CHAPTER VI.

FROM 1677 TO 1678.

ANDREW MARVELL'S DEFENCE OF HOWE, AGAINST THOMAS DANSON'S ATTACK ON THE TREATISE OF "DIVINE PRESCIENCE."

As the following chapter will probably contain little to interest the general reader, I beg to inform him that it may be omitted without impairing the continuity of the narrative. The chapter is almost wholly parenthetical.

If the reader should chance to belong to that sturdy class, who, when they have been once induced to commence a volume, make it a point of conscience-no matter what its bulk, or how repulsive its contents-to read right on from title-page to colophon, and on whom, I well know, all premonitions of the ruggedness or inconveniences of the road would be totally lost, even for such I have some small consolation: this chapter is likely to be a brief one.

But to the curious in literary history, and the admirers of Andrew Marvell's genius, I feel that no apology is necessary. They will probably think a chapter which has in it so much of

Andrew Marvell, and so little of the author, by far the most interesting in the whole volume.

That I may not detain them, therefore, from matter which I know will be so much more grateful to them than any observations of mine, I shall simply beg their attention to the shortest possible detail of the circumstances which led to the curious publication from which the following extracts are made, and then dismiss them, to enjoy those extracts at their leisure. I would merely remark further, by way of whetting their appetite, that the tract in question is extremely rare; that it is not published in any edition of Marvell's works, and was evidently unknown to his biographers and editors. I only know of one copy in existence-the one from which the subjoined extracts have been copied. This I procured from Dr. Williams' library.

In 1677, Howe, at the request of the Hon. Robert Boyle, published his little treatise, entitled, "The Reconcileableness of God's Prescience of the Sins of Men with the Wisdom and Sincerity of his Counsels and Exhortations, and whatever other Means he uses to prevent them." The motives which induced him to write it are given in the following short prefatory letter to his illustrious friend :

"Sir,

"The veneration I have long had for your name, could not permit me to apprehend

less obligation than that of a law, in your recommending to me this subject. For within the whole compass of intellectual employment and affairs, none but who are so unhappy as not at all to know you, would dispute your right to prescribe, and give law. And taking a nearer view of the province you have assigned me, I must esteem it alike both disingenuous and undutiful wholly to have refused it. For the less you could think it possible to me to perform in it, the more I might perceive of kindness, allaying the authority of the imposition; and have the apprehension the more obvious to me that you rather designed in it mine own advantage, than that you reckoned the cause could receive any, by my undertaking it."

Admirable as the tract is, it appears the author composed it under the most disadvantageous circumstances; and for its supposed defects, he offers at the close the following needless apology:

"The disorder, Sir, of this heap rather than frame of thoughts and discourse, as it cannot be thought more unsuitable to the subject, than suitable to the author; and the less displease, by how much it could less be expected to be otherwise, from him, even in the best circumstances; so it may lay some claim to your easier

pardon, as having been, mostly, huddled up in the intervals of a troublesome, long journey; wherein he was rather willing to take what opportunity the inconveniencies and hurry of it could allow him, than neglect any, of using the earliest endeavour to approve himself, as he is, your great admirer,

"Most honoured Sir,

"Your most obedient humble servant."

All remarks on this treatise will be reserved for the critical estimate at the close of the volume. Its history, as serving to illustrate that of its author, is the sole subject of the present chapter.

The views which this tract contains are so sober and chastened, that Anthony Wood-who, by the way, was about as competent a judge on such a question, as a mere topographer would be of Locke's philosophy-proclaims the author "a great and strict Arminian !"

It could hardly be expected, therefore, that it would satisfy those who held extreme opinions on the subject of the Divine predetermination. It was, accordingly, attacked by no less than three writers. The first was Theophilus Gale, who inserted some animadversions in the fourth and last part of his celebrated work, the "Court of the Gentiles." To these animadversions, Howe himself replied, in a postscript to his treatise,

in which he exposes the false logic, and, what is worse, the glaring misstatements of his adversary. A second assailant was an ejected minister, named John Troughton. His initials only are prefixed to his piece, which professes to be a reply not only to Howe's original treatise, but to the postscript also.* The third was Thomas Danson, also an ejected minister. He had been an intimate friend and fellow-collegiate of Howe's, for which reason he also affixed only his initials to his title-page.†

To neither of these latter opponents did Howe publish any reply. As to Danson, his little book was not only so illogical, and so full of misconception and misstatement, but displayed such arrogance, vanity, and presumption, that these considerations alone would probably have deterred a man like Howe from breaking silence. He would have been, in the last degree, unwilling to say any thing in a case in which, if he had spoken at all, he must have spoken with an unwonted, and, to him, ungrateful severity.

But though Howe himself was silent, a very

* It is entitled, "A Letter to a Friend, touching God's Prescience about Sinful Actions." 12mo. 1678.

+ It is entitled, "De Causâ Dei; or, a Vindication of the Common Doctrine of Protestant Divines concerning Predetermination, viz.-The Interest of God, as the first Cause, in all the Actions, as such, of rational Creatures, from the invidious Consequences with which it is burthened by Mr. John Howe, in a late Letter and Postscript of God's Prescience, by T.D." 1678.