letter expresses, I shall not need to say anything to justify myself to you. I shall always think your own reflection on my carriage both to you and all mankind, will sufficiently do that. Instead of that, give me leave to assure you, that I am more ready to forgive you than you can be to desire it; and I do it so freely and fully, that I wish for nothing more than the opportunity to convince you that I truly love and esteem you; and that I have still the same good will for you as if nothing of this had happened. To confirm this to you more fully, I should be glad to meet you anywhere, and the rather, because the conclusion of your letter makes me apprehend it would not be wholly useless to you. But whether you think it fit or not, I leave wholly to you. I shall always be ready to serve you to my utmost, in any way you shall like, and shall only need your commands or permission to do it.

My book is going to the press for a second edition; and though I can answer for the design with which I writ it, yet since you have so opportunely given me notice of what you have said of it, I should take it as a favour, if you would point out to me the places that gave occasion to that censure, that by explaining myself better, I may avoid being mistaken by others, or unawares doing the least prejudice to truth or virtue. I am sure you are so much a friend to them both, that were you none to me, I could expect this from you. But I cannot doubt but you would do a great deal more than this for my sake, who after all have all the concern of a friend for you, wish you extremely well, and am without compliment."

The draft of the letter is indorsed " J. L. to I. Newton."

"SIR,

"The last winter, by sleeping too often by my fire, I got an ill habit of sleeping; and a distemper, which this summer has been epidemical, put me further out of order, so that when I wrote to you, I had not slept an hour a night for a fortnight together, and for five nights together not a wink. I remember I wrote to you, but what I said of your book I remember not. If you please to send me a transcript of that passage, I will give you an account of it if I can.

I am your most humble servant,
IS. NEWTON."

"Cambridge, Oct. 5th, 1693,"

Newton, in the following letter, criticises Locke's paraphrase of 1 Cor. vii. 14, the unbelieving husband is sanctified or made a Christian by his wife; the words, however, stand unaltered in the printed copy.

"SIR,

"London, May 15, 1703.

Upon my first receiving your papers, I read over those concerning the First Epistle of the Corinthians, but by so many intermissions, that I resolved to go over them again, so soon as I could get leisure to do it with more attention. I have now read it over a second time, and gone over also your papers on the Second Epistle. Some faults, which seemed to be faults of the scribe, I mended with my pen, as I read the papers; some others, I have noted in the enclosed papers. In your paraphrase on 1 Cor. vii. 14, you say, 'the unbelieving husband is sanctified or made a Christian in his wife.' I doubt this interpretation, because the unbelieving husband is not capable of baptism, as all Christians are. The Jews looked upon themselves as clean, holy, or separate to God, and other nations as unclean, unholy, or common, and accordingly it was unlawful for a man that was a Jew to keep company with, or come unto one of another nation. Acts x. 28. But when the propagation of the Gospel made it necessary for the Jews who preached the Gospel to go unto and keep company with the Gentiles, God showed Peter by a vision, in the case of Cornelius, that he had cleansed those of other nations, so that Peter should not any longer call any man common or unclean, and on that account forbear their company; and thereupon Peter went in unto Cornelius and his companions, who were uncircumcised, and did eat with them. Acts x. 27, 28, and xi. 3. Sanctifying, therefore, and cleansing, signify here, not the making a man a Jew or Christian, but the dispensing with the law, whereby the people of God were to avoid the company of the rest of the world as unholy or unclean. And if this sense be applied to St Paul's words, they will signify, that although believers are a people holy to God, and ought to avoid the company of unbelievers as unholy or unclean, yet this law is dispensed with in some cases, and particularly in the case of marriage. The believing wife must not separate from the unbelieving

husband as unholy or unclean, nor the believing husband from the unbelieving wife; for the unbeliever is sanctified or cleansed by marriage with the believer, the law of avoiding the company of unbelievers being, in this case, dispensed with. I should therefore interpret St Paul's words after the following manner:

"For the unbelieving husband is sanctified or cleansed by the believing wife, so that it is lawful to keep him company, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband; else were the children of such parents to be separated from you, and avoided as unclean, but now by nursing and educating them in your families, you allow that they are holy.'

"This interpretation I propose as easy and suiting well to the words and design of St Paul, but submit it wholly to your judgment.

"I had thoughts of going to Cambridge this summer, and calling at Oates in my way, but am now uncertain of this journey. Present, I pray, my humble service to Sir Francis Masham and his lady. I think your paraphrase and commentary on these two Epistles is done with very great care and judgment. I am

Your most humble and obedient servant,
Is. NEWTON."

REMARKS ON SIR ISAAC NEWTON'S THREE LETTERS. *

The principal subject to which the first letter of 14th of November, 1690, relates, and which is referred to in the others, of 16th February, 1692, and 3rd May, 1692, will cause them to be read with interest by the Biblical scholar. Sir Isaac Newton's dissertations on the controverted texts of 1 John v. 7, and 1 Timothy iii. 16, have long been before the public, and now hold their proper rank amongst the ablest treatises of this class. The history of these valuable tracts is, however, but imperfectly known; it may, therefore, not be

* I am indebted to the kindness of the Rev. Dr Rees, to whom I had submitted the letters of Sir Isaac Newton and of M. Le Clerc with Mr Locke, for these learned and critical remarks.

unacceptable to state here a few facts, collected chiefly from Mr Locke's papers, which may conduce to its elucidation.

Mr Porson, who must be believed to have been extensively acquainted with whatever related to the controversy, evidently knew little as to the origin of the first of these works, and of its progress towards publication. In the Preface to his masterly Letters to Travis (pp. ii, iii), he thus expresses himself:- "Between the years 1690 and 1700, Sir Isaac Newton wrote a Dissertation upon 1 John v. 7, in which he collected, arranged, and strengthened Simon's arguments, and gave a clear, exact, and comprehensive view of the whole question. This Dissertation, which was not published till 1754, and then imperfectly, has been lately restored by Dr Horsley, in the last edition of Newton's Works, from an original manuscript." Bishop Horsley, who regarded the two Dissertations with no favourable eye, satisfies himself with the following account of their publication:-" A very imperfect copy of this Tract, wanting both the beginning and the end, and erroneous in many places, was published in London, in the year 1754, under the title of 'Two Letters from Sir Isaac Newton to M. Le Clerc :' but, in the author's manuscript, the whole is one continued discourse, which, although it is conceived in the epistolary form, is not addressed to any particular person."-Preface to the Tract, Newton's Works, vol. v. p. 494.

The edition of 1754, although it conveys some additional information, leaves some things still to be explained. The editor thus accounts (pp. 122, 123) for his possession of the papers:- "The reader is to be informed that the manuscript of these two Letters is still preserved in the library of the Remonstrants in Holland. It was lodged there by Mr Le Clerc, and it was sent to him by the famous Mr Locke, and is actually in the handwriting of this gentleman And not

withstanding the Letters have the acknowledged defects, the editor thought it a pity that the world should be longer deprived of these two pieces, as they now are, since they cannot be obtained more perfect, all other copies of them being either lost or destroyed."

The "acknowledged defects," to which the editor alludes, are the loss of the beginning of the first letter, and of the end of

A

the second. The second letter is printed after the imperfect manuscript, and concludes in the middle of a sentence. different fate befell its companion. Another writer, conjecturing from the course of argument pursued in the existing portion of the first dissertation what must have been comprised in that which was lost, drew up a new introduction to supply its place. The reader is not apprized of this fact till he arrives at the end of the thirteenth page, when his attention is arrested by the following note. The editor must inform the reader, that thus far is not Sir Isaac's: the copy transmitted to him fairly acknowledges it, and adds, that the first four paragraphs of the manuscript are lost; and that as there were no hopes of recovering them they were supplied, not out of vanity, but merely to lay before the reader those passages which the letter itself plainly shows had been made use of by the author himself, and to the purposes, as is apprehended, they are here subservient to; and an assurance is also given that all which follows the words 'he makes use of,' are Sir Isaac's own, without alteration."

The author of the new introduction has shown himself to be a man of learning, well acquainted with the subject. There is, however, a considerable difference, as may well be imagined, between what he has written and Sir Isaac Newton's original, which is now happily recoverd.

These are the chief particulars of information to be obtained from books as to the early history of the two tracts.

It may be proper to add, that in some catalogues of Sir Isaac

Newton's works, another edition is mentioned of the date of 1734, under the title of "Two Letters to Mr Clarke, late Divinity Professor of the Remonstrants in Holland." But no opportunity has occurred of consulting this edition, which is stated to be a duodecimo pamphlet.

Mr Locke's papers have thrown some new light upon this subject. From Sir Isaac Newton's letters, inserted above, we now learn that these valuable papers were first communicated to Mr Locke in the strictest confidence. The author, with his characteristic timidity, shrank from the responsibility of sending them forth to the public with the sanction of his name, and thus expose himself to the scoffs or the censures of the theological bigots of the age, who were either incompetent or indisposed to appreciate the value of his labours.