[1596] Descartes.
[1597] Soame Jenyns, who published in 1757 a Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil.
[1598] All three were republicans who flourished at the period of the Great Rebellion. Harrington published his political work, Oceana, in 1656, and Neville his Plato Redivivus, or A Dialogue concerning Government, in 1681. Burnet says of Wildman that he "had been a constant meddler on all occasions in everything that looked like sedition, and seemed inclined to oppose everything that was uppermost." He served in the Parliamentary army, and proved troublesome to Cromwell, who imprisoned him. His restless republicanism was thought dangerous at the Restoration, and the government kept him under lock and key for some years. He survived to take a share in the Revolution of 1688, and was as hard to please as in his younger days. Pepys says in 1667, that he had been "a false fellow to everybody."
[1599] In the Commentary on ver. 303.
[1600] A false pretence. Waterland expressed his disapproval of Warburton's Divine Legation, and Jackson wrote a formal refutation. Warburton, as sensitive as he was abusive, never forgave them, and to revenge his wounded vanity, he thrust this forced digression into the middle of Pope's works under the hollow plea that Pope seemed to have had in his mind the controversy between Jackson and Waterland on the Trinity. Jackson was an Arian clergyman, who defended the views of Samuel Clarke.
[1601] Tindal, who was a deist, published in 1730 his well-known work, Christianity as old as the Creation. Waterland wrote an answer called Scripture Vindicated, and Jackson, his Remarks on a book entitled, etc.
[1602] Waterland published a sermon called, A familiar discourse upon the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, and the use and importance of it; and Jackson, after publishing in 1734 his treatise On the Existence and Unity of God, followed it up in 1735, with A Defence of the book entitled, On the Existence, etc., in answer to Law's Enquiry into the Ideas of Space, Time, etc. Warburton, in his discreditable note, has not the candour to allude to the real ground of his rancour against Jackson and Waterland.
[ [1603] Nothing was ever more unfortunate than these five examples of sublimity, all of which, as Dr. Warton observes, prove the contrary.—Bowles.
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Except as noted below, obvious punctuation inconsistencies and typographical errors and spelling errors have been corrected.