Responses to Hume on Religion by Anglicans and Dissenters

Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Volumn 52, Issue 4, 2001, Pages 675-695

  Rivers, Isabel ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 85011457606     PISSN: 00220469     EISSN: 14697637     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1017/S0022046901008648     Document Type: Article

References (146)

1. This article is an expansion of the argument in my Reason, grace, and sentiment: a study of the language of religion and ethics in England, 1660–1780.II: Shaftesbury to Hume, Cambridge 2000, ch. iv. An earlier version was given as a paper at the conference on ‘Deism and atheism in the enlightenment’ at Trinity College, Dublin, in July 1997.
2. Anthony Ashley Cooper, third earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of men, manners, opinions, times, 2nd edn, London 1714, ii. 70–71.
3. J. Beattie, An essay on the nature and immutability of truth, 6th edn, London 1778, 407n. This note is not in the first edn, Edinburgh 1770.
4. A. Smith, The theory of moral sentiments, ed. D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Oxford 1976, 235.
5. P. Bayle, Miscellaneous reflections, occasion'd by the comet, London 1708, ii. 349–351.
6. See Rivers, Reason, grace, and sentiment, ii. 31–50.
7. The most useful account is J. C. A. Gaskin, Hume's philosophy of religion, 2nd edn, Basingstoke 1988, though I do not agree with all its conclusions.
8. Some of these figures - Warburton, Horne, Milner, Rose and Priestley - are treated by James Feiser, ‘Hume's concealed attack on religion and his early critics’, Journal of Philosophical Research xx (1995), 83–101. Feiser's main aim is to show, correctly, that contemporary critics of The natural history of religion and the Dialogues were better interpreters than some modern ones. He is not concerned with denominational differences in argument and method.
9. D. Hume, A treatise of human nature, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd edn, rev. P. H. Nidditch, Oxford 1978, 609
10. Enquiries concerning human understanding and concerning the principles of morals, ed. L. A. Selby-Bigge, 3rd edn, rev. P. H. Nidditch, Oxford 1975, second Enquiry, 321–322.
11. Second Enquiry, 341.
12. Idem, The natural history of religion, ed. A. W. Colver
13. Dialogues concerning natural religion, ed. J. V. Price, Oxford 1976, Natural history, sect. x.
14. Idem, Dialogues, 253
15. cf. Natural history, 90.
16. Hume to Gilbert Elliot, 10 Mar. 1751, in The letters of David Hume, ed. J. Y. T. Greig, Oxford 1932, i. 154.
17. D. Hume, Essays moral, political, and literary, ed. E. F. Miller, rev. edn, Indianapolis 1987, ‘Of parties in general’, 61–63
18. cf. on the last point Natural history, 80–81.
19. Idem, ‘Of the immortality of the soul’, Essays, 593.
20. Idem, ‘Of national characters’, Essays, 199n.-201n.
21. cf. on hypocrisy, Dialogues, 254.
22. Idem, The history of Great Britain, I: The reigns of James I and Charles I, Edinburgh 1754, 26–7, a much criticised passage cut from subsequent editions.
23. Idem, The history of England, under the house of Tudor, London 1759, i. 121.
24. Idem, Dialogues, 255.
25. Idem, History of England, i. 116–118
26. cf. ‘Idea of a perfect commonwealth’, Essays, 520.
27. Idem, History of Great Britain, i. 40.
28. Idem, Dialogues, 155–158.
29. Dialogues. 243–244.
30. Idem, ‘Of miracles’, first Enquiry, 130.
31. Idem, Dialogues, 261.
32. For the Douglas affair and the difficulties caused by the dedication see Letters of David Hume, i. 239–240, 242–3
33. E. C. Mossner, The life of David Hume, 2nd edn, Oxford 1980, ch. xxvi
34. Richard B. Sher, Church and university in the Scottish Enlightenment, Princeton 1985, 74–92.
35. D. Hume, Natural history, 19
36. cf. Letters of David Hume, i. 172–173.
37. Idem, Dialogues, 244–245.
38. R. Hurd, A discourse, by way of general preface to … Warburton's works, containing some account of the life, writings, and character of the author, London 1794, 113, 118.
39. W. Warburton and R. Hurd, Remarks on Mr. David Hume's essay on the natural history of religion, London 1757, 28, 2
40. cf. Hurd, General preface, 77.
41. A selection from unpublished papers of the Right Reverend William Warburton, D.D., ed. F. Kilvert, London 1841, 311–315.
42. See Mossner, Hume, ch. xxiv
43. J. V. Price, introduction to Essays on suicide and the immortality of the soul, Bristol 1992, facsimile of 1783 edn.
44. Letters of David Hume, i. 265.
45. Letters of David Hume. i. 5
46. cf. ii. 244.
47. Mossner, Hume, 326.
48. Warburton and Hurd, Remarks, 44.
49. D. Hume, History of Great Britain, II: The commonwealth, and the reigns of Charles II and James II, London 1757, 449–450.
50. The note was originally intended as a preface to vol. ii. For the text of the original version, unpublished by Hume, see Mossner, Hume, 306–307.
51. Warburton and Hurd, Remarks, 23.
52. Letters from a late eminent prelate to one of his friends, ed. R. Hurd, Kidderminster 1808, 175
53. cf. Unpublished papers of William Warburton, 309–310.
54. J. Brown, Estimate of the manners and principles of the times, i, London 1757, 57–58
55. cf. vol. ii, London 1758, 86–88.
56. Letters from a prelate, 207.
57. The life of David Hume, esq. written by himself with a Letter from Adam Smith, LL.D. to William Strahan, esq., London 1777, 62.
58. G. Horne, Letter to Adam Smith, Oxford 1777, p. ii.
59. Letter to Adam Smith. 45
60. J. Beattie, Essay on the nature and immutability of truth, Edinburgh 1770, 421–422
61. Nigel Aston, in his useful account of ‘Horne and heterodoxy: the defence of Anglican beliefs in the late enlightenment’, EHR cviii (1993), 895–919, does not notice Horne's debt to Beattie and misattributes to Smith S. J. Pratt's answer to Horne.
62. Smith, Letter to Strahan, 50–1, 62
63. Horne, Letter to Smith, 12, 32–36.
64. Idem, Letters on infidelity, Oxford 1784, letters 4, 5–6 at pp. 72, 110.
65. Sir William Forbes, An account of the life and writings of James Beattie, Edinburgh 1806, i. 190.
66. Hurd to Balguy, 1 May, 13 Sept., 2 Dec. 1771, 18 Aug. 1784, in Francis Kilvert, Memoirs of the life and writings of the Right Rev. Richard Hurd, D.D., London 1860, 109–11, 152.
67. Memoirs of the life and writings of the Right Rev. Richard Hurd, D.D. 135–137.
68. Presumably this is why the work is not listed in T. E. Jessop, A bibliography of Hume and Scottish philosophy, London 1938.
69. T. Balguy, Divine benevolence asserted; and vindicated from the objections of ancient and modern sceptics, London 1781, advertisement p. iii.
70. Hurd to Balguy, 19 Oct. 1784, in Kilvert, Memoirs of Hurd, 154.
71. Balguy, Divine benevolence, 42n.
72. Divine benevolence. pp. iv, 70.
73. The works of Bishop Butler, II: The analogy of religion, ed. J. H. Bernard, London 1900, pt 1, chs iii, v.
74. Balguy, Divine benevolence, 74–75.
75. Both Balguy and Hurd were subscribers to Hutcheson's posthumously published A system of moral philosophy, Glasgow-London 1755.
76. Letters of David Hume, i. 40.
77. J. Leland, A view of the principal deistical writers, 4th edn, London 1764, i, letters 17–21. A view was first published in three volumes (1754–6), with vol. ii on Hume and Bolingbroke; it was rearranged in two volumes in 1757.
78. H. Hamilton, An attempt to prove the existence and absolute perfection of the supreme unoriginated being, Dublin 1784, 14–16, 26.
79. Hume, Dialogues, 191, 240.
80. On this complex subject see M. A. Stewart, ‘Hume and the “metaphysical argument a priori”’, in A.J. Holland (ed.), Philosophy, its history and historiography, The Hague 1985, 243–270.
81. Hamilton, Supreme unoriginated being, 30–31
82. The works of the Right Rev. Hugh Hamilton, D.D., ed. A. Hamilton, London 1809, i. 137.
83. Hamilton is particularly interested in Locke's correspondence of 2 April, 21 May and 4 October 1698 with Limborch on the unity of God: Supreme unoriginated being, 43–61.
84. See The correspondence of John Locke, ed. E. S. de Beer, Oxford 1976-, vi, letters 2413, 2443, 2494.
85. R. Fiddes, Theologia speculativa, London 1718.
86. W. Wollaston, The religion of nature delineated, London 1722.
87. S. Clarke, A demonstration of the being and attributes of God, London 1705.
88. Hamilton, Supreme unoriginated being, 113–115.
89. Berkeley's warning is made through Lysicles's atheistical argument in Alciphron (1732): The works of George Berkeley, ed. A. A. Luce and T. E. Jessop, London 1948–1957, iii. 163–165.
90. Hamilton, Supreme unoriginated being, 119–122.
91. For the importance and success of Hey's lectures in both oral and printed forms see A. M. C. Waterman, ‘A Cambridge “via media” in late Georgian Anglicanism’, this Journal xlii (1991), 419–36 at pp. 429–432.
92. J. Hey, Heads of a course of lectures in divinity, Cambridge 1783, bk i, chs iv, xv, xvi, xviii, xix.
93. Idem, Lectures in divinity, Cambridge 1796, i. 3, 10, 11–12, 114, 124, 157–76, 183–4, 190, 195ff., 217, 280, 393, 463; ii. 18, 176, 179.
94. For his criticism of Hume on miracles Hey relied in part (with acknowledgement: i. 204) on ‘The insufficiency of Mr. Hume's objection to the credibility of miracles’, the sixth of W. S. Powell's Discourses on various subjects, published posthumously in 1776 by Thomas Balguy. Powell, who was Master of St John's, Balguy's former college, relied in turn on arguments from Butler: Discourses, London 1776, 97.
95. Hey's projected ‘canons of controversy’ would exclude from religious dispute self-sufficiency, declamation, personal reflections, charging the consequences of doctrines on their holders, party labels and misapplication of ridicule: Lectures in divinity, i, ch. v.
96. See also Rivers, Reason, grace, and sentiment, ii. 5–6.
97. Hey, Lectures in divinity, i. 157–158.
98. Morehead does not feature in the DNB, but he has an entry in Jessop's Bibliography of Hume. There is biographical information in Charles Morehead (ed.), Memorials of the life and writings of the rev. Robert Morehead, D.D., Edinburgh 1875.
99. R. Morehead, Dialogues, pp. xxiii, 33.
100. Dialogues. 91–92
101. cf. Shaftesbury, The Moralists, Characteristicks, ii. 358–359.
102. R. Morehead, Dialogues, 206–210.
103. Morehead read Hume's History with pleasure as a boy: C. Morehead, Memorials, 33, 48.
104. R. Morehead, Dialogues, 227.
105. Dialogues. n. O, 444–448.
106. Hume, Dialogues, 155–8; see p. 679 above.
107. Hume, Dialogues, 156.
108. J. Milner, Gibbon's account of Christianity considered: together with some strictures on Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion, York 1781, 154–155.
109. Gibbon's account of Christianity considered: together with some strictures on Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion. 217.
110. Gibbon's account of Christianity considered: together with some strictures on Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion. 203n.
111. Gibbon's account of Christianity considered: together with some strictures on Hume's dialogues concerning natural religion. 252–3. Milner adds the note: ‘The candid reader will easily see, that I mean by the word reason, a spirit of religious investigation, which exerts itself independantly of revealed truth.’
112. See William Morgan, Memoirs of the life of the Rev. Richard Price, London 1815, 16–17
113. Mossner, Hume, 393.
114. Milner, Gibbon's account, 253.
115. Philip Doddridge to John Wesley, 18 June 1746, in Calendar of the correspondence of Philip Doddridge, D.D., ed. G. F. Nuttall, London 1979, letter 1,166. The error that Doddridge's students were encouraged to know included Hume's Philosophical essays
116. Philip Doddridge, A course of lectures on the principal subjects in pneumatology, ethics, and divinity, London 1763, lecture 23
117. Isabel Rivers, Reason, grace, and sentiment, I: Whichcote to Wesley, Cambridge 1991, 182.
118. Rose's importance in this respect is not sufficiently recognised (the inadequate DNB entry lists him under his son Samuel). His contributions to the Monthly Review are identified in Benjamin Christie Nangle, The Monthly Review first series 1749–1789: indexes of contributors and articles, Oxford 1934.
119. Monthly Review viii (1753), art. 1, i (Warburton)
120. x (1754), art. 17
121. xiv (1756), art. 56, 465 (Leland)
122. xlii (1770), art. 7, 450
123. xliii (1770), art. 5 (Beattie).
124. Review of [George Anderson], An estimate of the profit and loss of religion (an attack on Henry Home's Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion), Monthly Review x (1754), 193.
125. Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion. xliii (1770), 283
126. Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion. lxxiii (1785), 338.
127. Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion. lxxiii (1785), 343.
128. Essays on the principles of morality and natural religion. xvi (1757), 122
129. cf. the review of vol. ii of The history of Great Britain, at p. 50.
130. For example, the second Enquiry and Political discourses, The history of Great Britain. vi (1752), art. 1,1
131. art. 2, 19. Mossner, Hume, 225–6, underplays Rose's criticisms.
132. Hume to William Strahan, 1760, in Letters of David Hume, i. 336.
133. Monthly Review lxi (1779), 355.
134. Rose is adapting Philo's own claim: ‘I know that I can never … corrupt the Principles of any Man of common Sense’: Hume, Dialogues, 244.
135. Monthly Review lxx (1784), 428.
136. R. Price, A review of the principal questions in morals, ed. D. D. Raphael, Oxford 1948, 42–43.
137. The Review was first published in 1758 as A review of the principal questions and difficulties in morals; Raphael prints the text of the third revised edition of 1787.
138. A review of the principal questions and difficulties in morals. 55–56.
139. Morgan, Memoirs of Price, 16–17. Morgan refers to Hume dining with Price, Adams and Douglas.
140. R. Price, Four dissertations, 2nd edn, London 1768, diss. iv, ‘On the importance of Christianity, the nature of historical evidence, and miracles’, 366, 382.
141. Hume owned a copy presented by Price: David Fate and Mary J. Norton, The David Hume library, Edinburgh 1996, no. 997.
142. The title may allude to Hume's identically titled work, London 1757, containing The natural history of religion.
143. Hume to Price, 18 Mar. 1767, in New letters of David Hume, ed. R. Klibansky and E. C. Mossner, Oxford 1954, 234.
144. Price, Four dissertations, 463–4. Price specifies his alterations and additions to diss. iv in the ‘Advertisement to the second edition’, noting that ‘Every expression … which had any appearance of an undue severity with respect to Unbelievers has been altered’ (p. v).
145. J. Priestley, The theological and miscellaneous works, ed. J. T. Rutt (1817–1832), iv, letters 9, 10, 14 at p. 411. The Letters were first published in 1780.Rutt prints the text of the 2nd edition of 1787.
146. Idem, An examination of Dr. Reid's inquiry …, Dr. Beattie's essay …, and Dr. Oswald's appeal…, 2nd edn, London 1775, 193–194.