Among the books which in my younger day were in some orthodox publication lists--I think in the list of the Christian Knowledge Society, but I am not sure--was Locke's [301] "Reasonableness of Christianity." It seems to have come down from the eighteenth century, when the battle was belief in Christ against unbelief, _simpliciter_, as the {143} logicians say. Now, if ever there was a Socinian[302] book in the world, it is this work of Locke. "These two," says Locke, "faith and repentance, i.e., believing Jesus to be the Messiah, and a good life, are the indispensable conditions of the new covenant, to be performed by all those who would obtain eternal life." All the book is amplification of this doctrine. Locke, in this and many other things, followed Hobbes, whose doctrine, in the Leviathan, is _fidem, quanta ad salutem necessaria est, contineri in hoc articulo, Jesus est Christus_.[303] For this Hobbes was called an atheist, which {144} many still believe him to have been: some of his contemporaries called him, rightly, a Socinian. Locke was known for a Socinian as soon as his work appeared: Dr. John Edwards,[304] his assailant, says he is "Socinianized all over." Locke, in his reply, says "there is not one word of Socinianism in it:" and he was right: the positive Socinian doctrine has _not one word of Socinianism in it_; Socinianism consists in omissions. Locke and Hobbes did not dare _deny_ the Trinity: for such a thing Hobbes might have been roasted, and Locke might have been strangled. Accordingly, the well-known way of teaching Unitarian doctrine was the collection of the asserted essentials of Christianity, without naming the Trinity, etc. This is the plan Newton followed, in the papers which have at last been published.[305]
So I, for one, thought little about the general tendency of orthodox writers to claim Bacon by means of the Paradoxes. I knew that, in his "Confession of Faith"[306] he is a Trinitarian of a heterodox stamp. His second Person takes human nature before he took flesh, not for redemption, but as a condition precedent of creation. "God is so holy, pure, and jealous, that it is impossible for him to be pleased in any creature, though the work of his own hands.... [Gen. i. 10, 12, 18, 21, 25, 31, freely rendered]. But--purposing to become a Creator, and to communicate to his creatures, he ordained in his eternal counsel that one person of the Godhead should be united to one nature, and to one particular of his creatures; that so, in the person of the Mediator, the true ladder might be fixed, whereby God might {145} descend to his creatures and his creatures might ascend to God...."
This is republished by the Religious Tract Society, and seems to suit their theology, for they confess to having omitted some things of which they disapprove.
In 1864, Mr. Grosart published his discovery that the Paradoxes are by Herbert Palmer; that they were first published surreptitiously, and immediately afterwards by himself, both in 1645; that the "Remains" of Bacon did not appear until 1648; that from 1645 to 1708, thirteen editions of the "Memorials" were published, all containing the Paradoxes. In spite of this, the Paradoxes were introduced into Bacon's works in 1730, where they have remained.
Herbert Palmer was of good descent, and educated as a Puritan. He was an accomplished man, one of the few of his day who could speak French as well as English. He went into the Church, and was beneficed by Laud,[307] in spite of his puritanism; he sat in the Assembly of Divines, and was finally President of Queens' College, Cambridge, in which post he died, August 13, 1647, in the 46th year of his age.
Mr. Grosart says, speaking of Bacon's "Remains," "All who have had occasion to examine our early literature are aware that it was a common trick to issue imperfect, false, and unauthorized writings under any recently deceased name that might be expected to take. The Puritans, down to John Bunyan, were perpetually expostulating and protesting against such procedure." I have met with instances of all this; but I did not know that there was so much of it: a good collection would be very useful. The work of 1728, attributed to Newton, is likely enough to be one of the class.
{146}
Demonstration de l'immobilitez de la Terre.... Par M. de la Jonchere,[308] Ingenieur Francais. Londres, 1728, 8vo.
A synopsis which is of a line of argument belonging to the beginning of the preceding century.
