u9About the time of the publication of the Principia, James II., bent on re-establishing the Romish Faith, had, among other illegal acts, ordered by mandamus, the University of Cambridge to confer the degree of Master of Arts upon an ignorant monk. Obedience to this mandate was resolutely refused. Newton was one of the nine delegates chosen to defend the independence of the University. They appeared before the High Court;—and[Pg 39] successfully: the king abandoned his design. The prominent part which our author took in these proceedings, and his eminence in the scientific world, induced his proposal as one of the parliamentary representatives of the University. He was elected, in 1688, and sat in the Convention Parliament till its dissolution. After the first year, however, he seems to have given little or no attention to his parliamentary duties, being seldom absent from the University till his appointment in the Mint, in 1695.

Newton began his theological researches sometime previous to 1691; in the prime of his years, and in the matured vigour of his intellectual powers. From his youth, as we have seen, he had devoted himself with an activity the most unceasing, and an energy almost superhuman to the discovery of physical truth;—giving to Philosophy a new foundation, and to Science a new temple. To pass on, then, from the consideration of the material, more directly to that of the spiritual, was a natural, nay, with so large and devout a soul, a necessary advance. The Bible was to him of inestimable worth. In the elastic freedom, which a pure and unswerving faith in Him of Nazareth gives, his mighty faculties enjoyed the only completest scope for development. His original endowment, however great, combined with a studious application, however profound, would never, without this liberation from the dominion of passion and sense, have enabled him to attain to that wondrous concentration and grasp of intellect, for which Fame has as yet assigned him no equal. Gratefully he owned, therefore, the same Author in the Book of Nature and the Book of Revelation. These were to him as drops of the same unfathomable ocean;—as outrayings of the same inner splendour;—as tones of the same ineffable voice;—as segments of the same infinite curve. With great joy he had found himself enabled to proclaim, as an interpreter, from the hieroglyphs of Creation, the existence of a God: and now, with greater joy, and in the fulness of his knowledge, and in the fulness of his strength, he laboured to make clear, from the utterances of the inspired Word, the far mightier confirmations of a Supreme Good, in all its glorious amplitude of Being and of Attribute; and to bring the infallible workings thereof plainly home to the understandings and the[Pg 40] affections of his fellow-men; and finally to add the weight of his own testimony in favour of that Religion, whose truth is now, indeed, "girded with the iron and the rock of a ponderous and colossal demonstration."

His work, entitled, OBSERVATIONS UPON THE PROPHECIES OF HOLY WRIT, PARTICULARLY THE PROPHECIES OF DANIEL AND THE APOCALYPSE OF ST. JOHN, first published in London, in 1733 4to. consists of two parts: the one devoted to the Prophecies of Daniel, and the other to the Apocalypse of St. John. In the first part, he treats concerning the compilers of the books of the Old Testament;—of the prophetic language;—of the vision of the four beasts;—of the kingdoms represented by the feet of the image composed of iron and clay;—of the ten kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the beast;—of the eleventh horn of Daniel's fourth beast; of the power which should change times and laws;—of the kingdoms represented in Daniel by the ram and he-goat;—of the prophecy of the seventy weeks;—of the times of the birth and passion of Christ;—of the prophecy of the Scripture of Truth;—of the king who doeth according to his will, and magnified himself above every god, and honoured Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women;—of the Mahuzzim, honoured by the king who doeth according to his will. In the second part, he treats of the time when the Apocalypse was written, of the scene of the vision, and the relation which the Apocalypse has to the book of the law of Moses, and to the worship of God in the temple;—of the relation which the Apocalypse has to the prophecies of Daniel, and of the subject of the prophecy itself. Newton regards the prophecies as given, not for the gratification of man's curiosity, by enabling him to foreknow; but for his conviction that the world is governed by Providence, by witnessing their fulfilment. Enough of prophecy, he thinks, has already been fulfilled to afford the diligent seeker abundant evidence of God's providence. The whole work is marked by profound erudition, sagacity and argument.

And not less learning, penetration and masterly reasoning are conspicuous in his HISTORICAL ACCOUNT OF TWO NOTABLE CORRUPTIONS OF SCRIPTURES IN A LETTER TO A FRIEND. This[Pg 41] Treatise, first accurately published in Dr. Horsley's edition of his works, relates to two texts: the one, 1 Epistle of St. John v. 7; the other, 1 Epistle of St. Paul to Timothy iii. 16. As this work had the effect to deprive the advocates of the doctrine of the Trinity of two leading texts, Newton has been looked upon as an Arian; but there is absolutely nothing in his writings to warrant such a conclusion.

His remaining theological works consist of the LEXICON PROPHETICUM, which was left incomplete; a Latin Dissertation on the sacred cubit of the Jews, which was translated into English, and published, in 1737, among the Miscellaneous Works of John Greaves; and FOUR LETTERS addressed to Dr. Bentley, containing some arguments in proof of a Deity. These Letters were dated respectively: 10th December, 1692; 17th January, 1693; 25th February, 1693; and 11th February, 1693—the fourth bearing an earlier date than the third. The best faculties and the profoundest acquirements of our author are convincingly manifest in these lucid and powerful compositions. They were published in 1756, and reviewed by Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Newton's religious writings are distinguished by their absolute freedom from prejudice. Everywhere, throughout them, there glows the genuine nobleness of soul. To his whole life, indeed, we may here fitly extend the same observation. He was most richly imbued with the very spirit of the Scriptures which he so delighted to study and to meditate upon. His was a piety, so fervent, so sincere and practical, that it rose up like a holy incense from every thought and act. His a benevolence that not only willed, but endeavoured the best for all. His a philanthropy that held in the embracings of its love every brother-man. His a toleration of the largest and the truest; condemning persecution in every, even its mildest form; and kindly encouraging each striving after excellence:—a toleration that came not of indifference—for the immoral and the impious met with their quick rebuke—but a toleration that came of the wise humbleness and the Christian charity, which see, in the nothingness of self and the almightiness of TRUTH, no praise for the ablest, and no blame for the feeblest in their strugglings upward to light and life.

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In the winter of 1691-2, on returning from chapel, one morning, Newton found that a favourite little dog, called Diamond, had overturned a lighted taper on his desk, and that several papers containing the results of certain optical experiments, were nearly consumed. His only exclamation, on perceiving his loss, was, "Oh Diamond, Diamond, little knowest thou the mischief thou hast done." Dr. Brewster, in his life of our author, gives the following extract from the manuscript Diary of Mr. Abraham De La Pryme, a student in the University at the time of this occurrence.

"1692. February, 3.—What I heard to-day I must relate. There is one Mr. Newton (whom I have very oft seen), Fellow of Trinity College, that is mighty famous for his learning, being a most excellent mathematician, philosopher, divine, &c. He has been Fellow of the Royal Society these many years; and among other very learned books and tracts, he's written one upon the mathematical principles of philosophy, which has given him a mighty name, he having received, especially from Scotland, abundance of congratulatory letters for the same; but of all the books he ever wrote, there was one of colours and light, established upon thousands of experiments which he had been twenty years of making, and which had cost him many hundreds of pounds. This book which he valued so much, and which was so much talked of, had the ill luck to perish, and be utterly lost just when the learned author was almost at putting a conclusion at the same, after this manner: In a winter's morning, leaving it among his other papers on his study table while he went to chapel, the candle, which he had unfortunately left burning there, too, catched hold by some means of other papers, and they fired the aforesaid book, and utterly consumed it and several other valuable writings; and which is most wonderful did no further mischief. But when Mr. Newton came from chapel, and had seen what was done, every one thought he would have run mad, he was so troubled thereat that he was not himself for a month after. A long account of this his system of colours you may find in the Transactions of the Royal Society, which he had sent up to them long before this sad mischance happened unto him."