Robert South.—This eccentric clergyman was born in 1633. While king's scholar at Dr. Busby's school in London, he led the devotions on the day of King Charles' execution, and prayed for his majesty by name. At first a Puritan, he became a churchman, and took orders. He was learned and eloquent; but his sermons, which were greatly admired at the time, contain many oddities, forced conceits, and singular anti-climaxes, which gained for him the appellation of the witty churchman.
He is accused of having been too subservient to Charles II.; and he also is considered as displaying not a little vindictiveness in his attacks on his former colleagues the Puritans. He is only known to this age by his sermons, which are still published and read.
Other Theological Writers.
Isaac Barrow, 1630-1677: a man of varied learning, a traveller in the East, and an oriental scholar. He was appointed Professor of Greek at Cambridge, and also lectured on Mathematics. He was a profound thinker and a weighty writer, principally known by his courses of sermons on the Decalogue, the Creed, and the Sacraments.
Edward Stillingfleet, 1635-1699: a clergyman of the Church of England, he was appointed Bishop of Worcester. Many of his sermons have been published. Among his treatises is one entitled, Irenicum, a Weapon-Salve for the Churches Wounds, or the Divine Right of Particular Forms of Church Government Discussed and Examined. "The argument," says Bishop Burnet, "was managed with so much learning and skill that none of either side ever undertook to answer it." He also wrote Origines Sacræ, or a Rational Account of the Christian Faith, and various treatises in favor of Protestantism and against the Church of Rome.
William Sherlock, 1678-1761: he was Dean of St. Paul's, and a writer of numerous doctrinal discourses, among which are those on The Trinity, and on Death and the Future Judgment. His son, Thomas Sherlock, D.D., born 1678, was also a distinguished theological writer.
Gilbert Burnet, 1643-1715: he was very much of a politician, and played a prominent part in the Revolution. He was made Bishop of Salisbury in 1689. He is principally known by his History of the Reformation, written in the Protestant interest, and by his greater work, the History of my Own Times. Not without a decided bias, this latter work is specially valuable as the narration of an eye-witness. The history has been variously criticized for prejudice and inaccuracy; but it fills what would otherwise have been a great vacuum in English historical literature.
John Locke, 1632-1704. In a history of philosophy, the name of this distinguished philosopher would occupy a prominent place, and his works would require extended notice. But it is not amiss to introduce him briefly in this connection, because his works all have an ethical significance. He was educated as a physician, and occupied several official positions, in which he suffered from the vicissitudes of political fortune, being once obliged to retreat from persecution to Holland. His Letters on Toleration is a noble effort to secure the freedom of conscience: his Treatises on Civil Government were specially designed to refute Sir John Filmer's Patriarcha, and to overthrow the principle of the Jus Divinum. His greatest work is an Essay on the Human Understanding. This marks an era in English thought, and has done much to invite attention to the subject of intellectual philosophy. He derives our ideas from the two sources, sensation and reflection; and although many of his views have been superseded by the investigations of later philosophers, it is due to him in some degree that their inquiries have been possible.
Diarists and Antiquarians.
John Evelyn, 1620-1705. Among the unintentional historians of England, none are of more value than those who have left detailed and gossiping diaries of the times in which they lived: among these Evelyn occupies a prominent place. He was a gentleman of education and position, who, after the study of law, travelled extensively, and resided several years in France. He had varied accomplishments. His Sylva is a discourse on forest trees and on the propagation of timber in his majesty's dominions. To this he afterwards added Pomona, or a treatise on fruit trees. He was also the author of an essay on A Parallel of the Ancient Architecture with the Modern. But the work by which he is now best known is his Diary from 1641 to 1705; it is a necessary companion to the study of the history of that period; and has been largely consulted by modern writers in making up the historic record of the time.