Hostname: page-component-68945f75b7-wph62 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-05T19:20:20.193Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Science and Apologetics in the Early Boyle Lectures

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

John J. Dahm
John J. Dahm
Affiliation:
Mr. Dahm is an assistant professor of history inthe University of Missouri—Rolla, Rolla, Missouri
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

With the endowment of a lectureship for the defense of the Christion faith, the distinguished English natural philosopher, Robert Boyle, gave the Anglican church a unique opportunity to counter the atheistic currents of thought which were posing a challenge to the faithful in the late seventeenth century. Of the Boyle lectures preached between 1692 and 1713, the most important and popular ones incorporated the new natural philosophy of the age—including some of the recently published ideas of Newton—in an apologetic which was remarkable for its flexibility and its concern with contemporary theological issues. Within the institutional framework which Boyle's generosity had provided, certain of the Anglican clergy devoted themselves anew to the age-old exercise of utilizing the discoveries of science in the service of their faith. It was particularly appropriate that they do so since many of the challenges were based implicitly or explicitly on a materialistic and mechanistic science.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 39 , Issue 2 , June 1970 , pp. 172 - 186
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. The revelant part of the codicil is found in Boyle, Robert, The Works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Birch, Thomas (London: J. and F. Rivington, 1772), I, clxviiGoogle Scholar

2. The only biographical account of Rotherham, is in The Dictionary of National Biography, eds. Stephen, Leslie and Lee, Sidney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959-1960), XVII, 300–301Google Scholar. [Hereafter cited as the D.N.B.]

3. On the relationship between the Ashursts and Baxter see Powicke, Frederick J., The Reverend Richard Baxter Under the Cross (1662-1691) (London: Jonathan Cape, 1927), pp. 38, 87 (note 5), and 144–145Google Scholar. Boyle's friendship with Baxter is mentioned in Bates, William, A Funeral-Sermon for the Reverend, Holy and Excellent Divine, Mr. Richard Baxter, Who Deceased Decemb. 8, 1691. With An Account of His Life (London: Brab. Aylmer, 1692), p. A3.Google Scholar

4. See C[okayne], G[eorge] E., Complete Baronetage 1611–1800 (Exeter, England: W. Pollard and Company, 1900-1909), IV, 151Google Scholar, and Boyle, , Works, I, clxxi.Google Scholar

5. Boyle, , Works, VI, 287–296Google Scholar contains the Evelyn-Boyle correspondence. A biographical account of Evelyn is in the D.N.B., VI, 943–947.Google Scholar

6. Derham, William, Physico-Theology: Or, a Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God, from His Works of Creation (London: W. Innys, 1713), p. A3Google Scholar (italics added). For information on Tenison see Carpenter, Edward F., Thomas Tenison, Archbishop of Canterbury, His Life and His Times (London: Church Historical Society, 1948)Google Scholar, and the D.N.B., XIX, 537–540.Google Scholar

7. On the allegedly unorthodox character of Bentley's 1694 lectures see note 12. The controversy over Clarke's lectures is mentioned in H[enry]Alexander, G., ed., The Leibnis Clarke Correspondence (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1956), pp. xli–xlii.Google Scholar

8. Cragg, Gerald R., Reason and Authority in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1964), p. 40.Google Scholar

9. Nichols, John, A Supplement to Dr. Swift's Works, Being the Fourteenth in the Collection (London: J. Nichols, 1779), p. 347 (note i).Google Scholar

10. On the election for 1695 see Evelyn, John, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. de Beer, E.S. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1955), V, 196–197Google Scholar. The events of the elections for 1697 are described by Evelyn in a letter to Bentley dated January 10, 1697 in The Correspondence of Richard Bentley, D.D., ed. Christopher Wordsworth (London: John Murray, 1842), I, 131Google Scholar. John Woodward speaks of conveying Evelyn's proxy to Tenison for the 1698 election in two letters to Evelyn dated September 25 and October 5, 1697 in Evelyn, John, Diary and Corerspondence of John Evelyn, F.R.S., ed. Bray, William (London: n.p., 1850-1852), III, 367–369.Google Scholar

11. For the exchange of letters between Evelyn and Bentley on this matter see Bentley to Evelyn, October 17, 1696; Evelyn to Bentley, October 18, 1696; and Evelyn to Bentley, January 10, 1697 in Bentley Correspondence, I, 125–126, 127, and 131Google Scholar. A copy of the letter from Evelyn to Tenison dated October 18, 1696 is in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge (Add. MSS. C. 21—Letter 7).

12. Bentley's difficulties with the archbishop wre discussed with Evelyn. See Evelyn to Bentley, February 16, 1696 and Bentley to Evelyn, February 22, 1696 in Bentley Correspondence, I, 112–113Google Scholar. Whiston's comments on Bentley's lectures are in Whiston, William, Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Mr. William Whiston, Containing Memoris of Several of His Friends Also (London: Printed for the Author; 1749), pp. 106–109.Google Scholar

13. See Tension to Evelyn, November 17 and 28, 1698 and December 5, 1704 in Evelyn, , Diary and Correspondence, ed. Bray, , III, 376–377 and 399.Google Scholar

14. Derham, , Physico-Theology, p. A3 (note).Google Scholar

15. For the best collected edition of the early Boyle lectures and lists of the lecturers see Letsome, Sampson and Nicholl, John, eds., A Defence of Natural and Revealed Religion: Being a Collection of the Sermons Preached at the Lecture Founded by the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq. (London: D. Midwinter, et al., 1739), I–III.Google Scholar

16. Boyle wrote a number of works dealing with science and religion including A Disquisition Concerning Final Causes (1688) and The Christian Virtuoso (1690).

17. The collected version of Bentley's lectures reached a sixth edition by 1735 and certain of them were reprinted as late as 1815. Translations of them into Latin, German, French, and Dutch also appeared. See Bartholomew, A. T. and Clarke, J. W., Richard Bentley, D.D. A Bibliography of His Works and of All the Literature Called Forth by His Acts or His Writings (Cambridge, England: Bowes and Bowes, 1908), pp. 1–9Google Scholar. Clarke's lectures fared less well abroad. The British Museum General Catalogue of Printed Books lists only a French translation, but it shows that the collected English version reached an eighth edition by 1732. Derham's lectures were the most popular of all. The Catalogue notes thirteen English editions by 1768, three new editions by the end of the century, and translations into Dutch, French, Swedish, and German.

18. See the D.N.B., II, 307Google Scholar, and Bentley to Evelyn, October 21, 1697 in Bentley Correspondence, I, 152.Google Scholar

19. See the D.N.B., IV, 443Google Scholar. On the increase in the Newtonian character of the editions of the Rohault see Hoskin, Michael, “Mining All Within: Clarke's notes to Rohault's Traité de Physique,” The Thomist, 24, (1961), 353–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20. Atkinson, A. D., “William Derham, F.R.S. 1657–1735,” Annals of Science, 8, No. 4 (1952), 368–392CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and the D.N.B., V, 842–843.Google Scholar

21. Glover, Willis B., “God and Thomas Hobbes,” Hobbes Studies, ed Brown, K. C. (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1965), p. 141.Google Scholar

22. Bentley, to Bernard, , 05 28, 1692 in Bentley Correspondence, I, 39–40.Google Scholar

23. Ibid., p. 39.

24. These references to Hobbes and the other atheists in Bentley, Clarke and Derham will be noted in the discussions which follow.

25. Glover, , “God and Hobbes,” pp. 144 and 159Google Scholar. Kargon, Robert H., Atomism in England from Hariot to Newton (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), p. 61.Google Scholar

26. Kargon, , Atomism in England, pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

27. Watkins, J. W. N., Hobbes's System of Ideas: A Study in the Political Significance of Philosophical Ideas (London: Hutchinson and Co. Ltd., 1965), p. 9.Google Scholar

28. Eaton, Ralph M., “Introduction” Descartes Selections (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1927), pp. vi, xxi–xxii, xxxi, xxxiv–xxxvGoogle Scholar. See also Burtt, Edwin A., The Metaphysical Origins of Modern Physical Science (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1954), pp. 111–113.Google Scholar

29. Descartes, René, The Philosophical Works of Descartes, trans. Haldane, E. S. and Ross, G. R. T. (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1955), I, 230–231.Google Scholar

30. Clarke, Samuel, A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God: More Particularly in Answer to Mr. Hobbs, Spinoza, and Their Followers (London: James Knapton, 1705), pp. 50–51.Google Scholar

31. Hazard, Paul, The European Mind (1680–1715) (New York: World Publishing Company, 1963), pp. 139–146.Google Scholar

32. Kargon, , Atomism in England, pp. 65–68.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., pp. 77–92.

34. Bentley, Richard, A Confututation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World. The Third and Last Part (London: H. Mortlock, 1693), pp. 3–4, 11–13, and 19–23Google Scholar. Clarke, , Demonstration, pp. 225–231.Google Scholar

35. Derham, , Physico-Theology, pp. 36–37, 96, 145, 172, 202–203, and 464–468.Google Scholar

36. Clarke, , Demonstration, p. 105.Google Scholar

37. Bentley, Richard, Matter and Motion Cannot Think: Or, a Confutation of Atheism from the Faculties of the Soul (London; Tho. Parkhurst and Henry Mortlock, 1692), pp. 17–26.Google Scholar

38. Clarke, , Demonstration, pp. 188–189 and 190–198Google Scholar. Clarke, Samuel, A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion, and the Truth and Certainty of the Christian Revelation (London: James Kuapton, 1706), pp. 179–180.Google Scholar

39. Derham, , Physico-Theology, pp. 312–313Google Scholar. Note 18 makes it clear that Derham was referring to the followers of Descartes. He did not consider Descartes an atheist.

40. Hobbes, Thomas, The English Works of Thomas Høbbes of Malmesbury, ed. Molesworth, William (London: John Bohn, 1839-1845), I, 69–74.Google Scholar

41. Bentley, Richard, A Confutation of Atheism from the Origin and Frame of the World. Part II (London: H. Mortlock, 1693), pp. 1–26.Google Scholar

42. Bentley, , Matter and Motion Cannot Think, pp. 31–33.Google Scholar

43. Clarke, , Demonstration, pp. 103–126.Google Scholar

44. Bentley, Richard, A Confutation of Atheism from the Structure and Origin of Humane Bodies. Part II (London: Tho. Parkhurst and H. Mortlock, 1692), pp. 5–6.Google Scholar

45. Bentley, , A Confutation … Origin and Frame of the World. Part II, pp. 26–30.Google Scholar

46. Clarke, , Discourse, pp. 19–23Google Scholar. Cf. Discourse, pp. 354–358 where the idea that God acts continually on matter is reaffirmed. Richard Westfall points out that maintaining God's immediate providence was an important consideration for the Royal Society “virtuosi,” especially Boyle and John Ray. Westfall, Richard, Science and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1958), pp. 70–105.Google Scholar

47. Derham, , Physico-Theology, p. 31 (note 1).Google Scholar

48. Letsome, and Nicholl, , eds., A Defence, II, 572 (note 1).Google Scholar

49. Derhamn, , Physico-Theology, pp. 174 ff. and 318–319.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., pp. 202–203 and 388.

51. Ibid., pp. 412–413.

52. Newton, to Bentley, , 02 25, 1693, in The Correcpondence of Isaac Newton, ed. Turnbull, H. W. (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1959-1967), III, 254Google Scholar. Kargon argues that Newton reversed himself in the second English edition of the Opticks (1717) by hinting that the aether was the cause of gravity and, thus, embarrassing Bentley and Clarke on this point. See Kargon, , Atomism in England, pp. 138–139Google Scholar. But both men continued to publish editions of their Boyle lectures without altering their arguments based on an immaterial cause for gravity. Clarke, in particular, made many changes, some major, in successive editions of his lectures. See Letsome, and Nicholl, , eds., A Defence, I, 33 and 71–72Google Scholar; II, 72–73.

53. Newton made the suggestion in Query 20 of the Latin edition of the Opticks (1706). This query is number 28 in subsequent English editions.