STATE OF RELIGION AND PHILOSOPHY.
The powers of the human mind were freely and fully exercised in this reign. Considerable progress was made in mathematics and astronomy by divers individuals; among whom we number Sanderson, Bradley, Maclaurin, Smith, and the two Simpsons. Natural philosophy became a general study; and the new doctrine of electricity grew into fashion. Different methods were discovered for rendering sea-water potable and sweet; and divers useful hints were communicated to the public by the learned doctor Stephen Hales, who directed all his researches and experiments to the benefit of society. The study of alchemy no longer prevailed; but the art of chemistry was perfectly understood, and assiduously applied to the purposes of sophistication. The clergy of Great Britain were generally learned, pious, and exemplary. Sherlock, Hoad-ley, Seeker, and Conybeare, were promoted to the first dignities of the church. Warburton, who had long signalized himself by the strength and boldness of his genius, his extensive capacity and profound erudition, at length obtained the mitre. But these promotions were granted to reasons ef state convenience and personal interest, rather than as rewards of extraordinary merit. Many other ecclesiastics of worth and learning were totally overlooked. Nor was ecclesiastical merit confined to the established church. Many instances of extraordinary genius, unaffected piety, and universal moderation, appeared among the dissenting ministers of Great Britain and Ireland; among these we particularize the elegant, the primitive Foster; the learned, ingenious, and penetrating Leland.
FANATICISM.
The progress of reason, and free cultivation of the human mind, had not, however, entirely banished those ridiculous sects and schisms of which the kingdom had been formerly so productive. Imposture and fanaticism still hung upon the skirts of religion. Weak minds were seduced by the delusion of a superstition styled Methodism, raised upon the affectation of superior sanctity, and maintained by pretensions to divine illumination. Many thousands in the lower ranks of life were infected with this species of enthusiasm, by the unwearied endeavours of a few obscure preachers, such as Whitfield and the two Wesleys, who propagated their doctrine to the most remote corners of the British dominions, and found means to lay the whole kingdom under contribution. Fanaticism also formed a league with false philosophy. One Hutchinson, a visionary, intoxicated with the fumes of rabbinical learning, pretended to deduce all demonstration from Hebrew roots, and to confine all human knowledge to the five books of Moses. His disciples became numerous after his death. With the methodists, they denied the merit of good-works, and bitterly inveighed against Newton as an ignorant pretender, who had presumed to set up his own ridiculous chimeras in opposition to the sacred philosophy of the Pentateuch. But the most extraordinary sect which distinguished this reign was that of the Moravians, or Hernhutters, imported from Germany by count Zinzendorf, who might have been termed the Melchisedec of his followers, inasmuch as he assumed among them the threefold character of prophet, priest, and king. They could not be so properly styled a sect, as the disciples of an original, who had invented a new system of religion. Their chief adoration was paid to the second person in the Trinity; the first they treated with the most shocking neglect. Some of their tenets were blasphemous, some indecent, and others ridiculously absurd. Their discipline was a strange mixture of devotion and impurity. Their exterior worship consisted of hymns, prayers, and sermons; the hymns extremely ludicrous, and often indecent, alluding to the side-hole or wound which Christ received from a spear in his side while he remained upon the cross. Their sermons frequently contained very gross incentives to the work of propagation. Their private exercises are said to have abounded with such rites and mysteries, as we cannot explain with any regard to decorum. They professed a community of goods, and were governed as one family, in temporals as well as spirituals, by a council or kind of presbytery, in which the count, as their ordinary, presided. In cases of doubt, or great consequence, these pretended to consult the Saviour, and to decide from immediate inspiration; so that they boasted of being under the immediate direction of a theocracy, though in fact they were slaves to the most dangerous kind of despotism; for as often as any individual of the community pretended to think for himself, or differ in opinion from the ordinary and his band of associates, the oracle decreed that he should be instantly sent upon the mission which they had fixed in Greenland, or to the colony they had established in Pennsylvania. As these religionists consisted chiefly of manufacturers who appeared very sober, orderly, and industrious; and their chief declared his intention of prosecuting works of public emolument; they obtained a settlement under a parliamentary sanction in England, where they soon made a considerable number of proselytes, before their principles were fully discovered and explained.
METAPHYSICS AND MEDICINE.
Many ingenious treatises on metaphysics and morality appeared in the course of this reign, and a philosophical spirit of inquiry diffused itself to the farthest extremities of the united kingdom. Though few discoveries of importance were made in medicine, yet that art was well understood in all its different branches, and many of its professors distinguished themselves in other provinces of literature. Besides the medical essays of London and Edinburgh, the physician’s library was enriched with many useful modern productions; with the works of the classical Freind, the elegant Mead, the accurate Huxham, and the philosophical Pringle. The art of midwifery was elucidated by science, reduced to fixed principles, and almost wholly consigned into the hands of men practitioners. The researches of anatomy were prosecuted to some curious discoveries, by the ingenuity and dexterity of a Hunter and a Monro. The numerous hospitals in London contributed to the improvement of surgery, which was brought to perfection under the auspices of a Cheselden and a Sharpe. The advantages of agriculture, which had long flourished in England, extended themselves gradually to the most remote and barren provinces of the island.