This remarkable man was born about the middle of the seventeenth century and bred to the Law in Lincoln's Inn under Mr. Eyre a very eminent lawyer of those days. In 1698 he published a treatise with this title—“Several assertions proved, in order to create another species of money than Gold and Silver,” and also an “Essay on a Registry for Titles of Lands.” Both subjects seem to denote that on these points he was considerably advanced beyond his age. But the whole strength of his mind was devoted to his profession, in which he had so completely trammelled and drilled his intellectual powers that he at length acquired a habit of looking at all subjects in a legal point of view. He could find flaws in an hereditary title to the crown. But it was not to seek flaws that he studied the Bible; he studied it to see whether he could not claim under the Old and New Testament something more than was considered to be his share. The result of this examination was that in the year 1700 he published “An Argument proving that according to the Covenant of Eternal Life revealed in the Scriptures Man may be translated from hence into that Eternal Life without passing through death, although the Human Nature of Christ himself could not be thus translated till he had passed through death.” That, the old motto, (says he) worn upon tomb-stones, “Death is the Gate of Life,” is a lie, by which men decoy one another into death, taking it to be a thorough-fare into Eternal Life, whereas it is just so far out of the way. For die when we will, and be buried where we will, and lie in the grave as long as we will, we must all return from thence and stand again upon the Earth before we can ascend into the Heavens. “_Hinc itur ad astra._” He admitted that “this custom of the world to die hath gained such a prevalency over our minds by prepossessing us of the necessity of death, that it stands ready to swallow his argument whole without digesting it.” But the dominion of death, he said, is supported by our fear of it, by which it hath bullied the world to this day. Yet “the custom of the World to die is no argument one way or other;” however, because he knew that custom itself is admitted as an evidence of title, upon presumption that such custom had once a reasonable commencement and that this reason doth continue, it was incumbent upon him to answer this Custom by shewing the time and reason of its commencement and that the reason was determined. “First then,” says he, “I do admit the custom or possession of Death over the world to be as followeth: that Death did reign from Adam to Moses by an uninterrupted possession over all men women and children, created or born, except one breach made upon it in that time by Enoch; and hath reigned from Moses unto this day by the like uninterrupted possession, except one other breach made upon it in this time by Elijah. And this is as strong a possession as can be alledged against me.