Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notesFranklin, Benjamin
General
Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
It remained for Greenwood's pupil John Winthrop to be the first to teach
Newton at Harvard with adequate mechanical and textual materials.
Elected in 1738 to the Hollis professorship formerly held by Greenwood,
Winthrop adopted 'sGravesande's _Natural Philosophy_, at which time,
Cajori observes, "the teachings of Newton had at last secured a firm
footing there."[i-54] The year after his election he secured a copy of
the _Principia_ (the third edition, 1726, edited by Dr. Henry Pemberton,
friend of Franklin in 1725-1726). According to the astute Ezra Stiles,
Winthrop became a "perfect master of Newton's Principia--which cannot be
said of many Professors of Philosophy in Europe."[i-55] That he did not
allow Newtonianism to draw him to deism may be seen in Stiles's
gratification that Winthrop "was a Firm friend to Revelation in
opposition to Deism." Stiles "wish[es] the evangelical Doctors of Grace
had made a greater figure in his Ideal System of divinity," thus
inferring that Winthrop was a rationalist in theology, however
orthodox.[i-56]
A cursory view of the eighteenth-century pulpit discloses that if the
clergy did not become deistic they were not blind to a natural religion,
and often employed its arguments to augment scriptural authority. Aware
of the writings of Samuel Clarke, Wollaston, Whiston, Cudworth, Butler,
Hutcheson,[i-57] Voltaire, and Locke, Mayhew revolts against total
depravity[i-58] and the doctrines of election and the Trinity, arraigns
himself against authoritarianism and obscurantism, and though he draws
upon reason for revelation of God's will, he does not seem to have been
latitudinarian in respect to the holy oracles. Although he often wrote
ambiguously concerning the nature of Christ, he asserted: "That I ever
denied, or treated in a bold or ludicrous manner, the divinity of the
Son of God, as revealed in scripture, I absolutely deny."[i-59] He is
antagonistic toward the mystical in Calvinism, convinced that "The love
of God is a calm and rational thing, the result of thought and
consideration."[i-60] His biographer thinks that Mayhew was "the first
clergyman in New England who expressly and openly opposed the scholastic
doctrine of the trinity."[i-61] Coupling "natural and revealed
religion," he does not threaten but he urges that one "ought not to
leave the clear light of revelation.... It becomes us to adhere to the
holy Scriptures as our only rule of faith and practice, discipline and
worship."[i-62] In Mayhew one finds an impotent compromise between
Calvinism and the demands of reason, fostered by the Enlightenment. Like
Mayhew's, in the main, are the views of Dr. Charles Chauncy, who
reconciled the demands of reason and revelation, concluding that "the
voice of reason is the voice of God."[i-63] Jason Haven and Jonas Clarke
are typical of the orthodox rationalists who were alive to the
implications of science, and to such rationalists as Tillotson and
Locke.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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