lead in England, where duty wears no fetters but inclination! The custom of our country enslaves us from our very cradles; first to our parents, next to our husbands; and when Heaven is so kind to rid us of both these, our brothers still usurp authority, and expect a blind obedience from us: so that, maids, wives, or widows, we are little better than slaves to the tyrant man; therefore, to avoid their power, I resolve to cast myself into a monastery. Inis. That is, you'll cut your own throat to avoid another's doing it for you. Ah, madam, those eyes tell me you have no nun's flesh about you! A monastery, quotha! where you'll wish yourself into the green-sickness in a month. Isa. What care I? there will be no man to plague me. heart, if the tenderness of a father be not quite extinct, hear me with patience. Lop. No objection against the marriage, and I will hear whatsoever thou hast to say. Isa. That's torturing me on the rack, and forbidding me to groan; upon my knees I claim the privilege of flesh and blood. [Kneels. Lop. I grant it; thou shalt have an arm full of flesh and blood to-morrow. Flesh and blood, quotha! heaven forbid I should deny thee flesh and blood, my girl. Inis. Here's an old dog for you! [Aside. Isa. Do not mistake, sir; the fatal stroke which separates soul and body is not more terrible to the thoughts of sinners than the name of Guzman to my ear. Lop. Pho, pho! you lie, you lie ! Isa. My frighted heart beats hard against my breast, as if it sought a passage to your feet, to beg you'd change your purpose. Lop. A very pretty speech this; if it were turned into blank verse it would serve for a tragedy. Why, thou hast more wit than I Inis. No, nor, what's much worse, to please you neither. Od'slife, madam, you are the first woman that ever despaired in a Christian country! Were I in your placeIsa. Why, what would your wisdom do if thought thou hadst, child. I fancy this was you were? Inis. I'd embark with the first fair wind with all my jewels, and seek my fortune on t'other side the water; no shore can treat you worse than your own; there's never a father in Christendom should make me marry any man against my will. Isa. I am too great a coward to follow your advice: I must contrive some way to avoid Don Guzman, and yet stay in my own country. Enter DoN LOPEZ. Lop. Must you so, mistress? but I shall take care to prevent you. (Aside.) Isabella, whither are you going, my child? Isa. To church, sir. Inis. The old rogue has certainly overheard her. [Aside. Lop. Your devotion must needs be very strong or your memory very weak, my dear; why, vespers are over for this night. Come, come, you shall have a better errand to church than to say your prayers there. Don Guzman is arrived in the river, and I expect him ashore to-morrow. Isa. Ha! to-morrow! Lop. He writes me word that his estate in Holland is worth twelve thousand crowns a year; which, together with what he had before, will make thee the happiest wife in Lisbon. all extempore; I don't believe thou didst ever think one word on't before. Inis. Yes, but she has, my lord; for I have heard her say the same things a thousand times. Lop. How, how? What, do you top your second-hand jests upon your father, hussy, who knows better what's good for you than you do yourself? Remember, 'tis your duty to obey. Isa. (Rises.) I never disobeyed you before, and wish I had not reason now; but nature has got the better of my duty, and makes me loath the harsh commands you lay. Lop. Ha, ha! very fine! Ha, ha! Isa. I am your daughter, my lord, and can boast as strong a resolution as yourself; I'll die before I'll marry Guzman. Lop. Say you so? I'll try that presently. (Draws.) Here, let me see with what dexterity you can breathe a vein now. (Offers her his sword.) The point is pretty sharp; 'twill do your business, I warrant you. Inis. Bless me, sir, what do you mean, to put a sword into the hands of a desperate woman? Lop. Desperate! ha, ha, ha! you see how desperate she is. What, art thou frightened, little Bell? ha! Isa. And the most unhappy woman in the world. Oh, sir, if I have any power in your | sir. Isa. I confess I am startled at your morals, Lop. Ay, ay, child, thou hadst better take | comes. the man, he'll hurt thee least of the two. Isa. I shall take neither, sir; death has many doors, and when I can live no longer with pleasure I shall find one to let him in at without your aid. Lop. Say'st thou so, my dear Bell? Ods, I'm afraid thou art a little lunatic, Bell. I must take care of thee, child. (Takes hold of her, and pulls a key out of his pocket.) I shall make bold to secure, thee, my dear. I'll see if locks and bars can keep thee till Guzman Go, get into your chamber. [Pushes her in, and locks the door. There I'll your boasted resolution tryAnd see who'll get the better, you or I. [Exeunt. [She jumped out of a window, luckily into the arms of a Captain Briton, who was in Lisbon at the time and happened to be passing. He conveyed her to a house near, which happened to be the residence of a friend. After a series of adventures they get married.] DR. WILLIAM KING. BORN 1650- DIED 1729. Notwithstanding these troubles he held on his way, and in this very year (1689) he took his doctor's degree in the university. In January, 1691, after the retreat of James, he was appointed to the bishopric of Derry, and in the same year he published in London The State of the Protestants in Ire in less than two years, and of which Burnet speaks very highly, as perhaps might be expected. [William King, Archbishop of Dublin, | leased once more. famous as a laborious prelate, a ripe scholar, and a man of genius, was born in Antrim on the 1st May, 1650. At twelve years of age he entered the grammar-school at Dungannon, and at seventeen he became a sizar of Trinity College, Dublin, where he took his degree in arts in due course, and also obtained a scholar-land, a work which ran into three editions ship. In 1674 he was ordained deacon, and in 1675 was admitted into priest's orders by Archbishop Parker of Tuam, who made him his chaplain in 1676, and presented him the same year to a prebend, and afterwards to the precentorship of his cathedral. In 1678 Parker was translated to Dublin, and next year he promoted King to the chancellorship of St. Patrick's and the living of St. Werburgh. Here our author soon acquired a reputation for uncommon abilities and learning, which before long he had an opportunity of showing in a controversy with Peter Manby, dean of Londonderry, who had gone over to the Roman Catholic faith, and who was no contemptible opponent. The result of the controversy was as usual in such matters, and the only thing necessary to remember of it is that it was the cause of three of King's works-An Answer, 1687; A Vindication of the Answer, 1688; and A Vindication of the Christian Religion and Reformation. About this time, on the deanery of St. Patrick's becoming vacant, King was appointed to it. On the arrival of King James in Ireland in 1689, King, who had taken an active part in support of the Revolution, was confined in Dublin Castle a prisoner. He was soon liberated, but also soon again imprisoned and re Once settled in the see of Derry, King began to find that his diocese contained as many Presbyterians as Churchmen. To his energetic nature this seemed a thing to be remedied, so he at once endeavoured to persuade his dissenters to conformity, by means of one of his most celebrated pieces, A Discourse concerning the Inventions of Men in the Worship of God, 1694. To this Mr. Joseph Boyce replied, and to the reply King returned answer, An Admonition to the Dissenting Inhabitants of the Diocese of Derry, 1695. Boyce again replied, and the bishop concluded the unfruitful controversy, at least in a religious sense, by A Second Admonition, &c., published in the same year. Hitherto all King's works had been the mere outcome of an energetic nature, backed up by deep learning. In a short time, however, that is in 1702, he appeared before the world as something higher and better than a mere controversialist. In this year he published at Dublin, in quarto, his celebrated treatise, De Origine Mali, on which are chiefly founded his claims to the titles of a philosopher and a man of genius. Almost immediately after its appearance the work was reprinted in London, and in May and June, 1703, an abridgment of it appeared in Nouvelles de la République des Lettres. Over this abridgment a discussion arose between Boyle and Bernard, and Liebnitz wrote three volumes of Remarks opposing the work, which he nevertheless speaks of as "a work full of elegance and learning." To the objections raised to the theories in his work King did not deign a public reply, but he took careful notes of them all, and produced in manuscript vindications of each point attacked. These notes and vindications were, after King's death, placed in the hands of Mr. Edward Law, who had translated the work into English. Law immediately prepared a second edition of his translation, into which he incorporated most of the bishop's notes, and brought out the whole under the title "An Essay on the Origin of Evil, by Dr. William King, late Lord Archbishop of Dublin; translated from the Latin, with Notes and a Dissertation concerning the Principles and Criterion of Virtue and the Origin of the Passions. . . . To which are added Two Sermons by the same Author," 1732. In 1739 appeared a third edition of the work, and various editions have been issued at various times and places since then. In 1702, the year of the appearance of his great work, King was translated, not without reluctance on his part, from the bishopric of Derry to the archbishopric of Dublin, a post in which he found full scope for all the reforming energies of his nature. In 1717, and again in 1721 and 1723, he was appointed one of the lord-justices of Ireland. He died on the 8th of May, 1729, in his palace at Dublin. Of King's minor works the principal are sermons, some of which created a stir in their time, and are not without interest even in the present day. The most celebrated of these, from which we take an extract, appeared in 1709, under the title of Divine Predestination and Foreknowledge consistent with the Freedom of Man's Will, and was fiercely attacked by Dr. John Edwards and Anthony Collins, the latter a kind of theological stormy petrel to be found wherever storms were brewing or blowing. Swift had a high opinion of Dr. King's character, abilities, and works, and Harris speaks in glowing terms of his private life, and his wise and liberal administration of his dioceses. In addition to his other qualities he was also a wise lover of men of genius, not only in but outside the churches, as is shown by his judicious patronage of Ambrose Phillips and the too short-lived Thomas Parnell.] DISCOURSE ON PREDESTINATION. I am very sensible that great contentions and divisions have happened in the church of God about predestination and reprobation, about election and the decrees of God; that learned men have engaged with the greatest zeal and fierceness in this controversy, and the disputes have proved so intricate, that the most diligent reader will perhaps, after all his labour in perusing them, be but little satisfied and less edified by the greatest part of all that has been written on this subject. And hence it is that considering men of all parties seem at last, as it were by consent, to have laid it aside; and seldom any now venture to bring it into the pulpit except some very young or imprudent speakers. Not but that the doctrine laid down in my text1 is undoubtedly true and useful, if we could but light on the true and useful way of treating it, for so our Church has told us in her seventeenth article. We ought to remember, that the descriptions which we frame to ourselves of God, or of the divine attributes, are not taken from any direct or immediate perceptions that we have of him or them; but from some observations we have made of his works, and from the consideration of those qualifications that we conceive would enable us to perform the like. Thus observing great order, conveniency and harmony in all the several parts of the world, and perceiving that everything is adapted and tends to the preservation and advantage of the whole, we are apt to consider that we could not contrive and settle things in so excellent and proper a manner without great wisdom; and thence conclude that God, who has thus concerted and settled matters, must have wisdom: and having then ascribed to him wisdom because we see the effects and results of it in his works we proceed and conclude that he has likewise foresight and understanding, because we cannot conceive wisdom without these, and because if we were to do what we see he has done we would not expect to perform it without the exercise of these faculties. 1 The text was Romans viii. 29, 30. Thus our reason teaches us to ascribe these | are not to be taken strictly or properly, nor attributes to God, by way of resemblance and analogy to such qualities or powers as we find most valuable and perfect in ourselves. If we look into the Holy Scriptures, and consider the representations given us there of God or his attributes, we shall find them generally of the same nature, and plainly borrowed from some resemblance to things with which we are acquainted by our senses. Thus, when the Holy Scriptures speak of God, they ascribe hands, and eyes, and feet to him: not that it is designed that we should believe that he has any of these members according to the literal signification: but the meaning is that he has a power to execute all those acts to the effecting of which these parts in us are instrumental: that is, he can converse with men as well as if he had eyes and ears; he can reach us as well as if he had hands and feet; he has as true and substantial a being as if he had a body; and he is as truly present everywhere as if that body were infinitely extended. And in truth, if all these things which are thus ascribed to him did really and literally belong to him, he could not do what he does near so effectually, as we conceive and are sure he doth them by the faculties and properties which he really possesses, though what they are in themselves be unknown to us. are we to think that they are in him after the same manner, or in the same sense, that we find them in ourselves; but on the contrary, we are to interpret them only by way of analogy or comparison. That is to say, when we ascribe foreknowledge to him we mean that he can no more be surprised with anything that happens than a wise man that foresees an event can be surprised when it comes to pass; nor can he any more be at a loss what he is to do in such a case than a wise man can, who is most perfectly acquainted with all the accidents which may obstruct his design, and has provided against them. So when God is said to predetermine and foreordain all things according to the counsel of his will, the importance of this expression is, that all things depend as much on God as if he had settled them according to a certain scheme and design which he had voluntarily framed in his own mind, without regard had to any other consideration besides that of his own mere will and pleasure. It is observable that no care, industry, or instruction can ever give a person born and continuing blind any notion of light; nor can he ever have any conception how men who have eyes discern the shape and figure at a distance, nor imagine what colours mean; and After the same manner and for the same reason we find him represented as affected with such passions as we perceive to be in our-yet he could, I believe, readily (on the account selves, viz. as angry and pleased, as loving and hating, as repenting and changing his resolutions, as full of mercy and provoked to revenge and yet on reflection we cannot think that any of these passions can literally affect the divine nature. But the meaning confessedly is, that he will as certainly punish the wicked as if he were inflamed with the passion of anger against them; that he will as infallibly reward the good as we will those for whom we have a particular and affectionate love; that when men turn from their wickedness and do what is agreeable to the divine command, he will as surely change his dispensations towards them, as if he really repented and had changed his mind. We ought therefore to interpret all these things, when attributed to God, as thus expressed only by way of condescension to our capacities, in order to help us to conceive what we are to expect from him, and what duty we are to pay him; and particularly, that the terms of foreknowledge, predestination, nay, of understanding and will, when ascribed to him he receives from others of the advantage of knowing these things) endure labour and pain, and submit to the most difficult and tormenting operations of physic and chirurgery, in order to obtain the use of his eyes, if any reasonable hope could be given him of the success of such an undertaking. And why then should not we as willingly submit to those easy methods which God has prescribed to us, in order to obtain that knowledge of his nature and attributes in which our eternal satisfaction and happiness hereafter is in a very great measure to consist? And it is certain we now know as much of them as the blind man in the case supposed does of light or colours; and have better reason to seek, and more certain hope of attaining in the next life to a fuller and more complete knowledge, than such a man can have with relation to the use of his eyes, and the advantage of seeing. If it be asked why these things are not made clear to us? I answer, For the same reason that light and colours are not clear to one that is born blind, even because in this imperfect state we want faculties to discern | tages which these could give him if he had them; and we cannot expect to reach the them, enabling him to produce all the good knowledge of them whilst here, for the same effects which we see consequent to them when reason that a child, whilst he is so, cannot in the greatest perfection; then the arguments speak and discourse as he doth when a grown used by Cotta against them have no manner of man. There is a time and season for every- force; since we do not plead for such an underthing, and we must wait for that season. There standing, reason, justice, and virtue as he is another state and life for the clear discern- objects against, but for more valuable perfecing of these matters; but in the meantime we tions that are more than equivalent, and in ought to take the steps and methods which truth infinitely superior to them; though called are proper for our condition; and if we will by the same names, because we do not know not do so, we can no more expect the know- what they are in themselves but only see their ledge of these necessary truths, or that state effects in the world, which are such as might which will make them plain to us, than a be expected from the most consummate reason, child can hope he shall ever be able to read understanding, and virtue. And after the and write, who will not be persuaded to go to same manner, when perverse men reason school or obey his master. against the prescience, predestination, and the decrees of God by drawing the like absurd consequences as Cotta doth against the possibility of his being endowed with reason and understanding, &c., our answer is the same as beforementioned. If these be supposed the very same in all respects when attributed to God as we find them in ourselves, there would be some colour, from the absurdities that would follow, to deny that they belong to God; but when we only ascribe them to him by analogy, and mean no more than that there are some things answerable to them, from whence, as principles, the divine operations proceed, it is plain that all such arguments not only lose their force, but are absolutely impertinent. The fifth use that we are to make of what has been said is to teach us how we are to behave ourselves in a church where either of these schemes is settled or taught as a doctrine; and here I think the resolution is easy: we ought to be quiet, and not unreasonably disturb the peace of the church; much less should we endeavour to expose what she professes by alleging absurdities and inconsistencies in it. On the contrary, we are obliged to take pains to show that the pretended consequences do not follow, as in truth they do not; and to discharge all that made them as enemies of peace, and false accusers of their brethren, by charging them with consequences they disown, and that have no other foundation but the makers' ignorance. For in truth, as has been already showed, if such inferences be allowed hardly any one attribute or operation of God, as ascribed in Scripture, will be free from the cavils of per verse men. It is observable, that by the same way of reasoning, and by the same sort of arguments, by which some endeavour to destroy the divine prescience and render his decrees odious, Cotta long ago in Cicero attacked the other attributes, and undertook to prove that God can neither have reason nor understanding, wisdom nor prudence, nor any other virtue. And if we understand these literally and properly, so as to signify the same when applied to God and to men, it will not be easy to answer his arguments; but if we conceive them to be ascribed to him by proportion and analogy, that is, if we mean no more when we apply them to God than that he has some powers and faculties, though not of the same nature, which are analogous to these advan VOL. I. It is therefore sufficient for the ministers of the Church to show that the established doctrine is agreeable to Scripture, and teach their people what use ought to be made of it, and to caution them against the abuse, which if they do with prudence they will avoid contentions and divisions, and prevent the mischiefs which are apt to follow the mistaken representation of it. HUNGER, THIRST, AND LABOUR.1 A terrestrial animal must, as we have said, necessarily consist of mixed and heterogeneous parts; its fluids also are in a perpetual flux and ferment. Now it's plain that this cannot be without the expense of those fluids and attrition of the solids, and hence follows death and dissolution except those be repaired; a new accession of matter is therefore necessary 1 This and the following extract are from the Essay on the Origin of Evil. 9 |