More about Dr. Benjamin Allen (1666-1738), of Braintree, naturalist / by Miller Christy.

  • Christy, Miller.
Date:
1912
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: More about Dr. Benjamin Allen (1666-1738), of Braintree, naturalist / by Miller Christy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

    15/18 (page 11)
    Elsewhere, we meet (pp. 349-35°) with a long report of My Conversation with Mr. John Ray, the author of the ‘ Generalis Historia Plantarum.’ ” The diction is so confused in parts as- to be almost unintelligible, but it may be of interest to insert a statement of the theological views of so great a man as Ray, even though we have it at second-hand only. Allen says : ‘ This gentleman had travell'd and been with all the great men in Europe, to inquire [after] truth and knowledge in Divinity and Learning. He was in both Orders, and had never took the Solemn League. [He was] of most recluse and pious life, and told me he praefer’d that, with just a sufficiency, than to expend time wastefully an 1 enter into temptations well, he could not see to avoid in making address for preferment or public business. This was his deliberate choice. “ He often would repeat that most extraordinary thought in so early a time, as a most just one of God—The Heaven of Heavens cannot contain Thee ’—that God must fill all, be at the head of all, and that there must be infinity of space ; as, if a man go as far as he can in the vast Systems, what hinders him from going farther or putting out his elbow, if anything then matter is beyond ; so that God and Eternity, or Infinity of Space, we must allow we can have no apprehension of, and yet it is necessary. The Discovery of Letters, he took for Divine Revelation. “ He sayd tl\e Jews were a standing miracle in memory of our Saviour, not to be blended, and mixt ; no natural caus could solve ; yet never to be admitted to settle—a token of God’s anger. “ [He said also] that a spoyle or smile of grass18 shew’d a Deity as much as anything ; nothing in it to raise, keep, or support it, but a Divine power by which it stands and grows ; indeed sense and design, when it is not in the creature, shows him most, as the Climers do.’’19 “ For the Church of England, he sayd no man could well answer for Dissention from the precept of our Saviour, Love and Peace ; but how the Clergy dare to impose, he wondered. He sayd they had never prov’d the Church had any power to alter what was appointed in Baptism, to appoint god-fathers to help out God Almighty, to put it in form of Law, to sprinkle for dipping (This he sayd when he stood Deputy God Father for Tommvao.) The assuming to the Church a separat secular power was not from our Saviour. The taking upon the Church the liberty of making the power of altering, [of] admitting into Cannon, [of] annulling God’s special spirit (which no Tongue yet equalled. . . ), [of] denying the Ld’s. Prayer (other than as from the Church of the Jews) before the Saviour, [of] mixing the Apocrypha, . . . [and so on—all these were, he said, totally unauthorized]. “ He told me the auther of the ' Whole Duty of Man ’ was Mr. John Chappel, who had a living in Lincolnshire and had been a Fellow of [blank] 18 Clearly these words were intended to indicate a small blade or sprout of grass, but I cannot find that cither was ever current. [Since this was put into type, I have heard the latter word used, in the sense indicated, by a very intelligent Essex labourer, seventy-two- years of age, now in my employ ] 19 The climbing plants, he means.no doubt. 20 On 12th August 1697, “ Tommy ” being Allen's eldest son (see ante, xvi., p. 150).