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He was born at Cottenham in Cambridgeshire, September 29, 1636, and educated at the grammar fchool of Norwich, from whence he removed to Corpus Chrifti college, in Cambridge, where he had a scholarship on archbishop Parker's foundation. He took his first degree in arts in 1656, after which he obtained a Norwich fellowship of his college, and then began to study phyfic, on account of the fanatical caft of the times. By the advice of fome friends, however, he refumed his application to theology, and in 1659, was ordained privately, by Dr. Duppa, bishop of Salisbury. After the refloration, he became minifter of St. Andrew's church in Cambridge, where he continued to officiate to the fick inhabitants when the place was vifited by the plague in 1665, for which he had a handfome piece of plate prefented to him by the parishioners in 1667. The fame year he proceeded to the degree of bachelor in divinity, and after ferving the church of St. Peter, Mancroft, in the city of Norwich, he obtained the rectory of Holywell, in Huntingdonshire, to which he was prefented by the earl of Manchester. During his refidence at Norwich he contracted a great intimacy with the celebrated physician Sir Thomas Browne, fome of whose pofthumous works he published. He alfo was the editor of a curious volume, entituled Baconiana, containing fome papers of the great Lord Verulam; to which he added an elaborate difcourfe upon the writings and difcoveries of that illuftrious philofopher.

In 1680, being then doctor in divinity, he was prefented by king Charles II. to the living of St. Martin in the Fields, to which parish he was a liberal benefactor, founding and endowing a free school therein, and building a very handsome library, which he supplied with a valuable ftock of books.

In the year 1685, and in the first parliament of James II. an act paffed for making part of St. Martin's a parifh by itself, by the name of St. James's parish, of which Dr. Tenison was by the fame act conftituted the first rector, and he held the fame, together with his vicarage of St. Martin's, fome time after his advancement to the epifcopal dignity.

During that reign he difplayed confiderable powers as a controverfialist, against the errors of the church of Rome,and held a conference with one Pulton, a Jefuit, the particulars of which were publifhed. He alfo fhewed equal zeal and abi lity against the nonconformifts, and joined with fome other eminent divines in the metropolis, in publishing that excel. lent collection of difcourfes, entituled The London Cafes,

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the defign of which was to reconcile the Diffenters to the Eftablished Church, by fhewing the weaknefs of their fcruples, and demonftrating the fin and danger of their fchif matical feparation from her communion. The title of Dr. Tenison's difcourfe is "An Argument for Union, taken from the Intereft of thofe Diffenters in England who profess themselves Proteftants."

Besides these performances, he published an excellent treatise on the Origin of Idolatry, and fome acute pieces against Hobbes. It was on the occafion of this latter controversy, that the learned Dr. John Wallis wrote to him a remarkable letter, which, as giving a curious picture of the famous philofopher of Malmefbury, we have thought worth incorporating in this memoir.

SIR,

Oxford, Nov. 30. 1686.

I received yours of November 25, and approve the defign. The Life you fpeak of I have not feen; nor do I know that I ever faw the man*. Of his writings I have read very little, fave what relates to mathematics. By that I find him to have been of a bold daring fancy (to venture at any thing); but he wanted judgment to understand the confequence of an argument, and to speak confiftently with himfelf: whereby his argumentations, which he pretends to be demonftration, are very often but weak and incoherent difcourfes, and deftruction in one part of what is faid in another, fometimes within the compafs of the fame page or leaf. This is more convincingly evident (and more unpardonable) in mathematics, than in other discourse, which are things capable of cogent demonstrations, and fo evident, that (though a good mathematician may be fubject to commit an error, yet) one who understands but little of it, cannot but fee a fault, when it is fhewed him. "For (they be his own words, Leviathan, part I. ch. 5, p. 21) who is fo ftupid as both to mistake in geometry, and alfo to persist in it when another detects his errors to him?" Now when fo many hundred paralogisms and false propofitions have been fhewed him in his Mathematics, by thofe who have written. against him, and that fo evidently that no one mathematician at home or abroad (no not thofe of his intimate friends) have been found to justify him in any one of them, which makes him fomewhere fay of himself, Aut ego folus infanio aut folus non infanio; he hath been yet fo ftupid (to ufe his word) as to perfift in them, to repeat and defend them; par.

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ticularly he hath first and last given us near twenty quadratures of the circle, of which fome few, though falfe, have been coincident (which therefore I repute for the fame, only differently difguifed) but more than a dozen of them are fuch, as no two of them are confiftent, and yet he would have them thought to be all true. Now either he thought fo himself (and then you must take him to be a perfon of a very fhallow capacity, and not fuch a man of reafon as he would be thought to be) or elfe knowing them to be false was obftinately refolved, notwithstanding, to maintain them as true; and he must then be a person of no faith or honesty. And if he argue at this rate in mathematics, what are we to expect in his other difcourfes ?

Nor am I the firft who have taken notice of his incoherent way of difcourfe and illogical inferences. Mr. Boyle, in his Examen of Mr. Hobbes's Dialogus Phyficus de Naturâ Aëris, p. 15, and I think elsewhere, though I do not remember the place, refers to Dr. Ward's Differtatio in Philofophiam Hobbianam, p. 188, who voucheth Des Cartes to the fame purpose. Nempe hoc eft quod alicubi admiratus eft Magnus Cartefius, nufquam eum five verum five falfum pofuerit, recte aliquid ex fuppofitionibus ratiocinando inferre. I think the place in Cartes is in his Refponfiones ad Quartas Objectiones-(at least to thofe objections which are Mr. Hobbes's). All which fhew that he was not a man of strong reafon; but only of a bold daring fancy, which, with his magnificent way of speaking, did not (convince but) pleafe thofe who loved to be atheifts, and were glad to hear any body dare boldly to say what they wished to be true; like people that love to be flattered, who are well pleafed to hear themfelves commended, even when they know what is faid to be falfe. At leaft quod volumus, facile credimus; and in fuch a cafe, a weak argument shall pafs for a demonstration.

In fum, I can hardly believe Mr. Hobbes himfelf (nor perhaps any pretenders to it) was so much an atheift, as he would fain have been, but did really dread a future ftate; otherwife he would not have been fo dreadfully afraid of death, as the concurrent teftimony of thofe who knew him do reprefent him. In particular, the lady Ranelagh, (or Mr. Boyle in her houfe, I have forgotten whether), told me, divers years ago, that a great lady, with whom the had lately been, told her of a difcourfe which had then lately. happened, between Mr. Hobbes and that great lady. (I

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guefs it was the old countefs of Devonshire, but am not certain). He told her, in commendation of life, that if he were mafter of all the world to difpofe of, he would give it to live one day. She replied with wonder, that a person of his knowledge, who had fo many friends to oblige or gratify, would not deny himfelf one day's content of living, if thereby he were able to gratify them with all the world. His answer was "What fhall I be the better for that, when I am dead? I fay again, if I had all the world to difpose of, I would give it to live one day," or to that effect. The lady perhaps may remember it better than I, and more things to the fame purpose. I am the more confirmed in this opinion from what is related in the fermon at the funeral of the late earl of Rochefter, who could talk atheiflical things with as much brifknefs and as much wit as Mr. Hobbes, and with more of fenfe and reafon, yet could not ftrongly believe it, but was galled cæco vulnere, with a recoiling confcience which did at length fly in his face with fo much fury (I hope through God's mercy to him) that he could bear it no longer. He complained, as is there related, amongst other things, of the mischief Mr. Hobbes's principles had done him, and many others ruined by his principles. The great Selden alfo, I hear, was fenfible of it. Dr. Gerard Langbaine, then provoft of Queen's College, Oxon, a great friend of Mr. Selden's, and a good man, who was with him in his fickness and at his death, wrote me a letter on the occafion, containing divers ferious and .... things faid by Mr. Selden to him in that sickness; and told me particularly, that Mr. Hobbes then coming to give Mr.. Selden a vifit, Mr. Selden would not admit him, but answered, 'No Hobbes, no atheift ;' and of whom I hear that Mr. Hobbes's cenfure was, that he (Mr.. Selden) lived like a wife man, and died like a fool.

The character I have had of Mr. Hobbes was, that he was morofe, fupercilious, highly opinionated of himself, and impatient of contradiction, which when he met with, it put him upon great paffion and very foul language. Much to that purpofe is mentioned in a piece publifhed by Dr. Ward, about the year 1664, but without his name, entitled Vindicia Academiarum, against one Webfter; with fome animadversions on Mr. Hobbes. He had in his younger days fome little infight in mathematics; and which at that time, (when few had any) paffed for a great deal. On the credit of which he did much bear up himself as a great man, and having fomewhat fingular, and hereupon defpifed divines

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as not being philofophers, and philofophers as not being mathematicians; without which he would have it thought impoffible to do any good in philofophy. De Corpore, cap. vi, fect. vi. And fo long as he did but talk and forbear to write, he did, by his own report, pafs for a mathematician. But when once he began to write mathematics, he prefently fell into those grofs abfurdities, and difcovered in himself fuch an incapacity for it, as could not have been imagined of him if he had forborne to write. And truly I look upon it as a great providence, that God fhould leave him to fo great a degree of infatuation in that wherein he did fo much pride himself. For whereas in difcourfes of other subjects miftakes may be fhuffled over with a multitude of great words, in mathematics it cannot be fo. And hereby he dif covered himself, without poffibility of palliation, not to be that man of reafon that he would be thought to be. For though a man may be rational, who is not a mathematician, (and had he not pretended to it, his ignorance had been excufable); but for fo great a pretender, and who had gloried in it for fo long a time, and was acquainted with the principles of it, from fuch principles to infer fuch abfurd conclu fions, must needs argue a want of logic, and an incapacity, not only to reason well, but even to understand reason. And I guess it was his affectation of fingularity, (as much as any thing), which made him engage in atheistical tenets; that he might feem to be a man of greater reach than all the world befides.

I know not what to add more; but if this may contribute any thing to your bufinefs, it is at your service. Your's, to serve you, JOHN WALLIS.

Dr. Tenison was one of the commiffioners appointed to prepare matters to be confidered of in convocation in 1689. One defign of this commiffion was to review the liturgy, out of which Dr. Tenifon collected those words and expreffions which had been excepted againft, and propofing others in their room, which were more clear and plain, and less liable to objection. The original of the alterations fuggefted by himfelf and the reft of the commiffioners, remained in his hands after he was archbishop, but he was always cautious of trusting any of them out of his own hands. He was also the author of a Difcourfe concerning that Commiffion, proving it to be agreeable to the law of the land, useful to the Convocation,

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