(e includes sewn autograph drafts of Newton's 'Irenicum, ur Ecclesiastical Polyty tending to Peace', a draft of 'A Short Scheme of True Religion', a reasonably complete version of a commentary on the Apocalypse in nine chapters, and an attack on Athanasius entitled 'Paradoxical Questions Concerning the l\-forals and Actiuns of Athallasius and his Followers' -most of these published with varying degrees of accuracy hy David Brewster in 1855 and by Herbert McLachlan ill [950."1 The II Herbert McLachlan, ed., Sir i.1aac }{ewtou: Thr:'%gical i.\!allu,crip/j (Liverpool, 1950). See also A. N. L. l\..lunuy, 'The Kcyucs COIlt'Cliou of the \\'ork:s of Sir haac Newton in King's College, Cambridge', .\ulc'~ wd N".'CIJIJ-J l~l th~ Uo..V/ll SOCifU' of London, x (1952), 4-0-5u.

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Babson Institute Library in Wellesley, Massachusetts, has a text of a treatise on the Temple of Solomon complete with an architectural sketch, collections or stray notes, and sundry pieces on church history. By far the greatest part, however, of the historical-theological manuscripts, the church histories, the works on pagan religion, commentaries on prophecy, and long discussions of thc nature of Christ, is in thc Jewish National and University Library in Jerusalem. The manuscripts on chronology and differcnt versions ofthc 'Historical Account of Two Notablc Corruptions of Scripture' are largely divided between the New College manuscripts in the Bodleian Library and thc Yahuda manuscripts in Jerusalem. After Newton's death, his friend John Craig, preb!'ndary of Salisbury, author 0[" the indigestible Theologiae Cftristial1ae Principia Mathematica (1699), maintaincd in a letter to John Conduitt that Newton 'was much more sollicitous in his inquirys into Religion than into Natural Philosophy'. And in what appears to be the record of a confIdence, Craig went on to give Newton's official explanation for not publishing these writings during his lifetime: 'They showed that his thoughts wen' some times different from those which are commonly received, which would ingage him in disputes, and this was a thing which he avoided as much as possible."2 The historian cannot of course completely silence the protesting shades of f'rancis Hall, Hooke, Flamsteed, Leibniz, the Bcrnoullis, Freret, Conti, and other victims of Newton's thunderbolts. But Craig may have had a point. For Newton, religious controversy was a source of great anxiety, and remained in a separate category. 'Vhether or not to put any of his theological papers into print was a subject about which Newton vacillated throughout his lik In one lillllOUS instance in 1690, letters exposing as false the Trinitarian prool~tcxts inJohn and Timothy had been transmitted through Locke to Le Clerc for anonymous publication in Holland, but then had been withdrawn in panic. And yet, though Nc\\·ton in his old age committed u Keynes ~IS. 1:~2. letter of7 :\pril 17'27; published in part in SOlheby and Co., Cliialogru~ qf tlte .'\'t'W/UIl Pallerj Jold ~J order '!f tIle ViJCOWII Lymiugloll (London, 1936), pp. 56-7.


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numerous documents to the flames, he spared these letters and scores of other theological manuscripts. Many are finished pieces that had Iwcn revised time and again; some had been recopied as if they were being readied J'}f. the press. Introductions addressed 'to the reader' in a manner that for Newton is extraordinarily ingratiating have bt't'll attached. At times these manuscripts are distinguished by a li·eshness and case of expression that are rare in Newton's published works; he even lapses into colloquialisms. Many reflections scattered throughout these papers are transparently autobiographical and arc among the most revealing sources lor an understanding of his religion. In a history of the growth of the great apostasy within the Church, he derided the Eastern monks in terms that reveal his p:;ychological acunwn in analy:;ing religious experience: I find it was general complaint alllollg thelll that UpOIl their ('ntring into the profession of a lVlonastick life th~y fiHmd themselves more tempted in the flesh tI",n befe)re and those who became strickter professors thereof and on that account went by dc-grccs further intu the wilderness then others did, complained most of all uf temptations. The reasun tloey ~ave of it was that tbe devil tempted them most who were most enemies aud fou~ht most against him: but the truc reason was partly that the desire was inflamed by prohibition of lawful marriage, and partly that the profession of chastity and daily Llsting on that account put them perpetually in mind of what they strove agaillSt, and their idle lives gave liberty to tlocir thoughts to ti.llow their illdillatiolls. The way to chastity is not to struggle with incoutincnt thoughts but to avert the thoughts by some imploymcllt, or lIy reading, or by meditating on other things, or by converso By imllloderate fasting the body is also put out of its due temper and f'JI' want of sleep the fansy is invigorated about what evcr it :;ct> it self upon and by degrees inclines towards a deliriulll in so llluch that those 1vlonks who fasted most arrived to a state of seeing apparition:; of women and other shapes and of hearing their voices in such a lively manner as made them often think the visions true apparitions of the Devil tempting them to lust. Thlls while we pray that God would not lead us iuto tellLptation tltese Illell ran themsdvcs headlong into il. l .l

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In writing about the lives of the monks, Newton did not merely copy mechanically from ecclesiastical histories or from descriptions in the Church Fathers; he relived their experience, disclosing his own personal psychotherapeutic techniques for combating temptation. The remedy he proposed for such onslaughts of the devil as they suffered was a potion he had often mixed for himself. It was the idle, selfindulgent, day-dreaming of the monks, their neglect of the study of God's actions in the world, tllat led them into vice and the fabrication of superstitions. This is not a 'Veberian exposition of the work ethic, nor a Voltairean attack on the emptiness of contemplation, but Newton freely conkssing to his own regimen lilr kel'ping the demons of lust at bay. Fighting off the threat of evil thoughts with constant labour in search of the specific knowledge of God's word and God's works was the panacea. Even a cursury study of Newton's manuscripts excludes any bifurcation of his litC into a robust youth and manhood, when he performed experiments, adhered to rigorous scientific method, and wrote the Principia, and a dotage during which he wove mystical fantasies and occupied himself with the Book of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John-a legend first propagated by the French astronomer JeanBaptiste Biot in the early nineteenth century. Some of the livelier versions of Newton's commentaries on prophecy should be dated to the 1670S and 16805, when he was in his prime. His studies of world chronology and philosophkal alchemy, both linked to his theology, began early in his Cambridge University years and continued until his death. A critical edition of the whole manuscript hoard that his executor Thomas Pellet dismissed as 'loose and foul papers' must await a future generation of scholars prepared to wrestle with ten or more variations of the same text and to establish their filiation with authoritative precision; but a rough and tentative chronological order is even now possible, and what I have to say is based on that sequence. The first intimate religious text of Newton's that has survived, written in 1662 in Shelton shorthand when he was almost twenty and at the University, is perplexing in many


15

respects. It is a confession of his sins, forty-nine l.Jefon~ Whit Sunday and nine afterwards. To wrile out one's sins in private prior to partaking of the Eucharist was commOll enough. But if one categorizes the sins that Newton listed, most of them turn out to be trivial acts of Sal.Jl.Jath-Lreakillg, or worldly thoughts, or minor disobedience to his mother and grandlIlother, apparently insignificant aggressiollS ag,linst his schoolfellows and one against his sister, a few instances of lying and petty cheating. This profmion of peccadilloes can be likened to the snowing under of lhe priest in auricular confessioll with a barrage of venial sillS in order to cover the really grievous one, or to the manner in which the associations ofa psychoanalytic patient can become a veritable flood in which tht: most painful and crucial (JJlt·s are druwned. And there are in [act a few serious sell~aceusalions in the mouud of petty inli·actiolls that Newton asseml.Jled: a wish to lmrn his mother and stt:plalhcr and their house uver them; , a desire for self~slaughter; and unclean thuughts and dreams. But the anguish of the suicidal despair is masked l.Jy a laconic statement that takes up less room than a confessioll of Lathing on the Sabbath or surreptitiously using his mommate's towel. As I read and re-read this document, I cannot sLlstain any presumption of a convulsive religious crisis at the age of twenty-nothing like Robnt Boyle's lision in a Genevan thunderstorm. There are, hm"('ITr, a snit's of eight or nine sins describing Newton's lear of' alienation limn God in terse but moving phrases that define his religious state: 'Not turning nearer to Thee for my allections. Not living according to my belid~ Not loving Thee for Thy self: Not loving Thee for Thy goodness to us. Not desiring Thy ordinances. Not longling] lor Thee ... N()t ji,aring Thee so as not to ofTend Thee. Fearing man abo\'(, Thee.'H Nt:wton's copy-books, which were not IlIcant to serve as direct a religious purpose as the shorthand confession, are pervaded by a sense of guilt and by doubt and self~denigra tion. The scrupulosity, punitivcness, austerity, discipline, 14 Richard S. \\Testfall, ·Short·\Yririug and the Sial{' of Ni."\\ ton's COIIS( 6ti2 (1)', JVotes and Recotdj ltflhe Ru.}lal Sucit'f}' ofLulidwl. xviii (J9ti'~), q.

II:'IlCC'.

.


and industriousness of a morality that may be called puritanical for want of a better word were early stamped upon his character. He had a built-in ccnsor and lived ever under the Taskmaster's eye. The Decalogue he had learned in childhood became an unrelenting conscience that made deadly sins of lying, coveting, Sabbath-breaking, egotistic ambition, and prohibited any expressions of hostility or any breach of control. Newton took the Biblical injunctions in deadly earnest. His God was a dominus deus, 1TavTOKpdTWP, Imperator ultivtrsalis, a :Master who had issued commandments, and it was his duty as a servant to obey them. From the beginning to the end of his life, Newton's was a religion of obedience to commandments, in which the mercies of Christ the Redeemer played a recessive role., By the turn of the century, the prevailing spirit in the Anglican Church was far less austere and demanding than Newton's personal religion. Scrmons soothed self-satisfied parishioners with rationalist reassurances that their faith did not require too much of them, that its burdens were not oppressive. By contrast, the commandments that lie at the heart of the pu blic confession of bith of the seventy-one-year-old Newton in the General Scholium to the Principia, composed more than half a century after his youthful confession of 1662, were exacting and had been borne with pain throughout his life. 'Yhen Berkeley, Hartsoeker, and Leibniz were advertising the irreligious implications of Newton's system with an array of fancy metaphysical arguments, Newton proclaimed his belief in a personal God of commandments with plain words that harked back to the primitive sources of Judaic and Christian religion. William 'Yhiston's translation from the third edition of the Principia, incorporating phrases from the second edition, preserves the stark quality of the original far better than the more commonly quoted English versions: This Being governs all Things, not as a Soul of the World, but as Lord of the Universe; and upon Account of his Dominion, he is stiled Lord God, supreme over all. For the \Yord God is a relative Term, and has Reference to Servants, and Deity is the Dominion of God not (such as a Soul has) over a Body of his own, which is the Notion of those, who make God the Soul of the World; but (slIch


'7

as a Governor has) over Servants. The supreme God is aI. eternal, infinite, absolutely perlect Being: But a Beillg, how perfect soever wilhout Dominion is not Lord Gud. For we .ay, 111)' Uud, your God, the God qf Israel, the God 'if Gods, and Lord of Lords. But we do not say, liD' Hlernal, yuur Htallal, the Flernal of Israel, the Etemal of Ihe Gods: VVe do not say, liD' III/illite, (your bifillite, the bifinit" qf Israel:) We do llot say, Y P,rj;'ct, (yuur hrFct, th" Perfect

"c

qf l
This is the testament of a belie\'er who ft'e1s deeply the pOll t'I' of a personal, not a metaphysical, god. A dam iI/lis has been bearing upon him. In patriarchal religions like] udaism and Christianity, there is a ritual identification of God and Father. Newton was a posthumous child; when he was born his lather had been two months dead. The f:mtasy world of the posthumus has been explored in twentieth-century literature and in clinical practice. 'While this proves nothing about Isaac Newton in particular, it does cast light un the imagination and emotional experience of some childrcll bum aller a j~lther's death and on their search [or "im throughout their lives. In the folklore of many peoples there is a helief that a posthumus is endowed with curative powers. A number of years ago the minister of the little church in Colsterworth where Newton was baptized told me that country folk in the area still clung to the notion that a posthumus was destined to outstanding good iiJrlllne. A similar prognostic attaches to those born on Christmas Day, ami Newton's first biographer, Dr. William Stukeley, commented on this traditional omen of his hero's future greatness. Though all children are curiolls about their origins, the emotions that surround their questioning have different 15

\Vhi:iton, J{~wlQt"S Guullaries, pp. 13 -15.

,8


degrees of intensity. Leafing through the New College manuscripts in the Bodleian that trace the genealogies of pagan gods euhemcristically interpreted and of royal dynasties through the ages, and the ancestries of heroesall of which were duly intt'gratcd into Newton's historical and chronological studies-one is overwhelmed by his preoccupation with origins. It has been suggested in recent studies that a passionate quest for the historical genesis of families' and kingdoms and civilizations Illay be related to an anguished desire to recover lost parents; hut such analogi('s will not convince the mockers, and are Hut meant to. 'When Newton was being knighted, he had to present a genealogy to the College of Heralds. The number of extant copies in his own hand-in Jerusalem, in Wellesley, Massachusetts, in Cambridge, in Austin, Texas, and who knows where else-testifies to the anxiety that accompanied the preparation of this document. In the Jerusalem genealogy, he fixed his parents' marriage in 1639, when it is a matter of record that it took place in 1642, seven months before he was born. Perhaps he worried about his legitimacy. He knew neither father nor father's father, except by report; they were dead before he entered the world. Like other abandoned children-and that is the proper definition of his psychic state-he concocted strange ancestors for himself, even a remote lordly one. The mystery of the father and his origins was not dispelled by the submission oj' an official document to the College of Heralds, and the sl."arch continued on different psychic levels throughout his life. Newton had an especially poignant feeling about the Father who was in heaven, a longing to know Him, to be looked upon with grace by Him, to obey and to serve Him. The sense of owing to progenitors is deep-rooted in mankind, and a child has various ways of attempting to requite the debt; but the demands of a father whose face has never been seen are indefinable, insatiable. Since Newton's father was unknown to him and the child Isaac had not received the slightest sign of his affection, he could never be certain that he had pleased or appeased the Almighty Lord with whom this lather was assimilated.


'9

For Isaac Newton, theological questions were invested with personal feelings that had their roots in the earliest experiences of childhood. There was a true father and a false father, as there were true and talse gods. The Revt"rend Barnabas Smith, whom Newton was obliged to call hltllt:r and who was not his real father but his stepfather, who had carried of! his mother when he was about three to live with her in a nearby parish and to sire a hall~brother and two hall~sisters, was the prototype of the false father and of all religious deceivers and idolaters and metaphysical bbifins, against whom Newton inveighed with great violence. NelVton would show himself to be a master of the traditional tools or scriptural exegesis as developed by the rahbis of the Talmud, Church Fathers, medieval commentators, and Protestant divines~this is the learned side of his religious studies, and I hope that I shall neither neglect llor underestimate tht:lll; but he also left behind imprints of the search ".r the tnle father who had never set eyes upon him. That Newton was conscious of his special bOl1l1 to God and that he conceived of himself as the iIlaIl destined to unveil the ultimate truth about God's creation does not appear in so many words in anything he wrote. But peculiar traces of this inner conviction nup up in unexpected ways. J\ilore than once Newton used]eova srmcias III/US as an anagram for Isaacus Neuutonus. 16 In a manuscript illterleaf in N<>wton's own cupy of the second edition Clf the Principia a parallel bdwcCll hilllsdfand God is st'l j,xth in cOllSeclltive lines: 'One and the same am I throughout lik in all the orgallS of the senses; one and the same is God always and e\erywhert:.'17 (In the third edition, the Ego gives place to an omnis homo.) The downgrading of Christ in N ewtoll '5 theology, which 1 shall discuss in a later lecture, makes roOlll for himself as a substitute. Another Isaac had once been saved by direct divine intervention, and in patristic literature Isaac 16 See Keynes 1\:1S. 13; Sotheby Caia/llgue, p. 2, lot Q; H. R. Luard &1 al., ~.J Catalogue of the Portsmouth Collectio'l oj Books and P(lp~rs by Uf bdlJflging Iv Sil lliliJl Newloll (CamLriuge, 1888), p. 17.

17 N"ewtoll, Philosuphiae lI11tura/i.l principjlJ matlwnatic(l, srd edll. iu facsimile with variant readings, cd. A. Koyl'l.~ alld 1. 13. Coht'n (C.uuoridgc, ~l..i::is.J 197~), ii·762 .


20

was a prefiguration of Christ. Alexander Pope may not have been aware how pithily his fluent couplet expressed Newton's own sense of his intimate relationship to God. The revelation of ' nature and nature's laws' to mankind required Providence to perform a new act of creation: 'God said: let Newton be!' Since the fullness of knowledge had been revealed through him, his election hy God had been empirically demonstrated. It is true that Newton Icft queries lor a future scientist in the Optics, and in one manuscript he concedes that even his reading of prophecy is subject to some further perfection of dctail. I8 But essentially there was not much left to be disclosed after Newton, either in science or in the interpretation of Scripture or in the fixing of the definitive chronological pattern of world history or in prophecy. Perhaps for sceptics Newton's passionate yearning to know God's actions is Hot better understood whcn we translate it into a longing to know the father whom he had never seen. But that he belongs to the tribe of God-seekers who, feeling they have been appointed through a divine act for a unique mission, live ever in the presence of an exigent God to whom they owe personal service in gratdid obedience is borne out not only by the public confession in the second edition of the Principia in 17 I 3, but iJy numerous digressions in manuscripts dealing with church history ancl dogma, which anticipate almost verbatim this more famous epilogue, especially in their attack on excessive emphasis on the abstract attriiJutes or God, in their rejection ormetapilysics, and in their exaltation of God as Master. In defending his system of the world against Leibniz and his followers, who charged him with belittling the omniscience and omnipotence of God, I doubt whether Newton simply scurried to his pile of theological manuscripts and lifted from them religious rhetoric appropriate for the occasion. While I do not wholly exclude this possibility, I am more inclined to believe that these were formulas he had repeated to himself over and over again as all great obsessives do, and that they came to mind spontaneously when he felt obliged to write a religious apologia. And it is precisely their 18

Yahuda

~fS. l.

1,101. 15'. See Appendix A bdow, p.

121.


'I

reiteration in so many other contexts in the manuscripts that elevates the final affirmations orthe Ceneral ScllOlillIll above the level of a piece de circollslallce merely incident to his tragicomic battle with Leibniz. In a fragment entitled 'or the faith which was once delivered to the Saints', Newton wrote:

If God be called'; 1ravToKpaTwp the olllnipotent, Ihey lake it in a metaphysical sense for Gods power of cr'>le monarchical power to teach LIS obedience. For ill the Creed alier the words I believe in one (;od the f'lther almighty are added the words creator of heaven and earth as not iucluded in the f')rmer. If the father or son be called God, they take the Ilallle in a met'lphysical sense as if it signilied Gods llletaphysical perfectiollS of infinite eternal omniscient omnipotclIt whereas it rdates only to Gods dominion to teach us obedience. The word Gud is relative and signifies the sallle thing with Lord and King, hut in a higher degree. As we say Illy Lord, ollr Lord, your Lord, tlte King of Kings, and Lord of Lonls, the suprelJle Lord, the Lord of the earth, the servants of the Lord, serve other Lords, so we say my God, our God, your God, the God of Gods, Ihe supreme God, the God of the earth, the servants of Cod, serve other (;ocl>: but we do not say my infinite, our infinite, your infinite, the infinite of infinites, the infinite of the earth, the sCIyanls of the infinite, serve other infinites. When the Apostle lold the (,entiles that the Gods which they worshipped were nOl (;0(1" he did not meane that they were not infinites, (f,n' Ihe (' .. llIiles did Hot take them to he such:) but he meant they Ihey had no POWCl' and dominion over maH. They were Eds Cods; lIot Etls illlilli tes, but vanities falsIy supposed to have power and dOllliuion uvcr mall.'O A moving presentation of Newton's feeling for his God, in a totally different setting, a manuscript commentary OIl 2 Kings '7: '5, 16, might serve as a pendant [0 [he emphasis in the General Scholiulll on God's dominion and will and on His actions, not His attributes or essence. To celebrate God for his eternity, immensity, omnisciency, and omnipotence is indeed very pious and the duty of every creature to do it according to capacity, but yet this part of God's glory as it almost transcends the comprehension of lllan so it springs uot II;!

Yahuda

~1S.

15. S. [ols. gfiv. 97 r,

~8r.

22


from the freedom of God's will but th" llCCI'ssity of his nature ... the wisest of beings required of us to be celebrate d not so much for his essence as for his actions, the creating, preserving, and governing of all things accordin g to his good will and pleasure. The wisdom, power, goodne"" and justice wiIich he always exerts in his actions arc his glory which he stands so much upon, and is so jealous of ... even to the least tittle.'O In another passage of the manuscr ipt church history he continue d the attack on any metaphy sical uefinitio ns of God: for thewQn: l Ood!"<:J.i.lt~ not to th~JlJ];taphysical nature of God but to his dominion . It is a relative word and lias reIation tous 'as the servants orCod. It is a word orthe same signification with Lord and King, but ill a higher degree, For as we say my Lord, our Lord, your Lord. other Lords, the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, other Lords, the servants of the Lord, serve othel' Lords, so we say my God, our God, your God, other Gods, the God of Gods, the servants of Cod, serve other Gods." To be constant ly engaged in studying and probing into God's actions was true worship and the fulfilmen t of the comman dments of a Master. No mystical contemp lation, llO laying himself open to the assaults of devilish fantasies . The literatur e on the psychop athology of religious fanaticis m was extensiv e in the seventee nth century and Newton accepted its basic tenets without knowing its name. W'orking in God's vineyard staved ofT evil, and work meant investiga ting real things in nature and in Scriptur e, not fabricati ng metaphysical systems and abstracti ons, not indulgin g in the 'vainc babbling s and oppositi ons of science falsly so called'.zz If God is our 1faster He wants servants who work and obey. Newton could not establish relations with his God through of His love, either directly or through an interfeeling a mediary . Neither love, nor grace, nor mercy plays an importa nt role in Newton 's religious writings . Only two paths are open to him in his search for knowled ge of the will of God as Master: the study of His actions in the physical world, His creation s, and the study of the verbal record of Yahuda ~lS. 21, fol. }r, Yahuda ~·lS. 15. 7, fol. 154f • r ;u Yahuda l\lS. 15.5, fol. 79 . 20 21

illS FATHER lN HEAVEN

His commandmt>nts in Scripture, both of which have an objective historical exi,tt-nce. We do not know the reason why God's will manili.-sled itself in the physical world ill olle way rather than in another, why He issued one cOlllmandment rather than another; all we can know is the lact that He did, and we can marvel at the consequences and study them. The more Newton's theological and alchemical, chronological and mythological work is examined as a whole corpus, set by the side of his science, the more apparent it becomes that in his moments of grandeur he saw himself as the last of the interpreters of God's will in actions, living on the eve of the fulfilment of the times. In his generation he was the vehicle of God's eternal truth, lor by using new mathematical notations and au experimental method he combined the knowledge of the priest-scientists of the earliest nations, of Israel's prophets, of the Greek mathematicians, and of the m('dieval alchcmists. From him nothing had been withheld. Newton's linjlu'llt illsisteIll:e that he was part or an ancient tradition, a n:discovcrer rather than an innovator, is sllsc,"!ltible to a variety of interpretations. 23 In manuscript scholia to the Principia that date from the end of the scwntcenth century he expouuded his belief that a whole line of ancient philosophers had held to the atomic theory of matter, a conception of the void, th" universality of gravitational loree, and evell the illverse square law. In part this was euhcnwristic interpretation uf myth-- many of the Greek gods alld demiguds \ltTe really scientists; in historical terms, it was a survi\'al fJr a major topos of the Renaissance tradition of knowledge and its veneration for the wisdom of antiquity. But the doctrine may also take us back to the aetiology of Newton's most profound religious emotions, with which we began. He was so terrified by the hubris of discovery of whieh he was possessed that, as if to placate God the Father, he assured his intimates and himself that he had broken no prohibitions against revealing what was hidden in nature, that he had merely uttered ill another language what the ancients had known bel/xe him. 23 See]. E. McGuire and P. 1\.1. Rattallsi, 'Newlon :lIld the "Pipt·::, of Pall"', and Rr1cord} ofl/If Rqyal Su(it'~J' IJ/Ll..mdulI, x.,j (19tiid, ltiH 4J.

.I\~}tt'.~


To believe that one had penetrated the ultimate secrets of God's universe and to doubt it, to be the Messiah and to wonder about one's anointed ness, is the fate of prophets. Newton's conviction that he was a chosen one of God, miraculously preserved, was accompanied by the terror that he would be found unworthy and would provoke the wrath of God his Father. This made one of the great geniuses of the world also one of its great sufferers.

II GOD'S WORD AND GOD'S ,,,'ORKS

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

II GOD'S WORD AND GOD'S WORKS NEWTON'S theological manuscripts that arc now hOllsed ill Jerusalem were once shown to Albert Eill:;tcin. Despite the fact that it was September '940 and he was already involved himself with an apocalyptic enterprise,[ he took the trouble to compose a letter praising the papers filr the insight they afforded into Newton's geistige Werkstatt, his 'spiritual workshop'.' On the other hand, George Sarton, that prodigious innovator in the history of science, expressed cool indifference. He declared that as a scientist he personally was no more conrerned with Newton's non-mathematical works than a medical man would be with the rabbinical books ofll·[aimonides. l Such polar responses to Newton's theological writings may have more than passing historical in((~rest, for they raise again in a naive, anecdotal form awesome qucstions that began to emerge in the halcyon years of the scientific revolution: Can there be an autonomous realm of human knowledge that lives by its own law? Is it possible to encapsulate activities known as science in the mind of the scientist and to keep them free and independent, unshackled by deep passions and transcendent longings? In the seventeenth century men who were rationalist and articulate about the relations of science and religion, either what they were or what they should be, tended to move in one of two directions. Those who inclined towards developing the idea of the neutrality, or separateness, or autonomy, of science took a position that came to be epitomized in the I In the summer of 1939 Einstein had signed a letter on the 'military danger from fission of uranium' that led to President Roose\"{,lt's setting up an Advisory Committee on Uranium; see l\1argan;t Gowing, nritaill alld Atomic Energy, 19391945 (London, [964), p. ~4· ~ Yahuda A1S. Var., Albert Einsleill to A. S. Yahurla. 3 Yahuda 1vlS. Var., A. S. Yahuda to Nathan Isaacs, 23 ~1.ar. 19.P, quotinb' a conversation with George 8artol1.

28

GOD'S WORD AND GOD'S WORKS

metaphor of the two books, the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature, both created by God as manifestations of His omnipotence and omniscience, but hooks different in character that had better be kept apart. There was scriptural sanction for reading nature like a book, for the PsaLmist sang of unfolding the scroll of the heavens. The metaphor of the two books was common to the trumpeters of the new phiLosophy Bacon and Campanella and to the embattLed geniuses KepLer and GaliLeo. At the end of the century it was still implicit in Newton's admonition that 'religion and PhiLosophy are to be preserved distinct. VV c are not to introduce divine revelations into Philosophy, nor philosophical opinions into religion'.4 Separate but equal, hy the side of the word of God Kepler saw the finger of God, GaLileo the hand, and Newton the arm, an anthropomorphic progression whose significance I have not yet r~lthomed. There were others who headed in a different dircctiontowards the achievement of a new, organic, Christian synthesis of science and religion that would replace the oLd scholastic union of Christian belief and pagan Aristotelian philosophy. To describe this movement of thought, in which the two books were to be interleaved with one another, or amalgamated into one world-outlook, a term popularized by Comenius in the I 640s, Pansophia, might be applied, though this lost cause of the age antedated Comcnius and did not receive its ultimate embodiment until Leibniz ..Flirtation with the language of Rosicrucian theosophy was not infrequent among the Pansophists. Nominally Newton belonged to the former company, the separatists, and he rejected the Pansophists. His actual practice, however, is a far more complex matter. Traditional societies require a rhetoric for the assimilation of novelties, and seventeenth-century science had inherited many of the arguments us cd in the defence of pagan philosophy in its relation to faith. But the new experimental science by its very nature was more pretentious and more aggressive. Harmonizing Scriptures with a frozen Greek or .. Keynes l\IS. 6, fol. scripts, p. 58.

If,

printed in !\1cLa{-hlan, .VI'll'iOl,'s Theological Alaliu-

GO~'S

WORD AND GOD'S WORKS

Latin text was one thing; it was something else entirely to accommodate Scriptures with the discoveries of scientists alive and kicking, often rumbustious like Kt'plcr and Ualiku, men who had a keen sense of their unique missiun. On til(" Continent the problem was not only the harmon), of scicw·c and theology on an abstract level, fill· which a nL:1V guide to the perplexed might conceivably have heen composed, but the coexistence of scientists and theologians, the entrenched old corps looking with a jaundiced eye upon the ne\\" corps coming into being under a variety of titles IIslro/ugll.l, philosoph us, mathemllticus-and slowly but surely aflirrning its identity, even before it had acquired a collective name. The reception of science was rendered more problematical not only by incessant controversy among the major denominations of post-Reformation Christianity, which temkd to harden and solidify orthodoxies and )lilt thelll on guard against the slightest breach in their ramparts, but also by all anxious vigilance among the various religious establishments that was bred by disquieting innovations in the interpretation of the Bible. The scientific revolution of the seventeenth century is for us so decisive that it tends to overshadow the simultaneous upheaval in Christian and Jewish scriptural studies. Along with the new reading of the Book of Nature, audacious ventures were taking place in the interpretation of Scripture at the hands of learned Christian Hebraists like John Selden, Vossius father and son, Johannes Buxtorf, John Lightfoot, Edward Po{"()ck, Jnllll Spell,.{'r, who might lie considered relatively orthodox in their historical researches, and more suspecl scholars like Thomas Hobbes, Baruch Spinoza, Richard Simon, Jean Le Clerc. And to them I would sometimes join the unrcvcalcd Newton. \Vhilc heterodox Biblical interpretations did not suffer the same kind of notoriety as the new science because they wefe often pu bIished anonymously, they were perhaps no less unsettling in their effects. Since the meanings of both books~·the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture -were open to question, a stable relationship between them became even more elusive. Among all the formulations of the metaphor of the two

30


books in the seventeenth century, a passage in Francis Bacon's Advancement oj Learning was the locus classicus for the image in the English-speaking world, official doctrine for British scientists and their Royal Society when his works reached the height of their popularity: Let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain, that a man call search too lar, or be too well studied in the hook of (;od's word, or in the book of God's works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavour an endless progress or proficience in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.'

His key warning was against confollnding the learnings together, and in a formal way the Royal Society heeded the counsel: no one ever presented a public case for a scientific fact with a theological argument. John Wallis recollected the early decision of one group, before the corporate body was established, to be absorbed exclusively with the 'New Philosophy ... precluding matters of Theology and State Affairs'.6 'Whcn Newton was President of the Society, the journal-books record, he banned anything remotely touching on religion, even apologetics. Since many of the English mathematicians, physicists, astronomers, and naturalists earned their keep as divines with lil'ings or as university scholars in orders, they were able to follow the Baconian advice in all its parts; they studied both hooks diligently while making a show of keeping their inquiries separate, and seemed to don different caps for each of their occupations. One has only to mention John 'Vilkins, Seth Ward, Isaac Barrow, John Wallis, John Ray, John Flamsteed, who had taken orders, and Boyle and Newton who had not but who led the same kind of double li\·es. English scientists qua scientists kept out of the sacristy, English theologians qua theologians kept out of the rooms where experiments were s Francis Bacon, The Advancement of Learning alrd .New Alial/tis (London, 1951), II (The First Book, J, 3). Thomas Hf'arne, Jitorks (London, 1810), iii. dxi--c1xiv. John \Vallis to Thomas Smith, '9 Jan. ,697. p.

6


:.p

performed. In England, the official adoption of the metaphor of the two books had allayed earlier spiritual qualms about the rur~uit of rhy~ical science as a deflection Ii-om divinity. By Newton's day the fear of actual persecution lor scientific activities had passed in England, though the history of harassment on the Continent was very much ali\'e in the consciousness of the scientists. Newton had read the ]>ialogues of Galileo in the Salusbury translatiun of di61 in a volume of collected papers that also contained the heroic apologies for science hy Kepler and Galileo as welt as justifications by a number of theologians who had defended the Copernican hypothesis earlier in the century. John Wilkins's pre-Civil War popularizations of science, hlmiliar to Newton when he was still a youth, had similarly defended the new science as not contradictory to Scripture. Reviewing his long life, the aged Newton was grateful for his good fortune in having been born an Englishman 'in a land of liberty where he could speak his mind-not afraid of Inquisition as Galileo', he told John Conduitt (who reverently jotted down each phrase in a notebook), 'not obliged as DC's Cartes was to go into a strange {'()untry and to say he proved transubstantiation by his philosophy'.7 English scientists were still punished occasionally for heterodox religious opinionsthey might be denied professorships-but not fur their scientific doctrines. Under Newton's hegemony science took to policing itself. in matters of religion in order to avoid scandals, as William \Vhiston insinuated when Newton kept him out of the Royal Society for proclaiming his antitrinitarianism in public. In general, the metaphor of the two books served a reasonable political purpose for the advancement of science-'-it was a modus vivendi. In the first edition of the Principia in 1687, Newton mentioned the name of God only once, in a passing phrase, as if by chance-'Thus God arranged the planets at different distances from the sun'8-for he did not remotely think it necessary or relevant to the prools, nor did he imagine that anyone would raise a question about his orthodoxy. In England there was no serious attack on science from any 7

Koyncs MS.

130.

II

Newton, Principia (London, 1687), p. 415.

32


religious or secular authority, llnl!'ss YOll inflate the importance of men like Henry Stubbs and a few silly attempts with politico-religious overtones on the part of crackpot and perhaps venal antagonists of the Royal Society to implicate that august body in a supposed Spanish plot to turn England over to the Pope. Galileo and Kepler had always stressed how different were the languages of God in which the two books were written: one, the Book of Nature, was mathematical and veiled, its meaning hard to come by, open only to the learned; the other, the Book of Scripture, was plain everyday speech. And they dropped more than occasional hints that in the eyes of God the inquirer into the arcana of nature was manifestly superior to the mere Scripture interpreter. Galileo's quip, which he attributes to an 'eminent ecclesiastic', that the Holy Ghost teaches how to go to heaven, not how the heavens go;9 Kepler's advice to the benighted Bible expositor who knew no astronomy: 'Him I advise to go home and manure his ficlds'lO-these were characteristic of their defiant conception of the relations of the two books. Neither Galileo nor Kepler had been willing to keep out of the sacristy, as they had been cautioned by friendly theologians of their respective persuasions. If theologians needed help with understanding planetary references in the Bible, Galileo counselled them to turn to specialists in astronomy. Since Galileo had been a novice at the monastery of Vallomhrosa near Florence and Kepler a student of theology at Tiibingen, they considered themselves more knowing than the run or theologians even in interpreting Scripture, a presumptuousness for which they paid dearly, In the England of the Restoration, however, thirty years after Galileo's trial, the spiritual atmosphere in which scientists conducted their operations was quite different; where so many divines doubled as scientists, the coexistence in one head of expert knowledge in both books came to be respected, and the 9 Galileo, 'Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina'. in Discol'rries and Opiuions, Ir. Stillman Drake (i'\cw York, 1957), p, 186, 10 Johannes Krp1erl }./om AsJrollomia. in Crsml/mel,,' H'crke, ed. !\fax Caspar (Munich, 1937), iii, :n

GOD'S WORD AND

GO~'S

WOI
33

capacity of a man to reveal the glory of God in both spheres was taken for granted. Frenchmen like Father Marin IVfersenne are Continental counterparts, hut nowhere is tht-rc anything resembling the English concentration of impressive scientist-theologians. On socio-economic grounds, the acceptance of science in England was overdetermined. Rhetorically--alld the changing patterns of the vindication of science over the centuries are not yet sufficiently explored-science was integrated into the life of the literate English upper classes through a baroque elaboration of a theology of glory, arguments backed up by profuse illustrations of the marvellous design, beauty, harmony, and order of nature as revealed by scientific inquiry. Once again Bacon was a canonical source: 'For as the Psalms and other scriptures do often invite US to consider and magnify the great and wonderful works of God, so if we should rest only in the contemplation of the exterior of them as they first offer themselves to our senses, we should do a like injury unto the majesty of Cod, as if we should judge or construe of the store of some excellent jeweller, hy that ollly which is set out toward the street in his shop.' 11 The true gloria required a search lor hidden causes. Bacon's formulation of the scientific gloria had been renewed at regular intervals throughout the century, perhaps most eloquently by Thomas Browne: The World was made to be illhabited by Beasts but studied and contemplated by Man; 'tis the Debt of our Reasorl we owe unto God, and the homage we pay for not being Beasts. . . . The Wisdom of God receives small honour from those vulgar Heads that rudely stare about, and with a gross rusticity admire His works: those highly magnifie Him, whose judicious inquiry into His Acts, and deliberate research into His Creatures, return the duty of a devout and learned admiration.'· The traditional use of science as a form of praise to the Father assumed new dimensions under the tutelage of Robert Boyle and his fellow-members of the Royal Society, and among the immediate disciples of Isaac Newton. In the II Il

Bacon, AdvllIlcemml ofLeamillg, pp. 49-50 (The First Book, VI. 16). Thomas Browne, Rdigiu J/t'JiL'i(Londoll J 1643), p. :.zU.

34

GOD'S WORD AND (;OIl'S WORKS

Christian Virtuoso, demonstrating that experimental philosophy assisted a man to be a good Christian, Boyle assured his readers that God required not a slight survey, but a diligent and skilful scrutiny of His works. Only one practised in anatomy and optics, who 'takes asunder the several coats, humours, and muscles, of which that exquisite dioptrical instrument [the eye] consists ... shall discover, by the help of the laws of optics, how admirably this little organ is fitted to receive the incident beams oflight, and dispose them in the best manner possible for completing the lively representation of the almost infinitely various objects of sight'.13 For Galileo, the study of astronomy had been by far the most appropriate glorification of God because of the grandezza and nobilita of the subject; Englishmen extended the arguments from design and the wonderment [rom the astrophysical world to the zoological, the botanical, and the chemical. They even turned to the microscopic world as one of equal dignity. John Ray and Francis Willughby saw God in flora and fauna, Rohert Hooke in the hair of a cheese-mite, Boyle in the arrangement of corpuscles. Henry More's works were a veritable catalogue of teleologies, with all aspects of creation-animal, vegetable, and mineral-showing a plan and refuting Epicurean atheism. In 1692 Richard Bentky made a compendium of these arguments and crowned them with the Newtonian system; in 1704 and 1705 Samuel Clarke repeated the litany in a more philosophical mode. During the first decades of the eighteenth cmtury the glorias of the Boyle Lectures reached unprecedented levels of banality. In a Physico- Theologv, or a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God from his Works of Creation (delivered in 1711-12 and published the next year) Newton's friend William Derham confessed that he may have slighted the creatures of the waters, and he apologized for the perfunctoriness of the evidence of true religion he had marshalled from vegetables, but otherwise he was satisfied with the completeness of his coverage. By the terms of the endowment, all these lecture-sermons were fighting Epicurean atheism, Hobbism, 13 Robert Royle, The Christian Virtuoso, in rrorkf) n(:'\vly ed. T. Birch (London 1772), v. 517.


35

Spinozism. These were bogies that in fact hardly existed; but the parade of examples served to entrench science in the establishment as a handmaiden of religion. Works by Craig, \Vhiston, George Cheyne, Derham, the lectures of Bentley and Clarke, advertised the superiority of Newton's system of the world as a religious apology above all other forms of gloria. Newton's attitude towards their demonstrations has been treated as unambiguously favourable, and surely the political and human Newton was not indifferent to their implicit flattery. But in particulars he was often very critical of these performances. Bentley's exposition of the Newtonian system was in many respects far from his liking; Cheyne's Philosophical Principles oj Religion: Natural and Revealed (1715), which established a new-found principle of 'Reunion with God', analogous in the system of intelligent beings to the principle of attraction in the material universe, was too saturated with religious Neoplatonism lor his taste; Newton prepared what he called 'castigations' of Derham's Physico-Theology; and lhtTe was no room in Newton's interpretation of prophecy for Craig's mathcmaticized Christian theology, his computation of tLte time of the Second Coming of Christ bascd on a statistical theory of the slow attenuation of the witness of the apostles. Samuel Clarke in his own Boyle lectures bestowed a modern mt'taphysical cachet on arguments from design as hoary as Galen and Cicero; but, warm though their personal relations were, Newton was not always completely happy with Clarke's philosophical formulations-witness the caveats Newton instructed Pierre Des ?vfaizeaux to introduce when the Clarke-Leilmiz correspondence was reprinted. 14 The argument from design 14 See Cambridge, University Library, Add. ~fS. 3965, 14.)1. 289t, Draft D, for an 'l\vcrtissement au Itxlt:ur' ~cnt by I\'e\-.. . ton to Pierre Deb l\l,dizeaux to a('('ompany his publication of the Clarke letters: "Nor is exi:stcncr. the quality of any thing but the existence of the thing with its Qualities. But a~ the Hebrews called God C~~ place and the Apostle tells us that he is not far 'i'olll allY of Uti for in him we live and move and have OUf Being, putting place by a tigure for him that is in all place; and as the scriptures generally spake orCnd by allusions and figures for want of proper language: so in these Letters the \\ords QuuJiry and Proptrty were used only hy a figure Lo siguify the boundles~ t'xtc:ut of Gods existence with respect to his ubiquity and eternity, and that to exist in this manner is proper to him alone {printed in A. Koyre and 1. ll. Cohen, "Ne" ton

COD'S \\'ORO AI\j) COD'S WORKS

demonstrated in the concatenation of planetary movements, in the paths of comets, (Ten in the symmetry of animal parts, was rcpeated by Newton in general terms, but the olltpouring of detail and the multiplication of conjectures among his disciples often made him uneasy, They bordered too closely an presumptions of a knowledge of God's intent in minutiae, where the evidence was flimsy. In the end, the only evidence of design that was overpowering and unassailable came fi'om the mathematical principles of natural philosophy themselves-and he told Derham as much. As far back as Decem ber I 6g I, in a conwrsation with David Gregory, Newton had expressed a similar opinion that 'a good design of a publick speech . . . may be to shew that the most simple laws of nature are observed in the structure of a great part of the Universe, that the philosophy ought ther to begin, and that Cosmical Qualities are as much easier as they are more Universall than particular ones, and the general contrivance simpler than that or Animals plants etc'.15 Towards the close of the seventeenth ccntury in England, scientific apologetics sometimes ran amuck, virtually obliterating the distinction between the two books. Continental scientists had been on the defensive, fighting ofr the intrusions of theologians into their private preserve. Galileo and Kepler had based their fundamental arguments on an ancient dictum of scriptural interpretation by the Talmudic rabbis, passed down through the Church Fathers: 'The Bible speaks in the language of cveryman.' This, it was hoped, freed science from the fetters of any literal exegesis of Genesis and othcr Biblical texIs thaI vaguely alluded to planetary mO\'emcnts, since the mathematical language of astronomy patently could not be read into the plain words of Scripture. Kepler had had the psychological insight to surmise that even after the universal triumph of the heliocentric principle, we as ordinary persons would continuc in and the Leibniz-Clarkc Correspondence, with :\'otl~S on N"evdon, Conti and Des ~lai7.eaux" Archiz,tJ illiemati01wles d'his/oire de~ Jcieuces, xv (1962), 99 and facsimile). Newton mis-spells ~:ni'~' a word commonly used by religious Jews to avoid taking the name of God in \·ain. 15 Kewton, Correspolldtllce, iii Gregory, 28 Dec. 1691.

(Cambridg~,

IgGl),

191)

1\lemoranda by David

GOll'S WORD AND Gall'S W01{KS

cveryday speech to talk, in accordance with 0111' scnsc of sight, of the rising and setting of the slln. 16 But scholars ill Newlon's circle, in their eagerness to demonstrate the consonance of the two books, embarked upon mammoth adventures in conciliation that eroded the wall between science and Scripture. They evolved what came to be known as a physica sacra, a study ofthe history of creation as presented in Genesis and in the works of Newton, showing liue by liue the perfect harmony between them. The Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture were made congruent in every last detail. There was a scientific explanation of the flood, and the whole future history of the earth was outlined with scientific precision. In Thomas Burnet's 'j"lluris Tlteuria Sacra the final end in a great conflagration entailed the solution of such tricky technical problems as IlOw a sulid mass of rock could be burned. Commcnting on Burnet's book in January 1681, Newton offered 'by way of conjecture' a view of how the planets might have b('en arranged by God in an initial act of creation and their motion steadily accelerated until the desired tempo for their co-ordinatcd movements had been reached. 17 Soon William \
That which is clearly accountable in a lIatural way, is

Ill.1

Kepler, Nova AJtroliomia, pp. 28-9. 17 Newton, Correspolldeltl:e, ii (1960), :{29 34-. 18 \VilIiam \VhisLon, A }lltJw Theory of the Emlh (I.lIndon, 16Uh): p. :1' In .1 Collettjml of Autheulick Records Belonging tv tIle Old aNd j'v"':w 1e5!allu;lIt (L(JUU011, 1727-8), Pt. 2, Appendix IX, p. 1071, \\'hi::itou lcpOl'teU Ih..tt Ne\\toll had influenced him in his opposition to the "Allegorical nr Double Intl"rprelMion of the Prophecies of the Old Testament'. 16


without reason to be ascribed to a :Miraculous Power. III. What ancient Tradition asserts of the constitution of Nature, or of the Origin and Primitive States of the World, is to be allowed for True, where 'tis fully agreeable to Scripture, Reason, and Philosophy. 19

Whiston's exposition employed mathematical terminology -postulata, corollaries, lemmata, hypotheses-as befitted Newton's successor to the Lucasian Chair. Newtonian astronomy sustained the proposition that precisely 1,700 years after the Creation, 011 Thursday 27 November, a comet had passed by the earth, its atmosphere and tail causing the Deluge. Newton's acceptance of Whiston's flowery dedication mayor may not have signified total approval of evetything he wrote: in many scriptural matters Newton was not content with \Vhiston's over-zealous interpretations. But there was no repudiation of the book. John Woodward's An Essay toward a Natural History of tile Earth (1695) was compiled in the same spirit: fossil remains uncovered in mines were conclusive evidence of the accuracy of the Biblical description of the flood; and gravity explained the distribution of heavier fossils in lower strata. The Bible and the new science were being locked in deadly embrace. The common objective of the Newtonians did not preclude bitter argument and counter-argument within the group over details of the great conciliation of scriptural texts and the findings of science. The acrimony between John Keill and Whiston debating the facts of a holy physics was as sharp and personal as any secular scientific quarrrl of that contentious age. But their books appcared in scores of editions, flooded the English market, spilled over into foreign translations, adaptations, and imitations, and did as much as Newtonism fOT the Ladies to make the Newtonian system respectable. By 1774 Herder claimed that he could enumerate fifty systems of Physik/IIeologie?o They showed with scriptural proofs that God Himself preferred to follow mathematical laws and when it was convenient always " Whiston, A New Theory of the Earth, p. 95. Johann Gottfried Herder~ Ae/teste Urktmde des J,fenschengeschll!clits, in n. Suphan (Berlin, 1877~1913). vi. 202.

%0

Siimmlliclte IVokr, ed.


employed natural mechanisms like cornets to effect moral ends. Viewed in retrospect, the extravagance of some glorias and the cock-sureness of the physica sacra as Newtonians practised it during Newton's lifetime violated the separation of the two books in a flagrant manner; and, though the I.lUilders of the physica sacra never allowed a scriptural passage to iuterfere with the logic of experimental evidence or a scientilic demonstration, their enthusiasm lor harmolli.:ing Scripture and science led to the proJileration of bi.:arre literary fantasies bearing the trappings of science and created a blurred zone in which the two books were confounded. Neither Descartes, who had mocked the preslllllptuousness of a theology of glory-as though God were looking I()r the plaudits of puny man when he created the world -nor Spinoza, who saw the Scripturl's as a political and moral, not a philosophical or scientific, document, would have allowed any such random crossing of the frontier. Newton's way of tolerating his disciples' philosophy Illay be likened to his explanation of the conduct of J\Ioses in preparing the account of the Creation in GeIl(·sis. lVIoses knew the whole of the scientific truth--of this Newton was certain-but he was speaking to ordinary Israelites, not delivering a paper to the Royal Society, and he popularized the narrative without falsifying it. The standards Newton permitted for the edification of lay audiences at the 130yle Lt"dures (he may have played a role in the selection of the first lecturer, Richard Bcntlcy21) and in exercises of the p'!vsica saCTa were rather relaxed. He let his children play, and he pulled in the leading-strings sharply only when they creakd a public incident. Though Newton may have been put oJl" by the more extravagant fusions of science aud Scripture produced by some of his disciples, he was after all himself a major source of the confounding of the two books. In adopting the Baeonian metaphor, he repeated the strictures against confusing the two kinds of researches; but in personal practice ~J H. Guerlac and M. C. Jacob, 'Uenlley, Newton, and Providence', qf /h, Ili,/ntv of Idea!, xxx (1969), 316.

]Ol1.Tl1411


he failed to maintain the compartmentalization of religious and scientific studies and the two were allowed to overlap and interpenetrate. V\'hat was a convincing rhetorical formula for political purposes could not be internalized in the psyche. Let me illustrate with a few examples the continued intertwining of science and rdigion throughout Newton's liJe, well bctare he was driven to assert publicly and forthrightly in Query 20 of the 1706 Latin edition of the Oplics: 'And though every true Step made in the Philosophy brings us not immediately to the knowledge of the first Cause, yet it brings us nearer to it, and on that account is to be highly valued',» and in the second edition of the Principia that to discourse of a Deity from the phenomena was a concern of 'experimental philosophy', a phrase changed to 'natural philosophy' in the third edition, though not necessarily for the reason proposed by some scholars.23 The commonplace u Nc\'..rttm, ()ptic~, 2nd edn. in Eng. (London, I7I7), Query 28 (the English version of Query '.W in the 17u6 Latin etlition). 2J Newton, Principia, ("d. Koyre and Cohen, ii. 76+ That the challge o('('urrcd is patent, but is then.: c\ idence for the observation: 'Later on, after mature reflection, Newton decided that he had bl'l"1l careless and so ... he toned down his statement about God to read "ad Philnsophiam naluralclll pcrtinet" rather than "ad Philm;ophiam l'xpcrinwlltalclll pertinct"'? Sec 1. Bernard Cohen, Introduction to JVewlon's 'Pn'llcipia' (CamhridH"c, 1\lass., 1971), p. 244. There are alternative versions, hitherto unnoticed I believe, of this part of the General Scholium in the Public Record Office. 1\tint Papers, and one of them prescn,'cs the 'ad philosophiam cxpcrimentalem pcrtinet'. The follo ..ving (V, fol. 45\1) appears on the back of some not(";o; 011 assaying and refining and on the coining of a peace medal: 'Pro {varictate} di\"ersitatc locorum Ole temporum diversa ('st rerum l\~atura, et din~nitas illa non ex necessitate I1lt'taphysica, quae utique cadun est semper ct ubique, (non} sed Agens ,lituI~ cst! quod de fa to ct ~atura did non potest. Pro divcrsitatc locorum ac tempol'um din'rS3 est r('rum omnium finitarum natura, et di\·ersitas. ilIa non ex necessitate ~Ietaph}'sica (quae utique eadem est semper et ubiquc) sed ex \'olulate [sir] sola I~ntis intclligentis et neeessario


4'

book of his early years in Cambridge is the record to which historians of his scientific ideas have turned lor the tirst inklings of his major discoveries. But interspersed with the subjects Francis Bacon had listed as appropriate lor investigation are other headings like 'Of God' and 'Of Creation'. 'Of God' is a stereotyped excerpt showing divine design in the fashioning of the human body and attacking the dOelriucs of Epicurean atomism and chance-it comes straight limn Henry :l\1ore. Under other rubrics philo>ophical argument and citations from Scripture are intermingled, as Newton endeavours to define extension and time for himself and as he tries his hand at cosmological speculation. A verse in Hebrews is interpreted to mean that God created time, and in one passage Newton is beginning to inquire into the meaning of the phrase 'Son of God'. Analysis of a few lines in an entry entitled 'Of Earth' in this same commonplace book may demonstrate as well as any text I know how interwoven were Newton's inquiries into the Book of Scripture and lhe Book of Nature li·om tbe very outset of his career. Into a few terse phrases from the Apocalypse he compressed a wealth of suiptural evidenre for his belief that the world was moving inexorauly toward a cataclysm, a great conflagration, to be lollowed by a yet undefined form of renewal. His explication is in one of the normative exegetical traditions of the Talmudic rabbis and Puritan divines, whose underlying assumption was that Scriptures do not contain a single superlluous phrase, or even a letter that does not have significant m~anillg-a sort of law of parsimony. Since the verses of the Apo("alyps~ to which Newton refers in the folio 'Of Earth' may not be as familiar to all of us as they were to him, I quote the whole passage: 'And the devil that deceived them was cast into a lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and lalse prophet cxistentis oril'i potuit. Et haec de Dea de quo utique ex Ilhae[Jlo]lllCllis dispulale, ad Philosophiam experimcntalem pertinet.' Another page of the !vlint Papel's (I, fell. 62 C ), \vith rl~mark.s olltlie 'h't'ight of gold and silver in coins and on the beginnings of geoUletry ill Egypt, iw:ludt:oS these sentences: 'A necessitate metaphysica nulla OrilU[ rerUlll varialiu. 'rula illa quam in mundo conspicimus, divcrsitas rerullI a sola enti:s Ilcles;:...trio existentis voluntate libera oriri potuit.' 8266iOfi

D


are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.' In the notebook folio where Newton proved the renewal of the world, he merely jotted down the phra~e 'Days and nights after the Judgment Rev 20C, IOV'.H The full meaning of the elliptical phrase would be obvious to one who had been subjected to years of exegetical sermons and had absorbed their manner of thinking. Tormcnting the wicked for ever and ever is quite comprehensible and sufficicnt unto itself, and the prophet could have been expected to stop at that. But when John inserted the words 'day and night', which are scemingly superfluous and in excess, he surely meant to inform us of something--in this instance that thc succession of days and nights would still be marked after Judgement Day. And that presupposed a new heaven and a new earth without which such a succession would bc meaningless. Thus John in Revelation was communicating an important fact about the futurc history of the physical universe which later became part of one version of Newton's cycloid cosmological theory. Newton has also left us a fragmentary and oftcn timtastical history of science contained in pieces scattered throughout his chronological and alchemical papers that further exemplifies the interpenetration of science and religion in his world-view. Papers headed 'The original of religions' are especially pertinent. A single principle underlies them all. Knowledge of God's works thrived in those epochs in which there was a true conccption of the Deity; and conversely, when false ideas of God dominated society-such as pagan idolatry, Greek philosophical conceptions of a metaphysical God, or papist Trinitarianism and idolatrous saint worship-there was no real knowledge of God's works. The preferred times for scientific discovery were those of primitive monotheism, of pre-Socratic thought, and of the moderns. Newton's sketch of the period of Plato and Aristotle and that of the medieval schoolmen makes of them two comparable dark ages, when false religion was bound up with false science. However committed English science was to keeping religious opinion away from its door, Newton .. Cambridge, Univorsity Library, Add. 1\IS. 3996, fo!'

10".


43

found that in the history of the world they had been interdependent. His description of primitive monotheism and the rituals of worship after the flood as practised in J~gypt and llabylonia and India and Chaldea closely identified early science with theology. Achievement of a knowledge of God, Of the rudiments of such a knowledge, had always been within the grasp of men; and in ages when a monotheistic belief; relatively unpolluted, held sway, the search lor God in His works was fi'uitlul, because it had a basic sense of unity to sustain it. The priests and religious leaders of these ancient civilizations were also their scientists and philosophers. They had shunned subjective approaches to a knowledge of God, the trance-like states in which direct communion with divinity was supposed to be attained or the mystical worship of abstract forces of nature as though they were a multiplicity of deities. These venerable sages had studied all the varied phenomena as parts or aspects of one creation. Their fervent belief in one God had led them to scrutinize lb" operation of things on earth and the movement of the stars in the heavens, and to record their observations in precious documents which, though marred by time, still held secreted within them some of the fundamental truths discoverable about God's creation. The old priest-scientists had been moved by the same conviction Newton held, that there was a Jirst and only cause, and they had reasoned from the phenomena to that cause. Polytheism was inimical to science because it accepted the idea of contrary and contradictory causes in nature which it associated with false gods. This is the real sense of the seemingly irrelevant addendum about ancient idolatry that appears in later editions of the Optics. 25 The primitive monotheists had practised two basic Jonns of science, astronomy and chemistry. Astronomy had started as a gloria among Egyptian and Chalclean priests, who in decorating their temples had made them exac.t replicas of the universe; in turn their knowledge of the macrocosm was 2! See manuscript addendum to p. 382 in the Babson ]nstiLuk l.ibrary eopy (no. ':13) of the '7'7 London ,dition of .he Optics.

44

GOD'S \\'ORD AND GOD'S WORKS

transmitted to the Greeks, who initiated record-keeping of the movements of the planets, So then [it] was one designc of the first institution of the true religion in Egypt to propose to mankind by the frame of the ancient Temples, the study of the Irame of the world as the true Temple of the great God they worshipped .... And therefore that a Prytanaeum might deserve the name of his Temple they framed it so as in the fittest manner [to] represent the whole systeme of the heavens. A point of religion then which nothing can be more rational. ... And thence it was that the Priests anciently were above other men well skilled in the knowledge of the true frame of Nature and accounted it a great part of their Theology. The learning of the Indians lay in the Brachmans who were their Priests, that of the Babylonians in the Chaldeans who were their Prie,ts. And when the Greeks travelled into Egypt to learn astronomy and philosophy they went to the Priests. 26

Along with their macrocosmic studies, the ancients had also been preoccupied with fire and the secret qualities of metals~cspecially in Egypt, where at the head of the list of inquirers into the properties of fire stood Hermes Trismegistus, the priest-king-scientist of Egypt, father of alchemical studies, on whose discoveries Newton left commentaries. He was unruffled by Isaac Casaubon's revelation that the Hermelica itself was a post-Christian work. The original discoveries of Hermes had been handed down through the ages and incorporated in a variety of tropes, images, and emblems. Those alchemists who had preserved what remained of the authentic tradition of Hermes-men like Count Michael Maier, whose compendia of philosophical alchemy Newton had abstracted, along with the works in similar collections published by Lazarus Zetzner and Elias Ashmole ~were on the right moral path in their investigations; they were searching for a first cause, for a simple unifying principle And just as Newton could profitably study the textual fragments of ancient Greek astronomers and mathe.6 Yahuda MS. 41, fol. 8', 'The original of religions'. See also Keynes MS. 3, fol. 35 f , for the history and \'icissitudes of early religions.


-15

maticians and pre-Socratic philosophers who had observed the universe, so he could read, copy, and meditate over alchemical writings as conceivably genuine, if incomplete, revelations of God's creation. The alchemists were describing phenomena of nature, in contradistinction to the modern metaphysicians-he meant Descartes and Leibniz--who were only dreaming up systems that falsely represented God's world. Essential truths about the operations of God in nature might be extracted from the alchemical traditions if their imagery could be unravelled. (The problem was identical with the interpretation ofvisions in the Apocalypse.) I am here distinguishing Newton's philosophical-alchemical studies, which are pertinent to his religion, from his own experiments on the borderline between chemistry and alchemy, for which he stoked the fires in a little Trinity College laboratory. In spirit, Newton felt himself closer to the hermetic philosopher who wrote about the properties of metals and experiments with fire than to the philosopher who conjured up a system of vortices or hypothesized a preestablished harmony. From Thoth, who was really Hermes Trismegistus, down to the contemporary practitioners of the art with whom Newton had occasional secret converse, the alchemists, he told Conduit!, were moral and God-seeking men worthy of respect even when they had erred."' Newton was clearly affected by the European flowering of alchemy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and was at various times touched by both metal-ennobling and theosophical alchemy. Yet Newton's I;fdong reading of books of philosophical alchemy hardly aligns him with the Rosicrucian mystifiers, though many seventeenth-century adepts of alchemy were Rosicrucians. '\Then he studied a Rosicrucian tract, he condemned it as an 'imposture' -a strongly pejorative word in his religious vocabulary, akin to false prophecy. Newton is not to be identified with every book he perused. He often analysed works in a spirit of refutation and denial, and it would be as far-fetched to make a Rosicrucian out of him because he read Thomas Vaughan's translation of the 27

Keynes l\'IS. 130.


Fama and Conjessio 28 of the Brotherhoou as it would be to turn him into a Cabbalist because he paraphrased passages from Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala DClludata. Newton tried to de-mystify alchemical ideas, which were uifficult to comprehend because they were enshrouued in mythic and symbolic language. In immersing himself in lengthy treatises on philosophical alchemy, he was looking for keys to the world of nature, preserved in cryptic religio-scientific formulas and allegories. But he did not find the ultimate truth there; and though he appreciated the moral purpose of the alchemists, whose writings are full of pious dedications of their work to the service of God, only the hieroglyphs of the Biblical prophecies themselves contained God's direct word. Newton discerned rationalist elements in all emblemata; but the Rosicrucian mystical combination of magic, Cabbala, and alchemy was alien to his Scripture-bound religion-it savoured of enthusiasm and was too remote from God's historically revealed word in the Bible. Newton often speculated about why the ancient wise men had resorted to mythic language. His answers were invariably commonsensical and historical: the priest-scientists were dealing with an ignorant rabble, even as Moses was confronted by a rough mass of rebellious Israelites. These priestscientists were truth-sayers in their way; but how explain the truth, the need for direct worship of one God, to a mob that could not understand real things, facts, phenomena? To treat them like children and to record scientific data in myths and fables was perhaps disguising God's creation, but not falsifying it. 18 Ian Macphail, in Alehe,,!}' and Ihe Occult. A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts from the Col/ectioTI of Paul aud Jvla~¥ !lleilcJIl git"ClJ to rale University Library (New Haven, 1968), ii. 347-8, reproduces Nl'wlon's 1I0tl'5 011 a copy The FlI1l1e ulid Confession of the .FralerlliJy of R:C: Commoldy, 4 the Rusie Cross. With a Praej"ace mmexed therelo, and a short declaration of their P1!lsiwll J1'ork by Eugenius Phi/aletllts red. Thomas Vaughan] (l.ondon, 1652): 'R.C. the founder of ye supposed Rosy Crucian society (as the story goes) was born 1378 dyed anna 1484, his body was found J604 and within a year or two (when Lhe new stars in Cygnus & Serpentariusshone) did y(~ SO<'ietyputout theirH'ame, Or rather anno 16)3 as Michael Maierus affirms in his book de legibus Fratcrnitatis R.C. cap. 17, printed anno .618 & in his Symbola aurea. mensae dated in December 1616 where (pag 2go) he notes that ye book of Fame & confession were printed a. Frankford in autumn .616. This was the history ofyt imposture.'

of

GOD'S WORD AND GOU'S WORKS

-17

Alas, the early history of science did not progress smoothly. Error, corruption, the devil, power-grasping monarchs, and ignorance intrudcd--therc is a confusion of causes here drawn from a variety of contemporary sources-and the common people reified the images in the fables, worshipping them as gods, forsaking the purity of primitive monotheism."" The Egyptians li::ll into beast-worship by adoring animal hieroglyphs, which had once represented factual knowledge about nature. Thenceforward neither religious nor scientific truth, which were always dependent on each other, could flourish. If the papist intrigues ofJames II were uppermost in Newton's mind, he imputed the bll from true religiun into idolatry to kings and coul'ts. If he was t!.inking uf the fanatical tinkers of the Civil War, he was likely to blame the fall on the superstition of the ancient masses. In either event there is an assumption that only with the resurgence of pure monotheism could science thrive once again, a jlosition that indissolubly links the destinies of the two books. On the moral level Newton never insulated science from the surrounding world, any more than llacOIl had. The activities of the scientist were subject to moral and religious commandments. Applications of science were to be controlled by the two fundamentals of religion, love of neighbour and love of God as set forth in Scripture. For most of his life Newton displayed sovereign indifference to the practical usages of science, though in his later years he served on all manner of government boards. But when there was danger that scientific knowledge might be adapted to destructive purposes, he intervened. In 1676 he wrote a strange letter to Henry Oldenburg raising the spectre of unnamed perils to mankind if the practical alchemical processes that lloyle was said to possess should ever fall into the hands of the uninitiated. 3 " Toward participation by scientists in the development of military machines Newton seems to have been somewhat ambivalent. David Gregory reports Newton's proposal to 'Cure the llucking and wideness of touch-hole of " On the origins of idolatry see New College MS". 361, III, fuls. 32', 3-1' and ", 65", 66 v• 30 Newton, Correspondenu, ii. 1-2, Newton to Oldenburg, 26 Apr. 1076.


great Gunns' by means of a new metallurgical mixture; but there is a contrasting story that he was hostile to the application of science to warfare, and told young David Gregory to do away with the model of his father's new cannon because lethal devices did not serve the legitimate purposes of science.JI One does not find in Newton's writings anything resembling John Wilkins's or Joseph Glanvill's enthusiasm for the proliferation of utilitarian inventions. Newton's scrutiny of nature was directed almost exclusively to the knowledge of God and not to the increase of sensate pleasure or comfort. Science was pursued for what it could teach men about God, not for easement or commodiousness. In review, Newton's separation of the two books appears to signify little more than the idea that science had nothing to say about the dogmatic content of religion, and that Scripture was not to be quoted in a Royal Society communication. Otherwise they were bound in many ways. Newton did not conceive of one book as sacred and the othcr as secular or profane. The worth of the two books was equal, and there could be no invidious comparisons between them. And whatever knowledge of God was revealed in the one was harmonious with what was unfolded in the other. At a later point I shall have occasion to show how sound scientific method was embodied in his principles of prophecy interpretation. But let me anticipate myself with one of his reflections in a manuscript on rulcs for interpreting prophecy, a rare instance in which hc dwells on the similarity betwecn the goals of the scientist and of the prophecy expositor, and discloses in plain language that an identical quest for simplicity and unity underlay his researches into both books. In Newton's 'spiritual workshop', as Einstein called it, there was a dominant passion. Truth [Newton wrote] is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. As the world, which to the naked eye exhibits tbe greatest variety of objects, appears 31 "V. G. Hiscock, ed., David Gregory, Isaac ]'lewton and tlieiT Circle: Extracts from David Gregory's Memoranda, 1677-1709 (Oxford, 1937), p. 25; Agnes Grainger Stewart, The Academic Gregories (New York, 1901), p. 23; Charles Hutton, Mathematical and Philosophical Dictiollary, 2nd edn. (London. IBI5). i. 605.

GOD'S WORD AND COD'S WORKS

49

very simple in its intcrnall constitution when surveyed by a philosophic understanding, and so much the simpler by how much the better it is understood, so it is in these [prophetic] visions. It is the perfection of God's works that they are all done with the greatest simplicity. Ill' is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they that would understand the frame of the world must indeavour to reduce their knowledg to all possible simplicity, so it must be ill seeking to IImlt-.stand tl"!>,, visions, 12

Instead of highlighting the differences between the two books in the manner of scientific warriors of the earlier seventeenth century, Newton was discovering a spirit common to both of them, a divine simplicity in Nature and in Scripture, as befits the works of one l\hster Creator. In virtually abolishing the distinction between tbe two books, which he revered as separate expressions of the same divine meaning, Newton was making a last great attempt at one and the same time to keep science sacred and to re\"leal scientific rationality in what was once the purely sacral. The coupling of the two realms-the religious and the scielltilicis the syncretistic fantasy of a scientilic genius and a Godseeker. But even Newton was uneasy abollt the amalgam. If in the 1670s and 1680s his belief in the sacral llature of science-though not always clearly articulated -lwars the stamp of authenticity, toward the end of his days he was aware that science and its uses were becoming independellt of the divine, despite the proliferation of books of pl!ysim sacra and the depth and pervasiveness of his own religiolls feelings. Secular Newtonianism was in Jact destroying the religious-scientific world-view that Newton had created. Historically, it was the Book of Nature and its rult's that were destined, as in an apocalyptic vision, to devour the Book of Scripture, and he who would be the Hew Christ became Antichrist. 3Z

Yahuda l\fS.

I. I,

it)!. I4 f . Sec Appel10ix A bdO\\', p.

I~O.

III CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND f.,[ODERN

III CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND MODERN IN 1802 Henri de Saint-Simon, a de classed French nobk, summoned his contemporaries to lound a new church under the hegemony of scientist-priests, and he called it the Religion of Newton. 1 Similar fimtasies had cropped up before, toward the end of the eighteenth ccntury. Another French aristocrat, with the unlikely name of Champlain de la Blancherie, issued a manifesto roundly denouncing the English nation for its failure to honour Newton's divine person, redated the calendar from the year of Newton's birth, and proposed the establishment of a sanctuary at ''Yoolsthorpe." The architect Etienne-Louis Boullee designed a cenotaph of gigantic proportions in the shape of a perfect hollow sphere, representing the primitive earth IX'lore it had become flattened by rotation, as an appropriate shrine in which to adore Newton the genius of pUfe reason. (A maquette of this project was on display in London in the autumn of 1972, during the great exhibition 'The Age of Neo-Classicism' at the Royal Academy.l) This was the culmination of Newtonian mythomania in the eighteenth century. The religion of the historical, not the mythic, Isaac Newton, as it takes shape from his manuscripts, is bound up with the sanctification of words, not abstract reason, with theological controversies, revealed prophecies, and mcticulous scriptural exegesis, all of which the Enlightenment so J Claude.Henri de Saint~Simon, LeUTes d'ull habitatlt dtJ Gelll~'e a:jtJs cOlllemporaim (Paris, 1803). :IF. C. C. Pahin.Champlain de la B1ancherie, De pa.r toutes les Natiotls. L'Agent general de Correspomwnce pour les Sciences et les Arts (AI. de La BlaIJchf!lit;), a 10. Nation AngJoise: Prociamationdan.s l'espTit des jetmes ordonnis par Ie Toj) pour les annees 1794, 1795, e/ la presente (London, 1796). , The Age of Neo-Cla.rsicism, catalogue of lhe exhibition (The Arts Council uf Great Britain, J972), nos. 1019-21.

54

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND MODERN

contemptuously repudiated. The Nullius ill verba of the Royal Society applied only to the humall, nut to the divine, \Vard. For Isaac Newton, the whole structure of the Christian religion rested on a foundation of scriptural truths, and the different capacities of men to comprehend them. There was milk for babes, the simple belief necessary for admission into the communion of Christians, summarized in what he called the primitive apostolic creed; and then there was meat for strong men, to which only a select body of Christians could aspire, those who devoted themselves assiduously to scholarly divinity, the study of the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the Apostles as oracks of truth inspired by a holy prophetic spirit. For besides the first principles and fundamentals of religion conteined in the doctrine of baptism and laying on of hands and in the Creed which all arc to learn be/ore baptism, and which the Apostle therefore compares to milk lor babes, there are many truths of great importance but more difJiclllt to be understood and not absolutely necessary to salvation. And these the Apostle compares to strong meats for men of li,ll age who by use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. With these truths the mind is to he led continually as the body is with meats.' Those who turned to this higher calling would grow in grace and in knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ to the end of their lives. In the early Church, as interpreted by Newton in his histories, the original formula of Christian belief, the milk for babes, had been contained in a few phrases about God the Creator, Christ, and the Resurrection taken directly out of Scripture. Any later deviations were corruptions. Newton's position was forthright and unequivocal: We are commanded by the Apostle ([ Tim 1.[3) to llOldfast the of sound words. Contending for a language which was not handed down from the Prophets and Apostles is a breach of the command and they that break it are also guilty of the disturbances and schisms occasioned thereby. It is not enough to say that an

form

+ Yahuda MS. 15. 3} fol. 40r; see also 'Irenicum', in McLachlan, Newtot/'s Theological Manuscripts, p. 32.


55

article of faith may be deduced from scripture. It must be exprest in the very form of sound words in which it was deliven;d by the Apostles. Otherwise there can be no lasting fixity nUl" peace of the Church catholick. For men are apt to vary, dispute, and run into partings about deductions. All the old I1eresies lay in deductions; the true faith was in the text.' In an ideal Christian polity anyone who subscribed tll the primitive apostolic creed-'short and free li'om repetitions as a symbol of religion ought to be ... easy to be understood and remembered by the common people', Newton said" was not to be excluded from the communion or in any way persecuted, no matter what other religious opinions he might hold. 'I may add', he wrote, 'that it [the Creed I conteins not mere theories like some of those Articles which we have omitted but all its Articles are practical truths on which the whole practise of religion depends.'] Newton's attitude toward temporal and ecclesiastical authorities whu had added a rout of ceremonials and extraneous verbal formulas varied with his mood, his temper, and political exigencies. There were times when he branded such demands lor conformity as criminal, the impositions of self-seeking secular powers. Contemporary civil governors who instituted by force particular religious practices were equated with the evil emperors of the late Roman world; Churches that had recourse to the civil arm were violators of the law of Christ. We arc not to measure Persecution by tbe rule of Persecutors. The Magistrate may punish or cut ofl' any Jor their vices or evil actions but not professors of Christianity for erroneous opiniolls, least they pluck up the Wheat with the Tares. The Church may reprove or excommunicate but she has as little authority to guide the arm of the Magistrate as to handle his sword: for this is to make her self the judge and him but the executioner. She may excommunicate but not force into communion. Christ never instituted that a means of her propagation and preservation. If we would have them one with us we must use the proper means to beget faith in them, and not urge them by violence to do what is contrary to their perswasion, seing whatsoever is not of faith is sin. By violence a Church may increase her numbers but ever 5

Yahuda MS. 15.

I,

li)l.

11'.

6

Yahuda MS. 15.5, rol. (J8v•

, Ibid.

56

CORRUPTERS Al'\CIENT AND MODERN

allays and debases her self with impure mixtures, force prevailing with none but Hypocrites. And this I take to be the chief rcason of the great wickedness of the Romans which ensued Theodosius's reign, his persecution squeezing out the eonsciencious and filling the persecuting church only with the Hypocrytical part of the Empire. Every Persecutor is a Wolf Mauh 10. 16,17, and every Christian that preaches it is one of the fals Prophets called Wolfs in sheeps cioathing 1\fath 7. M The Roman emperors who imposed religious conformity~ and by implication the same held for the monarchs of Newton's time~were serving their own interests, not those of the Church, and Church Councils were mere slavish tools: For the Emperors hence forward by their Councils made several new articles of faith in forms of words not received from the Apostles by tradition, and modelled the Christian religion so as suited best with the interest of their Empire and with the inclinations of the people that all of them (heathens hereticks and Christians) might unite and become of one mind and one religion. For its notoriously evident that the Councils always established the opinions of the Emperors who convened them.' On occasion Newton adopted a milder tone and pleaded that as long as non-apostolic words and ceremonials, alien though they might be, were allowed to be interpreted symbolically or 'innocently', they should be tolerated by all concerned for the sake of peace. The two fundamental commandments of religion, love of God and love of neighbour, were the same for both Christians and Jews despite their ritual variations, and had once been the basis of unity in the Church. In one fragment Newton called these principles 'the laws of nature, the essential part of religion which ever was and ever will be binding to all nations, being of an immutable eternal nature because grounded upon immutable reason'Io~loose language that comes as close as Newton ever ventured to the rhetoric of eighteenth-century Deism. His outlook, however, had nothing in common with the teachings of Blount and Collins and Toland, because of the centrality in his religion of historically ordained divine • Yahuda MS. 39, fol. " and Y. ,. Yahuda MS. '5· 5, fol. 9'"

• Yahuda 1\1S. '5. 7, fol. Igo'.


57

commandments and the absolute truth of prophetic revelations. The primitive apostolic formula had once served as a bulwark against unbelievers. Originally transmitted by word of mouth, it had been a sort of password among Christians that differentiated them from heretics and heathens. But before the end of the second celltury corruplion had slowly crept into the Latin churches, first by the addition of new articles couched in the language of Scripture, thus setting a precedent for a 'creed-making authority','! and then by the introduction of metaphysical terminology nowhere to be found in Scripture. All was brought into confusion, and the drama of apostasy in the Church had begun. Were Newton the restorer of religion, he would have ordinary Christians merely repeat the primitive apostolic formula and obey the commandments. As for the precise significance orthe words, men might differ without falling out with one another. 12 But since Newton the scholar of divinity could not himself remain content with such milk for babes, he had to search in Scripture and in the history of the Ch ure h for the more profound meaning of the creeds, above all of the person of jesus Christ, what He was in the bcginning and what He would be in the end of the days, and what were His relations to God the Pantocrator. Newton's manuscript fragments on jesus and the Trinity have been doled out to posterity in driblets, from the mideighteenth-century printing of his two learned lettcrs against the proof-texts in john and Timothy to David Brewster's rather bewildered publication of a few irenic manuscripts and 1vfcLachlan's excerpts from the Keynes papers. And the manuscripts on the nature of Christ, written over a period of nearly haifa century, remain largely unpublished to this day. There are many theological questions on which Newton never settled into a fixed position. Did Christ exist before all worlds and did He create this one at God's command? Was Christ a higher or a lower being than the angels? The controversial problems of the nature of Christ were summarized rather succinctly in papers based on what Scripture-his sole II

Ibid., fol. 92v.

" Ibid., fol. 95'.

51!

CORRUPTERS :\:\"CJU,T AND l\\OnERJ'\

guide-had taught him. He was weighing alternativcs, as Locke did in his 'Ad\'("fsaria Theologica'. Parallels to many of Newton's antitrinitarian arguments can be found in the voluminolls writings of Samuel Clarke and William \Vhiston, and in those of the avowed Unitarian Thomas Emlyn, the humanitarian Hopton Haynes, the Socinian Samuel Crell. These men had a common antitrinitarian treasurywellstocked with Biblical fJ uotations, despite their difrerences over points of doctrine that thmlogians might consider of great moment. Newton ploughed through their works and the ll'Cql1cnt episcopal refutations they pro\'(lked; hut he ill\'ariably tried to find his own way. It is an error to seize upon his antitrinitarianism in order to pigeonhole him in one of the recognized categories of hercsy-Arian, Socinian, Unitarian, or Deist. While Newton's chief villain in the history of the Church was Athanasius rather than Arius, he censured both for having introduced metaphysical subtleties into their disputes and corrupted the plain language of Scripture: Both of them perplexed the Church with metaphysical opinions and expressed their opinions in novel language not warranted by scripture. The Greeks to preserve the Church from these innovations and metaphysical perplexitys and put an end to the troubles occasioned by them anathematized the novel language of Arius in several of their Councils, and so soon as they were able repealed the novel language of the hOlllousians, and contended that the language of the scriptures was to be adhered unto. The Homousians made the father and son one God by a metaphysical unity the unity of substance: thc Greek Churches rejected all metaphysical divinity as well that of Arius as that of the Homousians and made the father and son one God by a ?vIonarchical unity, an unity of Dominion, the Son receiving all things from the father, being subject to him, executing his will, sitting in his throne and calling him his God, and so is but one God with the Father as a king and his viceroy are but one king.... And therefore as a father and· his son cannot be called one King upon account of their being consubstantial but may be called one King by unity of dominion if the Son be Viceroy under the father: so God and his son cannot be called onc God upon account of their being consubstantiaL" 13

Yahuda MS. '5.7, fol. '54',

CORRUPTERS ,\NCIENT AND

~I()IlEkN

5~J

In the light of modern scholarship, Nnvtlln's ,\thanasius is an imaginary figurc, having long since been denied authorship of the creed to which his name is alladwd. In addition to exposing what he believed tu be Jerome's blsilicatiollS in New Testament texts and the wicked manipulations of Athanasius,I4 Newton went to great pains to distinguish his private beliefs about the nature of Christ from the Iwli<'is (If both orthodox Trinitarians and those wh" conn·i\,cd "f Him as a mere man, And the arguments he ust:'d ha\'f: a personal fla\'our, even though they are hardly IT\'olutionary iIlIlO\atiuns in heterodox Christology. The naill" God was never used in Scripture to denote more tlwn one .. I' the three persons of the Trinity at the same timt', Nt:'wtoll contended, and when it appeared without particular n'strictioll to the Son or the Holy (;host it always signified tllC Father. The distinction of the Son froIll the Father was furtht'r c\'idt'nc"d by the Son's confession of His dcpmclence upon tht' will orthe Father, by His acknowlrdgement that the Father was greater, that prescience of all future things was in the Father alone. But Christ was not a mere man. He was the Son of God, not just a human soul who was sent into the world. Had it been otherwise, the Apostles would most assuredly have mt'ntioned a fact of such great consequence. God was called Almighty, the appropriate epithet. Though this did not limit the power of the Son, it meant that Christ's power was derived from the Father and that of Himself He could do nothing. In all things the Son submitted His will to the Father, which would be altogether unreasonable if Hc were His eq nal. The union of Father and Son was like that of the saints, an agreement of wills. The same attributes could bc applied to the Father and to the Son, but they were different in nature since the Son's attributes wefe a grant from the Father. 'Thc heathens made all their Gods of one substance and sometimes called them one God, and yet were polytheists. Nothing can make two persons one God but unity of dominion. And if the Father and Son he united in dominion, the son being subordinate to the father and sitting in his throne, they can no 1+

'Paradoxical Questions Concerning tht! .Morals alld Actions of Athanasius ~\lallu5criptJ, pp. 60-118.

and his Followers', in McLachlan, .!\'(u:I(JI/'s Theological

60


more be called two Gods then a King and his viceroy can be called two kings.'ls In another manuscript, Newton refuted the doctrine of consubstantiality with the ncgativc argument that it did not cstablish Christ's di\'inity or His right to be adored. 'The heathens and Gnosticks supposed not only their Gods but even the souls of men and the starrs to be of one substance with the supreme God and yet were Idolaters for worshipping them. And he that is of this opinion may beleive Christ to be of onc su bstance with the father without making him more thm a nwer man. Tis not consubstantiality but power and dominion which gives a right to be worshipped.' 10 Newton constantly adverted to the hodily limn oeJesus; He was no spirit, as some of the Gnostics claimed. There was textual evidence of His many corporeal appearances on earth. 'His wrestling with J IS. 1.').7, fol. 15~'. Yahuda !\IS. 15. 7, 101. '54'.

17

" Yahuda ;"IS. '5. 5,101. g8 Y • I8 Yahuda MS. 15.4,101. 67 Y •


fl,

should Newton be transfilrmed into a nineteenth-century New England Unitarian, though many have tried. Newton and his spokesmen Richard Bentley and Samuel Clarke were explicit in distinguishing their views on Christ and revealed religion from the growing fashion of Deism. Christ was the l'vIessiah and the Son of God; and alief the resLlrn:ction, it was Christ who would prepare heavenly mansiuns l'lr the elect in a remote part of the universe. Anything that appeared to derogate from Ihe absolute dominion and supreme monarchy of God the Father was repugnant to Newton. The Holy Ghost was simply the spirit of prophecy. And though Christ was the Lamb ofGud, prayers were to be directed tu 'God in the nallle of the Lamb, but not to the Lamb in the name orGod'.'<) Unlike Samuel Clarke, Newton left behind no revised Anglican prayer-bouk and service with every Trinitarian passage slashed through with violent penstrokcs-the book is preserved in Ihe Britisll Museum 2 °-but he would have agreed in principle with most of the deletions and substitutions, which ill each instance stressed obedience to one God owed by men as His servanls and diminished the other two persons of the Trinity. Whatever the refinements of Newton's Christological doctrines-and their detail is beyond the scope of these lectures-the impression is inescapable that the omniscient and omnipotent God, God the Lord and Master, was supplanting the image of a God of love and mercy. Among the major seventeenth-century scientists, both Catholics and Protestants, there was a perceptible movement away frolll the Christological centre of religion. Galileo and Descartes avoided mention of Jesus in their writings. Kepler and Newton composed treatises on tht; life of Christ, but the focns of their interest was dramatically indicali\T of a shift ill emphasis. On the basis of astronomic data, Kepler revised the year of Christ's birth to 5 B.C. Newton quoted Kepler with approval, and the intent of his own essay was to prove that the Crucifixion took place in A.D. 'H, not 33; at one 19 Ibid. 20 The Book of Common Prayer (London, 1724), \.... ith manu~nipt addition:; and alterations by Samuel Clarke (Ilritish Museum: C. 24. b.21).

62


point he even surmised, through a meticulous historical reconstruction of the timl's, that Christ was born in the spring and not on Christmas Day, a pagan fl'stival. 21 The birth of Christ thc Saviour had become a debatable chronological subject. As the omniscience and omnipotence of God were slowly driving away His all-lovingness, the Christ who was the symbol of eternal love ceased to hold a place of primacy. Of course there arc passages on divine mercy in SamU('1 Clarke's sermons and in Newton's manuscripts; but thcy are minimal if compared with glorificatiuns of God's omniscience and omnipotence. W'ithout bl'ing flllly aware of it, Newton may have been prl'paring the way Jilr that new religion fit for thc scientific age--a nJigion of great powcr and knuwledge and prccious little love, upon which late-l'ightl'enth-ccntury Frenchmen were so eager to bestow his name. But if the role of Christ in Newton's theology was far from orthodox, and if in his history of the churches he continually reiterated his anti trinitarian beliefs, why did he not stand up and fight alongside William Whiston against every alien phrase insinuated into the primitive apostolic creed? Why did he not join thc 'Society for the Restoration of Primitive Christianity' that Whiston had founded? After Newton's death, the humanitarian Hopton Haynes, who had worked under him at the Mint for decades, criticized him in private for not having heeded the call to lead a reformation in the Church equal to that of Luther and Calvin;" and Whiston, who was ousted from the Lucasian Chair as a heretic, in his memoirs accused Newton of religious duplicity.23 Was Newton hypocritical? Was he afraid? Had he succumbed to the fleshpots when he became 1faster of the lVlint and President of the Royal Society? There are those for whom the revelation of the Tartuffe in a great man is a singular pleasure-it lowers him to our ranks, if only for a moment. The divine Newton, it would seem, was all too human. But there were wgent reasons for Newton's refusal to throw in Yahuda MS. 5. I, f41l. 7r; Yahuda l\fS. 25, fols. 20 T, 21 r, Hopton Haynes, Causa Dei contra 110m/ores (London, 1747), pp. :iJ, 58. n \Villiam \\fhiston fir:<.t indicated !';('wton's heterodoxy in Historical jlfemoirs if the Lije if Dr. Samuel Clark, (London. 1730) and then advertised it in Memoirs if /he Life and II'riti"gs oj IV. W. (London, 1749) 21

U

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND l\IODEI{N

1)3

his lot with Whiston. Newton faced the elt>rnal probkm (If all dissenters within a religious or political cOl1lmunion: to submit, gloss over differences, remain silent Ji)r the sake of unity, Of to listen to the voice of conseit"nee and proclaim a particular truth come what may.l\fen's helids were changing. There would come a time, he told John Conduitt, when Trinitarian doctrines hallowed by the Churdl wonld UC COllsidered as outlandish as Catholic transuustantiation. Why raise tumults against an evil whose day was passing? The punishments that could be meted out to a man who puulishcd antitrinitarian views were harsh. And apart ii-om simple motives of preserving comfort and status and tranquillity, Newton's manuscripts prove that he had authentic, deeply felt irenical convictions, which had first been nourished by the Cambridge Platonists and were reinforced during the years of his friendship with John Locke. If the nature of Newton's Christ remains problematic despite the multiplicity of texts, Newton's devil is even more perplexing. The youthful Newton was not free ii-om the belief in magical evil spirits common in the countryside where he was born. One of his notebooks records in shorthand a purported quotation from Jesus to be worn as an amulet fur preventing ague and fever. 24 His manuscripts of the Cambridge years in the 1670S and 16805, especially his commentaries on parts of Genesis and the Apocalyps~, alT full of direct references to the devil as a being who operates in the historical world. The Devil who came down amongst the inhahitants of the earth and sea is the Dragon that old Serpent called the Devil and Satan. He was cast out of heaven by I\fichael and came down from thence among those inhabitants when he was cast ant, that is presently after the victory of Constantinc over Licinius. And since this Devil was not amongst those inhabitants beli>re and came down amongst them with great wrath it implies that he was their enemy and that they were God's people, and began now to be attackt by that Devil which had hitherto reigned among the heathens. He came down from the upper court of the Temple, among the Christians who worshipped in the outward Court.

2"

\Veslfall, 'Short-\Vriting and Newton's Conscience', pp.

l:.!,

13.

64


He came down with great wralh knowing that he hath but a short time that is a short time to reign and therefore prevailed to set up a new reign amongst them. For he immediately persecuted the Woman and made her fly inlo the \V-ilderness and made war upon the remnant of her seed who keep the commandments of God and havc the testimony of Jesus. The \V-oman therefore and her seed were those against whom the Devil came down wilh great wrath, that is, the inhabitants of the earth and sea or at least the Clergy of those inhabitants. And his wrath was great, that is, he made hast to prevail, because he had but a short time to reign, being quickly to bc cast into the bottomless pit. 2S

In drafts of an Irenicum writtcn in Newton's London period, howevcr, thc dC\'il seems to have bccn metamorphosed into a symbol for lusts of the flesh and his rt'ality becomes far more questionable. And yet, one day at the Royal !\fint, a devil popped out at mc from the back of an eightcenthcentury manuscript-page on coinage who was not quite as abstract as the symbolic devil to whom I had grown accustomed in Newton's late-seventcenth-ccntury papers. 26 Newton warns against the wiles of the 'devil who is opposed to God', and is 'the father of the wickcd' and is 'worshipped by his children'. Thc passage, which is crossed out in part, ends with the solemn injunction: 'Resist the Devil and he will fly from you.' lIfanifcstly, both Newton's Christ and Newton's devil underwent transformation over the years. Though the chronology of such changes must remain flexible, to make allowance for the recrudescence of beliefs of childhood and youth, the general tendcncy is c1car, and very much in thc spirit of the age: Christ and the devil were forces whose psychic potency waned during thc course of Newton's life. Scienre was taking its toll in a subtle, almost imperceptible manner, leaving God alone in His majesty, with Newton as His interpreter. Newton's considered public reticence and the toleration preached in his irenic manuscripts, which reduced the whole of Christianity to a few simple fundamentals hardly requiring exposition, should not, however, mislead us about thc animosity that pervades his histories of corruption in the Church. " Yahuda MS. i. 3, fol. 32'.

,6

Mint Papers, V, fol. 33·.

GORRU1'TERS ANC1ENT AND MODERN

65

These are profuse, vituperative, and in their attacks on persons, relentless. Commitment to a latitudinarian spirit was onc thing; silence in the facc of deliberate distortion of plain scriptural truth and the introduction of metaphysical concepts in the guise of religion was another matter. I\fost of Newton's theological writings arc devoted to exposing falsifiers of New Testament texts, prevaricators ill Church Councils, corrupters of primitive natural religion, metaphysical befuddlers of the true relations between God and man. I have dwelt elsewhere upon the psychic needs that wcre in part appeased by these aggressive polemics; but in the course of hunting down the enemies of true religion and unveiling their hypocrisies, Newton developed a conceptual fi'amework that represented more than his personal requirements. There was a fairly substantial body of educated Englishmen who entertained similar helief.~ and would at least have been familiar with his configuration of ideas-a far greater number than were able to understand the

Principia. The corrupters of religion ancient and modern were legion: the contemporary Papists and their antect'dents the pagan idolaters; the English sectarian enthusiasts -the new prophets-and their equivalents the hallucinating monks of early Christianity; the Pharisaical Jews who rejected Christ; contemporary Deists and atheists, like Hobbes, and their ancient counterparts the theological Epicureans, (Jr whom all was chance; and finally, the philosophers who mixed lip metaphysics and religion, particularly the modern rationalist system-makers Descartes and Leibniz, and their predecessors the Gnostics, Cabbalists, and Platonists. These were the enemies of Newton's God. Some, like tbeJews, were redeemable, and perhaps the atheists were too. Tbe enthusiasts, as well, might be undeceived, though their immediate effect was to spread pernicious superstition. Newton accepted Henry 1\'10re's view of enthusiasm and atheism as two sides of the same coin. (Samuel Butler's lludibras, with its satirical jingles about millenarian prophets, was one of the rafe contemporary works of light literature in Newton's library.) But Papists were the very embodiment of the mystery of iniquity

66

CORRUPTERS A!\lCIENT AND MODERN

and their extermination was ordained. And the metaphysicians of all ages ranked closely behind them in sowing false conceptions of God. Enthusiasts, mystics, speakers with tongues, what Newton called the 'hot and superstitious part of mankind', were false prophets, pretenders to a revelation they did not possess. Newton had assimilated the seventeenth-century literature from Burton to ~Iore that equated contemporary religious enthusiasm and supposed prophetic visions with plain lunacy. In his history of the churches he added his own psychological explanations of monkish religious hallucinations: they had their genesis in excesses of asceticism and were therefore not authentic messages of God, hut manifestations either of disease or of the devil's wiles, alternatives between which he oscillated. True prophecy-like miracles-had definitely ceased and for all time, because the whole of prophecy necessary for the conversion of men to religion and for their attaining a knowledge of God was already contained in Daniel and the Revelation of John. God did not indulge in supererogation. Newton and Locke had discussed such questions, and had agreed that theirs was not the day of the prophet, but of the rational prophecy-interpreter, no mean function in itself: Along with the enthusiasts and monkish visionaries, the Jews were also beyond the religions pale. In their best monotheistic period after ~foses had restored the law, they came as close as any people to Newton's idea of trlle religion, and there is a temptation to judaize him, especially if one constricts the definition of historical Judaism to its rationalist formulation in the works of I\10srs !\Iaimonides. Both in the methods of Scripture interpretation and in the analysis of prophecy, two crucial aspects of Newton's religion, he was in the mainstream of medieval Jewish commentators, hostile to the unchecked allegorizing of the Cabbalists. His conception of the prophet could have come directly out of Uaimonides as he was taught to the Anglican "'orld by John Spencer, a colleague of Newton's at Cambridge, and by 'our Pocock', as Newton familiarly referred to the great Arabist and Hebraist of Christ Church in the General Scholium of the

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND t.IO[)ERN

li7

Prillcipia. The Jews had to be excluded because of their dmial of the plain evidence of scriptural prophecy and their n:iection of Christ; but their ultimate conversion alld return toJerusalem was foretold in language common to one branch of millenarianism. Hence I observe these things, first lhat tile rcslauralioll of the Jewish nation so much spoken of by the old Prophets respecl> not the few Jews who were converted in the Apostles days, but the rlisplTsed nation of the unbelieving Jews to he convrrted in the end when the fulness of tile Gentiles shal enter, that is when the Gospel (upon the fall of Babylon) shall begin to be preached 10 all nations. Secondly that the prophecie, of Isaiah described above by being here cited by the Apostle is limited to respect the time of the future conversion and restitution of the Jewish Nation, and thirdly that the humour which has long reigned among the Christians of boasting our selves against the Jews, and insulting over them for their not beleiving, is reprehended by the Apo,tl~ for high-mindedness and sclf-conccipt, and much lIIore is our using them despightfully, Pharisaicall and impious.", Of all the corrupters of Christianity throughout the ages, two groups obsessed Newton, Papists and metaphysicians, and paradoxically they were intimately related to each other. In the standard style of the epoch, Papists were condemned because they were essentially idolatrous, had departed from the Unity, were worshippers of persons as gods, adorers of things, such as relics, to which they imputed powers they did not have. They had accepted the governance of a usurping Roman authority and were guilty of the murder of innocents. In his diatribes against Papists, Newton's indignation rivalled the rage of dissenting preachers: 'This is that sort of persecution by which the Beast made war with the saints and overcame them, that sort of persecution by which the whore of Babylon became drunken with the blood of Saints and of the martyrs ofJ esus.',8 The rule of the Papacy was identified with the reign of Antichrist; how this rule came into being and when it would be over was Olle of Newton's perennial preoccupations. During his psychic crisis of 1693, his inner turmoil broke forth in a groundless insinuation that Samuel z8

Keynes !\.lS. 5, 1'01. I09 r •

68

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT ANIl MODERN

Pepys was trying to involve him with Papists-a nightmare of utter abomination. 2 " The emotional outbnrsts against Catholicism that punctuated Newton's ecclesiastical history do not obscure, however, its basically rationalist framework. In the proemium of a Latin version of the history, Newton laid down the thesis that 'the true understanding of things Christian depends upon church history'.3o Only through a circumstantial account of the degradation of the Church in a series of stages and its doctrinal deviation from the primitive creed could Christianity be stripped of its spurious accretions. The original Christian religion was plain, but 'men skilled in the learning of heathens, Cabbalists, and Schoolmen corrupted it with metaphysicks, straining the scriptures from a moral to a metaphysical sense and thereby making it unintelligible.''' As the historian of apostasy in the first centuries of the Church, Newton distinguished three principal agents in the propagation of the metaphysical evil: the Jewish Cabbalists, the philosophers, among whom Plato and the Platonists were the worst offenders, and the Gnostics, of whom Simon Magus was the arch-culprit. Newton's knowledge of the Cabbala was probably confined to Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata, which included disquisitions by Henry More and Francis Mercurius Van Helmont.32 As his notes show, Newton studied the work with great care in order to refute its teachings. This book, which has been more talked about than looked at, was not a translation of the Zohar (though excerpts are included) but the first broad view in a language other than Hebrew of all the major Cabbalist trends, both those incorporated in the Zohar and those represented by the new sixteenth-century Cabbala of Luria Ashkenazi (the 'Ari'). The basic text of the Zohar itself, a latetbirteenth-century pseudonymous writing by !vfoses de Leon in pseudo-Aramaic, owed its wide acceptance to the pretence that it was a rcdiscoycred work by Simeon Bar YoJ:!ai of the 29 )0

Newton, COTre.'ipondmce. iii. 279. Nrwton to PC'pys, 13 Sept. 169~. Yahuda ~tS. I I. fo1. I r,

Yahuda MS. 15. 5, fol. 97'. Christian Knorr \'on Rosenroth~ Kabhala Di'IIudata (i, Sulzbach, 1677; ii, Frankfort, 1684). ]I

3~

CORRUl'TERS AI'!CIENT AND l'.\()I)ERN

b~)

second century. Along with the rest of the Christian and a large part oftheJ ewish world, Newton credited this t raditiona I dating. For his purposes the Cabbali~ts were not contemporary Jewish mystics but ancients who lived in the early ages of Christianity. His use of the term Cabbalists to identify those who propagated esoteric and theosophical doctrines among Jews in Egypt and Palestine alJOut the time of the primitive Church and his stress on Hellenic influence in their inventions would enjoy favour among many prcscntday scholars who trace the roots of Cabbala back to that period. Newton's Cabbalists, Platonists, ami Gnostics had a single false doctrine in common, which they inlilsed into Christian theology at the time of their conversion. This was the theol"y of emanation, according to which lesser spiritual beings derived from God and were of His substance, but were not an act of creation of His divine Will. 'The Gnosticks after the manner of the Platonists and Cabbalists considered the thoughts or Ideas or intellectual objects seated in Gods mind as real Beings or substances, and supposed them to be male and female and to generate by emission of Substance as animals generate or as the heathens supposed their Gods to generate and thence accounted them consubstantial. ... '33 For Newton such a doctrine, which denied creation of the world ex nihilo by one God and recalled fables about the birth and proliferation of hundreds of pagan spirits, demigods, gods, and demons, was of the very essence of corruption, the denial of the first and most important commandment of the Decalogue. He discovered the fountainhead of this corruption far back in the degeneration of primitive Egyptian and Chaldean monotheism into a confused metaphysical idolatry that imputed real powers to forces ill nature. The mechanics of this second fall of man had been milch pondered in the seventeenth century, and Newton's \'ersion is all amalgam of contemporary theories that can be traced to the Church Fathers and to ~faimonides. In Ncwton':; wurldhistorical view, there tended to be a single source of pollution in religion from which all later forms had proceeded, and JJ Y.huda M». '5. 7, t'ol. IOU'.

70

CORRUPTERS .\NCIE""T AND MODERN

whatever the subsequent embodiments, the quintessential nature of the original evil persisted throughout all time. Newton's ideal of simplicity was as acti,'c in his historical as in his scientific and prophetic studies. In Newton's rather fanciful history of Cabbalism, the Cabbalist Jews, through contact with Chaldean seers during the Babylonian captivity and with Egyptian priests and Greek philosophers in Alexandria, had exposed their pure Mosaic monotheism to contamination hy this doctrine of emanation. It led them to conceive of the infinite, the en-soph, as emitting ten gradual subordinate emanations which they called sephirot and which were merely reifications of the attributes of God. When some oftlH'se Cahbalist.Jews became Christian, they injected their doctrines into the pure and simple belief of the early Church, breeding a murky intellectual atmosphere in which such idolatrous dogmas as transubstantiation were developed. It was but a step from doctrines of emanation to Trinitarianism. The Cabbalists placed the root and fountain of the Sephiroths above and said that the first sephiroth [Jic] Kether was a sphaere which comprehended the other nine sephiroths and was there called the highest crown. The Infinite retracted himself from a great spherical space in which he designed to create the worlds and emitted gradually into this space ten subordinate emanations . . . .

And if the theology of the Cabbalists be compared with that of the Gnosticks it will appear that the Cabhalist. were Jewish Gnosticks and the Gnosticks were Christian Cabbalists. H The Sephiroths of the Cabbalists were nothing else then the powers and aHections of God the father considered as divine persons (namely his Crown or first and supreme emanation, his Wisdom, his Prudence, his :\fagnificcncc, his Power, his Beauty, his Eternity, his Glory, his being the Support and Foundation of all things and his Reign) so the iEons of the Gnosticks were of the same kind.'" When the Apostle condemned Jewish fables, 'endless genealogies and oppositions of science falsly so called', he 34 Yahuda MS. 15. 7, fo1. 127r, l\1arginalia 011 101. 127v include a reference to the 'CaM. d£lludnta Pars 2, p. 181, 182,203,20.1'.

" Yahuda MS. 15. 5. fol. 88v.

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND l\tOIlERN

7'

meant the learning of the Cabbalists then crcepillg iuto Christianity.36 The Platonists, among whom Clement of Alexandria, 'a great admirer of Plato', figured prominently, in a similar spirit made the "Vord the omnipotent power and wisdom and idea of the Father, and in their theology it was the Word that effected the creation, and Jesus begot himself when the Word became flesh.37 Platonic notions of emanation began to spread in the Church before the end of the second century, when Greek converts to Christianity who had been addicted to the Platonic philosophy introduced them; lilr Stich men after their conversion tended to carryover the philosophical and religious manner of thinking on which they were nurtured, and thus they were in large measure responsible for the metaphysical disputes that arose in the Church. The education oflearned men in the principles of Plato and other heathen philosophers before they became Christians, the study of the heathen learning by some learned men after they became Christians ... and the easy admission of the hereticks into the latine church ... gave occasion to the spreading of some erroneous opinions very early in the Church herself.'38 On the back of working papers at the Royal Mint, Newton branded such errors as Platonic distortions of Christianity and singled out Athenagoras, the second-century Greek Father who was born in Athens, author of a Libel/us pro Chrisliallis, as a characteristic transmitter of false doctrines. Athenagoras by calling Christ the Idea of all things, takes him for the Logos of the Platonist; and by saying that God had this Logos always in himself because he was rationallrom all eternity, makes Christ the inward reason and wisdom of the father, the .\6yo~
31

Yahuda MS. 15. 5, 101. 87' .

7'

CORRUPTERS ANCIE:-IT AND MODERN

of the Cataphrygians and Platonists. For Athenagoras ... makes also the Holy Ghost an emanation of the father, not a necessary and eternal emanation but a voluntary and temporary one sometimes flowing from the father sometimes returning back to him as the rays of the Sun are emitted from him and reflected back.'· Newton charged the Platonists with having bestowed esoteric meanings upon plain scriptural names for Christ that were readily understood, such as 'Lamb of God', 'Son of 1\1an', 'Son of God'. In his church history he exclaimed in high dudgeon, ""'hat all this has to do with Platonism or Metaphysicks I do not understand .... The Scriptures were given to teach men not metaphysics but morals'.10 The facile identification of Newton with the philosophical doctrines of the Cambridge Platonists among whom he Jived as a young man surely requires amendment. The metaphysical opinions of the Gnostics, the third band of early corrupters, were drawn from both the pagan idolaters and the Cabbalists. The Gnostics separated deities male and female from the First Cause and from one another by generation, 'that is by emission of substance as animals generate other animals of the same species by seminal emissions'. 41 One branch of the Gnostics believed that the maker of the world was different from the father of the Lord, that the son of the fabricator was one person and Christ from above was another, who descended upon Jesus in the form of a dove, and that when Jesus was brought before Pilate, this dove flew back to hispleroma. 42 Some Gnostics professed that Jesus was the son of Joseph and l\1ary, others that he passed through 1\1ary 'as water through a pipe'.4' Newton extracted summaries of the doctrines of Simon Magus from. the Church Fathers who had attacked him, and interpreted them to mean that Simon was the original conceptualizer of the Trinitarian hercsy.44 Lest there be any doubt about the moral consequences of such beliefs and trafficking in emanations of the divine ,. Mint papers, Yahuda MS. • , Yahuda MS. .. Yahuda MS. .. Yahuda MS. 40

V, fol. 37'. '5.7, roJ. Igor, 41 Ibid., fol. 120r. '5. 3. fol. 54'. '5.5, lo!. 8B· . '5, 3, fol. 53'; Yahuda 1\IS. '5, 5. fol. 83'.


71

essence, Newton described in some detail the assemblies and 'filthy mysteries' instituted by Simon: His priests lived in lust and used exorcisms and incantations and magical arts and philtres and things enticing weomen to lust and fictions offamiliar spirits and of prophetick dreams and worshipped the images of Simon and Helena in the form of Jupiter and Minerva, and in their assemblies had filthy mysteries instituted hy Simon which consisted in offering to their Gods the seminal prolluvia of men and menstrua of weomen instead of the Eucharist. ... And after adultery they offered the filthy sacrifice illStitutcd by Simon saying this is my body and this is my blood." On the philosophical level, Newton's antagonism toward the ancient Cabbalists, the Platonists, and the Gnostics, is part of an ardent defence of God the Father who created the world as an act of divine will. By contrast, doctrines of emission, emanation, generation, projection, all of which are suggestive of human procreation, seemed to derogate from the absolute independence of God's fi·ee will. Whether Newton's aversion to emissions and emanations, which reappears in scores of folios in his history of the early Church, has covert origins in the intimate experience of this lone man had best be left in the form of a question; but not to ask it would be obscurantist. It is not a belittlement of the Illan to consider the significance of his words on different levels. Timc and again Newton broke his narrative exposition of early church doctrine with bitter denunciations of the Cabbalists and Gnostics, who separated out the 'powers, affections, Ideas, operations, and dignities of God the lather' and considered them as 'so many divine persons'. All these things are but olle thing in several degrees and have place only in the mind of man. They err therefore in ascribing to God the affections and passions of men and making him a compound. For God is not as man, nor are his thoughts like ours. He is simple and not compound. He is all like and equal to himself, all sense all spirit, all perception all Ennaea, all ,\6yos all ear, all eye, all light. He is all sense which cannot he separated from it self, nor is there any thing in him which can be emitted from any thing else. 46 H

•• Yahuda MS. 15.7.1,.1. 1U9'.

Yahuda MS. 15. 3. fols. 53'. 54'.

~:!66.J05

F

74


Who upon reading this passage can fail to recall the famous query in the Optics that distinguishes the animal from the divine sensory and the excursion in the General Scholium where Newton dilates upon our incapacity to have any idea of the substance of God? ',"Vhence also it follows that he is all Similar, all Eye, all Ear; all Brain, all Arm, all Sensation, all Understanding, all active Power: But this not after a corporeal Manner, but after a Manner wholly unknown to US.'47

In Newton's history of early Christianity, a curious conception of the cross-currents of religious ideas in the Nlediterranean world was unfulded. He established conjunctures and relationships that have psychological, and at times even a measure of historical, validity. His interpretation is multifaceted: he combines political motives with base human passions, and he has some insight into the intellectual predispositions of converts from one religion to another. N ewtoll made a valiant attempt to re-create the spiritual life of AlexandrianJews, the emotional atmosphere of third-century Rome, the interplay of Greek philosophy, Egyptian mystery religions, and Jewisll mystical traditions about the time of Christ. Mutatis mutandis, Newton might well have made a respectworthy historian of ideas of the late-nineteenthcentury French or German positivistic school. Perhaps he was a little too hasty in establishing chains ofinfiucnce on the basis of rather flimsy cvidence. But there is much to be said for his free and open associations of ideas, and I am quite ready to propose him as a model for our twentieth-century history of science, to dissuade it from turning in upon itself. Operating through intrigues in Church Councils, encouraged by recent pagan converts who wanted to preserve idolatry, supported by the secular power of emperors, the Gnostics, the Jewish Cabbalists, and the Platonists perverted the creed of the Apostles of the early Church and imposed metaphysical principles and abstract concepts upon scriptural statements about God and Christ. Such notions became papist dogmas and were not completely eradicated from Newton's own Church. 41

\Vhislon. }{ew/ulI':. CUlollaries, pr. 17-18.


75

N ewton's virulent anti-metaphysical bias, aile of the constants of his religious and scientific outlook, was embodied in the argument that God is a Creator, a !vlastn, that men have a personal relationship to a Lord, not to abstract attributl's, and was transplanted from ancient to modern times, li'om considerations of early church history to polemics in the General Scholium of the Principia. In the General Scholium the very same language with which Newtoll had excoriated the old corrupters of the Christian religion was adapted, as we have seen, to an attack on the mctaphysical arguments of Leibniz and his attempts to drag Newton into a discussion of the attributes of God. After the turn of the century, when Newton was engaged in writing a critical history of ancient heresies and their propagators, the duel with Leilmiz was never far from his mind. Leibnizians and Cartesians were modern exemplars oCthe Cabbalists, Gnostics, and Platonists. Leibniz with his intricate, metaphysical system-making understood nothing about thc true nature of God. In Newton's manuscripts the word 'metaphysical' has already assumed the set pejorative meaning of its later usage among the French philosophes. The undertones of these uttnalH:CS -and there are many-run something like this: 'I, Isaac Newton, the lad from Lincolnshire, have a plain religious tiith based on my personal obedience to the Lord, and I will Hot hc C'lltrapped by the Leibnizian subtleties. 11etaphysics wr"ugilt havoc in the early centuries of Christianity, as the history of the apostolic creed and o[ the church councils bears witness, and the Leibnizian arguments arc likely to l')ster the sallie divisive spirit in our time.' Newton's contempt for metaphysics thus had religious as well as scientific roots. The personal element, his rivalry with the two system-makers the dead Descartes and the living Leibniz, was always present; but even if the personal element is ignored, metaphysics remains an evil to be combated. Abstract system-making, building hypothetical structur(,s, was a mode of thinking responsible for the perversion of the only truly revealed religion, primitive Christianity, The modern philosophical system-makers who were molesting him were acting precisely as had the ancient l'latonists, Gllostics,

76

CORRUPTERS ANClENT AND MODERN

and Cabbalisls. Instead of concentrating upon God's works, His actions, the phenoml'na, as a form of worship, they were presuming a knowledge of His attributes or His essence. Leibniz was Athanasius redivivus. Supramundaneintelligences, pre-established harmonics, were hypotheses of the same order as the Cabbalist sephirot, Plato's logos, and Simon Uagus' foul emanations. The question arises why Newton did not eschew metaphysical debate altogl'titcr, why he employed Dr. Samuel Clarke to set forth in elegant phraseology arguments for whieh he felt ;t\Trsion and disdain. Only in the context of Newton's general conduct during the last two or three decades of his life, when he was the autocrat of British science, is his course of action in the Lcibniz debate comprehensible. Newton delighted in beating his adversaries at their own game. In unmasking monkish falsehoods, he revelled in quoting Cardinal Baronius, the olTicial historiographer orthe papal establishmmt. 48 Even in what wcnt by the name of metaphysical disquisition, he could worst Leibniz and the Leibnizians. The precise nature of the collaboration between Clarke and Ncwton can never be determined; much oral converse was involved since they both lived in London. In the correspondcnce with Leibniz thc refinements of the arguments were left to Clarke, but Newton's dialectical skills, when hc wanted to engage, were not to be underestimated, and there arc drafts in his hand that prove what was generally supposed at the timC', that he was a most active contestant.4 9 .. 8

Yahuda ~IS.

I I.

3, fol. 5 r; the rdefence is to Caesar llaronius, Amlales

Ecclesiastici (Antwerp, 159,t), IU tomes. 49 Koyre and Cohen, '1'\ewton and the Lcibniz -Clarke Correspondence', pp. 63-126. See also A. R. and 1\1. B. Hall, 'Clarke and Newton', his, Iii (1961), 584, for the draft ofa kiln in Newton's hanel, written some time in J715, that attacks Lcibniz's metaphysical position and is paralleled by Clarke's fifth reply: 'And at the same time he is propound {But its said that hypotheses may in time meet with an Experinlt'l1tum Crucis and hiT. Leibnitz: proposes Hypotheses for that end. "'hell Hyp()thes('~ meet with Experimenta Crucis they will cease to be Hypolhf'.'>es and descend] answer that when his hypotheses that God is Intelligeotia supramUndalli.l. that there is an IIarmonia praesLaLiliLa that all animal mutioH (t-vt-n in llIall himM-lf) i~ purely Illl'ehallieai, that God ha» crt~atcd the world so perrct"L thal it Ilen-r call fall into disorder or need to be amended. that all the Phacilomella ill nature arc purdy mechanical, that matt('r is indued wilh a :-.df tllU\"ing pow(:r~ing Hypotheses (that is) (not

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT AND MOIJERN

77

Newton showed himself to be a master of aradcmic debaling techniques, and he could demolish an encmy on his own ground, with his own weapons, and with a certain cruel satisfaction. I am not recommendin.~ Newlon fiJr sainthood. Clarke 'broke Leilmilz's Heart with his Reply to him', Newton once exulted. so From Newton's viewpoint, the insults in Leilmiz's letters were outrageous. "Vhen Newton wrote 'sensorium of God' in a Query to the 1706 edition of the Optics hc was tossing ofr a similitude, an analogy, he was thinking in terms of the world as God's templum; and yet Leibniz pretended to take him literally though he patently knew otherwise. He was well aware that Newton was trying to distinguish between 0111' limited sensoria that act as dearing-houses luI' external images and the immediacy of God's knowledge of the world, which is incomprehensible to liS. Newlon had an anlienthusiastic doctrine of the cessation of miracles, which ht: considered no longer necessary; but he was accused of believing that God would have to proliferate miracks. He had proclaimed God's absolute free will and His power to create, in accordance with that will, all manner of beings -animals, humans, angels, the Son VdlO was His viceroy, amI a variety of spiritual entities who in the future would move over the whole world by their own motion-and he was criticized for limiting and curtailing the power of God. Did Newton mean that God intim
Romance.' \Vhi~ton, Historic(/l i\1emoin" of Dr. Clarke, p. 132. SecA. Koyreand l.ll. Cohcn, 'The Case of the C\'lis~jng lwlf.Juam; Leibniz, Newlon and Clarke', lJi,~. Iii (1961). 555-66. III SOInt' \'opit's of the 17u(J Optia, 50

51

lhe passage on p. 315 contaills the phrJ.!)c IUl/qllam

S~IUI.Jli" ~uu;

ill others. the

78


me cut thc Gordian knot ancr my own fashion. Ncwton as homo religiosus could not have carcd less about such trivia. The politic, human Newton cared a great deal about losing or scoring debating points, about priority in the invention of the calculus, and especially about charges that he was a base anthropomorphite imputing to God 'une org"ane', as Leibniz declared, when it was clear that Newton was using the word sensorium as an analogy, whether or not he preceded it with the phrase 'as it were' y While Leibniz and his cohorts were plaguing Newton for having posited a universe that was not perfect in itself and required God's intervention from time to time, Newton glorified those very interventions as the supreme acts of God's providential will. God had constantly intervened in the history of the physical world: in creating it through a subordinate spiritual agent who was probably Jesus in one of His many manifestations, and in creating it in one way rather than in another; in preserving and sustaining the world and in directing comets one way rather than another. And He would possibly do other things to the physical world, perhaps burn it and start life over again on some other planet, perhaps leave a remnant and renew life on the same planet. God had also intervened continually in the history of mankind, restoring true religion after successive lapses among both Jews and Christians. The whole creation and all of history were interventions. For Newton intervention did not imply physical or historical chaos. There were underlying operational designs in the world that could be defined as the history of the motions of the planets, which displayed a marvellous orderliness, and the history of the revolutions of empires and churches, which had a similarly simple pattern -one so simple that it could be contained in two small books, originals Koyre and Cohen argue, the phraseology is Jiflcrent and the lallqu.am is missing. It seems likely that Leibniz had a copy in which the tanquam was missing. According to Koyre and Cuhen, in four out of eighteen copies they examined the tanquam was omitted. !l In the draft of a lc:tler to the Abbe COllli Newlon wrote that no man 'except the Anthropomorphites evt'f f'r'ignc:d that God had a sensorium in a litteral senee' (Koyre and Cuhen, . i\' t"wtUIi alld Ihe Leibniz-Clarke Correspondence', p. 114).

CORRUPTERS ANCIENT ANO MODERN

79

Daniel and the Apolalypse, that wer .. [t'ally !'I'petitiolls uf each other. Newton's exasperation over the mt'taphy,i('al debate with Leilmiz was perhaps most sharply expressed in 1725, in the last paper he ever published in the Transactiolls of the Royal Society-there are seven drafts of it in Jerusalem. After publicly dressing down the Abbe Conti for divulging the existen(,e of Newton's Abstract if Chrol/ology, he could not refrain from again dragging in Leilmiz, now dead lor almost a decade, and scolding him for his attempt to embroil him in metaphysical disputes about oewlt qualities, universal gravity, the sensorium of God, spact', time, vaCllum, atums, the perfection of the world, supramundane intdligt'nct'. As a parting shot, Newton magistl,rially slammed down the lid on all thost' who would impugn his religious 1:lith and eusnare him in the babblings of \'ain philosophy: . J hope that these Things, and the perpetual JI.\()tiun, will be th .. last Efl'lI·ts of this Kind.'53 S3 Philosophical Tmw{lcliulH (if the,' RL!.yat Yahu
SUCif~J'.

xxxiii

(17'.!.~),

p. ~:21

j

abu

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

IV PROPHECY AND HISTOR Y

IV PROPHECY AND HISTOR Y AFTER Newton's death, his library was acquired by John Huggins, the notorious warden of the Fleet Prison. A catalogue drawn up at the time of the purchase has provided us with an incomparable guide to the intellectual inlluences that played on Newton's mind, lor he was nOl a man to spend rrioney on books he did not read. This catalogue also bears an entry abollt five volumes excluded li'om the sale··'books that has notes of Sir Isaac Newton'. Along with an interleaved Optics and Principia and Descartes's Geumetria and Secrets Reveal'd: or all OPen Entrance to the Shut-Palace of the King, there is a 'Bible with service Dirty and leaf wanting JG60'.' Many other books from the library have heen tracked down, but to my knowledge this Bible has not. If it should ever be discovcred, its marginalia may yet rcveal secrets of Newton's religion that now elude LIS. But even in the absence of so intimate a witness to his daily devotions, it is evident fi'OI11 the phenomena-the piles of manuscripts he leli --that studying this book was Newton's worship. He knew it as fCw theologians did, awl he muld string out citations like a concordance. A man who was wnscientious and probed luI' the truth of Scripture to its innermost depths would bc rcwarded with 'assurance and vigour' to his laith and a steady satisfaction to the mind 'which he ondy can know how to l'stimate who I London, British ~1useum, Add. I\'IS. 2542.4-, 'Huggins' Li~t'. A \'ersion has been published in Richard de Villamil, ""ew/ou: the ..Hall (Londoll, 1931), pp. 62-1 )0. The full title of Secrds Reveal'd, a pseudonymous work, is SeC/tis RClicaL'd: or all Opel! Entrance to the Shut-Palace of the Killg Containing, The GIt:ulesl Trea)u(( in Chymistry, Never yet so plainly Discovered. l.omposed by a mostfallww EnglishmaN, Stylillg himself AnOl!ylllous, or F;YTaclIcus Philalel)1a Cosmvpolita: JVlto, by 1ilspiTatiufi aTld Reading, attained to tlte Philosopher SIOllC at J,is Age uj Twenty tinct: TeaTS, Auno Domini, 1645 (London, (669).

PROI'HECY AND IIISTORY

shall experience it"', a religious contentment that Newton described in those very words.' Though the study of the Old and New Testaments was Newton's primary form of devotion, to the virtual neglect of most other religious ceremonies, his was not the bibliolatry of traditional Judaism or the precisianism of a Puritan. Newton's religion betrayed differences, as well as profound psychic similarities, with these other scriptural religions. In the course of his lifelong pondering of the texts of the Bible in English, Latin, Greek, and sometimes Hebrew (a language he could use with the aid of a dictionary), in print and in rare manuscripts, Newton came to distinguish rather sharply between two types of books in the Biblical canon: those that were narrative-historical and those that were direct prophecy, the word of the living God. By his middle years Newton had come to believe that Biblical descriptions of historical events were written for the most part by contemporaries of those events, men of extraordinary virtue and reliability. They might be prophets themselves-110ses, Samuel, Gad, Ezraor apostles of prophets like Joshua and Christ's disciples. And in addition to depicting what they saw with their own eyes, they had sometimes assembled materials about the immediate past drafted by their equally trustworthy predecessors. Only one case was truly exceptional, that of1\10ses, who had access to the most ancient records of all time, known as the Law of God and the Book of Generations. Newton's full account of what had happenl?cl to the narrative sections of the Bible over the centuries allowed for many later redactions and for losses and restorations, most of which he investigated with reasonably critical instruments. Before arrh·ing at his rather heterodox conclusions about the authorship of some of the books of the Bible, Newton had clearly been exposed to the new Biblical criticism. That he read Richard Simon is certain, that he knew Hobbes is very likely; and there is even a good possibility that he may have perused Spinoza's Tractatus Tlteologico-Politicus soon after its appearance, rare in England in the early 1670s. We know that a copy was in Isaac Barrow's library, which Newton , Yahuda

~IS. I. I,

101.

2'.

Sec Appendix A below. p. 108.

PROPHECY AND HISTORY

helped put in order in !lin aftcr Barrow's death - the catalogue is in the Bodkian 3-and to which he had always had free access. Departure from the tradition that ewry word in the books of :Moses was written hy ]\[oses himself did nOI, however, lead Newton to denigrate the worth of the Old Testament histories. On the contrary, he held them to be 1~lr superior to any ancient history the Gentile natiolls had to 011(01', f(JI' the basic texts had been preserved relatively intact through regular weekly readings in the synagogues of the.J cws. Though even these canonical histories had not entirely escaped the ravages of time, they were 1:11' more dependable tilan Greek, Persian, Chaldean, and Phoenician cum pilat ions, and, where sources contradicted one another, the Judaic W('flO always tu be preferred. Nevl'ton's approach to the historical narrativt's CJj'the 01,1 Testament was similar to that of Joseph Kimchi and Abraham Ibn Ezra, medieval commentators highly respected by the major Christian Hebraists of seventeenth-century England, whose writings Newton had studied with great carc. Abraham Ibn Ezra tended to adopt the comnwnsensical reading dictated by the natural word ordn and the ordinary rules of grammar. Newton J(.llowt'd suit and generally accepted the plain meaning, though he permitted himsdf I"ee historical commentary on the background of events, learned either from geography--··he had edited Vart'nius--or from pagan histories and chronologies. Ami sometimes he went even further. To extract the fullness of meaning from the Biblical narratives he uSt'd the techniques of reasoningon-the-evidence developed in the lawcourts and in humanist scholarship. Orcasionally he glanced at translations and with the aid of fl'it'ndly scholars searched Jor alternatin' m('anings of key words in Aramaic and Arabic. "Vith a learned apparatus at his disposal, he vexed the texts to eliminate those inconsistencies and improbabilities that, despite the Bible's excellent state of presc'rvation, had crept in over the years. 3 llodleian Library, 1\.1S. Rawlinson D B78, Job, ~u- 59: 'A Catalogut' of the bookes of Dr. Isaac Barrow sent to S. S. Ly 1\1r. Isaac Newloll Ft.'H(I\-\" of Tliu. r:oll. Camb . .July 14, IU77i oLiit DI". HaJTU'.... ~Llii 4. It'7i.'

86


Since the narratives ill Scripture were evidently an amalgam of excerpts limll lost histories, minur corruptions could be accounted for without calling into question the over-all credibility of the Bible as the b~st available ancient history of mankind. While Newton depended for the most part on eminent Christian Hebraists-there are frequent citations from Selden, Dionysius and Gerard John Vossius, Lightfoot, Pocock, Buxturf-he always managed to give a cast of his own to any commentary. The narrative Bible histories, for example, became a literary support for the astronomical proofs of his revision of world chronology, which sliced some 500 years off the traditional antiquity of the Greeks and ensured the uncontested priority of Israel's civilization, a priority that brought the Jews closer to the divine source. Newton's criticism of the narrative books of the Bible was matterof-fact and commonsensical probing I(lr evidence, neither Pyrrhonic in its scepticism about what must men considered admissible historical testimony, nor gullible to the point of crediting every statement without examination. Though Newton never went as far as Spinoza in blatantly asserting that the Old Testament was a book on political and moral conduct composed for a particular people at a given moment in time and framed primarily for their needs-to teach them obedience to authority-in practice he read the narrative sections of the Old Testament as human history recorded as it had been enacted by men capable of willing good and evil, though under the constant guidance of a Providence and with frequent interventions on His part. But for Newton there were other books of Scriptureespecially the Book of Daniel and the Revelation of Johnwhose character was entirely different from that of the narratives. These books of prophccy were unique, set apart from the rest of the Bible because they did not speak the language of ordinary men, as had 1I.10se5, Samuel, and Ezra when they wrote history as it actually happened, in Leopold von Ranke's manner. The language of prophetic writings was symbolic and hieroglyphical and their comprehension required a radically different mcthod of int~rprctation. The prophecies

I'ROPHECY AND HISTORY

were God's direct rC\'clatiolls of hidden truths, and Newton wrestled with the meaning of these hooks from early manhood until his death. What was Newton's conception of a prophet? It flatly excluded all enthusiasts, ranters, men who spoke with tongues. England's experience with the Fifth-Monarchy mell made academic interpreters ofpniphecy during the Restoration suspicious of sudden illuminations. TIlt: wild, ignorant mechanics possessed with the spirit were blse prophets, devil-inspired abominations. Newton's revulsion "t the outpourings of fanatic enthusiasts of the Civil 'War period equalled that of Henry l\fore and the Christian Hebraist John Spencer of Cambridge, who wrote angry polemics against them. 4 The true prophet was defined I(>t· Newton, as lor other respectable Anglicans, by the writings or J\laimonides, whose anti-mystical works were highly esteemed. Portions of his commentarics on the Mishna had becn translated into Latin (with the Arabic texl printed in Hebrew characters) by Edward Pocock ufOxlunl in thePo/la ,Hosis (1655), and the substance of the rest of his vasl body of work was communicated to the learned v;'Orlel by John Spencer in a magnificent, sao-page analytic compendium of I\Iaimunides' writings in Latin, which bore a title that had bt'st be translated as Explanation of the Laws of Ihe Hebrews. s The Anglicanized 'prophet' of J\tfaimonidt>s was immcnsely learned, of impcccable moral virtue, a man who had devoted himself to years of study, and who when properly prepared was the perfect vehicle for God's word. For .Maimonides, Mure, Spencer, and Newton, the true prophet was a supremely rational man, a man worthy of receiving a message from the Divine Reason through the agency of the prophetic spirit. Nothing would have been more alien to their conception of oJ See, t'Ot" example, Henry J\Iore, EllthUJiaslflus Triomphatus (1662) and Antidote against Atlleisme (1656), amI John Spencer, A DiJCOUflC cOllcemillg Vulgar prophecies wherei'l the llarlity of receivillg them lIS the certilin indications l~/ tu!y JUIU/1! Event is di.,'covered; alld some Characters III /)i)lillctiolf hdwet:Ji true {/lid pll!teuJillg Plopilels are laid dowlI (16G5). s John Spt'llcer, lJe Jegihu.'J Jld)f(JeulUlfl lilllllli&m d {(lI/lJ/llulionibw (( :.uIlLridgl·, loH5)·

88

PROPHECY AND HISTOR Y

the ancient proph('t than the distraught mystic running naked through the streets of Jerusalem that Voltaire later conjured up. The prophet was a religious teacher who had been favoured and chosen by God because of his hard-won rational perfections, not his unbridled flights of fantasy. It was the language of pmphecy that was obscure and veiled; the mind of the prophet was pellucid in its clarity, precise and parsimonious in its expression of the Holy Spirit. The meaning of prophecy was concealed, as were the laws of nature, that other book in which God had written a record of his actions; and Newton drew frequent parallels between unravelling the mysteries of the books of prophecy and discovering the secrets of the Book of Nature. That the complete content of prophecy had been hidden until the seventeenth century was (or Newton 'nothing but what ought to have been'.6 And perhaps with a touch of circularity he reasoned that the very circumstance of his revealing in his commentaries the fullness of prophecy was no mean sign that the consummation of the times was not far distant. It is understandable that men like Newton should turn to Daniel and John as the preferred prophets-their enigmatic symbols and images were a challenge, the bafHing episodes and visions demanded explanation. As long as the cryptic books remained scaled, what had men really uncovered in Scripture? God's communication of these words to two chosen prophets was a historical act that made no sense whatever unless it was intended that their meaning would ultimately be deciphered. 'If they are never to be understood, to what end did God reveale them?',7 Newton asked in a manuscript of the early Cambridge period. Demonstration that prophecies and other divine promises had in fact been fulfilled in the historical world was one of the most ancient and enduring apologies for Jewish and Christian religion; but it is still difficult for some of us to appreciate the continued fascination of great European intellects of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with the interpretation of Daniel and the Apocalypse. In • Yahud. illS. 7 Ibid.

I. I,

fol.

I'.

See Appendix A below, p. 107.


89

retrospect this absorption now appears as the swan song of an expository tradition that produced hundreds of volumes and had an uninterrupted existence going back to the early centuries of Christianity. With the triumph of the philosophes, this type of literature, though it increased in quantity, became the refuge of cranks and an occasional poetic or artistic genius. In the seventeenth century it was still at the core of the religion of a scholarly divine. Time and again Newton warned of the perils of neglecting the study of the prophecies, quoting the words of Jesus: 'Ye Hypocrites ye can discern the face of the sky but can ye not discern the signes of the times ?'8 Without the guidance of prophecy, how would men recognize Antichrist? Prophecy interpretation was no idle speculation, no matter of indifference, but a duty of the greatest moment. 'Wherefore it concerns thee to look about thee narrowly least thou shouldest in so degenerate an age be dangerously seduced and not know it. Antichrist was to seduce the whole Christian world and therefore he may easily seduce thee if thou beest not wdl prepared to discern him.'9 I wonder whether anyone in our times has really mastered the whole of the mammoth corpus of Judaic expositions of Daniel and Christian expositions of Daniel and the Apocalypse from the beginning to the end. An academic history of this form of knowledge illustrating changing techniques, devices, and fashions in interpretation through the ages is another of those enterprises that I leave to posterity without much regret. But even now one can say something about the state of prophecy interpretation at the time Newton was engaged upon it. Many of the scientists and apologists of science in Newton's circle, among whom Edmond HaUey was a notable exception, tried their hands at the exposition of prophecy, and the number of such works composed in England during Newton's adult life is staggering; as the Age of Reason dawned, seventeenth-century manuscript expositions of the Apocalypse in Oxford University libraries alone bear witness that there was still more than one way of seeking • Yahuda MS. • Yahuda 1\IS.

I.

I, fol. 2'. See Appendix A below, p. loB. fol. 3'. See Appendix A below, p. log.

I. I,


go

enlightenment. Though no royal society existed for the exchange of ideas on the subject, there are detailed reports of Newton's discussion of these books in 1680 with Henry 'More (who showed him his own writings on the Apocalypse and Daniel before their publication), and of conversations with Fatio de Duillier, John Locke, and Richard Bentley in the 1690s, with 'Villiam V,'histol1 in 17"7, with Samuel Clarke, Brook Taylor, and sundry erudite bishops, Contemporary memoirs and letters are unanimous in portraying Newton's dogged obstinacy in sticking to his own interpretations despite the criticism of his friends. Henry More at first thought that he had convinced his young colleague, and Newton's countenance seemed to him 'transportee!' by what 1\1ore called the mathematical evidcnce of his exposition; but then Newton lapsed into his former conccits. Bentley offended Newton by asking him to prove the self-evident truth that a day in prophecy meant a calendar year, and as a consequence there was a breach in their relations for a time. 'Whiston in his turn was unreceptive to Newton's four-hour geographic and chronological disquisition on the four monarchies in Daniel because he thought himself superior in scriptural interpretation, though admittedly inferior in mathematics. As for Fatio, Newton gently chided him early in their relationship for giving way too readily to mystical fancies, whereas Newton's readings of prophecy always had impeccable warranties in Scripture. In the world of the English academic expositors, something resembling a Copernican revolution had taken place earlier, in the decade between 1628 and 1638-the invention of a novel interpretive system by Joseph Mede of Christ's College, Cambridge. Almost all of the respectable expositors of the Restoration relied upon his fundamental innovating methods. This most remarkable of English expositors had apparently routed his rivals Henry Hammond and the great Hugo Grotius. Newton was invariably more generous to dead than to living predecessors, and he paid his respects to 'Mede in unwontedly strong terms, considering himself to be the next qualified interpreter after him.IO As the Master of Balliol has 10

Yahuda MS.

1. I,

fol. ISr. See Appendix A below, p.

J21.


9'

shown, the impact of Mede's work is visible throughout the seventeenth century on all sociallevds;" it can be detected among uneducated Fifth-Alonarchy men, who acquired his doctrines through intellectual seepage, as w{'l1 as in the scholarly writings of Henry More and 'William Whiston. I do not know whether Newton ever read ,,vorthington's essay on the crucial significance of the interpretation of prophecy and his analysis of the true method, which prefaced Mede's collected works, enlarged and republished in 1664, a few years after Newton went up to Cambridge.'" But Newton's manuscripts constantly echo the same sentiments with respect to the pivotal role of prophecy interpretation for a Christian who wanted to advance bcyond milk for babes. To interpret prophccy was a grace and favour of God comparable to prophecy itself: Random enthusiastic evocations, inspired by the verses, were to be sedulously avoided. For centuries prophecy interpretation had in effect been fluid, free association; but ~lede now demand .. d congruence in the exposition of its various parts. The scientific spirit began to emerge in Mede, was strengthened in More's use of mathematical language, and reached its apogee in Newton's system of interpretation. John Napier, an earlier example of the symbiosis of mathematics and prophecy, is somehow never mentioned by Newton, despite the reprinting of his works during the Civil War. In addition to Mede's great erudition, his learned references to treatises on symbols and ancient Indian and Arabic dream-books, his reputation rested upon the introduction of a totally new tech'lique in manipulating prophetic texts. The historical events foretold by the images in the Apocalypse did not parallel the order of the visions themselves chapter by chapter. A system of synchronisms had to he invented to determine the right chronological sequence (confused in the original books). Mede had discovered that visions which were 'synchronal' and 'homogeneal' were dispersed here and there throughout the text; in identifying and " Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Dowll (London, 1972), p. 77. 12 Joseph Mede, JVorks, corrected and enlarged according to the Author's own manuscript [by]. Worthington] (London, .664-63),2 vol<.

92


regrouping them preparatory to interpretation, he had come upon a method that his admirers glorified as equal in importance to Aristotle's syllogistic reasoning. (From all appearances, Mede would have been at home with modern structuralists. ) Newton was heir to Mede's method, and he began working along these lines as early as the I1i70s; even ill the sixties therc is a record of his purchase of Sieidan's Four Monarchies, a world history based on Nelmchadnezzar's dream in the Book of Daniel. Prophecy interpretation is central in Newton's non-mathematical writings. If one passes in review the whole body of his theological and chronological works, it appears that many grew out of an initial absorption with Daniel and the Apocalypse, that they were offshoots from one main trunk, the books that held the ultimate secret, the history of the world condensed into a series of visions. In arranging Newton's manuscripts after his death, John Conduitt already perceived that the Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, which covers world history from the earliest beginnings, when joined and connected with Newton's history of empires and churches since Daniel, forms one complete, universal history of mankind, both sacrcd and profane, since the Creation. IJ It is not mere chance that folios on the emendation of an dent chronology arc intermingled with drafts of prophecy interpretation. A piece on the Temple of Solomon, for example, which is now a chapter in the published Chronology, was originally undertaken in order to cxplain the vision of the Temple in the Apocalypse. To decipher the prophecy, the structure had to be re-created with meticulous accuracy, its ground-plan and equipment laid out, because every dctail was a prefiguration. The only forthright commitment to the idea of progression that I have been able to discover in Newton involves the size of the Sanctuary of God, whose linear measurements, according to Newton's careful computations, doubled from the Tabernacle under the Judges to the Temple under the Kings; and similarly the dimensions of the new Jerusalem under the King of Kings would be double that of royal Jerusalem. With the force of inevitability oJ Cambridge, University Library, Add. MS. 3987, fol. 123'.

PROPHECY AND HISTOR Y

93

the quantitative expression of superiority was taking possession of the holiest of holies." There are additional reasons for the interlocking of Newton's chronological and prophetic researches. Radical revisions in chronology were needed to establish absolute benchmarks against which to verify the lulfilment of prophecy. If traditional chronology was inaccurate, how could one ever expect to try a prophet? If the birth of Christ and the CnlCifixion in the accepted system were in error by years or even months, how could one judge the correctness of reckonings offuture events for which these dates were points of reference? During his Cambridge period, Newton prepared several drafts of what were entitled 'Rules lor interpreting tile Apocalypse' and 'The Language of Prophecy' , wilh IllIl11ucred items. Some pieces used formal scicntilie heading, like 'Propositiones' and 'Lemmata'. But one can bypass many or the details of this methodological framework, which are perhaps more appropriate subject-mattn for the thorough training of a latter-day expositor of prophecy than for a public lecture, to arrive at the general spirit of Newton's work and his manner of reasoning. Prophecy interpretation required a series of operations, no one of which was to be performed casually or sloppily, any more than a scientific experiment should be. The stages as I describe them do not represent Newton's actual procedure -his working-out of the grand dC"sign year by year may some day be reconstructed, thollgh not by me-but elements in the total process can be isolated, even though he \\·as engaged in some of these operations simultaneously or in a different order. Qne step involved the establishment of unimpeachable texts for Daniel and the Apocalypse, the Masoretic Hebrew and Aramaic for the former, the Greek lor the latter. In the Jerusalem archive there is a closely written notebook of Newton's that contains variant readings of the Apocalypse, 14 \VeJlesley, ~Iass., Babson Institute Library, No. 434: Ne\\·ton, 'Prolegomena ad l.exici Prophctici partem secundam, in qui bus agitur De Jorma Sanetuarii Judaici . . . Commentarium', drawing of the ground-plan of the Temple of Solomon. See also Appendix below, p. 135.

n

94


verse by verse, gathered together from every conceivable manuscript and printed edition he could lay his hands on.IS From Newton's correspondence with the Biblical scholal' John Mill, it is evident that this particular compilation was already complete and in final form in 1694;16 Newton had of course already been drafting general commentaries on prophecy in the 16705 and 1680s. In another stage, Newton worked out a dictionary of historical, political, and ecclesiastical equivalents for the images and symbols in prophetic literature. His presumption was that prophecies were congruent in all their parts without fault or exception. Once an appropriate political translation of any given 'prophetic hieroglyph' (the phrase is Newton's) had been determined, that same meaning had to apply whenever it appeared in a book of prophecy. The tests of truth were constancy and consistency. This type ofhieroglyph I'eading and its reverse-inventing new hieroglyphs to represent ideas, persons, or deeds-were very much in fashion. Such activities, which had been carried on since the ancient Greeks, reached a zenith in the baroque world. There were many counterparts in the general culture of Europe to what Joseph Mede and Isaac Newton were doing in prophecy interpretation. Books of emblems and iconology were manuals of instruction prescribing standard artistic representations for abstract virtues and vices, philosophical ideas, characters and humours, continents, callings, and statuses. The compendia of N atalis Comes and Cesare Ripa and especially ofVincenzo Cartari, with which Newton was quite familiar, were the most popular of the type. And in fact Newton himself, when he was !-vfaster of the ~1int, designed with his own hand a number of emblems for coins commemorating historical events. The euhemeristic interpretation of pagan mythology, the tendency of historian-mythographers to discern in every classical myth a kernel of ordinary political history related to the obscure period before the great classical historians began to write, was common in the seventeenth and eighteenth os Yahuda MS. 4. 16 Newton, Correspondence, iii. 305-7, John l\lill to Nl'wlon,

21

Feb. 1694_


95

centuries. Newton used this euhemeristic method constantly in his papers on world chronology to extract from myths a rl'asonable, consecutive account of the early ages of mankind bcJ()re any rC("Qrlls were kept. In thl' interpretation of prophecy he adopted fundamentally the same method as the euhemerists and iconologists, treating the visions of the Apocalypse as if tlwy were mythic speech and transldting their symbols into political actors and .. vellts. But if as a mythographer Newton was derivative, the elahoration of a complete lexicon of scriptural prophecy, a dictionary ()f prophetic symbols, so to speak, was his own achievement. One of his manuscripts on the language of the prophets outlines the objects mentioned in the Apocalypse and painstakingly arranges them in a grand, orderly chain of heing from the heavens through things terrestrial, t'nding with images of men and women 'in various cirr.uIl1stances', as Newton prosaically remarked, 'as with a r.rown or on horsback, or with a sword or bow, or with weights and measures or c10athed in white or in other apparel or naked, or holding a cup of wine or drinking it, or with a wound or sore or in pain, or pained in child-birth, or bearing a manchild: and of the death of man or beast, and of worshipping them and their images' .'7 Each of these objects or persons and the attributes with which they were endowed or the actions in which they were engaged had concrete equivalents in the political world: cherubim meant armies, sealing meant the heathen custom of marking believers with a sign o/" their god, the eagle was a Roman legion, a dragon a Roman company, and of course the \,yhore of Babylon was the Papacy. For Newton, this language of prophecy, in which objects heheld in visions stood fiJr political and religious entities, was not a special, coded speech invented solely by Daniel and John. Such hieroglyphic expressions had a resemblance to the system of symbols common to many Eastern nations and to the ancients in general. Newton was fumhling with an idea that Giambattista Vico was soon to develop into one of the primary themes of his philosophy of history: that the earliest 17

Yahuda f\.IS. 9.

I,

fi>l. 4r.

PROPHECY AND IIISTORY

peoples expressed themselves in symbols and poetic speech, not in ordinary prose. Vi co sent Newton a copy of the first edition of the Scien;:a Nunva of 1725 through a rabhi ill Livorno; but if it ever arrived, it was probably too late for Newton to have consulted it. Lest Newton's scientific method of interpreting prophecy sound abstruse and involuted, let me illustrate it with an Apocalyptic creature who figures prominently in the jerusalem manuscripts-the frog. john saw issuing from the mouth of the dragon and from the mouth of the beast and from the mouth of the false prophet three foul spirits like frogs. IS Newton concluded that whenever john wrote 'frogs' in the Apocalypse, he meant papal idolaters and idolatrous practices. According to Newton's system, the term frogs applied both to demons and to their victims, the societies of Christians whom they seduced into idolatry by preaching falsehoods and working factitious miracles. But how did Newton deduce this? What were the proofs? He marshalled the evidence from a wide range of sources. He did not for a moment pretend that in all the authorities he consulted, frogs were identiral with devils and devils with idolaters. But he showed that there was a general consensus about the similarity between the characteristics of frogs and the characteristics of devils and false teachers and vain babblers, everything that idolaters represented. To substantiate his generalization Newton quoted seriatim Artemidorus' famous book on dreams to the effect that frogs in dreams signified impostors and scoffers; the assertion of the sixteenth-century commentator Benedictus Arias 1\10ntanus that unclean and loquacious animals stood for false prophets; Hugo Grotius, his rival interpreter, in the same vein; Origen's denigration in his Homily on Exodus of poets, who 'with an empty and vainglorious cant as with the noise and song of froggs have introduced fables into the world'; Aristotle, who said that 'they whose sides are turgid and as it were blown up are loquacious and foolish babblers and are referred to frogs'; Joannes Tzetzes, commenting on Aristophanes' play The Frogs, that frogs are garrulous and senseless; and finally Ovid's II

Revelation l6; 13- The Vulgate reads 'in modum ranarum'.


97

fable that the Lycians were turned into frogs for railing at Latona. I9 One is tempted to cry: Q.ueUe galere! But who has not seen hypotheses sustained with far scantier evidence? Since so many impeccable authorities ancient and modern were agreed in imputing to frogs the vilest qualities of dirty impostors and empty babblers, whom "Ise could John have meant by ti'ogs but idolaters, and who are the bearers of modern idolatry if not the Papists? To point out similitude in some striking respects is to establish identification---·a manner of thinking from which we are not as emancipated as we pretend. Once the political equivalents for all the physical wordimages in the prophecy had been discovered and fixed, Newton proceeded to read the synchronized visions of prophecy as straightforward narratives of dated events in the history of empires and religious institutions since the age of Daniel, which he sct in the second century before Christ. To work out the chronology of political and religious crises, the turning-points in world history such as the LarLarian invasions, the establishment of papal hegemony, the birth of monkery, he had recourse to standard Greek and Roman histories, and books such as Carlo Sigonio's Hisloriarum de occidenlali imperio libri .\·x, Caesar Baronius' Annales Ecclesiaslici, and the works of Arias Montanus, supplemented by the Church Fathers and histories of heresies and persecutions. As he reached modern times, Newton availed himself of the most varied sources without prt:judice; in a reference to Florentine history, he could even say with shocking approval: 'Well wrote lVIachiavell.'20 With the assistance of these classic works Newton could prove, point by point, that everything foretold in the prophetic books had actually taken place, that the correspondence between prophecy and recorded history had been perfect. Newton applied what might be called scientific criteria to the interpretation of the books of prophecy, particularly the law of parsimony. He showed not only that every notaLle political and religious occurrence conformed exactly to some vision in prophecy, but that his set of equivalents had totally " Yahuda MS. 9.

I,

fol. 25'.

'0

Yahuda MS. 7.

I,

luI. 31'.

98


exhausted the possible meanings of each of the objects and images appearing in any prophetic verse. There was nothing left over, no random words stillunexpiainecl, no images that were superfluous. The system was (,nclosed, complete, and flawless. Newton saw his 'methodising of prophecy' as an ideal scientific structure, ('xhiiJiting the greatest possible simplicity and harmony. His rul('s for interpreting the language ofprophery were a replica of those he insisted upon for interpreting the Book of Nature. With obvious sell: satisfaction he surveyed his results as a perfect embodiment of the same guiding principle in both natural philosophy and prophecy: 'To choose those constructions which without straining reduce things to the greatest simplicity.''' Newton was as certain of his method and results in the interpretation of the Apocalypse as he was in the Principia, and he uttered thinly veiled threats against those who might be rash enough to contradict him. In all likelihood their motive was not to understand prophecy hut to 'shuillc it of', to befuddle the minds of men and not to instruct them." Newton hurled a challmge: Hence if any man shall contend that my Constfllction of (he Apocalyps is uncertain, upon pretence that it may be possible to find out other ways, he is not to be regarded unless he shall show wherein what I have done may be mended. If the ways which he contends for be less natural or grounded upon weaker reasons, that very thing is demonstratiori enough that they are fals, and that he seeks not truth but the interest ofa party. And if the way which I have followed be according to the nature and genius of the Prophesy there needs no other demonstration to convince it. For as of an Engin madc by an excellent Artificer a man readily beleives that the parts arc right set together when he sees them joyn truly with one allot her notwithstanding that they may be strained into another posture; and as a man acquiesces in the meaning of an Author how intricate so ever whcn he sees the words construed or set in order according to the laws of Grammar, notwithstanding that there may be a possibility of forceing the words to some other harsher construction: so a man ought with equal reason to acquiesce in that construction of these Prophesies %1 Yahuda I\ts. " Ibid.

I. I,

rol. q.r. S('e Appendix A bc1ow, p.

120.

PROPHECY ANO HISTORY

99

when he sees their parts set in order according to their suitahleness and the characters imprinted in them for that purpose. Tis true that an Artificer may make an Engin capable of being with equal congruity set together more ways then one, alld that a sentence may be ambiguous: but this Oujectioll can have lIO place in the Apocalyps, hecaus God wllO knew how to frame it without ambiguity intended it lor a rule of lilith. 21

Newton's posthumously published OlJJervillivlIJ upon th~ Prophecies of Dallie!, and the Apocalypse of St. John stops short of predicting the future. In his later years Newton cautiously avoided the trap into which activist millenarians had stumbled in their attempt to fix precise dates. There is even a passage in which he attacked those given to prognostication, for while the books of prophecy were the history of things Lo come, they could be understood by mere mortals only after the events prophesied had actually occurred. But in private in his Cambridge days, a younger Newton had made many conjectures about the approximate time of the Second Coming of Christ, proposing terminal dates that depended on calculating when the reign of the papal Antichri,t had been initiated. One could then hegin to count off the crucial 1,260 years of Daniel's 'time times and half a time'. In his notes Newton was quite specific. The reign of Antichrist had started 'about the time of the invasion of the Barbarous nations and their erecting several! Kingdoms in the Roman Empire, and had wee nothing more then this it were sufficient to ground an expectation that the prevalency yet to come of Popery cannot continue long; it being certain that 1200 of the 1260 years are run out already'.H There are other manuscripts writtt>n during his Cambridge years in which Newton did not hesitate to indulge in broad speculations about what the millennium and the kingdom of heaven would be like when they were finally inaugurated. His eschatology is set forth with a magnificent prolilsion of pictorial detail in one long section of a Jerusalem manuscript entitled 'The end of the world day of judgment and world to come', which I have tentatively dated to the IG805. It is 23 Yahuda MS. I. ., fols. q.r, " Yahuua MS. "3, j(,l. 6'.

I~{.

Set! Appendix A below, p.

121.

100


clearly finished copy, of which there are parallel, perhaps earlier, drafts in the usual truncated state. This extensive text-and I do not pretend to cover its many controversial assertions that polemize with Henry More by implication, though his name is not mentioned-proves beyond question that Newton's world-view in the decade when the Principia was composed admitted of a far greater diversity of beings than those recognized by positivist physical scientists and nineteenth-century Unitarians. Newton envisaged the coexistence during thc millennium of beings of different natures, some mortal, others spiritual and invisible, the children of thc resurrection-a condition no stranger, he said, than what obtained in the present everyday world. On the mode of their converse he was quitc specific. But you will say how then comes it to pass that in the thousand years there are Mortals on earth? ... Doth the earth last after the day of judgment, and do mortals live on it, and do the Sons of the resurrection live among them like other men and reign over them in the beloved city? I answer that its true the beloved city is a city of mortals, a'nd I say further that the glorious description of the new J('rusalem under the types of pretia us stones and pearles is a commentary upon this City .... But to conceive that the children of the resurrection shall live among other men and converse with them daily as Mortals do with one another, and reign over them after the way of temporal kingdoms is very absurd and foolish. Do :Men convers with Beasts and Fishes, or Angels with men ?25

It would surely not be beyond the power of God in the millennium to create beings who made only occasional epiphanies to men. The bodies of the 'children of the resurrection' would be like Christ's, visible only at times. 'Such as is his body, such shall ours be', wrote Newton, with morc than a touch of self-assurance that he would be among those 'children of the resurrection'.26 The spirits of just men would be made perfect, and for them the ncw Jerusalem signified " Yahuda MS. 9.2, fol. 138'; Yahuda MS. 6, fols. 12'-19', 'Of the Day of Judgment and \YorJd to come', which appears as Appendix II below, pp. I~636, presents an alternath'c version, in rnor(" compact form, of some of the ideas expr<>sed in Yahuda MS. 9. 2. fols. 123'-170'. ,6 Yahuda MS. 9. 2, fol. 138'.

PROPHECY AN!) HISTOf{\'

101

not only a 'local city on earth' but 'the whole assembly of Christ and his Angels with the Saints raised from the dead and reigning with him in heaven'.n And where would the heavenly city be situated? Newton alternates sceptical ignorance with untrammclled flights of imagination. If you ask where this heavenly city is, I answer, I do not kllow. It becomes not a blind mall to talk of colours fa metaphor, repeated in the General Scholium, to suggest the limitations of human knowledge]. Further then I am informed by Ihe prophesies I know nothing. But this I say that as fishes in water ascend and descend, move whether they will and rest where they will, so may Angels and Christ and the Children of the resurrection do in the air and heavens. 'Tis not the place but the stale which makes heaven and happiness. For God is alike in all places, He is substantially omnipresent, and as much present ill the lowest Hell as in the highest heaven, bUl the enjoyment of his hlessings rnay be various according to the variety of places, and according to this variety he is said to be more in one place less in another, and where he is most enjoyed and most obeyed, there is heaven and his Tabernacle and Kingdom in the language of the Prophets. \Ve usually conceive it 10 be above. Z8

In this manuscript Newton gave expression to a theology of glory in effusive language. There was genuine, almost rhapsodic, wonderment at the complex and infinite powers of the Creator. As all regions below arc replenished wilh living creatures, (not only the Earth with Beasts, and Sea with Fishes anel the air with Fowls ancl Insects, but also standing waters, vineger, the hodies and blood of Animals and other juices with innllnlerablc living neatures too small to be seen without the help of magniJ)'ilLg Glasses) so may the heavens above he replenisht'd with beings whose nature we do not understand. He tltat shall wdl consider the strange and wonderful nature ofiili: and the frame of Animals, will think nothing beyond the possibility of nature, nothing too hard for the olllnipotent power of God. And as the Planets remain in their orhs, so may any other bodies subsist at any distance from the earth, and much more may beings, WllO have a sufficient power of self motion, move whether they will, place Z7

Ibid., fol. 139'.

" Ibid.

102


themselves where they will, and continue in any regions of the heavens whatever, there to enjoy the society of one another, and by their messengers or Angels to rule the earth and convers with the remotest regions. Thus may the whole heavens or any part thereof whatever be the habitation of the Blessed, and at the same time the earth be subject to their dominion. And to have thus the liberty and dominion of the whole heavens and the choice of the happiest places for abode seems a greater happiness then to be confined to anyone place whatever.'.

This from a man who virtually never in his life ventured beyond the Woolsthorpe, Cambridge, London triangle! In such passages Newton successfully communicates his sense of the presence of invisible things and his awed amazement at the plenitude of the creation. His universe is a plenum of spiritual beings, and this may help to account for his opposition to the idea of a material plenum. The man of the melancholy countenance, as Henry J\fore described him, seemed to fancy himself soaring through the heavens. The prospect of moving through vast spaces did not terrify him-~ they would be filled with a happy throng of saintly companions, as in many a Church Father's description of paradise. And as a child of the resurrection he would not be wholly cut off from mortal men, but through the angels would rule over them and remain in relationship even with the furthermost extremities of the universe. Having said all this, Newton issued a kind of disclaimer: 'But the truth and manner of these things we shall not understand before the resurrection. I only speak of the possibility.' 30 Newton feigned no hypotheses and he never wove fanciesthat was the official stance. And he had a way of holding himself aloof from his own visions and even partially retracting them. The dream of beatitude was only a possibility, he cautioned. Alas, in the manuscripts of his late London period I find no poetic transports. When the ageing Newton was an administrator of British science and Master of the Royal Mint, he copied and edited and abstracted and emended his apocalyptic interpretations of earlier years, until they turned into an arid chronicle of political and ecclesiasti" Yahuda MS. g. 2, fol. '40'.

J. Ibid.


cal events. The fonts of creativity had dried up in science and in religion. Newton's statement offundamental religious principles, his interpretation of prophecy, his textual criticism of the historical works of Scripture, his system of world chronology, his cosmological theories, and his euhemeristic reduction of pagan mythology all bespeak the same mentality and style of thought. If nature was consonant with itself; so was Isaac Newton's mind. At the height of his powers there was ill him a compelling drive to find order and design in what appeared to be chaos, to distil from a vast, inchoate mass of materials a few basic principles that would embrace the whole and define the relationships of its component parts. Newton could not rest content with merely contemplating the sheer variety and multiplicity of historical events, any more than he could a world of disparate observations about nature. In whatever direction he turned, he was scare hing lor a unifying structure. He tried to force everything in the heavens and on earth into a grandiose but tight frame from which the most minuscule detail could not escape. All of Newton's studies were animated by one overwhelming desire, to know God's will through His works in the world. For myself, I have come to believe that the fervour of Newton's quest for a knowledge of God was related, as I proposed at the beginning of these lectures, to a psychic quest for his own father. Such assertions are not demonstrable in accordance with the accepted canons of historical evidence. But perhaps the canons themselves now stand in need of some revision. In attempting to recapture a past religions experience, either we have to be npr.n to psychological analogies and covert meanings, or else we must rl'strict ourselves to mere descriptions of religious conduct alJd the analysis of rationalist theological argumcnts in written expositions-in which event an inquiry into the religion of Isaac Newton would be an impoverished exercise indeed. In concluding these lectures I would like to revcrt once more to Newton's religious credo. In a fragment bmied away in his church history, he proclaimed his submission to the Father. It is not highly original in its thonght or in its

.04


expression of religious emotion; but as a confession of personal faith it has a simple authenticity. We must beleive that there is one God or supreme Monarch that we may fear and obey him and keep his Jaws and give him honour and glory. We must beleive that he is the father of whom are all things, and that he loves his people as his children that they may mutually love him and obey him as their father. We must beleivc that he is 1TaVTOKpaTWp Lord of all things with an irresistible and boundless power and dominion that we may not hope to escape if we rebell and set up other Gods or transgress the laws of his monarchy, and that we may expect great rewards if we do his will. We must beleive that he is the God of the Jews who created the heaven and earth all things therein as is exprest in the ten commandments that we may thank him for our being and for all the blessings of this life, and forbear to take his name in vain or worship images or other Gods. ''Ie are not forbidden to give the name of Gods to Angels and Kings, but we are forbidden to have them as Gods in our worship. For tho there be that are called God whether in heaven or in earth (as there are Gods many and Lords many) yet to us there is but one God the father of whom are all things and we in him and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all things and we by him: that is, but one God and one Lord in our worship.3' ,. Yahuda MS. 15.3, fol. 4&".

APPENDIXES

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

APPENDIX A

Fragments from a Treatise on Revelation These three consecutive fragm~nts are part of a 550-page lllanuscript

described in the Sotheby Catalogue under lot 227. Its present signature is Yahuda MS. I, and it consists of eight bundles. This trealise is related to Keynes MS. 5 and Yahuda MS. g. The introduction, which bears no title, is followed by 'Rules for interpreting the words and language in construing

Scripture' and 'Rules for methodising the Apocalyps'. The fragments cover folios 1-19 of the first hundle; folio numbers out of sequence indicate insertions by Newton on the verso or in the rnargins. The lext on folio roT breaks off abruptly, and folio I I is wanting.

(IT) Having searched ([and by the grace of God obtdned) after knowledg in the prophctiquc scriptures, I have thought Illy self bound to communicate it for the benefit of others, remembring the judgment of him who hid his talent in a napkin. For I am perswaded that this will prove of great benefit to those who think it not enough for a sincere Christian to sit down contented with the principles of the doctrin of Christ such as the Apostd aCCOlIIlIs the doctrin of Baptisms and oflaying on of hands and of the resurrection of the dead and of eternall judgmcnt, but leaving these and the like principles desire to go on unto perfection until they become offul! age and by reason of use have their seIlSes exercised to discern both good and evil. Hebr 5. 12 I would not have any discouraged by the dilliculty and ill success that men have hitherto met with in these attempts. This is nothing but what ought to have been. For it was revealed to Daniel that the prophecies concerning the last tillles should be closed up and sealed until! the time of the end: but then the wise should understand, and knowledg should be increased. Dan 12. 4, 9, 10. And therefore the longer they have continued in obscurity, the more hopes there is that the time is at hand in which they arc to be made manifest. If they are never to be understood, to what end did God reveale them? Certainly he did it I'lr the edification of the church; and if so, then it is as certain that the church shall at length attain to the understanding thereof: I

108

APPENDIX A

mean not all that call themselves Christians, but a remnant, a few scattered persons which God hath chosen, such as without being (blinded) led by interest, education, or humane authorities, can set themselves sincerely and earnestly to search after truth. For as Daniel hath said that the wise shall understand, so he hath said also that none of the wicked shall understand. Let me therefore beg of thee not to trust to the opinion of any man concerning these things, tor so it is great odds but thou shalt be deceived. l'vIllch less oughtest thou to (keep to) rely upon (2<) the judgment of the multitude, tor so thou shalt certainly be deceived. But search the scriptures thy self and that by frequent reading and constant meditation upon what thou readest, and earnest prayer to God to enlighten thine understanding if thou desirest to find the truth. Which if thou shalt at length attain thou wilt value above all other treasures in the world by reason of the assurance and vigour it will add to thy faith, and steddy satisfaction to thy mind which he onely can know how to estimate who shall experience it. That the benefit which may acerew by (the) understanding the sacred Prophesies and the danger by neglecting them is very great and that the obligation to study them is as great may appear by considering the like Case of the Jews at the coming of Christ. For the rules whereby they were to know their 1vlessiah were the prophesies of the old Testament. And these our Saviour recommended to their consideration in the very beginning of his preaching Luke 4.21: And afterward commanded the study of them for that end saying, Search the scriptures for in them ye think ye have eternall life, and these are they which testify of mee: And at another time severely reproved their ignorance herein, saying to them when they required a sign, Ye Hypocrites {can) ye can discern the face of the sky but can ye not discern the signes of the times And after his resurrection he reproved also this ignorance in his disciples, saying unto them, 0 fools and slow of heart to beleive all that the Prophets have spoken! Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory? And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. Thus also the Apostles and those who in the first ages propagated the gospel urged chiefly these Prophesies and exhorted their hearers to search and see whether all things concerning our Saviour ought not to have been as they fell out. And in a word it was the ignorance of the Jews in these Prophesies which caused

APPENDIX A

109

them to reject their :Messiah and by consequence to be not onely captivated by the Roman, but to incur etemall damnation. Luke 19· 4 2 , 44· I[ then the Prophesies which concerned the Apmtolique age were given for the conversion of the men of that age to the truth and for the establishment of their faith, and if it was their duty to search diligently into those Prophecies: why should we not think that the Prophesies which concern the latter times into which we (3') are fallen were in like manner intended for our use that in the midst of Apostacies we might be able to discern the truth and be established in the faith thereof: and consequently that it is also our duty to search with all diligence into these Prophesies. And if God was so angry with the Jews for not searchiug IlIore diligently into the Prophesies which he had given them to know Christ by: why should we think he will excuse us for not searching into the Prophesies which he hath given us to know Antichrist by? For certainly it must be as dangerous alld as easy an error for Christians to adhere to Antichrist as it was f(Jr the .I ews to reject Christ. And therefore it is as much our duty to indeavour to (know him as) be able to know him lhat we Illay avoyd him, as it was theirs to kllow Christ that they might fi)llow him. Thou seest therelore that this is no idle speculation, no matter of indiHerency but a duty of the greatest moment. \Vlu.'re!'ll·e it concerns thee to look about thee narrowly least thou ,houldest in so degenerate an age be dangerously seduced and not know it. Antichrist was to seduce the whole Christian world and therefore he may easily seduce thee if thou beest not well prepared to discern him. But if he should not be yet come into the world yet amidst so many religions of which there call be but one true and perhaps none of those that thou art acquainted with it is great odds but thou mayst be deceived and therefure it concerns thee to be very circumspect. (2v) Consider how our Saviour taught theJcws in Parables that in hearing they might hear and not understand and in seeing they might see and not perceive. And as these Parables wcre spoken to try the Jews so the mystical! scriptures were written to try us. Therefore beware that thou be not found wanting in this tryall. For if thou beest, the obscurity of these scriptures will as little excuse thee as the obscurity of our Saviours Parables excused the Jews. Consider also the instructions of our Saviour concerning these latter times by the Parable of the Fig-tree. Now leam a parable

110

APPENDIX A

of the Figtree, sailh he: When his branch is yet tender and putteth forth leaves, ye know that Summer is nigh. So likewise (when) ye when ye see these things know that it is nea,' even at the doors.Watch therefore for ye know not what hower your Lord doth come. \Vhercfore it is (4') thy duty to learn the signes of the times that thou mayst know how to watch, and be able to discern what times are coming on the earth by the things that arc already past. If thou doest watch thou mayst know when it is at the door as a man knows (thai) hy the leaves of a figlree that Somer is nigh. But if through ignorance of the signes thou shalt say in thine heart My Lord delayeth his coming; And shalt begin to smite thy fellow servants and to eat and drink with the drunken: Thy Lord will come in a day when thou lookest not for him and in an hower that thou art not aware of, and cut thee asunder and appoint thy portion with the Hypocrites, and there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth. :Matt 24. If thou doest not watch, how canst thou escape more then other men, For as a snare shall it come (up) on all them that dwell upon the face of the whole earth. Luke 21. (3 v ) Consider that the same Proplwts who foretold our saviours first coming foretold also his second coming; and if it was the main and indispensable duty of the Church before the first corning of Christ to have searched into and understood those prophesies aforehand, why should it not be as much the duty of the church before his second coming to understand the same prophesies aforehand so far as they are yet to be fulfilled? Or how knowest thou that the christian church if they continue to neglect, shall not be punished even in this world as severely as ever were the Jews? Yea will not the Jews rise up in judgment against us? For they had some regard to these prophesies insomuch as to be in generall expectation of our Saviour about that time when he came, onely they were not aware of the manner of his two comings; (and were mistake) they understood the description of his second coming, and onely were mistaken in applying that to· the time of his first coming, Considcr thcrefore, if the description of his second coming was so much marc plain and perspicuous then that of the first, that the Jews who could not so much as perceive any thing of the first could yet understand the second, how shall we escape who understand nothing of the second but have turned the whole description of it into Allegories. And if the Jews were so severely punished for not understanding the (first) more difficult Prophesy, what can we plead who know

APPENDIX A

III

nothing of the more perspicuous; and yet have Ihis advanlage above Ihem that the Jirst which is a key to the second and was hidden from them is made manifest to us, and that we have the second also much further explained in the new Te,tament. (4') (Consider how also) Again consider how the Apostc1s instructed the Churches of the Jirst age in the knowledg of these latter times 2 Thes 2. 5. And if it was the d,lty of those Christians to understand them which were not to live in them, shall we think that the knowledg thereof is of uo concernment to us. (Again) Consider also the designe of the Apocalypse. Was it not givcn for the usc of the Church to guide ami direct her in the right way, And is not this the end of all prophetick Snipture! It' there was no need of it, or if jt cannot be understood, thell why did Cod give it? (But jf was ne) Docs he trille? BlIt if it was necessary for the Church then why doest thou neglect it, or how knowest thou that thou art ill the right way, and yet doest not understand it? (3 v ) ('l'bis was the principal GIUS of tbe rdormations which have hitherto been made li'oJll the Roman errors first by \Valdenses and Albigenses and thell by Ihe l'rol~staU[s, and therefore \ve have reason to LJeleive that God i()H"Seeillg ho\v much the Church would want a guide in tltese Jatter agn designed this Prophesy lor Ihis end and by COnsC'IUeIlCt: 1I't: llIay expect (hat hc hath sOllie further counsel to be brought auout by the fuller manifestation of it.) (4') Lastly consider the Blessing which is promised to them that read and study and keep the things which are written in (5') this Prophesy. Blessed is he that readeth and Ihey that hear (he words of this Prophesy and keep the things (I hal! which are written therein, for (he time is at hand, Rev. t. 3. Alld again to reinforce the invilalion (0 lake Ihese (hings into consideration, (he same Blessing is repeated in Ch 22. 7 And does God ever annex Itis ulessings (0 trifles or things of inditlerency! Where/()fc be not overwise in thine own conceipt, bUl as Iholl desirest IU inherit this blessing consider and search into Ihese Scriptures which Cod hath given to ue a guide in Ihese latter times, and be not discouraged by (lte gainsaying which these lhings will meet with in tlte world .. [They will call thee it may be a (hot-headed I"llow) a Bigol, a Fanatique, a IIeretique etc: And tell thee of the uncertainty of these interpretations, and vanity of attending to them: Not considering that the prophesies concerning our Saviour's first

112

APPENDIX A

coming were of more difficult interpretation, and yet God rejected the Jews for not attending better to them. And whither they will beleive it or not, there are greater judgments hang over the Christians for their remissness then ever the Jews yet felt. But the world loves to be deceived, they will not understand, they never consider equally, but are wholly led by prejudice, interest, the prais of men, and authority of the Church they live in: as is plain becaus all parties keep close to the Religion they have been brought up in, and yet in all parties ther" are wise and learned as well as fools amI ignorant. There arc but few that seek to understand the religion they profess, and those that study lor understanding therein, do it rather for worldly ends, or that they may defend it, then (for world I) to examin whither it be true with a resolution to choose and profess that religion which in their judgment appears the truest. And as is their faith so is their (fi') practise. For where arc the men that do never yeild to anger nor seek revenge, nor disobey governours, nor censure and speak evil of them, nor cheat, nor lye, nor swear, nor use God's name idly in their common talk, nor are proud nor ambitious nor covetous, nor unchast, nor drink immoderately? "Vhere are they that live like the primitive Christians, that love God with all their hearts and with all their souls and with all their might, and their neighbour as their selves; and that in what they do well are not rather led by fashions and principles of Gentility then religion, and where those disagree do not account it rudeness to depart from the former? I feare there are but very few whose righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees. This is the guise of the world, and therefore trust it not, nor value their censures and contempt. But rather consider that it is the wisdom of Cod that his Church should appear despicable to the world to try the faithful!. For this end he made it a curs under Law to hang upon a tree that the scandal of the Cross might be a tryall to the Jews; and for the like Tryall of the Christians he hath suffered the Apostacy of the latter times, as is declared in calling it the hower of temptation whic.h should come upon all the world to try them that dwell upon the earth Rev 3. 10. Be not therefore scandalised at the reproaches of the world but rather looke upon them as a mark of the true church. And when thou art convinced be not ashamed to profess the truth. For otherwise thou mayst become a stumbling block to others, and inherit the lot of those Rulers of the Jews who beleived in Christ but yet were afraid to confess him least they

APPENDIX A

should be put out of the Synagogue.' 'Wherefore when thou art convinced be not ashamed of the truth but proless it openly and indeavour to convince thy Brother also that thou mayst inherit at the resurrection the promis made in Daniel 12. 3, that they who turn many to righteousness shall shine as the starrs ff)r ever and ever. And rejoyce if thou art counted worthy to suffer in thy reputation or any other way lor the sake (7') uf the Gospel, /"r then great is thy reward. But yet I would not have thee too forward ill becOlllillg a teacher, like those men who catch at a Jew similitudes and scripture phrases, and for want of further knowledg make use of them to censure and reproach superiours and rail at all things that displeas them. Be not heady like them, hut first he throughly instructed thy seJfand that not only in the prophetique Scripmres but more especially in the plain doctrines delivered therein so as to put them in practice and make them familiar and habitual! to thy self. And when thou hast thus pulled out the bealll out of thine own eye then shalt thou see clearly to pull OUl the mote Ollt of thy Brothers eye. Otherwise how wilt thou say to lhy Brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye and bt"hold a bealll is in thine own eye. Some I know will be offended that I propound these things so earnestly to all men as if they were fit onely I',r the contemplation of the learned. But they should consider thal God wito be~l knows the capacities of men does hide his mysteries li'om the wise and prudent of this world and reveal them unto bahes. They were not the Scribes and Pharisees but the inferiour people who beleived on Christ and apprehended the true meaning of his Parables and of the Prophesies in the old Testament concerning him. The wise men of the world are often too much prepossesl with their owu imaginations and too much intangled in designes I"l' this liJe. One has bought a piece of ground, another has buught five yoke of Oxen, a third has Married a wife, and therefore sillce they are for the most part otherwise ingaged it was tit that the (halt and) poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind and those that are in the high ways and hedges should be also iuvited. (And) God who intended this Prophecy chielly lor their sakes is able to fit their understanding to it. And it is the gift of Cod and not of human wisdom so to understand it as to beleive it. Tis true that without a guide it would be very difficult not onely for them but even for the most learned to understand it I

'see Ezek. 3.18' added in margin of MS.

"4

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right But if the interpretation be done to their hands, I know not why by the help of such a guide they may not by attentive and often reading (8') be capable of (judgi) understanding and judging of it as well as men of greater education. And such a guide I hope this Book will prove: especially if the judgment of the Reader be prepared by considering well the following Rules for inabling him to know when an interpretation is genuine and of two interpreta tions which is the Best. It was the judiciously learned and conscientious Mr Mede who first made way into these interpretations, and him I have for the most part followed. For what I found true in him it was not lawful for me to recede from, and I rather wonder that he erred so little then that he erred in some things. His mistakes wcre chiefly in his Clavis, and had that been perfect, the rest would have fallen in naturally. ''''hence may be guessed the great uncertainty of others who without any such previous methodising of the Apocalyps have immediately fallen upon giving interpretations. For so by taking the liberty to twist the parts orthe Prophesy out of their natural order according to their pleasure without (observing whe) having regard to the internall characters whereby they were first to be connected, it might be no very difficult matter amongst the great variety of things in the worId to apply them more ways then one to such as should have some show of an interpretation. And yet all that I have seen besides the labours of Mr l\,fede have been so botched and framed without any due proportion, that I (could heartily wish those Authors) fear some of those Authors did not so much as beleive their own interpretations, which makes me wish that they had been moved to more caution by considering the curs that is annexed to the end of this Prophesy. I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the Prophesy of this book; If any man shall add unto these things God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book. And if any man shall take away from (9') the words of the book of this Prophesy, God shall take away his part out of the book of lifC, and out of the holy city and from the things which arc written in this book. For to frame fals interpretations is to prejudice men and divert them from the right understanding of this book. And this is a corruption equipollent to the adding or taking from it, since it equally deprives men of the use and benefit thereof. But yet I hope they did it neither out of the vanity of appearing somebody

APPENDIX A

in the world, nor out of designe to promote the external! splendor and felicity of Churches rather then the internall purity which is of infinitely more value, nor out of any other telllporal ends, but with an upright heart that God may not lay it to their charge. Yet I could wish that those who make all to be long since pa,t, even in the Apostels age, had considered that when according to them this Prophesy should have been use/ull to the Church, their interpretations were not so much as thought upon. All sacred Prophecies are given for the use of the Church, and therefore they are all to be understood by the Church ill those ages f,)r whose use God intended them. But these prophesies were never understood by the Church in the former ages. They did not so much as pretend to understand them, nor thought that they concerned their times, but with Olle universall comelll delivered down to posterity the famous Tradition of the Antichri,t described therein to come in the latter ages. And therefore since they were never yet understood, and God cannot be disappointed, we must acknowledg that they were written and shall prove j()r the benefit of the present and future ages, and so arc not yet fllifilled. Wherefore let men be carefull how they indcavour lo divert or hinder the use of these scriptures, least they be fOlllld to fight against God. Considering therefore the great concernment of these scriptures and danger of erring in their interpretation, (10') it concerns us to proceed with all circumspection. And for that end I shall (propound to myself) make use of this Method. First I shall lay down certain (Rules) general Rules of Interpretation, the consideration of which may prepare the judgment of the Reader and inable him to know whell an inlerpretatioll is genuine and of two interpretations which is the best. Secondly, To prepare the Reader also for understanding the Prophetique language I shall lay down a short description thereof, showing how it is borrowed from comparing a kingdom either to the Univers or to a Ileast: So that by the resemblance of their parts the signification of the figurative words and expressions in these Prophecies may be apprehended at one view and limited from the grownd thereof. By which means the Language of the Prophets will (appear) become certain and the liberty of wresting it to private imaginations be CUl of. The heads to which I reduce these words I call Definitions. Thirdly, These things being premised, I compare the pts of the Apocalyps one with another and digest them into order by those

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internal characters which the Holy-ghost hath for this end imprest upon them. And this I do by drawing (them) up the substance of the Prophesy into Propositions, and subjoyning the reasons for the truth of every Proposition. And here I cannot but loudly proclaim the admirable and more then humane wisdom that shines in the contexture of this Prophesy and its accurate WllSent with all other prophesies of the old and new Tcstament. Fourthly,

(12') Rules for interpreting the words and language in Scripture. I. To observe diligently the consent of Scriptures and analogy of the prophetique stile, and to reject those interpretations where this is not dudy observed. Thus if any man interpret a Beast to signify some great vice, this is to he rejected as his private imagination becaus according to the stile and tenour of the Apocalyps and of all other Prophetique scriptures a Beast signifies a (kingdom) body politique and sometimes a single person which heads that hody, and there is no ground in scripture for any other interpretation. (excepting that it is sometimes spoken of a single person) 2. To assigne but on!' meaning to one place of scripture, un unles it be by way orconjecture. (For a man cannot be obliged to beleive more meanings of a place then one. If the place be intended litterally he is not obliged to beleive any mystical! sense, but if mystically, he is not obliged to beleive the litterall sense. And if two meanings seem equally probable he is obliged to beleive no more then in general that olle of them is genuine untill he meet with some motive to prefer one side. Yet this rule is not so to he understood but that the same thing may have divers meanings but then each meaning is to be collected from a different «place» passage or circumstance of Scripture. As when of any thing done under the Law we collect the literalltruth «from» out orthe old Testament and a mystical meaning «from» out of the new: Or understand the heads of the Beast both of mountains and. Kings out of Rev 17. 9, 10. Or consider the number of the Beast as it is the number of his name Rev 13.17, as it is apposite to the number of the churches Rev 7.4 and 21.17 and as it is the type of some iniquity Rev 19.2.) (12v) (as where) unless it be perhaps by way of conjecture, or where the literal sense is designed to hide the more noble mystical

APPENDIX A

sense as a ,hell the kernel (unlill such time) frolll being lasted either by unworthy persons, or ulltill such lime as God shalllhillk fit. III this case there may be for a blind, a true literal sensc, even such as in its way may be beneficial to the church. Hut wben we have the principal meaning: If it be mystical we can insist 011 a true literal sense no farther then by bistory or arguments drawn Irom circumstances it appears to be true: ifliteral, though there may be abo a by mystical sense yet we (cannot scarce be) can ,carce be sure there is one without (divine authority li,r it, and> some further arguments for it then a bare analogy. :tvfuch 1lI0re are we to be cautious in giving a double (literal 01' a duuble> mystical sense. There may be a double one, as where the head, uf the Beast signify both mountains and Kings Apoc 17. 9, 10. (Or in the number) But without divine authority or at Iea~l ,ome further argument then the analogy and resemblance and ,imilitude of things, we (can be sure of) cannot be sure lhat the Prophesy look, more ways then one. Too much liberty ill this kind savours of a luxuriant ungovernable fansy and borders OIl enthusiasm. (12') 3. To keep as close as may be to the same sense of words, especially in the same visiun, (2 unless where the propriety of the language or other circumstances plainly require a dillcrent signification in divers places scripture it ,elf declares that there is a double meaning I) and to (reject) prefer those interpretations where this is (not) uest observed. (12v) 3. To keep as close as may be to the same sense of words especially in the same Vision and to (neglect) prefer those interpretations where this i, IIlO:H not (duely) observed unles (the propriety of the language; any circumstance plainly require a dim'rent signification. (12') Thus if a man interpret the Beast to signify a Kingdom in one semenee and a vice in another when there is nothing in the text that doe, argue any change of (signification,) sense, this is to he rejected as (a patch and) no genuine interpretation. So if a man in [he sam .. or contemporary visions where the earth and sea or the earth and waters stand related to one another shall interpret the earth to signify sometimes the dition of a Kingdom as in the firsl Trumpet in chap 12 where the Dragon came down to the inhauitants of the earth and sea, sometimes councils as where the Earth helped the woman, and sometimes onely a low estate as where (the Dragon was cast into the earth or the two hornd Beast rose up out of earth) the Dragon was cast into the earth or the two hornd Beast rose out of the earth this wavering is not readily to be

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acquiesced in but such an interpretation to be (sought) indeavoured after as retains the same signification of Earth in all cases. (12v) So in the vision of the whore chap 17 and 18, to take the Kings of the earth (chap 17. 18) over which the woman or great city reigned chap 17. 18 for any other then the kings of the earth which committed fornication with her eh 17.2 and 18. 3, 9 and lamented her fall ch 18. 9, 10 that is for any other then the 10 kings or horns (who gave their Kingdom to the Beast) of the Beast she reigned over, is not congruous. (12') So in the vision of the whore chap. 17 and 18 to take Kings of the Earth in (chap) one sence chap 17.2 and ch 18.3,9 and in another ch 17. 18 is is not harmonius. 4. To (prefer) chose those interpretations which are most according to the lilterall meaning of the scriptures unles where the tenour and circumstances of the place plainly require an Allegory. Thus if the wound by a sword should be interpreted of a spirituall wound, or if the bath:l at the seventh Trumpet and vial exprest by the concours of Armies, and by a hail-storm with other meteors should be in interpreted of a spiritual Battel; since there is nothing in the text to countenance such an interpretation it ought to be rejected as a phantasy, wht're note that the usuall signification of a prophetic figure is in the application of this Rule to be accounted equipullent to the litterall meaning of (12v) a word when ever it appears that the Prophets speak in their figurative language. As if they describe the overthrow of nations by a tempest of Hail, thunder, lightning and shaking of the world, the usuall signification of this figure is to be e~teemed the proper and direct sense of the place as much as ifit had been the litterall meaning, this being a language as common amongst them as any national language is amongst the people of that nation. (12') 5. To acquiesce in that sense of any portion of Scripture (13') as the true one which results most freely and naturally from the use and propriety of the Language and tenor of the context in that and all other places of Scripture to that sense. For if this be not the true sense, then is the true sense uncertain, and no man can attain to any certainty in the knowledg of it. Which is to make the scriptures no certainrule of faith, and so to reflect upon the spirit of God who dictated it. He that without better grounds then his private opinion or the opinion of any human authority whatsoever shall turn scripture from the plain meaning to an Allegory or to any other less naturall sense declares thereby that he reposes more trust in his

APPENDIX A

"9

own imaginations or in that human authority theu in the Scripture (and by consequence that he is no true beleever). And therefore the opinion of such men how numerous soever they he, is not to be regarded. Hence is it and not from any real! uncertainty in the Scripture that Commentators have so distorted it; And this hath been the the door through which all Heresies have crept in and turned out the ancient faith. conslruing

Rules for melhodising the Apocalyps. (12v) Rule 5B. To prefer those interpretations which, caeteri, paribus, are of the most considerable things. For it was Gods designe in these prophesies to typefy and describe not triUes but the most considerable things in the wold during the tillie, time of the Prophesies. Thus were the question put whether the three froggs, the head or horn of any Beast, the (13 v ) whore of Babylon, the woman Jezabel, the Fals Prophet, the Prophet Balaam, the King Dalac, the martyr Antipas, the two witnesses, the woman c10athed with the Sun, the jVranchild her Son, the Eagle proclaiming "Vo and the like were to be interpreted ofsingle persous or of Kingdoms Churches and other great bodies of men: I should by this Rule (also) prefer the latter, unless perhaps in auy case the single person propounded might be of more nOle and moment then the whole body of men he stands in compelition with, or some other material circumstance might make mure lur a single person then a multitude. (13 r ) 6. To make the (visions and) parts of (the same) a vision succeed one another according to the order of the narration without any breach or interfering unless when there are Illanikst indications of such a breach or interfering. For if the order (of visions and) of (their) its parts might be (inter) varied or interrupted at pleasure, (they) it would be of no certain interpretation, which is to elude (them) it and make (them) it no prophcsie bllt an ambiguitie like those of the heathen Oracles. 7. In collaterall visions to adjust the most notable parts and periods to one another: And if they be not throughout (equ) collaterall, to make the beginning or end of one vision filII in with some notable period of tbe other. For the visions are duely proportioned to the actions and changes of the times which they respect by the following Rule and therefore they are duely proportioned to one another. <)lJ But yet this Rule is not over strictly to be adhered to when the visions respect divers kingdoms or one

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vision respects the Church and another the state. CD (because there may be remarkable revolutions in) An instance of this you have in suiting the Dragon to all the seals the Beast to all the Trumpets and the Whore to the 'Vo Trumpets. 8. To (prefer) choose those (interpretations) constructions which without straining reduce contemporary visions to the greatest harmony of their parts. I mean not only in their proportions as in the precedent rule, but also in their other qualities, and principally so as to make them respcct the same actions. 1'01' the design of collate-rail visions is to be a key to one another and therefore the' way to unlock thelll without straining must be by fitting one to the other with all diligence and curiosity. This is true opening scripture by scripture. All instance of this you have in the comparison of the Dragon's history with the seales and Trumpets in Prop , and of the Tl"llmpets with the (seals) etc. Vials, in Prop (14') 9. To (prefer) choose those (interpretations) constructions which without straining reduce things to the greatest simplicity. The reason of this is manifi'st by the precedent Rule. Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things. As the world, which to the naked eye exhibits the greatest variety of objects, "ppears very simple in its intel'llall constitution when surveyed by a philosophic understanding, and so much the simpler by how much the better it is understood, so it is in these visions. I t is the perfection of (all) God's works that they are al! done with the greatest simplicity. He is the God of order and not of confusion. And therefore as they that would understand the frame of the world must indeavour to reduce their knowledg to all possible simplicity, so it must be in seeking to understand these visions. And they that shall do otherwise do not oncly make sure never to understand them, but derogate from the perfection of the prophecy; and (declare) make it suspicious also that their designe is not to understand it but to shuffle it of and confound th" ,understandings of men by making it intricate and confused. 10. In construing the Apocalyps to have little or no regard to arguments drawn from events of things; (For there) Becaus there can scarce be any certainty in historicall interpretations (un till) unless the construction be first determined. II. To acquiesce in that construction of the Apocalyps as the true one which results most naturally and freely from the characters imprinted by the holy ghost on the several! parts thereof for

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121

insinuating their connexion, and from the observation of the precedent rules. The reason of this is the same with that of the fift rule. Hence if any man shall contend that my Construction of the Apocalyps is uncertain, upon pretence that it may be possible to find out other ways, he is not to be regarded ulliess he shall show wherein what I have done may be mended. If the ways (15') which he contends for be less natnral or grounded upon weaker reasons, that very thing is demonstration enough that they are fal., and that he seeks not (after) truth but (labours for) the interest of a party. And if the way which I have followed be according to the nature and genius of the Prophesy there needs no other demonstration to convince it. For as of an Engin made by an excellent Artificer (every) a man readily beleives that the pans are right set together when he sees them joyn truly with one another notwithstanding that they may be strained into another posture; and as (every) a man (readily) acquiesces in the meaning of an Author how intricate so ever when he sees the words construed or set in (the) ordcr according to the laws of Grammar, notwithstanding that (the words may possihly be forceing) there may he a possibility of forceing the words to some other harsher construction: so a man ought with equal (construction) reason to acquie.sce in that construction of these Prophesies when he sees their parts sct in order according to their suitableness and the characters imprinted in them for that purpose. Tis true that an Artificer may make an Engin capable of being with equal congruity sct together more ways then one, and that a sentence may be ambiguous: but this Objection can have no place in the Apocalyps, becaus God who knew how to frame it without ambiguity intended it for a rule of faith. But it is needless to urge with this general reasoning the Construction which I have composed, since the reasons wherewith I have there proved every particular are of that evidence that they cannot but move the assent of any humble and indifferent person that shall with sufficient attention peruse them and cordially beJeives the scriptures. Yet I would not have this so understood as to hinder the further search of other persons. I suspect there are still more mysteries to be discovered. And as Mr Mede layed the foundation and I have built upou it: so I hope others will proceed higher untill the work be finished.

'2'

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Rules for interpreting the Apocalyps. The Construction of the Apocalyps after it is once determined (16 r ) must be made the rule of interpretations; And all interpretations rejected which agree not with it. That must not be strained to fit history but such things chosen out of history as . are most suitable to that. 13. To interpret 'sacred Prophecies of the most considerable things and actions of those times to which they are applied. For if it would be weakness in an Historian whilst he writes of obscurer actions to let slip the greater, much less ought this to be supposed in the holy Prophecies which are no other then histories (prophesies) of things to come. 14. To proportion the most notable parts of Prophesy to the most notable parts of history, and the breaches made in a continued series of Prophesy to the changes made in history. And to reject those interpretations where the parts (of) and breaches of Prophesy do not thus bear a due proportion to the parts and changes in History. For if Historians divide their histories into Sections Chapters and Books at such periods of time where the less, greater and greatest revolutions begin or end; and to do otherwise would be improper: much more ought we to suppose that the holy Ghost obse."Ves this rule accurately in his prophetick dictates, since they are no other then histories of things to come. Thus by the great breaches made between the sixt and seventh seal by interposing the vision of the sealed saints, and between the sixt and seventh Trumpet by interposing the vision of the little book, that prophesy is divided into three cardinal parts, and the middle part subdivided by the little breach between the fourth and fift Trumpet made by interposition of the Angel crying Wo, and all the other seals and trumpets are as it were less sections. And therefore to these breaches and sections, according to the rule, must be adapted periods of time which intercede and disterminate proportional revolutions of history. Again if a Historian should use no proportion in his descriptions but magnify a less thing above a greater or attribute the more courage to the softer of two per.sons etc. : we (17r) should count it an argument of his unskilfulness. And therefore since the dictates of the Holy-Ghost are histories of things to come, such disproportions are not to be allowed in them. Thus in Daniel's vision of the four Beasts, it would be grosly absurd to interpret, as some (have) Polititians of late have done, the fourth Beast of 12.

APPENDIX A

Antiochus Epiphanes and his successors; since that is described to be the most terrible, dreadful, strong, and warlike Beast of all the four, and the Prophet dwels far longer upon the description of that then of all the others put together: whereas the kingdom of Antiochus Epiphanes and his successors was both less and weaker and less warlike then any of the three before him. 15. To chose those interpretations which without straining do most respect the church and argue the greatest wisdom and providence of God for preserving her in the truth. As he that would interpret the (actions or) letters or actions of a very wise states-man, so as thence to know the council wherewith they are guided and the des ignes he is driving on, must consider the main end to which they are directed and suppose they are such as most conduce to that end and argue the greatest wisdom and providence of the states-man in ordering them: so it is in these Prophesies. They are the counsels of God and so tlie most wise, and fittest for the end to which they are designed: And that end is the benefit of the Church to guide (her) and preserve her in the truth. For to this end are all the sacred prophesies in both the old and new Testament directed, as they that will consider them may easily perceive. Hence may appear the oversight of some interpreters whose interpretations if they were true would make the Apocalyps of little or no (benefit) concernment to the Church? Yet I meane not that these Prophesies were (to con) intended to convert the whole world to the truth. For God isjust as well as merciful, and punishes wickedness by hardening the wicked and ([8') visiting the sins of the fathers upon the children. But the designe of them is to try men and convert the best, so that the church may be purer and less mixed with Hypocrites and lukewarm persons. And for this end it is that they are wrapt up in obscurity, and so framed by the wisdom of God that the inconsiderate, the proud, the self-conceited, the presumptuous, the sciolist, the sceptic, they whose judgments are ruled by their lusts, their interest, the fashions of thc world, their (opini) esteem of mell, the outward shew of thing or other prejudices, and all they who, of how pregnant natural parts soever they be, yet canllot discern the wisdom of God in the contrivance of the creation: that these men whose hearts are thus bardncd ill seeing should see and not 2 'Perhaps what foHows may be better inserted into the preface.' added iu margin of MS.

APPENDIX A

perceive and in hearing should heare and not understand. For God has declared his intention in these prophesies to be as well that none of the wicked should understand as that the wise should understand, Dan: 12. And hence I cannot but on this occasion reprove the blindness of a sort of (people) men who although they have neither better nor other grounds for their faith then the Scribes and Pharisees had for their (religion) Traditions, yet are so pervers as to call upon other men for such a demonstration of the certainty of faith in the scriptures that a meer naturall man, how wicked soever, who will but read it, may judg of it and perceive the strength of it with as much perspicuity and certainty as he can a demonstration in Euclide. Are not these men like the Scribes and Pharisees who would not attend to the law and the Prophets but required a signe of Christ? Wherefore if Christ thought it just to deny a signe to that wicked and adulterate generation notwithstanding that they were God's own people, (even) and the Catholique Church; much more may God think it just that this generation (19r ) should be permitted to dy in their sins, who do not onely like the Scribes neglect but trample upon the law and the Prophets, and endeavour by all possible means to destroy the faith which men have in them, and to make them disregarded. I could wish they would consider how contrary it is to God's purpose that the truth of his religion should be as obvious and perspicuous to all men as a mathematical demonstration. Tis enough that it is able to move the assent of those which he hath chosen; and for the rest who are SO incredulous, it is just that they should be permitted to dy in their sins. Here then is the wisdom of God, that he hath so framed the Scriptures as to discern between the good and the bad, that they should be demonstrations to the one and foolishness to the others. And from this consideration may also appear the vanity of those men who regard the splendor of churches and measure them by the external form and constitution. Whereas (God) it is more agreable to God's designe that his church appear contemptible and scandalous to the world to try men. For this end doubtless he suffered the many revoltings of.theJewish Church under the Law, and for the same cnd was the grand Apostacy to happen under the gospel. Rev . If thou relyest upon the externall form of churches, the Learning of Scholars, the wisdom of statemen or of other men of Education; consider with thy self whither thou wouldest not have adhered to the scribes and Pharisees hadst

APPENDIX A

thou lived in their days, and if this be thy case, [ben is it no belter then tbeirs, and God may judg thee accordingly, unless thou chance to be on the right side, which as tis great odds may prove otherwise so if it should happen yet it would (not) scalre exCuse thy lolly although it might something mitigate it.

APPENDIX B

'Of the
(12') So then the mystery of this restitution of all things is to be found in all the Prophets: which makes me wonder with great admiration that so few Christians of our age can find it there. For they understand not that the final return of the Jews captivity and their conquering the nations of the four Monarchies and setting up a (peaceable) righteous and flourishing Kingdom at the day of judgment is this mystery. Did they understand this they would find it in all the old Prophets who write of the last times as in the last chapters of Isaiah where the Prophet conjoyns the new heaven and new earth with the ruin of the wicked nations, the end of (all troubles) weeping and of all troubles, the return of the Jews captivity and their setting up a flourishing and everlasting Kingdom, the springing up of the bones of the righteous as an herb, and the judgment of transgressors whose worm dieth not and whose fire is not quenched: So also inJer. 30 and 31. Ezek 37 and 38. Hosea 3. Joel 2 and 3· Amos g. Obadiah. Mica 3 and 7. Nahum). Zeph. 3. Hagg. 2. Zech 12 and 14. Mal 4. Deut 30. Psal 2 and other places. I forbear to cite the places because enough has been already said to confirm this synchronism. But yet for removing some prejudices which may make this synchronism difficult to be beleived lout of all the Prophets compared together observe the following particulars. First that the earth shall continue to be inhabited by mortals after the day of judgment and that not only for a 1000 years but even for ever. For at the sounding of the 7th Trumpet the King-

APPENDIX Ii

127

doms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ and he shall reign for ever and ever. Apoc. J J. One like the son of man came with the clouds of heavcn,-and there was given him dominion and glory and a kingdom that all people nations and languages should sel"VC him: his dominion is all everlasting dominion which shall not pass away and his Kingdom that which shall not be destroyed Dan. 7. 14, 27 In the days 01 these kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed and the kingdom shall not be left to other people but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdonl> and it shall stand for ever Dan. 3. 44. The Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his Father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob for ever and of his kingdom there shall be 110 end Luke I. 33. Of the encrease of his government and peace there shall be no end upon the throne of David and upon his Kingdom to order it and to establish it with judgment and with justice ji-om henceforth even for ever. Isa 9.7. I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen whether they be gone and will gather them on every side and bring them into their own land-and they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant wherein yonr fathers have dwelt and they shall dwell therein even they and their children and their childrens children for ever and my servant David shall be their Prince for ever. Moreover I will make a covenant of peace with them: it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them and multiply them and I will set my (I3 r ) sanctuary ill the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: Yea I will be their God and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the Lord do sanctity Israel whell my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them lor evermore. Ezek. 31l. Thus saith the Lord which giveth the Sun for a light by day and the (Moon) ordinances of the Moon and of the starrs j(lr a light by night,-if those ordinances depart from before me saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease Ii-om beiug a nation before me for ever Jer 31. 35,36. In the Apocalyps where tis said that they bring the glory and honour of the nations into the new Jerusalem those nations are certainly mortals, for they are the nations whom the Dragon deceived no more till the thousand years were expired and who being at the end of those years again deceived by him did compass the beloved city and were devoured by fire from the throne, that is by war. Thus is there an end of those rebellious nations but not of the beloved city. Their

128

APPENDIX B

dominion is confirmed and perhaps enlarged by the conquest uf those nations nor is the end of it any where described but on the contrary tis said that tluy shall reign for ever Q/ld ever Apoc. 22.5. And that the citizens of this city are not the saints risen from the dead, but a race of mortal men like those nations over whom they reign is evident from Isaiahs description of the new heavens and new earth and new Jerusalem. For of this Jerusalem he saith: The voice of weeping shall no more be heard in her nor the voice of crying. There shall be no more thence an infant of days nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed and they shall build houses and inhabit them and plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them ete Isa 65. 19,20,2 I. These mortal inhabitants of this city the Prophet aftelwards (tells you are) describes to be the nation of the Jews returned from captivity and saith of them that as the new heavens and new earth which he will make shall remain before him so shall their seed remain: which is as much as to say that both shall remain for ever. And to assure you that this is after the day of judgment he adds that they shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed: for their worm shall not die neither shall their fire be quenched and they shall be an abborring to all flesh. The state of this new Jerusalem you may see further described in Isa. 60 namely how it is a city of mortals assemhled from captivity and rules over the nations and continues for ever and how (as in the Apocalyps) the Gentiles come to her light and the Kings to the brightness of her rising and her gates are open continually that (men theyr bring) they may bring unto her the riches of the Gentiles and the Sun is no more her light by day nor the moon, but the Lord is her everlasting light. So again in Isa 54 the same state is thus described. Thy seed [returning from captivity] shall inherit tlu gmtiles and make the desolate cities to be illhabited.-for thy maker is thy Husband (tlu Lord qf(14') Hosts is his name) and

thy redeemer [from captivity] the holy one of Israel, the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit and a wife of youth when thou wast refused saith thy God. For a small moment have I forsaken thee [during thy captivity] but with great mercies will I gather thee [from among the nations.] In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee saith the Lord thy redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters

APPENDIX B

12 9

of Noah should no more go over the earth: so have I sworn that I would no more be wroth with thee nor rebuke thee. For the mountains shall depart and the hills be removed but my kindness shall not depart froIll thee, neither shall the covenant army peace be removed saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. 0 thou alnicted, tossed with tempest and [during thy captivity/ not COIIIfurted: behold [the days come that] I will build thy walls with carbuncles and lay thy foundations with saphires and I willlllak" thy windows of Jasper and thy gates of carved Jewels and all thy borders of pleasant stones. And all thy children shall be taught by the Lord and great shall be the peace of thy children. In righteousness shalt thou be established: thou shalt be Jar from oppression for thou shalt not fear, and from terror for it shall not come near thee. Behold they shall surely gather together [in the war of Cog and lVlagog] but not by me. ''''hosoever shall gather against thee shall fall for thy sake. Behold I have created the smith that blowcth the coales in the firc and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work and I have created the waster to destroy. No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper, and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord. Thi; prophesy I have set down at large because of its analogy with that of the new Jerusalem. For here by calling this people the wile of the Lord and describing her an holy and peaceable city built of precious slones and inheriting the nations, you may know that she is the new Jerusalem the Lamb's wile. By her being returned from captivity, her inhabiting the desolate cities and her inheriting the nations and by their making war upon her with weapons formed by the Smith you may know that she is a city of morlals; a city not in a literal sense, but mystically put Ii,.. the whole nation of the Jews, the pretious stones and pillars and foundations thereof being the saints and Apostles. And by Gods oath that he will never rebuke her as he did the old world you lIlay know that she shall be eternal. The mountains, saith he, shall depart and the hills be removed but Gods kindness shall not depart from her nor the covenant (15 r ) of his peace be removed: an expression of the same kind with that whereby the eternity of the Son of God himself is in the highest manner asserted Heb. I. II. She is so far from ending with the millennium that the time of her captivity (which hath already lasted much above a thousand years) being compared with the time of her flourishing reign which is to follow it. is here represented but as a moment to eternity. In a

APPENDJX

n

little wrath, saith he, 1 hid my face from thee for a moment, but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy 012 thee. Seing this Kingdom outlasts the Millennium in so vast a disproportion of time and its end after that is no where predicted: we may well conclude with Jeremy that it shall last as long as the ordinances of the Sun Moon and starrs, with Daniel John and the other Prophets that it stand for ever and ever and with Luke that it shall have no end. This was God's covenant with Abraham when he promised that his seed should inherit the land of Canaan for ever, and on this (promise) covenant was founded the Jewish religion as on that is founded the Christian; and therefore this point is of so great moment that it ought to be considered and understood by all men who pretend to the name of Christians. In the next place I would observe out of the Prophets that in the end of this present world when Christ shall come to judg the quick and dead, the quick to be then judged are the people of this kingdom, both Jews and Gentiles. For Isaiah thus describes the last day. In that day, saith he, shall the branch of the Lord be beautiful and glorious and the fruit of the earth shall be excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel. And it shall come to pass that he that is lefl in Zion and he that remaineth in Jerusalem shall he called holy, even every one that.is WRITTEN c"nl;> TO LIFE ill .Jerusalem, when the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zioll and shall have purged the blood ofJerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit ofJUDGMENT and by the spirit ofBURJVIJliG(Isa. 4· 2, 3,4.) that is everyone that escapeth the captivity, whose name is written in the book of life then opened in judgment, shall be called holy, when he shall have (purged) washed and refined them in that judgment (as (Gold in a furnace) white linnen in water and Gold in a furnace) from the filthy and from the murderers and from all the wicked (Isa. 1. 25. Mal. 3. 2, 3) by sending his Angels to gather out of his Kingdom all them that do iniquity Math 13.41. So then the Book of life conteins not only the names of the Saints in heaven but also the names of them that escape the captivity. For to this purpose Daniel also tells us Daniel tells us that (at the end of) in the great tribulation (that out of which the Palmbearing multitude comes) Michael shal stand up the (l\Iichael) great Prince which is set over the people of the Jews and they shall be delivered everyone that shall be found written in the Book and that at the same time many of those that sleep in the dust shall awake some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt. Here (is the judgment of both)

APPEND IX B

13 1

Michael the Prince of the Jews at his second coming stands up in judgmen t and judges both quick and dead. For the book here mentione d, wherein the captivate d Jews as mallY as shall iJe delivered are written is the book oflifc now opened in judgmell t as you may understa nd by comparin g this place with such another in the Apocalyp se where 'tis said, Tltere sltall no wise tmler illio [the new Jerusalem ) a'!)' thillg that difileth or workelh abomill(ltioll ur a (re but they which are writtm ill the Lambs book if life, Apoc 2I.27. This book was opened before in the general judgmen t and all the d"ad who were not found written in it were there cast into the I.ake of fire Apoc 20.15: here in the same day of judgmen t the living are also judged out of it and only those admitted into the new Jerusalem whose names are found written therein. \Vhence also the living (both Jews and Gentiles) as well as the dead are now said to be saved. The Ilatiolls if them which are SAVED shall walk ill the light lif it and the Kin,IfS if the earth do bring there glory arid honour into it. Apoc. 2J.24. (15 v ) These are the innumera ble palmbearing multitud e out of all nations and peoples and tongues which at the end of the great tribulatio n had all tears wiped from their eyes and cried SALVAT iON to our God alld to the Lamb. (Apoe. 7.10) These the Lamb fed with the tree orlil" and led lInto the living fountains of waters, that is he granted life to them whilst he passed a sentence of death upon the rest (vers 17) and therefore they cry Salvation to the Lamb. In the same language write also the old Prophets . {I will save my flock and they shall be no more a prey and I will judge between cattel and cattel) I will seek out my sheep and deliver them out of all places where they have been scattered and bring to their own land and feed them upon the mountain s of Israel-a nd judg between cattel and caw'l between the Rams and the he-goats .-I will save my flock and they shall be no more a prey and I will set up one Shepherd over them and he shall feed them even my servant David. Ezek. :H. 12,13,17,22, 23. (16 r ) They shall be ashamed and confounded all if th~m, they shall go

to confusion together tllat are makers of idols: but israel shalt be SAVED in the Lord with all EVERLA STiNG SALVAT ION. ye shall not be ashamed nor co'!foullded world without end. For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens God himself that fomted the earth, he creat.d it not ill vain, he formed it to be inhabited .-Assembl e your selves and tome draw neaT together ye that aret saved if the nations: they have 110 knolAedge that set up the wood of their graven image, that pray unto a God that canf/ot Save. Isa. 45. 17,20. I will send those that are SAVED 'If them unto the

t

So the 70, the Lalill and Chalde Par.

132

APPENDIX B

nations etc Isa. 66. We waited Jor him and he will save us Isa. 25· 9.

The saving in these and such like places of scripture is (both from the hand of the enemy in the battle of the great day of God almighty and from [he Lake of fire) of morlals at the last day from misery and death both temporal and eternal. \Vhen Christ comes to judge the dead he comes also to smite the nations with his two edged sword and 10 rule them ,,·ith a rod oj iron and as the vessels oj a patter shall be broken to shivers Apoc 19.15 and 2.27. And at that time he shall send Jarth his Angels and they shall gather out oj his Kingdom all things that offend and them which do iniquity and shall cast them into aJurnace ojjire. Matt 13.41. The rest of his kingdom are the

nations of them which are saved: and they are mortals remaining on earth, because Christ has a kingdom there which he now begins [0 rule with a rod of iron. and tis only out of this kingdome which the wicked could be gathered. Conceive therefore that when Christ comes to judge the (world of the dead and raised, the living arc also judged) dead he judges also the living and that as many as are found written in the Book oflife are adjudged to life and saved by being either canght up into the air to be with the Lord or left below on earth in the Kingdome of mortals which he thenceforth rules with a rod of iron and that the rest are adjudged' to death and cast into the Lake of fire. 1 Thess. 4.16. Matt 2+31. (And this I take to be the division of the great City into three parts (Apoc. 16) and the judgment of) Th us Christ judges the quick and dead at his coming and his Kingdomc (2 Tim. 4.1.) Which being an Article of faith ought to be well (considered) understood. Its a received opinion that this judgment shall be accompanied with a conflagration of the world; and some hearing that in the future world the Wolf shall lye down with the Lamb and all beasts shall become gentle and harmless and the earth become fuller of rivers and more fruitfull and the light of the sun and moon be much encreased and the royall City be as it were of Jewels and gold like clear glass, have conceived (17r) that an amendment of the whole frame of nature shall ensue that conflagration. But these fansies have been occasioned by understanding in a vulgar and litteral sense what the Prophets writ in their own mystical language. For the conflagration of the world in their language signifies the consumption of Kingdoms by war, as you may see in Moses, where God thus describes the desolation of Israel. I will (saith) provoke them to anger with a Joolish nation. For ajire is kindled in mine anger and shall burn unto the lowest hell and shall (onsume the earth with her encrease and set on jire the foundations oj the

APl'ENDlX II

mountains. 1 will heap mischi'i/J' UpOIl them. 1 will spend 1II;lIe allowS UPOIl them. TIleY shall be bUTTIt with hUllger and devoured with bill/illig heat and with bitter destructioll Deut 32.22. But in the (end of lhe world) day of judgment there is also a lillerall conflagration of the world politique in the lake of fire and to those that are cast into it a conflagration also of the world natural, the heaven ami earth where they are being on fire and the elements lllelting ",ith fervent heat. And whilst the Apostle Peter tells us that none but the wicked shall suffer (by) in this conflagration and thal this is a time of refreshing to the Godly I cannot lake it for a conflagration of any considerable part of this (habitable worldi globe whereby the rest of the habitable world may be annoyed. And if the world natural be not burnt up there is no ground 101' such a renovation thereof as they suppose The glorious Sun and 1100n, multiplied rivers and copious vegetables of the new world arc its Kings and people, the peaceable and harmless Beasts it's peaceble Kingdomes, and the new Jerusalem lhat (mystical) spiritual building in Sion whereof the Chief corner stone is (Christ. The 12 Gates are the elders of the Tribe which used anciently tll judge in the Gates) Christ and the rest of the stones and gold are the saints, 1 Pet. 2.4, 5, 6: 4 particularly the City and streets of pure Gold are the holy people purged [rom the wicked as Cold is refined from dross Isa. 1.25 lvIal. 3. 2' the £2 foundations are the £ 2 Apostles (whose names are written on them and the rest of the pretious stones and gold are the rest of its citizens. Tis represented of a cubical fi) and" the £ 2 Gates the Elders of the Tribes. For the names of the Apostles and Tribes are written on them. Gates are put for Elders because the Elders judged ill them, and these Gates (Pet. 2. 4, 5,6, the Gold being the holy people refined from the wicked Isa. I. 25) and foundations are of Pearls and pretious stones to denote them Kings and Princes. For great and valuable men are known by rich and precious ornaments. The City and streets of pure Gold are the holy people purged from the wicked as Gold is refined from impure metals }sa r. '-'.'i. Mal. 3. 2. 'Tis represented of a cubical llgure with the throne of God in it and without any Sun Moon or Temple, to insinuate that it is a spiritual building and that heavenly City which was prefigured by the most holy. For the most holy was cubical, alld had in it the throne of God;
See Isa. :lH .. 6

IJ

See ]sa.

:.p~6

and 60.1H.

'34

APPENDIX Il

the light of the natural Sun and Moon. Neither had it any Temple in it, but is the Temple it self, that Temple in whose courts the Palm-bearing multitude worship (amI who) (A poe. 7. 15) and (whose) the pillars of whose courts are the saints of all nations (chap. 3.12.) If you desire to know the manner orthis eity on earth and of the war of Gog and Magog you may see them both described by Ezekiel chap 38 and 39 (and particularly) where he represents how the Jews after their return from captivity dwell safely and quietly upon the mountains of Israel in unwalled towns without either gates or barrs to defend them until! they are grown very rich in Cattel and gold and silver and goods and Gog of the land of Magog stirrs up the nations round about, Persia and Arabia and Arrie and the northern nations of Asia and Europe against them to take a spoile, and God destroys (18 r ) all that great army, that the nations may from thenceforth know that the (nations) Jews went formerly into captivity for their sins but now since their return are become invincible by their holiness. We have hitherto considered the new Jerusalem as a City of mortals only: but whilst Christ is the chief corner stone of this city, whilst he rules the nations with a rod of iron and gives power over them to the saints risen from the dead (Apoe. 2.26) and makes them Kings over the earth (ch. 1.6. and 5.(0) and gives them to eat of the trec of life which is in the midst of the Paradise of God and to enter in through the gates into the City (eh. 2.7 and 22.(4) and writes upon them the name of this (city) new Jerusalem (ch. 3.12) this city must be understood to comprehend as well Christ and the children of the resurrection as the race of mortal Jews on earth. It signifies not a material city but the (spiritual) body politique of all those who have dominion over the nation whether they be the saints in heaven or their mortal viceregents on earth and therefore the Apostle Paul in his Epistle to the Hebrews chap I I understands it of the saints in heaven and in Gal. 4.26. calls it Jerusalem which is above. Hence this city is not only long and broad as other cities are but rises high from the earth into heaven. Hence also the dimensions of the sides thereof are double to those of the terrestrial Jerusalem described by Ezekiel: for understanding which, you are to know that the Prophets have written of superficial and solid measure as well as of linear. Ezekiel tells us that the oblation, which was 25000 cubits in length and as much in breadth, shall be five and twenty thousand by five and twenty thousand, and calls it four

APPEND IX B

135

square. So John tells us that the wall rifthis ciIY was Iii cubitI' according to the Art of measurin g used by men, that is 12 cubits high and 12 cubits broad and so in square measure 141 cubits. For he had told us a little before that this wall was great (that is broad) and high, and now he gives the measures of (the) it accordin g to those dimensions. Ezekiel had put the wall of his Temple six cubits high and six cubits broad (Ezek 40.5) and John puts the measure of his wall double. And as the Angel in (john) the Apocalyp s measured the wall by superficial measure so he measured the city by solid measure, for John saith that he measured the ciIY with the reed twelve thousandfurlongs, the length the breadth and the height rif it are equal. The last words shew that the measure of 12000 furlongs respects all the three dimensio ns and so is a solid measure. \Vhence the cubic root of 12000 furlongs (will be the side of the city and this side will be repeated four times will ue the compass thereof below, which uy lily computa tion is 91t furlongs or in round numbers ninety furlongs, that is thirty six thousand cubits recconin g four hund.'ed Jewish cubits to aJewish furlong as Authors teach. And the half of this compass being eighteen thousand cubits is the com pas of Ezekiel's city. Ezek. 48. 35), that is 22)809040 furlongs of 9157 cubits (reeconn ing 400 Jewish cubits to a Jewish furlong as Authors teach) will be the side of this City, and this side, if you take the round number of 9000 cubits, is double to the side of Ezekiel's city, which was only 4500 cubits. Ezek. 48. 16,32. As the linear dimensio ns of the Temple under the Kings were double to those of the Tabernac le under the Judges, so those of the City under the King of Kings are double to those of the City under the Kings. But whilst this doubled City is the inheritan ce of the saints both (19') mortal and immorta l, we are not to conceive that Christ and the Children of the resurrect ion shall reign over (mortals) the nations after the manner of mortal Kings or convers with mortals as mortals do with one another; but rather as Christ after his resurrect ion continue d for some time on earth invisible to mortals unless (when) upon certain occasions when he thought fit to appear to (mortals) his disciples: so it is to be conceive d lhat at his second coming he and the children of the rcsurrect ioll shall reign invisibly unless when they shall think fit upon any extraordinary occasions to appear. And as Christ after some stay in or neare the regions of this earth ascended into heaven so after the resurrect ion of the dead it may be in their power (also) to leave this earth at pleasure and accompa ny him into any part of the

APPENDIX B

heavens, that no region in the whole Univers may want its inhabitants. For Christ at his second coming must (reign) rule the nations with a rod of iron and reign till he hath put down all rule and all authority and power and when he hath put all enemies under his feet (the last whereof is death, to be conquered in these regions) he shall deliver up the Kingdome to God the father [ Cor. 15.24, that is he shall withdraw himself from it and depart into the heavens. For when the Martyrs and Prophets live again they may reign here with Christ a thousand years till aU the nations Gog and Magog be subdued and the dominion of the new Jerusalem be estahlished and death be vanquished by raising the rest of the dead (those who do not live again untill (the end of) the thousand years be finished,) and all this time they may be in the same state of happiness in or neare these regions as afterwards when they retire into the highest heavens.

INDE X Abraham, 130 Africa, J34 Albigenses, I I I Alchemists, 23, 45, 46 Alchemy, II, '4,23,42,4 4,45,46, '17 Amos, 126 Angels, 57, 60, 101, 102, 10.j., 122, '30, 132, 135 Anglicanis m, 5, 7, I 1,61 Anglicans, 5, 7, 9, 87 Antichrist, 49, 67, 89, 99, 109, 115 Antiochus Epiphanes , 123 Antitrinita rianism, 31, 58,62, 63 Apocalypse, see Revelation Apost1~s, 54, 55, 59, 67, 74, 108, J I I, lIS, 129, 133 Arabia, I34 Arianism, 5, 7, 58 Arias ~1olltanus, Benedictus , 96, 97 Aristophan es, 96 Aristotle, 28, 42, 92, 96 Arius,58 Arminiani sm,5 Ashmole, Elias, 44 Asia, 134 Astronome rs, 30,44 Astronomy , 30, 43 Athanasius , Saint, lI, 58, 59, 76 Atheism, 34, 65 Atheists, 65 Athenagor as, 71-2 Babson, Roger, 10 Babylonia, 43 Babylonian s, 44 Bacon, Francis, 28, 3D, 33, 41 Advancemeut of Learning, 30 Baronius, Caesar, Cardinal, 76, 97 Barrow, Isaac, 30, 84-5 Bentley, Richard, 34, 35, 39, 6[, go Berkeley, George, t6 Bernoulli, Johann, 12 Bernoulli, Nicholas, 12 Bible, vi, 3,5,6, I I, 16, row, 22, 23, 28, 2g, 3[, 32, 33,36,37, 38,39,41, 46, 47,48 ,49,53,54 ,55,57,58 ,59,68,

72, 83, 8.}, 85, 86, 88, go, 103, 107, 108, 109, I I I, 1'3, [15, J 10, 110 1 [2{1 132; sec alJu Old and New Testament Biot,Jcall~Baptisle, 14Birch, Thomas, 34 II. Blount, Charles, 56 ~Book of Nature', 28, 29, 3~, 37, 4J, 49,88, gil 'Hook of Scripture', ~8, 29,32,37, 41, 49 Boul1ee, Etienne-Lo uis, 53 Boyle, Robert, '5,30,33- 4,47 The Clldstian Virtuoso, 34Boyle Lecture~, 3·h 35, 39 Brahmins (Brachman s), 4-i Brewster, Sir David, 6 n., II, 57 Browne, Sir Thomas, 33 Burnet, Thomas, 37 BurtOll, Robert, 66 Butler, Samuel, 65 Hudibras, 65 Buxtorf~ Johannes, 29, 86 Cabbala, 11,40,68, 69 Cabbalislll , 70, 1 I I Cabhalists , 46, 66, 68.7° passim Calvin, John, 62 Cambridg e Platonists, 63, 72, 71 Campanell a, TOlllmaso, 28 Cartari, VinceuzlI, 94Cartesians , 75 Casaubon, Isaac, 44 Caspar J ~.'lax, 3~ 11. Castillejo, David, v Cataphryg ians, 72 Catholicism , 60, 68, 99 Catholics, 61, '24 Chaldea,4 3 Chaldeans , 44, 69, 70 Champlain de Ia Blandu:rie , see Pahin-Cha mplain Cheyne, George, 35 Christ, 9, I I, 16, [9, :l0, 4 1, 49,54, 55, 57-65 passim, 67, 7', 72, 74, 77,

78, 84, 89,93,

IUD, 101, 104, 108,

INDEX [og-]O, ] I I, 112, 113, 124, 127, 129, 130, 132-6 passim

Christian Hebraists, 29, 66, 85, 86, 87 Christianity, 17, 29,55,64,65,68,71, 74, 75, 88, 89, [30 Christians, 56, 57, 63, 67, 7[, 78, 108, III, 1[2, 126, 130, 131

Chronology, II, 12, 14,23,42,61-2, 85,86,9°,92,93,95, 103 Church of England, 5,6, [6, 74; see also Anglicanism, Anglicans Church Fathers, I I, 14, 19,36,69,72, 97, [02 Cicero, !vIarcus Tullius, 35 Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 7, 9, II, 3·h 35, 36,58,6[,62 n., 76, 77, 78,90 Clement of Alexandria, 71 Cohen, I. Bernard, v, 19 n., 35 n., 40 n., 76 n., 77 n., 78 n. Collins, Anthony, 56 Comeniw,Johann Amos, 2:8 Comes, Natalis, 94 Conduitt, John, 6, 12, 31, 45, 63, 92 Constantine the Great, 7, 6:1 Consubstantiality, 58, 60, 69 Conti, Abate Antonio,I2, 36 n., 78 n.,

79 Craig,john, 12,35 Creed, 54, 55, 57, 59, 62, 68, 74 Crell, Samuel, 58

Daniel, 88, 95, 97, 99, 107,

108, 122,

Enthusiasm, 65, 66, 11 7 Enthusiasts, 5[, 65, 66, 87 Epicureanism, 31, 41, 65 Eucharist, '5, 73 Euclid, 124Euhemerism, 23, 94-5, 103 Europe, [34 Ezekiel, 113 n., 126, ]27, 13 1, 134, '35 Ezra, 84, 86 Fatio de Duillier, Nicolas, 7, go Fifth Monarchists, 87, 9' Flamsteed, John, 12,30 Francis, Father Alban, 6 Freret, Nicolas, 12 }-;'rogs, 96-7, I 19 Gad, [R, Galatians, 134Galen, 35 Galileo Galilei, 28, 29, Sf, 32, 34. 36, 6, Genesis, 36, 37, 39, 63 George J, 7 Glanvill, Joseph, 48 Gnostics, 1 J) 60, 65, 68-75 passim Gowing, 11argaret, 27 n. Greeks, 44, 58, 86, 94 Gregory, David, 7, 36, 47, 48 Grotius, Hugo, go, 96 Guerlac, Henry, 39 n.

130

Daniel, Book of, [', '4,66,79.86,88, Sg--go, 92, 93, 107, 113, 124, 127 Deism, 56, 58, Go, 61 Deists, 65 Deluge, 37, 38, [28-9 Derham, \ViUiam, 3'b 35, 36 Physico- Theology, 34 Descartes, Rene, 31, 39, 4j, 61, 65, 75,83 Des Maizeaux, Pierre, 35, 36 Deuteronomy, J 26, J 33 Devil, 13, 14,22,41,47,63-4,66,87 Drake, Stillman, 32 n. Egypt, 4', 43, 44, 69 Egyptians, 47 Einstein, Albert, 27, 48 Emlyn, Thomas, 58 Enlightenment, 4, 53, 8g-g0

Haggai, 126 Hall, A. Rupert, v, 76 n. Hall, Francis, 12 Hall, Marie Boas, v, 76 n. Haller, Albrecht von, 4 Halley, Edmond, 7, 8g Hamann, Johann Georg, 4 Hammond, Henry, go Hartsocker, Niklaas, 16 Haynes, Hopton, 7, 58, 62 Hearne, Thomas, 30 fl. Heathens, 56, 57, 68, 119 Hebrews, To the, 41, 129, 134 Helena, 73 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 38 Heresies, 55, 75, 97, 119 Heretics, 56, 57, 71 Herivel, John \-V., v Hermes Trismegistus, 44, 45

INDEX Hieroglyph s, 47, 94, 95 Hill, Christophe r, 90-1 Hiscock, W. G., 48 n. Hobbes, Thomas, 29, 65, 84 Hobbism, 34 Holy Ghost, 3, 32, 59, 61, 72,

J 16,

120, 122

HOnJoousi ans, 58

Hooke, Robert, 12,34 Hosea, 126 Howell, T. n., 6 n. Huggins, john, 83 Hume, David, 8 Hutton, Charl~J 48 n. Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Abraham, 85 Idolaters, 60, 65, 72, gfi, 97 Idolatry, 42, 43, 47, 60, 67, 6g, 70, go, 97 India, 43 Indians, 44Irenicism, 64Isaac, 19 Isaacs, Nathan, 27 n. Isaiah,67, 126, 127, 128, 130, 131-2, 133 Israelites, see Jews

Jacob, 60, ]27 jacob, :'1. C., 39 n. james II, 6, 47 Jeffreys, George, Lord, G Jeremiah, 126, 130 Jerome, Saint, 59 Jerusalem, 67, 100-1, 127. 128-g, 130-6 passim Jesus, see Chri~t jews, 39, 46, 56, 65, 66, 67, 74, 73 , 35, 86, 104, I08--g, J 10, 112, 12.b 126, 127-34 paSjim joel, 126 jo}m, Saint (John the Divine), 12,42, 57,88,95, 96,97, '30, 135 joseph, 7. joshua, 8+ judaism, 17,66,84, 88, '30 Judgment, The Last, 42, 99, 100, 107, 126, 130-1, 132, 133 jupiter, 73

Keill,john Ball, 38

'39 Kepler, Johallnes, 2B, 29, 31, 32, 3 6, 37 n., 6, Keynes, John Maynard, 10,57 Kimchi, Joseph, 85 Kings, 11, 21 Knorr VOll Rosenroth . Christian, 46, 68 Kabbala D'I/udala, 68 Koyre, Alexandre , 1911.,35 n., 40 JI., 76"., 77 n., 78 n.

Latitudina rianism, 5, 65 Latona, 97 Le Clerc, Jean, 12, 29 Leibniz, GOtlfl-icu \Vilhdm \·00, 7. 9, Il, 12, 16, ~W, '21, 28,35--6, ti5, 75-9 paSSIm Leiboiz-C larkc correspol~dence, 9, 11,35-<>, 78 Leibnizians~ 75, 76, 7B Licinius, Valerius Licinianus , 63 Lightfoot, john, 29, 86 Locke, John, 7, 12, 58,63,66 ,90 Luard, H. R., 19 o. Luke, Saint, loB, 109. 110, 127, Igo Luria, Rabbi haac BtH Solomon, 6U Luther, f...fartiIl, 62 LyciaIls,97 Machiavel li, Niecol,), 97 I\lacphail, Ian, 46 n. 1\1aier, COUlIt ~lichacl, 44. 46 n. l\.faimonid es, !\tloses, 27, 66, ti9, 87 1falachi, [26, 130, 13:J l\Jarx, Karl, 4 Mary, 72 1\1alhematician.s, 23, +4 1fauht:\'\.', Saint, 56, 110, 1::;0, I::>~ McGuire, .J. E., 23 n. lYfcLachlan, Herbert, I I 11., 28 n., 5~ 11.,57,59 11 • IViede,JO$tph, 90-2, 94, I Lj., J21 Cia vis Apaca(~ptica, I If Mersenne, Father I\larin, 3:1 Messiah, 24, 61, lOB, 109 Metaphysi cians, 45, 66, 67, 7 1 Metaphysk s, 20, 21, 2'..!, 1-1, 57. 58, 65, 68, 69, 72 , 75 Micah, 126 Michael, Archangel , 63, l:.!U-I Mill, john, 9+ 11i1lenarianism, 7, 65. 6 7, 99

INDEX

14 0

Millennium, 99-100, 126, ISO, 136 Minerva, 73 Miracles, 66, 77 Monks, 13, 14, 65, 66, 76 Monotheism, 47, 6G, 70 Primitive, 42, 43, 47, 65, 69 More, Henry, 34, 41, 65~ 66, 68,87, go, 91, 100, 102 Moses, 39, 46, 54, 66, 70, 84, 85, 86, loB,132

Moses de Leon, 68 Munby, A. N. L., II fl. Mystics, 66 Mythology, 23, 94, 103 Nadav, ~f., v Nadler,joscf,4 Nahum, 126 Napier, John, 91 Nebuchadnezzar, 92 New Testament, 59, 65, 84, J I I, 116, 123 Newton, Humphrey, 6 Newton, Isaac (the Elder), 4, 17-18, 103 Newton, Sir Isaac: Chronology of Ancient Kingdoms Amended, 10, 92 'lrenicum', II, 54, 64 Obserl}alions upon Dallie.l and the Apocalypse, 4, 10, 99 Optics, 9, 20, 40, 43, 74, 77, 83 Principia, 9. 14, 16, 19, 31, 40, 65, 83,98; 'General Scholium to the', 4,16,20,21,23,40 ,66-7,74,75, 101

Newtonianism, 49 Newtonians, 4, 38, 39 Noah, 128-g

Obadiah, 126 Oldenburg, Henry, 47, 49 Old Testament, 37, 84, 85, 86, 108, 113, 116, 123, 126

Origen, 96 Ovid,96-7 Pabin-Champlain de la Blancherie, F. C. C., 53 Pansophia, PansophislS, 28 Papacy, 67, 95, 119

Papists, 5, 65, 67, 68, 74, 97 Paradise, 134 Paul, Saint, 134PeUct, Thomas, 14 J~cpys, Samuel, 68 Persia, 134-

Peter, II, t33 Pharisees, 65,

112, I

13, 124

Philosophers, 23, 43, 45, 65, 68, 70, 71 Philosophes, 75, 89 Physica sacra, :17, 39 Pielisls,8 Plato, 42, 68, 71, 76

Platonism, Platonists, 65, 68, 69, 71, 72 , 75 Pocock, Edward, 26, 66, 86, 87 Pope, Alexander, 20 Prophecies, vi, 3, 46, 48, 5:1, 66, 67, 84. 86-7, B~o, 9I-~ passim, 97-8, 103, 107-23 passim, 129 Prophets, 7, 23, 24. 54, 60, 66, 67, 84, 87-8,93.101, IoH, 110,115, IJB,

n

12.1, 126, 130, 131, 132, I~H:I 136

False, 41, 56, 65, 66, 87, lI9 Protestants, 6J, II I Psalms, 33, 126 Puritanism,8, I 1,41,84

Ranke, Leopold \"on, 86 Rattansi, P. 1·1., 23 n. Ray, john, 30, 34 Resurrection, 54, 60, 101,

102,

107,

113, 132, 134, 135. 136 Revelation, vi, II, 14,41,42, 45, 63, 66, 79, 86, 88-99 passim, 10~, 107, I II ~35 passim Ripa, Cesare, 94Romans, 55, 56, log Roosevelt, President Franklin

D., 27 n. Rosicrucians, 28, 45, 46 Royal Society of London, 30, 31, 32, 33, 39, 48, 54, 62 Saint-Simon, Claude-Henri de, 53 Salusbury, Thomas, 31 Samuel, 84, 86 SartOll, George, 27 Schoolmen, 68 Science, 4, 5, 9, 28, 29, 3 1, 37, 3D, 39, 40, f2-3, 47, 48, 49, 62, 6f, 75, 103; .see also "Book of Nature'

INDEX Scientists, 9, 23, 29, 30, 31, 36, 43, 4.h 46, 47, 4 H, 89 Scripture, Scriptures, see DiLle Selden, John, 29, 86 Sigonio, Carlo, 97 Simeon Bar YODai, 68 Simon, Richard, 29, 84 Simon ~!Iagus, 68, 7~-J) 76 Siddan, John, 9~ Smith, Revd. Barnabas, 19 Smith, Revd. Benjamin, 10 Smith, Thomas, go n. Society for the Restoration of Primitive Christianity, 62 Socinianism, 5, 58 SolzhenitsYIl, Alexsandr I., 4 Spencer, John, 29, 66, 87 Spinoza, Baruch, 29, 39, 84, 86 Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, 8.1 Spinozism, 35 Stewart, Agnes Grainger) 48 n. Stirling, James, 7 Stubbs, Henry, 32 Stukeley, lJr. William, '7 Suphan, B., 38 Talmud, I I , 19,36,41 Taylor, Brook, go Temple of Solomon, 12, 92, 93 fl. Theodosius, 56 Theologians, 4, 30, 3 2 , 36, 83 Theology, 5, 20, 23, 27, 30,33,44,53, 57,65, 7u , 71, 92, 101, 103 Thessalonians~ I, J 32 Thomas, Saint, 60 Thotli,45 Timothy, 1,12,54,57 Timothy, II, '32 Toland, John, 56

Transubslantiation, 63, 7U Trinitarianism, 4:2, 57, 59, 61, 6:1,7°,

72 T:tl!Lze> J

J oallllcs,

go

Unitarianism, 5, 58, 61,

IOU

Van HdmoIll, Francis ~t(~r(lUius, 68 Varclliu~, Bernhard, Us Vaughau, Thomas, 45, 46 II. Vicu, Giambattista, ~5·-6 Villamil, Richard dc, 8:1 11. Voltaire, Franc;ois ~Iarit: Arouet de, 5,88 Vossius, Dionysius, 29, 86 Vossius, Gcral"d John, ~~J, 86 'Valdenses, III \Vallis, John, 30 \Vard, St:th, 30 Weber, Max, q 'Vestfall, Richard S., v, 1511., 63 Il. \VhistOll, \ViUiam, 7, 9, 10 II" J6, 17 n., 3', 37, 38, 58, 0", ti3, 74 11., 77 n., go, 91 Whiteside, D. T., v \Vilkins, John, 30, 3 [, --tB \Villughby, i"rallcis, :·H \Vaodward, John, ::18 \\rorld to Come, 1:2&-7, ijO, IJ6 ,,\'onhington, .1., 9l 'Vyciif: John, \'i Yahuda, A. S.,

10,

27

Zechariah, 126 Zephaniah, 12G ZetzllcC, Lazarus, 44
I\,

Frank E. Manuel - The Religion of Isaac Newton - The Fremantle Lectures - 1973.pdf

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