[105] M. Biot has well remarked that there is absolutely nothing in the writings of Newton to justify, or even to authorize, the idea that he was an Antitrinitarian. This passage is strangely omitted in the English translation of Biot’s Life of Newton. We do not know upon what authority Dr. Thomson states, in his History of the Royal Society, that Newton “did not believe in the Trinity,” and that Dr. Horsley considered Newton’s papers unfit for publication, because they contained proofs of his hostility to that doctrine.
[106] Whiston’s Memoirs of his own Life, p. 178, 249, 250. Edit. 1753.
[107] Dr. Monk’s Life of Bentley, p. 31.
[108] Dated December 10th, 1692. This letter is endorsed, in Bentley’s hand, “Mr. Newton’s answer to some queries sent by me after I had preached my two last sermons.”—Monk’s Life of Bentley, p. 34, note.
[109] Dated Jan. 17th, 1692–3.
[110] “These things,” says he, “follow from my Princip. Math. lib. i. prop. 33, 34, 35, 36.”
[111] Dated February 11th, 1693.
[112] The originals of these four letters to Bentley “were given by Dr. Richard Bentley to Cumberland, his nephew, and executor, while a student at Trinity College, and were printed by him in a separate pamphlet in 1756. This publication was reviewed by Dr. Samuel Johnson in the Literary Magazine, vol. i. p. 89. See Johnson’s Works, vol. ii. p. 328. The original letters are preserved in Trinity College, to which society they were given by Cumberland a short time before his death.”—Monk’s Life of Bentley, p. 33, note.
[113] Mr. Herschel, in his Treatise on Light, § 553, has maintained that Newton’s Doctrine of Reflection is accordant with the idea that the attractive force extends beyond the repulsive or reflecting force. In the query above referred to, Sir Isaac, in the most distinct manner, places the sphere of the reflecting force without that of the attractive one.
[114] In a tract annexed to his Appeal to all that doubt or disbelieve the truths of the Gospel. See Gent. Mag. 1782, vol. iii. p. 227, 239.