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wards at Paris, continuing to correspond with Pope, Bolingbroke, and other friends, till his death, which happened in Paris on the seventeenth of February, 1731. His body was carried over to England and privately interred in Westminster Abbey, on the twelfth of the following May.

The works of this accomplished, but restless and aspiring prelate, consist of four volumes of sermons, some visitation charges, and his epistolary correspondence, which was very extensive. His style is easy and elegant; and he is represented, by the Tatler, to have been the most impressive and successful preacher of the age. His good taste is evinced in his admiration for Milton, before fashion had sanctioned the great poet's applause. Atterbury's letters to Pope breathe the utmost affection and tenderness. The following farewell letter to the poet was sent from the Tower on the tenth of April, 1723

DEAR SIR-I thank you for all the instances of your friendship, both before and since my misfortunes. A little time will complete them, and separate you and me forever. But in what part of the world soever I am, I will live mindful of your sincere kindness to me; and will please myself with the thought that I still live in your esteem and affection as much as ever I did; and that no accident of life, no distance of time or place, will alter you in that respect. It never can me, who have loved and valued you ever since I knew you, and shall not fail to do it when I am not allowed to tell you so, as the case will soon be. Give my faithful services to Dr. Arbuthnot, and thanks for what he sent me, which was much to the purpose, if any thing can be said to be to the purpose in a case that is already determined. Let him know my defence will be such, that neither my friends need blush for me, nor will my enemies have great occasion to triumph, though sure of the victory. I shall want his advice before I go abroad in many things. But I question whether I shall be permitted to see him or any body, but such as are absolutely necessary towards the dispatch of my private affairs. If so, God bless you both! and may no part of the ill fortune that attends me ever pursue either of you. I know not but I may call upon you at my hearing, to say something about my way of spending my time at the deanery, which did not seem calculated towards managing plots and conspiracies. But of that I shall consider. You and I have spent many hours together upon much pleasanter subjects; and, that I may preserve the old custom, I shall not part with you now till I have closed this letter with three lines of Milton, which you will, I know, readily, and not without some degree of concern, apply to your ever affectionate, &c.

Some natural tears he dropped, but wiped them soon;
The world was all before him where to choose

His place of rest, and Providence his guide.

To this letter we add the following remarks on church music:

USEFULNESS OF CHURCH MUSIC.

The use of vocal and instrumental harmony in divine worship I shall recommend and justify from this consideration: that they do, when wisely employed and managed, contribute extremely to awaken the attention and enliven the devotion of all serious and sincere Christians; and their usefulness to this end will appear on a double account, as they remove the ordinary hindrances of devotion, and as they supply us further with special helps and advantages towards quickening and improving it.

By the melodious harmony of the church, the ordinary hindrances of devotion are removed, particularly these three; that engagement of thought which we often bring with us into the church from what we last converse with; those accidental distractions that may happen to us during the course of divine service; and that weariness and flatness of mind which some weak tempers may labour under, by reason even of the length of it.

When we come into the sanctuary immediately from any worldly affairs, as our very condition of life does, alas! force many of us to do, we come usually with divided and alienated minds. The business, the pleasures, or the amusement we left, sticks fast to us, and perhaps engrosses that heart for a time, which should then be taken up altogether in spiritual addresses. But as soon as the sound of the sacred hymns strike us, all that busy swarm of thoughts presently disperses: by a grateful violence we are forced into the duty that is going forward, and, as indevout and backward as we were before, find ourselves on the sudden seized with a sacred warmth, ready to cry out, with holy David, 'My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed; I will sing and give praise.' Our misapplication of mind at such times is often so great, and we so deeply immersed in it, that there needs some very strong and powerful charm to rouse us from it; and perhaps nothing is of greater force to this purpose than the solemn, and awakening airs of church music.

For the same reason, those accidental distractions that may happen to us are also best cured by it. The strongest minds, and best practised in holy duties, may sometimes be surprised into a forgetfulness of what they are about by some violent outward impressions; and every slight occasion will serve to call off the thoughts of no less willing though much weaker worshippers. Those that come to see, and to be seen here, will often gain their point; will draw and detain for a while the eyes of the curious and unwary. A passage in the sacred story read, an expression used in the common forms of devotion, shall raise a foreign reflection, perhaps, in musing and speculative minds, and lead them on from thought to thought, and point to point, till they are bewildered in their own imaginations. These, and a hundred other avocations will arise and prevail; but when the instruments of praise begin to sound, our scattered thoughts presently take the alarm, return to their post and to their duty, preparing and arming themselves against their spiritual assailants.

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Lastly, even the length of the service itself becomes a hindrance sometimes to the devotion which it was meant to feed and raise; for, alas! we quickly tire in the performance of holy duties; and as eager and unwearied as we are in attending upon secular business and trifling concerns, yet in divine offices, I fear, the expostulation of our Saviour is applicable to most of us, What! can ye not watch with me one hour?' This infirmity is relieved, this hindrance prevented or removed, by the sweet harmony that accompanies several parts of the service, and returning upon us at fit intervals, keeps our attention up to the duties when we begin to flag, and makes us insensible of the length of it. Happily, therefore, and wisely is it so ordered, that the morning devotions of the church, which are much the longest, should share also a greater proportion of the harmony which is useful to enliven them.

But its use stops not here, at a bare removal of the ordinary impediments to devotion; it supplies us also with special helps and advantages towards furthering and improving it. For it adds dignity and solemnity to public worship; it sweetly influences and raises our passions whilst we assist at it, and makes us do our duty with the greater pleasure and cheerfulness; all which are very proper and powerful means towards creating in that holy attention and erection of mind, the most reasonable part of this our reasonable service.

Such is our nature, that even the best things, and most worthy of our esteem, do not always employ and detain our thoughts in proportion to their real value, unless they be set off and greatened by some outward circumstances, which are fitted to raise admiration and surprise in the breasts of those who hear or behold them. And

this good effect is wrought in us by the power of sacred music. To it we, in good measure, owe the dignity and solemnity of our public worship; which else, I fear, in its natural simplicity and plainness, would not so strongly strike, or so deeply affect the minds, as it ought to do, of the sluggish and inattentive, that is, of the far greatest part of mankind. But when voice and instruments are skillfully adapted to it, it appears to us in a majestic air and shape, and gives us very awful and reverent impressions, which, while they are upon us, it is impossible for us not to be fixed and composed to the utmost. We are then in the same state of mind that the devout patriarch was when he awoke from his holy dream, and ready with him to say to ourselves, 'Surely the Lord is in this place, and I knew it not! How dreadful is this place! This is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'

Further, the availableness of harmony to promote a pious disposition of mind, will appear from the great influence it naturally has on the passions, which, when well directed, are the wings and sails of the mind, that speed its passage to perfection, and are of particular and remarkable use in the offices of devotion; for devotion consists in an ascent of the mind toward God, attended with holy breathings of soul, and a divine exercise of all the passions and powers of the mind. These passions the melody of sounds serve only to guide and elevate toward their proper object: these at first calls forth and encourages, and then gradually rises and inflames. This it does to all of them, as the matter of the hymns sung gives an occasion for the employment of them; but the power of it is chiefly seen in advancing that most heavenly passion of love, which reigns always in pious breasts, and is the surest and most inseparable mark of true devotion; which recommends what we do in virtue of it to God, and makes it relishing to ourselves, and without which all our spiritual offerings, our prayers, and our praises, are both insipid and unacceptable. At this our religion begins, and at this it ends; it is the sweetest companion and improvement of it here upon earth, and the very earnest and foretaste of heaven; of the pleasures of which nothing further is revealed to us, than that they consist in the practice of holy music and holy love, the joint enjoyment of which, we are told, is to be the happy lot of all pious souls to endless ages.

Now, it naturally follows from hence, which was the last advantage from whence I proposed to recommend church music, that it makes our duty a pleasure, and enables us, by that means, to perform it with the utmost vigour and cheerfulness. It is certain, that the more pleasing an action is to us, the more keenly and eagerly are we used to employ ourselves in it; the less liable are we, while it is going forward, to tire, and droop, and be dispirited. So that whatever contributes to make our devotion taking, within such a degree as not at the same time to dissipate and distract, it does, for that very reason, contribute to our attention and holy warmth of mind in performing it. What we take delight in, we no longer look upon as a task, but return to always with desire, dwell upon with satisfaction, and quit with uneasiness. And this it was which made holy David express himself in so pathetical a manner concerning the service of the sanctuary: 'As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. When, oh when, shall I come to appear before the presence of God?'

The ancients do sometimes use the metaphor of an army when they are speaking of the joint devotions put up to God in the assembly of his saints. They say we there meet together in troops to do violence to heaven: we encompass, we besiege the throne of God, and bring such a united force, as is not to be withstood. And I suppose we may as innocently carry on the metaphor as they have begun it, and say, that church music, when decently ordered, may have as great uses in this army of supplicants, as the sound of the trumpet has among the host of the mighty men. It equally rouses the courage, equally gives life, and vigour, and resolution, and unanimity, to those holy assailants.

WILLIAM WHISTON, a man of very remarkable genius and great learning, but of a singular and extraordinary character, was born at Norton, in Leicestershire, on the ninth of December, 1667. He was kept at home till he was seventeen years of age, and instructed by his father, who was a learned and pious man, and rector of Norton parish. In 1684, Whiston was sent to Tamworth school, and two years after admitted into Clare Hall College, Cambridge, where he pursued his studies, particularly mathematics, with the greatest diligence, until 1693, when he took his master's degree and was chosen fellow of his college. He now designed to establish himself in the university as a tutor, but was soon after induced to relinquish that object, and become chaplain to Dr. More, bishop of Norwich, with whom he remained four years. In 1696, while he was chaplain to the bishop, Whiston published his New Theory of the Earth, the design of which was to show that the Mosaic account of the Creation was agreeable to philosophy and reason.

In 1698, Whiston was presented, by his patron, Bishop More, to the living of Lowestoft, in Suffolk, where he devoted himself assiduously to his pa rochial duties, till he was invited, in 1700, to Cambridge, to become deputy to Sir Isaac Newton, whom he soon after succeeded in the Lucasian professorship of Mathematics. About this time his attachment to the principles of the church of England beginning to waver, he pretended to discover that the two first centuries of the church were truly Eusebian or Arian, and that afterwards, doctrines less congenial to the genuine spirit of Christianity had been adopted. These opinions, which were heard with astonishment by his friends, engaged much of the public attention; but he disregarded the opposition and censures of his former associates, and wrote several works in support of his sentiments, and in vindication of his conduct. This drew upon him the severe displeasure of the university; and in 1710, he was deprived of his professorship, and banished from the precincts of Cambridge. Regardless of the disgrace, he retired to London, where he maintained himself by giving lectures on philosophy, astronomy, and divinity, and by writing on his favourite topic of primitive Christianity. In 1747, Whiston left the church of England entirely, and united with the Baptists; but he soon after set up what he conceived to be a more primitive congregation himself. He did not, however, long survive this experiment, but died soon after he commenced it, on the twenty-second of August, 1752.

'Whiston,' according to Bishop Hare, 'was a fair unblemished character, who all his life had cultivated piety, virtue, and good learning. Constant himself, in the private and public duties of religion, he promoted virtue in others, and such learning as he thought would conduce most to the honour of God, by manifesting the greatness and wisdom of his works.' Had Whiston confined himself to mathematical studies, he would have acquired a high name in science; but his time and attention were dissipated by his theological pursuits, in which he evinced more zeal than judgment. He was an elaborate writer, and produced, besides the Theory of the Earth,' al

ready mentioned, and some tracts on the Newtonian system, an Essay on the Revelation of St. John, Sermons on the Scripture Prophecies, Primitive Christianity Revived, in five volumes, and Memoirs of his own Life. The following extract is taken from the last of those works:

ANECDOTE OF THE DISCOVERY OF THE NEWTONIAN PHILOSOPHY. After I had taken holy orders, I returned to the college, and went on with my own studies there, particularly the mathematics and the Cartesian philosophy, which was alone in vogue with us at that time. But it was not long before I, with immense pains, but no assistance, set myself with the utmost zeal to the study of Sir Isaac Newton's wonderful discoveries in his 'Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica,' one or two of which lectures I had heard him read in the public schools, though I understood them not at all at that time-being indeed greatly exerted thereto by a paper of Dr. Gregory's when he was professor in Scotland, wherein he had given the most prodigious commendations to that work, as not only right in all things, but in a manner the effect of a plainly divine genius, and had already caused several of his scholars to keep acts, as we call them. upon several branches of the Newtonian philosophy; while we at Cambridge, poor wretches, were ignominiously studying the fictitious hypothesis of the Cartesian, which Sir Isaac Newton had also himself done formerly, as I have heard him say. What the occasion of Sir Isaac Newton's leaving the Cartesian philosophy, and of discovering his amazing theory of gravity was, I have heard him long ago, soon after my first acquaintance with him, which was 1694, thus relate, and of which Dr. Pemberton gives the like account, and somewhat more fully, in the preface to his explication of his philosophy. It was this: an inclination came into Sir Isaac's mind to try whether the same power did not keep the moon in her orbit, notwithstanding her projectile velocity, which he knew always tended to go along a straight line, the tangent of that orbit, which makes stones and all heavy bodies with us fall downwards, and which we call gravity? taking this postulatum, which had been thought of before, that such power might decrease in a duplicate proportion of the distances from the earth's centre. Upon Sir Isaac's first trial, when he took a degree of a great circle on the earth's surface, whence a degree at the distance of the moon was to be determined also, to be sixty measured miles only, according to the gross measures then in use, he was in some degree disappointed; and the power that restrained the moon in her orbit, measured by the versed sines of that orbit, appeared not to be quite the same that was to be expected, had it been the power of gravity alone by which the moon was there influenced. Upon this disappointment, which made Sir Isaac suspect that this power was partly that of gravity and partly that of Cartesius's vortices, he threw aside the paper of his calculations, and went to other studies. However, some time afterward, when Monsieur Picart had much more exactly measured the earth, and found that a degree of a great circle was sixty-nine and a half such miles, Sir Isaac, in turning over some of his former papers, lighted upon this old imperfect calculation, and, correcting his former error, discovered that this power, at the true correct distance of the moon from the earth, not only tended to the earth's centre, as did the common power of gravity with us, but was exactly of the right quantity; and that if a stone was carried up to the moon, or to sixty semi-diameters of the earth, and let fall downward by its gravity; and the moon's own menstrual motion was stopped, and she was let to fall by that power which before retained her in her orbit, they would exactly fall towards the same point, and with the same velocity; which was, therefore, no other power than that of gravity. And since that power appeared to extend as far as the moon, at the distance of 240,000 miles it was but natural, or rather necessary, to suppose it might reach twice, thrice, four times, &c., the same distance, with the same diminution, according to the squares of such distances per

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