bishop Tillotson sent him his nephew for a pupil. But his health did not permit him to go on in that way; and therefore, resigning his pupils to Mr. Laughton, he became chaplain (for he had taken orders) to Dr. Moore, bishop of Norwich. During the time of his being chaplain to bishop Moore, which was from 1694 to 1698, he published his first work, entitled "A new Theory of the Earth, from its original to the consummation of all things; wherein the Creation of the World in six days, the universal deluge, and the general conflagration, as laid down in the Holy Scriptures, are shewn to be perfectly agreeable to Reason and Philosophy," 1696, 8vo. Whiston relates, that this book was shewed in manuscript to Dr. Bentley, to sir Christopher Wren, and especially to sir Isaac Newton, on whose principles it depended; and though Mr. John Keill soon after wrote against it, and demonstrated that it could not stand the test of mathematics and sound philosophy, yet it brought no small reputation to the author. Thus Locke, mentioning it in a letter to Mr. Molyneux, dated Feb. 22, 1696, says, “I bave not heard any one of my acquaintance speak of it but with great commendations, as I think it deserves; and truly I think it is more to be admired, that he has laid down an hypothesis, whereby he has explained so many wonderful and before inexplicable things in the great changes of this globe, than that some of them should not easily go down with some men; when the whole was entirely new to ali. He is one of those sort of writers, that I always fancy should be most esteemed and encouraged: I am always for the builders, who bring some addition to our knowledge, or at least some new things to our thoughts." This work of Whiston has gone through six editions; but no considerable additions, as he informs us, were made to it after the third.

In 1698, bishop Moore gave him the living of Lowestoft cum Kessingland, by the sea-side, in Suffolk; upon which he quitted his place of chaplain, and was succeeded by Mr. (afterwards the celebrated Dr.) Clarke, who was then about four-and-twenty years of age. He went to reside upon his living, and applied himself most earnestly and conscientiously to the duties of the station. He kept a curate, yet preached twice a Sunday himself; and, all the summer season at least, read a catechetic lecture at the chapel in the evening, chiefly for the instruction of the adult. He has recorded an instance or two, which shew

how zealous he was for the promotion of piety and good manners. The parish-officers applied to him once for his hand to a licence, in order to set up a new alehouse; to whom he answered, "If they would bring him a paper to sign, for the pulling an alehouse down, he would certainly sign it; but would never sign one for setting an alehouse up."

In the beginning of the last century he was called to be sir Isaac Newton's deputy, and afterwards his successor in the Lucasian professorship of mathematics; when he resigned his living, and went to Cambridge. In 1702 he published "A short view of the Chronology of the Old Testament, and of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists;" in 4to; and in March 1702-3, "Tacquet's Euclid, with select theorems of Archimedes, and practical corollaries," in Latin, for the use of young students in the university. This edition of Euclid was reprinted at Cambridge in 1710; and afterwards in English at London, under his own inspection. He tells us that it was the accidental purchase of Tacquet's ówn Euclid at an auction, which occasioned his first application to mathematical studies. In 1706 he published an "Essay on the Revelation of St. John;" in 1707, "Prælectiones astronomicæ ;" and sir Isaac Newton's "Arithmetica Universalis," by the author's permission. The same year, 1707, he preached eight sermons upon the accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies, at the lecture founded by the honourable Mr. Boyle; which he printed the year after, with an appendix to the same purpose. About August, 1708, he drew up an "Essay upon the Apostolical Constitutions," and offered it to the vicechancellor, for his licence to be printed at Cambridge; but was refused it. He tells us that he had now read over the two first centuries of the church; and found that the Eusebian, or commonly called Arian, doctrine was, for the main, the doctrine of those ages; and, as he thought it a point of duty to communicate what he had thus discovered, so his heterodox notions upon the article of the Trinity were now very generally known.

In 1709 he published a volume of "Sermons and Essays on several subjects;" one of which is to prove that our blessed Saviour had several brethren and sisters properly 30 called, that is, the children of his reputed father Joseph, and of his true mother, the Virgin Mary. Dr. Clarke, he says, wrote to him to suppress this piece, not

on account of its being false, but that the common opinion might go undisturbed; but, he adds, "that such sort of motives were of no weight with him, compared with the discovery and propagation of truth. In 1710 he published "Prælectiones Physico-Mathematica; sive Philosophia clarissimi Newtoni Mathematica illustrata ;" which, together with the "Prælectiones Astronomica" before mentioned, were afterwards translated and published in English; and it may be said, with no small honour to the memory of Mr. Whiston, that he was one of the first, if not the very first, who explained the Newtonian philosophy in a popular way, and so that the generality of readers might comprehend it with little difficulty. About this year, 1710, Menkenius, a very learned man in Germany, wrote to Dr. Hudson, the keeper of the Bodleian library at Oxford, for an account of Mr. Whiston; whose writings then made, as he said, a great noise in Germany. He had some time embraced the Arian heresy, and was forming projects to support and propagate it; and, among other things, had translated the "Apostolical Constitutions" into English, which favoured that doctrine, and which he asserted to be genuine. His friends began to be alarmed for him; they represented to him the dangers he would bring upon himself and family, for he had been married many years, by proceeding in this design; but all they could say availed nothing and the consequence was, that, Oct. 30, 1710, he was deprived of his professorship, and expelled the university of Cambridge, after having been formally convened and interrogated for some days before.

At the end of the same year he published his "Historical Preface;" setting forth the several steps and reasons of his departing from the commonly-received notions of the Trinity; and, in 1711, his 4 vols. of "Primitive Christianity revived," in 8vo. The first volume contains "The Epistles of Ignatius, both larger and smaller, in Greek and English;" the third, "An Essay on those Apostolical Constitutions;" the fourth, "An account of the Primitive Faith, concerning the Trinity and Incarnation." In March 1711, soon after the publication of his "Historical Preface," he was attacked in the convocation, of whose proceedings, as well as those of the university, against him, he published distinct accounts, in two appendixes to that preface, when it was reprinted with additions, and prefixed to his volumes of "Primitive Christianity revived." After VOL. XXXI.

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his expulsion from Cambridge he went to London; where he had conferences with Clarke, Hoadly, and other learned men, who endeavoured to moderate his zeal, but he proved the superior tenderness of his conscience, by assuring them that he would not suffer his zeal to be tainted or corrupted, as he imagined it would be, with the least mixture of prudence or worldly wisdom. He tells us. of those eminent persons, that, with regard to his account of the primitive faith about the Trinity and incarnation, they were not much dissatisfied with it; and that, though they were far less convinced of the authority and genuineness of the "Apostolical Constitutions," yet they were willing enough to receive them, as being much better and more authentic than what were already in the church.

Whiston was now settled with his family in London; and though it does not appear that he had any certain means of subsisting*, yet he continued to write books, and to propagate his primitive Christianity, with as much cheerfulness and vigour as if he had been in the most flourishing circumstances. During March 1711-12, prince Eugene of Savoy was in England; and because Whiston believed himself to have discovered, in his "Essay on the Revelation of St. John," that some of the prophecies there had been fulfilled by that general's victory over the Turks in 1697, or by the succeeding peace of Carlowitz in 1698, he printed a short dedication, and fixing it to the cover of a copy of that essay, presented it to the prince. The prince has been said to have replied, that "he did not know he had the honour of having been known to St. John; however, he thought proper to take so much notice of Whiston's well-meant endeavours, as to send him a present of fifteen guineas. The dedication runs thus: "Illustrissimo Principi Eugenio Sabaudiensi, vaticiniorum Apocalypticorum unum, Turcarum vastationibus finiendis destinatum, dudum adimplenti; alterum etiam, de Gallorum imperio subvertendo, magna ex parte, uti spes est, mox adimpleturo; hunc libellum, summa qua decet reverentia, dat, dicat, consecrat,

8 id. Mart. 1711-12.

Gulielmus Whiston."

In 1715, 1716, 1717, a society for promoting primitive Christianity met weekly at his house in Cross-street, Hat

*This seems not quite correct. His son informs us that he had a small estate in the county of Cambridge,

which brought him in near 401. a year and he taught mathematics. &e. to private pupils..

ton-garden, composed of about ten or twelve persons; to which society Christians of all persuasions were equally admitted. Sir Peter King, Dr. Hare, Dr. Hoadly, and Dr. Clarke, were particularly invited; but none of them, he says, ever came. In 1719, he published "A Letter of Thanks to Robinson, bishop of London, for his late Letter to his Clergy against the use of new Forms of Doxology." The common forms having been changed by Whiston, and indeed by Dr. Clarke, was the occasion of Robinson's admonitory letter to his clergy and this admonitory letter tempted Whiston to do a thing, he says, which he never did before or since; that is, to expose him in the way of banter or ridicule, and to cut him with great sharpness. Upon the publication of this " Letter of Thanks" to the bishop of London, Dr. Sacheverell attempted to shut him out of St. Andrew's, Holborn, which was then his parishchurch; and Whiston published an account of it. He relates, that Mr. Wilson, a lawyer, who did not love Sacheverell, would willingly have prosecuted him for the insult, and promised to do it without any costs to him; but Whiston replied, "if I should give my consent, I should shew myself to be as foolish and as passionate as Sacheverell himself." In the same year, 1719, he published a letter to the earl of Nottingham, "concerning the eternity of the Son of God, and his Holy Spirit ;" and, in the second and following editions, a defence of it; for lord Nottingham had published "an Answer" in 1721, for which he was highly complimented by addresses from both the universities, and from the London clergy. In 1720 he was proposed by sir Hans Sloane and Dr. Halley to the royal society as a member, for he was publishing something or other in the way of philosophy; but was refused admittance by sir Isaac Newton, the president. He tells us he had enjoyed a large portion of sir Isaac's favour for twenty years together; but lost it at last by contradicting him when he was old. "Sir Isaac," adds he, "was of the most fearful, cautious, and suspicious temper, that I ever knew; and, had he been alive when I wrote against his Chronology, and so thoroughly confuted it that nobody has ever since ventured to vindicate it, I should not have thought proper to publish my confutation; because I knew his temper so well, that I should have expected it would have killed him: as Dr. Bentley, bishop Stillingfleet's chaplain, told me that he believed Mr. Locke's thorough con