Theological Studies of Sir Isaac—Their Importance to Christianity—Motives to which they have been ascribed—Opinions of Biot and Laplace considered—His Theological Researches begun before his supposed Mental Illness—The Date of these Works fixed—Letters to Locke—Account of his Observations on Prophecy—His Historical Account of two notable Corruptions of Scripture—His Lexicon Propheticum—His Four Letters to Dr. Bentley—Origin of Newton’s Theological Studies—Analogy between the Book of Nature and that of Revelation.
The history of the theological studies of Sir Isaac Newton will ever be regarded as one of the most interesting portions of his life. That he who among all the individuals of his species possessed the highest intellectual powers was not only a learned and profound divine, but a firm believer in the great doctrines of religion, is one of the proudest triumphs of the Christian faith. Had he distinguished himself only by an external respect for the offices and duties of religion; and had he left merely in his last words an acknowledgment of his faith, his piety would have been regarded as a prudent submission to popular feeling, and his last aspirations would have been ascribed to the decay or to the extinction of his transcendent powers. But he had been a Christian from his youth, and though never intended for the church, yet he interchanged the study of the Scriptures with that of the laws of the material universe; and from the examination of the works of the Supreme Creator he found it to be no abrupt243 transition to investigate the revelation of his will, and to contemplate the immortal destinies of mankind.
But when the religious habits of Sir Isaac Newton could not be ascribed to an ambition of popularity, to the influence of weak health, or to the force of professional impulse, it became necessary for the apostles of infidelity to refer it to some extraordinary cause. His supposed insanity was therefore eagerly seized upon by some as affording a plausible origin for his religious principles; while others, without any view of supporting the cause of skepticism, ascribed his theological researches to the habits of the age in which he lived, and to a desire of promoting political liberty, by turning against the abetters of despotism those powerful weapons which the Scriptures supplied. The anxiety evinced by M. de Laplace to refer his religious writings to a late period of his life seems to have been felt also by M. Biot, who has gone so far as to fix the very date of one of his most important works, and thus to establish the suspicions of his colleague.
“From the nature of the subject,”103 says he, “and from certain indications which Newton seems to give at the beginning of his dissertation, we may conjecture with probability that he composed it at the time when the errors of Whiston, and a work of Dr. Clarke on the same subject, drew upon them the attacks of all the theologians of England, which would place the date between the years 1712 and 1719. It would then be truly a prodigy to remark, that a man of from seventy-two to seventy-five years of age was able to compose, rapidly, as he leads us to believe, so extensive a piece of sacred criticism, of literary history, and even of bibliography, where an erudition the most vast, the most244 varied, and the most ready always supports an argument well arranged and powerfully combined. * * * At this epoch of the life of Newton the reading of religious books had become one of his most habitual occupations, and after he had performed the duties of his office, they formed, along with the conversation of his friends, his principal amusement. He had then almost ceased to care for the sciences, and, as we have already remarked, since the fatal epoch of 1693, he gave to the world only three really new scientific productions.”
Notwithstanding the prodigy which it involves, M. Biot has adopted 1712–1719 as the date of this critical dissertation;—it is regarded as the composition of a man of seventy-two or seventy-five;—the reading of religious works is stated to have become one of his most habitual occupations, and such reading is said to have been one of his principal amusements; and all this is associated with “the fatal epoch of 1693,” as if his illness at that time had been the cause of his abandoning science and betaking himself to theology. Carrying on the same views, M. Biot asks, in reference to Sir Isaac’s work on Prophecy, “How a mind of the character and force of Newton’s, so habituated to the severity of mathematical considerations, so exercised in the observation of real phenomena, and so well aware of the conditions by which truth is to be discovered, could put together such a number of conjectures without noticing the extreme improbability of his interpretations from the infinite number of arbitrary postulates on which he has founded them?” We would apply the same question to the reasoning by which M. Biot fixes the date of the critical dissertation; and we would ask how so eminent a philosopher could hazard such frivolous conjectures upon a subject on which he had not a single fact to guide his inquiries. The obvious tendency, though not the design, of the conclusion at which he arrives is injurious to the245 memory of Newton, as well as to the interests of religion; and these considerations might have checked the temerity of speculation, even if it had been founded on better data. The Newtonian interpretation of the Prophecies, and especially that part which M. Biot characterizes as unhappily stamped with the spirit of prejudice, has been adopted by men of the soundest and most unprejudiced minds; and in addition to the moral and historical evidence by which it is supported, it may yet be exhibited in all the fulness of demonstration. But the speculation of Biot respecting the date of Newton’s theological works was never maintained by any other person than himself, and is capable of being disproved by the most incontrovertible evidence.
We have already seen, in the extract from Mr. Pryme’s manuscript, that previous to 1692, when a shade is supposed to have passed over his gifted mind, Newton was well known by the appellation of an “excellent divine,”—a character which could not have been acquired without the devotion of many years to theological researches; but, important as this argument would have been, we are fortunately not left to so general a defence. The correspondence of Newton with Locke, recently published by Lord King, places it beyond a doubt that he had begun his researches respecting the Prophecies before the year 1691,—before the forty-ninth year of his age, and before the “fatal epoch of 1693.” The following letter shows that he had previously discussed this subject with his friend:—
Cambridge, Feb. 7, 1690–1.
“Sir,
“I am sorry your journey proved to so little purpose, though it delivered you from the trouble of the company the day after. You have obliged me by mentioning me to my friends at London, and I must thank both you and my Lady Masham for your civilities at Oates, and for not thinking that I made246 a long stay there. I hope we shall meet again in due time, and then I should be glad to have your judgment upon some of my mystical fancies. The Son of Man, Dan. vii. I take to be the same with the Word of God upon the White Horse in Heaven, Apoc. xii., for both are to rule the nations with a rod of iron; but whence are you certain that the Ancient of Days is Christ? Does Christ anywhere sit upon the throne? If Sir Francis Masham be at Oates, present, I pray, my service to him, with his lady, Mrs. Cudworth, and Mrs. Masham. Dr. Covel is not in Cambridge.—I am your affectionate and humble servant,
“Is. Newton.
“Know you the meaning of Dan. x. 21. There is none that holdeth with me in these things but Mich. the prince.”
Having thus determined the date of those investigations which constitute his observations on the prophecies of holy writ, particularly the prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse, we shall proceed to fix the latest date of his historical account of two notable corruptions of the Scripture, in a letter to a friend.
This work seems to have been a very early production of our author. It was written in the form of a letter to Mr. Locke, and at that time Sir Isaac seems to have been anxious for its publication. Afraid, however, of being again led into a controversy, and dreading the intolerance to which he might be exposed, he requested Mr. Locke, who was at that time meditating a voyage to Holland, to get it translated into French, and published on the Continent. Having abandoned his design of visiting Holland, Locke transmitted the manuscript, without Newton’s name, to his learned friend M. Le Clerc, in Holland; and it appears, from a letter of Le Clerc’s to Locke, that he must have received it before the 11th April, 1691. M. Le Clerc delayed247 for a long time to take any steps regarding its publication; but in a letter dated January 20th, 1692, he announced to Locke his intention of publishing the tract in Latin. When this plan was communicated to Sir Isaac, he became alarmed at the risk of detection, and resolved to stop the publication of his manuscript. This resolution was intimated to Mr. Locke in the following letter:
Cambridge, Feb. 16th, 1691–2.
“Sir,
“Your former letters came not to my hand, but this I have. I was of opinion my papers had lain still, and am sorry to hear there is news about them. Let me entreat you to stop their translation and impression so soon as you can; for I design to suppress them. If your friend hath been at any pains and charge, I will repay it, and gratify him. I am very glad my Lord Monmouth is till my friend, but intend not to give his lordship and you any farther trouble. My inclinations are to sit still. I am to beg his lordship’s pardon for pressing into his company the last time I saw him. I had not done it, but that Mr. Paulin pressed me into the room. Miracles, of good credit, continued in the church for about two or three hundred years. Gregorius Thaumaturgus had his name from thence, and was one of the latest who was eminent for that gift; but of their number and frequency I am not able to give you a just account. The history of those ages is very imperfect. Mr. Paulin told me you had writ for some of Mr. Boyle’s red earth, and by that I knew you had the receipt.—Your most affectionate and humble servant,
“Is. Newton.”
Hence we see that this celebrated treatise, which Biot alleges to have been written between 1712 and 1719, was actually in the hands of Le Clerc in Holland previous to the 11th April, 1691, and consequently previous to the time of the supposed insanity248 of its author. Mr. Locke lost no time in obeying the request of his friend. Le Clerc instantly stopped the publication of the letter, and, as he had never learned the name of the author, he deposited the manuscript, which was in the handwriting of Mr. Locke, in the library of the Remonstrants, where it was afterward found, and was published at London in 1754, under the title of Two letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. Le Clerc,—a form which had never been given to it by its author. The copy thus published was a very imperfect one, wanting both the beginning104 and the end, and erroneous in many places; but Dr. Horsley has published a genuine edition, which has the form of a single letter to a friend, and was copied from a manuscript in Sir Isaac Newton’s handwriting, in the possession of the Rev. Dr. Ekins, Dean of Carlisle.
Having thus determined as accurately as possible the dates of the principal theological writings of Sir Isaac, we shall now proceed to give some account of their contents.
The Observations on the Prophecies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John were published in London in 1733, in one volume 4to. The work is divided into two parts, the first of which treats of the Prophecies of Daniel, and the second of the Apocalypse of St. John. It begins with an account of the different books which compose the Old Testament; and as the author considers Daniel to be the most distinct in the order of time, and the easiest to be understood, he makes him the key to all the prophetic books in those matters which relate to the “last time.” He next considers the figurative language of the prophets, which he regards as taken “from the analogy between the world natural and an empire or kingdom considered as a world politic;” the heavens and the things therein representing thrones and dynasties; the earth, with the things therein, the249 inferior people; and the lowest parts of the earth the most miserable of the people. The sun is put for the whole race of kings, the moon for the body of the common people, and the stars for subordinate princes and rulers. In the earth, the dry land and the waters are put for the people of several nations. Animals and vegetables are also put for the people of several regions. When a beast or man is put for a kingdom, his parts and qualities are put for the analogous parts and qualities of the kingdom; and when a man is taken in a mystical sense, his qualities are often signified by his actions, and by the circumstances and things about him. In applying these principles he begins with the vision of the image composed of four different metals. This image he considers as representing a body of four great nations which should reign in succession over the earth, viz. the people of Babylonia, the Persians, the Greeks, and the Romans; while the stone cut out without hands is a new kingdom which should arise after the four, conquer all those nations, become very great, and endure to the end of time.
The vision of the four beasts is the prophecy of the four empires repeated, with several new additions. The lion with eagles’ wings was the kingdom of Babylon and Media, which overthrew the Assyrian power. The beast like a bear was the Persian empire, and its three ribs were the kingdoms of Sardis, Babylon, and Egypt. The third beast, like a leopard, was the Greek empire, and its four heads and four wings were the kingdoms of Cassander, Lysimachus, Ptolemy, and Seleucus. The fourth beast, with its great iron teeth, was the Roman empire, and its ten horns were the ten kingdoms into which it was broken in the reign of Theodosius the Great.
In the fifth chapter Sir Isaac treats of the kingdoms represented by the feet of the image composed of iron and clay which did not stick to one another, and which were of different strength. These were250 the Gothic tribes called Ostrogoths, Visigoths, Vandals, Gepid?, Lombards, Burgundians, Alans, &c.; all of whom had the same manners and customs, and spoke the same language, and who, about the year 416 A. C. were all quietly settled in several kingdoms within the empire, not only by conquest, but by grants of emperor.
In the sixth chapter he treats of the ten kingdoms represented by the ten horns of the fourth beast, into which the western empire became divided about the time when Rome was besieged and taken by the Goths. These kingdoms were,
?1. The kingdom of the Vandals and Alans in Spain and Africa.
?2. The kingdom of Suevians in Spain.
?3. The kingdom of the Visigoths.
?4. The kingdom of the Alans in Gaul.
?5. The kingdom of the Burgundians.
?6. The kingdom of the Franks.
?7. The kingdom of the Britains.
?8. The kingdom of the Huns.
?9. The kingdom of the Lombards.
10. The kingdom of Ravenna.
Some of these kingdoms at length fell, and new ones sprung up; but whatever was their subsequent number, they still retain the name of the ten kings from their first number.
The eleventh horn of Daniel’s fourth beast is shown in chapter vii. to be the Church of Rome in its triple character of a seer, a prophet, and a king; and its power to change times and laws is copiously illustrated in chapter viii.
In the ninth chapter our author treats of the kingdom represented in Daniel by the ram and he-goat, the ram indicating the kingdom of the Medes and Persians from the beginning of the four empires, and the he-goat the kingdom of the Greeks to the end of them.
The prophecy of the seventy weeks, which had251 hitherto been restricted to the first coming of our Saviour, is shown to be a prediction of all the main periods relating to the coming of the Messiah, the times of his birth and death, the time of his rejection by the Jews, the duration of the Jewish war by which he caused the city and sanctuary to be destroyed, and the time of his second coming.
In the eleventh chapter Sir Isaac treats with great sagacity and acuteness of the time of our Saviour’s birth and passion,—a subject which had perplexed all preceding commentators.
After explaining in the twelfth chapter the last prophecy of Daniel, namely, that of the scripture of truth, which he considers as a commentary on the vision of the ram and he-goat, he proceeds in the thirteenth chapter to the prophecy of the king who did according to his will, and magnified himself above every god, and honoured Mahuzzims, and regarded not the desire of women. He shows that the Greek empire, after the division of the Roman empire into the Greek and Latin empires, became the king who in matters of religion did according to his will, and in legislation exalted and magnified himself above every god.
In the second part of his work on the Apocalypse of St. John, Sir Isaac treats, 1st, Of the time when the prophecy was written, which he conceives to have been during John’s exile in Patmos, and before the epistle to the Hebrews and the epistles of Peter were written, which in his opinion have a reference to the Apocalypse; 2dly, 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; and, 3dly, Of the relation which the Apocalypse has to the prophecies of Daniel, and of the subject of the prophecy itself.
Sir Isaac regards the prophecies of the Old and New Testaments, not as given to gratify men’s curiosities, by enabling them to foreknow things, but that252 after they were fulfilled, they might be interpreted by the event, and afford convincing arguments that the world is governed by Providence, he considers that there is so much of this prophecy already fulfilled as to afford to the diligent student sufficient instances of God’s providence; and he adds, that “among the interpreters of the last age, there is scarce one of note who hath not made some discovery worth knowing, and thence it seems one may gather that God is about opening these mysteries. The success of others,” he continues, “put me upon considering it, and if I have done any thing which may be useful to following writers, I have my design.”
Such is a brief abstract of this ingenious work, which is characterized by great learning, and marked with the sagacity of its distinguished author. The same qualities of his mind are equally conspicuous in his Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture.
This celebrated treatise relates to two texts in the Epistles of St. John and St. Paul. The first of these is in 1 John v. 7. “For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and these three are one.” This text he considers as a gross corruption of Scripture, which had its origin among the Latins, who interpreted the Spirit, Water, and Blood to be the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in order to prove them one. With the same view Jerome inserted the Trinity in express words in his version. The Latins marked his variations in the margins of their books; and in the twelfth and following centuries, when the disputations of the schoolmen were at their height, the variation began to creep into the text in transcribing. After the invention of printing, it crept out of the Latin into the printed Greek, contrary to the authority of all the Greek manuscripts and ancient versions; and from the Venetian press it went soon after into Greece. After proving these positions253 Sir Isaac gives the following paraphrase of this remarkable passage, which is given in italics.
“Who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God, that Son spoken of in the Psalms, where he saith, ‘thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.’ This is he that, after the Jews had long expected him, came, first in a mortal body, by baptism of water, and then in an immortal one, by shedding his blood upon the cross and rising again from the dead; not by water only, but by............