The Mathers: Three Generations of Puritan Intellectuals, 1596-1728 (113 page)

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Authors: Robert Middlekauff

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27. H. W. Turnbull et al., eds.,
The Correspondence Of Isaac Newton
(4 vols. to date, 1959-1967; Cambridge, England), III, 240.
28.
Ibid
. III, 254. Bentley's
A Confutation of Atheism From The Origin and Frame of the World
(London, 1693) rendered Newton's view in this way: "meet Matter cannot operate upon Matter without mutual Contact." (31)
29. Turnbull,
Correspondence of Isaac Newton
, III, 254.
30. Bentley,
Confutation
, 16, 33; Turnbull,
Correspondence of Isaac Newton
, III, 234. And see also, as Mather did, William Whiston,
A New Theory Of The Earth
(London, 1696), 37, and
passim
.
31. Biblia, Genesis, 1. Mather admits his indebtedness to Bentley and to Whiston on this and other points. Much of his language, in fact, reproduces, or closely paraphrases theirs.
32. Mather does this in many works including
The Christian Philosopher
.
33. Cotton Mather,
Thoughts For The Day Of Rain
, 9.
 
Page 414
34.
Ibid
. 10-13; Thomas Burnet,
The Theory of the Earth
(London, 1684), 28.
35. Burnet,
Theory of the Earth
, 66-67; Mather, Biblia, Genesis, 7, 8;
Thoughts For The Day Of Rain
, 9-14. Mather read John Ray,
The Wisdom Of God Manifested In The Works Of Creation
(London, 1691). Theodore Hornberger, "The Date, the Source, and the Significance of Cotton Mather's Interest in Science,"
American Literature
(Jan. 1935), VI, 413-20, discusses ably Ray's influence on Mather.
36. Biblia, Genesis, 7.
37.
Ibid
.
38.
Ibid
.
39. Mather seems to have read the digest of Clarke's
Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
(London, 1706) in
The History of the Works of the Learned
(Jan.-Feb. 1706) VIII. The quotation appears on VIII, 107.
40.
Ibid
.
41. Clarke argued that the law of nature, "being founded in the Eternal Reason of Things is eternal, universal, and absolutely unchangeable. . . ."
Ibid
. 109.
42.
Ibid
. 97-105, for example, where Clarke deals with both Swift and Hobbes. There is a solid book on related issues by Roland N. Stromberg,
Religious Liberalism in Eighteenth-Century England
(London, 1954).
43. Biblia, Matthew, 12, and
passim
.
44.
Ibid
.
45. See Samuel Clarke's
Discourse concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion
.

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