208 quotes found
"Jesus teaches that human need must always be helped; that there is no greater task than to relieve someone's pain and distress and that the Christian's compassion must be like God's—unceasing. Other work may be laid aside but the work of compassion never."
"(a) To be spiritually dead is to have stopped trying. It is to have come to look on all faults as ineradicable and all virtues as unattainable.[…](b) To be spiritually dead is to have stopped feeling.[…] When compassion goes the heart is dead.(c) To be spiritually dead is to have stopped thinking.[…] The day when the desire to learn leaves us, the day when new truths, new methods, new thought become simply a disturbance with which we cannot be bothered, is the day of our spiritual death.(d) To be spiritually dead is to have stopped repenting. The day when a man can sin in peace is the day of his spiritual death."
"All life is based on the fact that anything worth getting is hard to get. There is a price to be paid for anything. Scholarship can only be bought at the price of study, skill of craft or technique can only be bought at the price of practice, and eminence in any sport can only be bought at the price of training and discipline."
"It is only by refusing to accept the situation that in the end we can change the situation."
"Any creed or ideology or religion must be known and tested by its fruits, and its fruits are people."
"When two people speak about a trial marriage, in which they live together without being married, they are not really reproducing the conditions of marriage, for they are not in a binding situation, which is the very essence of marriage, but in a quite impermanent situation out of which either may walk at any time. They are in a situation in which at any moment they can freely walk out of their problems instead of a situation in which they have to solve their problems, or wreck the situation. The whole point about marriage is that marriage can never be an experiment; it has to be a commitment; no one can experiment with a commitment; a commitment has to be accepted or refused."
"We shall work not on the macrocosmic scale of the literary forms, but on the microcosmic scale of the lexical forms."
"This book is therefore consecrated to the deeper and fuller study of that linguistic world in which the Hebrew Bible is set."
"The problem here is not so much a historical one, more a terminological and philosophical one."
"Probably, so far as I know, there is no professor of Hebrew or Old Testament at any world-class university who does not believe that the writer(s) of Genesis 1–11 intended to convey to their readers the ideas that:"
"#creation took place in a series of six days which were the same as the days of 24 hours we now experience"
"#the figures contained in the Genesis genealogies provided by simple addition a chronology from the beginning of the world up to later stages in the biblical story"
"#Noah’s flood was understood to be world-wide and extinguish all human and animal life except for those in the ark."
"None have I corrupted. None have I defrauded. Merchandise have I not made — to God's glory I write — of the glorious Evangel of Jesus Christ; but, according to the measure of the grace granted unto me, I have divided the Sermon of Truth in just parts, beating down the rebellion of the proud against God, and raising up the consciences troubled with the knowledge of their sins, by declaring Jesus Christ, the strength of His Death, and the mighty operation of His Resurrection, in the hearts of the Faithful. Of this, I say, I have a testimony this day in my conscience, before God, however the world rage."
"As touching nature I am a worm of this earth, and yet a subject of this commonwealth; but as touching the office wherein it has pleased God to place me [head of the Reformed church in Scotland], I am a watchman...For that reason I am bound in conscience to blow the trumpet publicly."
"Madam, in God's presence I speak: I never delighted in the weeping of any of God's creatures; yea I can scarcely well abide the tears of my own boys whom my own hand corrects, much less can I rejoice in your Majesty's weeping."
"But hereof be assured, that all is not lawful nor just that is statute by civil laws; neither yet is everything sin before God, which ungodly persons allege to be treason."
"The Mass is Idolatry. All worshipping, honouring, or service invented by the brain of man in the religion of God, without his own express commandment, is idolatry. The Mass is invented by the brain of man, without any commandment of God; therefore it is idolatry."
"First, I say, that woman in her greatest perfection was made to serve and obey man, not to rule and command him. As St. Paul does reason in these words: "Man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man. And man was not created for the cause of the woman, but the woman for the cause of man; and therefore ought the woman to have a power upon her head" [1 Cor. 11:8-10] (that is, a cover in sign of subjection). Of which words it is plain that the apostle means, that woman in her greatest perfection should have known that man was lord above her; and therefore that she should never have pretended any kind of superiority above him, no more than do the angels above God the Creator, or above Christ their head.[38] So I say, that in her greatest perfection, woman was created to be subject to man."
"Against God can nothing be more manifest than that a woman shall be exalted to reign above man; for the contrary sentence he has pronounced in these words: "Thy will shall be subject to thy husband, and he shall bear dominion over thee" (Gen. 3:16). As [though] God should say, "Forasmuch as you have abused your former condition, and because your free will has brought yourself and mankind into the bondage of Satan, I therefore will bring you in bondage to man. For where before your obedience should have been voluntary, now it shall be by constraint and by necessity; and that because you have deceived your man, you shall therefore be no longer mistress over your own appetites, over your own will or desires. For in you there is neither reason nor discretion which are able to moderate your affections, and therefore they shall be subject to the desire of your man. He shall be lord and governor, not only over your body, but even over your appetites and will." This sentence, I say, did God pronounce against Eve and her daughters, as the rest of the scriptures do evidently witness. So that no woman can ever presume to reign above man, but the same she must needs do in despite of God, and in contempt of his punishment and malediction."
"To the question how she can be the image of God, [Augustine] answers as follows: "Woman," says he, "compared to other creatures, is the image of God, for she bears dominion over them. But compared unto man, she may not be called the image of God, for she bears not rule and lordship over man, but ought to obey him," etc.[57] And how that woman ought to obey man, he speaks yet more clearly in these words, "The woman shall be subject to man as unto Christ. For woman," says he, "has not her example from the body and from the flesh, that so she shall be subject to man, as the flesh is unto the Spirit, because that the flesh in the weakness and mortality of this life lusts and strives against the Spirit, and therefore would not the Holy Ghost give example of subjection to the woman of any such thing," etc. This sentence of Augustine ought to be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms, that woman ought to be subject to man, that she never ought more to desire preeminence [over] him, than that she ought to desire above Christ Jesus"
"To promote a woman to beare rule, superioritie, dominion or empire above any realme, nation, or citie, is repugnant to nature, contumelie to God, a thing most contrarious to his reveled will and approved ordinance, and finalie it is the subversion of good order, of all equitie and justice."
"To the verteuus and godlie Elizabeht by the grace of GOD quen of England etc John Knox desireht the perpetuall Encrease of the Holie Spiritt. etc. As your graces displeasur against me most Iniustlie conceaned, hath be[en] and is to my wretched hart a burthen grevous and almost intollerabill, so is the testimonye of a clean conscience to me a stay and vphold that in desperation I sink not, how vehement that ever the temptations appear, for in GODD is presence my conscience beareht me reacord that maliciouslie nor of purpose I inoffended your grace, nor your realme. And therfor how so ever I be ludged by man, I am assured to be absolued by him who onlie knoweht the secreatis of hartes."
"If their princes exceed their bounds, Madam, no doubt they may be resisted, even by power. For there is neither greater honor, nor greater obedience, to be given to kings or princes, than God hath commanded to be given unto father and mother. But the father may be stricken with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. If the children arise, join themselves together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till his frenzy be overpast: think ye, Madam, that the children do any wrong? It is even so, Madam, with princes that would murder the children of God that are subjects unto them. Their blind zeal is nothing but a very mad frenzy, and therefore, to take the sword from them, to bind their hands, and to cast them into prison, till they be brought to a more sober mind, is no disobedience against princes, but just obedience, because it agreeth with the will of God."
"Trouble me not; such an idol is accursed, and therefore I will not touch it.' The patron and the arguesyn (i.e. sergeant who commanded the forcats) with two officers, having the chief charge of all such matters, said, 'Thou shalt handle it,' and so they violently thrust it to his face, and put it betwixt his hands, who seeing the extremity, taking the idol and advisedly looking about, he cast it into the river, and said, 'Let our lady now save herself; she is light enough; let her learn to swim.' After that was no Scotchman urged with that idolatry."
"Here lies one who neither flattered nor feared any flesh."
"John Knox had been a topical preacher, i.e., preaching on the cultural circumstances and political occurrences of the time. For Knox in the mid-1500s this meant that his sermons were typically anti-Catholic, and especially they were anti-Mary Queen of Scots sermons! Since Knox was a typical model for these Scots-Irish preachers on the Virginia frontier, that might have indicated that their worship services included the congregation's recitation of both the Apostles' Creed and the Lord's Prayer, but their sermons were probably scriptural exhortations against the demonic powers of this world... which was the main reason that those powers in Williamsburg were suspicious of such traveling dissenters!"
"Pouter, tumbler and fantail are from the same source; The racer and hack may be traced to one horse; So men were developed from monkeys of course, Which nobody can deny."
"So I wonder a woman, the Mistress of Hearts, Should ascent to aspire to be Master of Arts; A Ministering Angel in Woman we see, And an Angel need cover no other Degree. —O why should a Woman not get a Degree?"
"Henceforth the majesty of God revere; Fear Him, and you have nothing else to fear."
"Last words: "I bless the Lord that he gave me counsel.""
"Like a fool as I was , I suffered my sun to be high in the heavens and near afternoon before I ever took the gate by the end."
"I see grace growth best in winter"
"ye and I might meet with joy up in the rainbow"
"I hang by a thread, but it is (if I may so speak) of Christ's spinning"
"I had but one joy, the apple of the eye of my delights , to preach Christ my Lord"
"The bloom fell off my branches and joy did cast off its flower"
"The good Husbandman may pluck His rose & gather in His lily."
"The night will close the door & fasten my anchor within the veil and I shall go away to sleep."
"Grace will ever speak for itself and be fruitful in well-doing; the sanctified cross is a fruitful tree."
"Ye have lost a child — nay, she is not lost to you, who is found to Christ; she is not sent away, but only sent before; like unto a star, which going out of our sight, doth not die and vanish, but shineth in another hemisphere."
"Let your children be as so many flowers, borrowed from God. If the flowers die or wither, thank God for a summer loan of them."
"Dearest wife, let us go on and faint not; something of ours is in heaven besides the flesh of our exalted Saviour, and we go on after our own."
"My desire is that my Lord would give me broader and deeper thoughts, to feed myself with wondering at His love."
"In our fluctuations of feeling, it is well to remember that Jesus admits no change in His affections; your heart is not the compass Jesus saileth by."
"Every day we may see some new thing in Christ. His love hath neither brim nor bottom."
"I find my Lord Jesus cometh not in the precise way that I lay wait for Him. He hath a manner of His own. Oh, how high are His ways above my ways"
"Take Christ in with you under your yoke, and let patience have her perfect work."
"There is nothing that will make you a Christian indeed, but a taste of the sweetness of Christ."
"Christ, in that place He hath put you, hath intrusted you with a dear pledge, which is His own glory, and hath armed you with His sword to keep the pledge, and make a good account of it to God."
"Christ seeketh your help in your place; give Him your hand."
"You must take a house beside the Physician. It will be a miracle if ye be the first sick that Christ hath put away uncured."
"Welcome, welcome, cross of Christ, if Christ be with it."
"How soon would faith freeze without a cross!"
"Build your nest upon no tree here, for ye see that God hath sold the forest to death."
"Be not cast down. If ye saw Him who is standing on the shore, holding out His arms to welcome you to land, ye would wade, not only through a sea of wrongs, but through hell itself to be with Him."
"When ye are come to the other side of the water, and have set down your foot on the shore ot glorious eternity, and look back again to the waters and to your wearisome journey, and shall see in that clear glass of endless glory, nearer to the bottom of God's wisdom, ye shall then be forced to say, " If God had done otherwise with me than He hath done, I had never come to the enjoyment of this crown of glory.""
"It is no small comfort that God hath written some Scriptures to you which He hath not to others. Read these, and think God is like a friend who sendeth a letter to a whole house and family, but who speaketh in His letter to some by name that are dearest to Him in the house."
"There is nothing left to us but to see how we may be approved of Him, and how we may roll the weight of our weak souls in well-doing upon Him, who is God omnipotent."
"It is certain that this is not only good which the Almighty has done, but that it is best; He hath reckoned all your steps to heaven."
"I know that as night and shadows are good for flowers, and moonlight and dews are better than a continual sun, so is Christ's absence of special use, and that it hath some nourishing virtue in it, and giveth sap to humility, and putteth an edge on hunger, and furnisheth a fair field for faith to put forth itself."
"Grow as a palm-tree on God's Mount Zion; howbeit shaken with winds, yet the root is fast."
"I pray God that I may never find my will again. Oh, that Christ would subject my will to His, and trample it under His feet."
"It is in some respect greater love in Jesus to sanctify than to justify, for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image in sanctifying us."
"If ye never had a sick night and a pained soul for sin, ye have not yet lighted upon Christ."
"Make not Christ a liar in distrusting His promise."
"A power ethical, politic, or moral, to oppress, is not from God, and is not a power, but a licentious deviation of a power; and is no more from God, but from sinful nature and the old serpent."
"If you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idoizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wished to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all his lamps; and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven."
"But no sooner did the restoration of Charles II. take place, than the face of affairs began to change, and after his fore-mentioned book lex rex was burnt at the cross of Edinburgh, and at the gates of the new college of St Andrews, where he was professor of divinity, the parliament in 1661, were to have an indictment laid before them against him, and such was their humanity (that when every body knew he was a-dying) that they caused summon him to appear before them at Edinburgh, to answer to a charge of high treason... It is commonly said, that when the summons came he spoke out of his bed and said, Tell them I have got summons already before a superior judge and judicatory, and I behove to answer my first summons, and ere your day come I will be where few kings and great folks come. When they returned and told he was a-dying, the parliament put to a vote, Whether or not to let him die in the college. It carried, Put him out, only a few dissenting. My lord Burleigh said, Ye have voted that honest man out of the college, but ye cannot vote him out of heaven. Some said, He would never win there, hell was too good for him. Burleigh said, I wish I were as sure of heaven as he is, I would think myself happy to get a grip of his sleeve to hawl me in."
"He had a most sharp pierceing witt, and fruitfall invention and solid judgement. He used ordinarly to rise be three a clock in the morning; he spent all his time either in prayer, or reading, or writting, or in visiting families in private, or in publick employments of his ministrie or profession. While he was at Anwoth, he was the instrument of much good among a poor ignorant people, many of which he brought to the knowledge and practise of religion, and was a great strengthener of all the Christians in that countrey."
"[A]t ye entrie of ye said Maister Samuell, our soules were under that miserable extreame femine of ye word, that we had onlie ye puir help of an sermone everie second Sabboth, by reasone of ane most inconvenient unione with uther twa kirkis."
"Modern engineers, after having erected a viaduct, insist upon subjecting it to a severe strain by a formal trial trip, before allowing it to be opened for public traffic; and it would almost seem that God, in employing moral agents for the carrying out of His purposes, secures that they shall be tested by some dreadful ordeal, before He fully commits to them the work which He wishes them to perform."
"Up with the banner of your new Lord, Jehovah Jesus! Raise it in firm decision, with quiet earnestness and with humble prayer; keep it with unflinching fortitude, and be ready to die rather than dishonor it."
"The lack of brotherhood among believers themselves has paralyzed the church in front of the skepticism and immorality of the world; but when we go back in simple faith to the one great fact of our redemption, we shall be both brought into closer fellowship with each other, and stimulated to more tender regard for the salvation of men."
"You may be quite sure that if little light comes from a Christian character, little light comes into it. We must have the glory sink into us before it can be reflected from us. But let the love of Jesus become the master-principle of our hearts, and there will be no halting or irresolution; no parleying with temptation; no seeking to explain away our duty under color of deliberating to discover what it is; no looking one way and walking another; but with undivided souls, and with enthusiastic devotion, we shall do only and always the will of Him who loved us, and gave Himself for us."
"So, my brethren, let us do our work, that others entering on it may carry it forward through after generations. Thus shall the work of the fathers become the glory of fheir children; and in the end, when the mystery of God shall be finished, we shall see, in its completed beauty and proportion, the great fabric into which we put our little all; and we shall rejoice at once in the skill of the Architect and the diligence of the successive builders."
"So, from generation to generation, the spiritual church is rising upwards toward its perfection; and, though one after another the workmen pass away, the fabric remains, and the great Master-builder carries on the undertaking. Be it ours to build in our portion in a solid and substantial manner, so that they who come after us may be at once thankful for our thoroughness, and inspired by our example."
"It is better to have a plain, substantial building, with no extravagance about it, but without a debt, than to have the most splendid specimen of Gothic architecture that is overlaid by a mortgage."
"We can set our deeds to the music of a grateful heart, and seek to round our lives into a hymn — the melody of which will be recognized by all who come in contact with us, and the power of which shall not be evanescent, like the voice of the singer, but perenninal, like the music of the spheres."
"Palestine was the West Point and Annapolis for the world. In that little country God was training up a people out of whom, when the fullness of the time should come, His gospel cadets should emerge, fitted by all the training of all their national history for going out among the heathen and proclaiming the unsearchable riches of Christ."
"The whole track of history is marked with the ruin of empires which having been founded in injustice, or perpetuated by wrong, were ultimately destroyed."
"The great moral lesson which Saul's history leaves for the instruction of mankind is this: That without true piety the finest qualities of character and the highest position in society will utterly fail to make a true and noble man. If Saul's heart had been true to God, he would have been one of the grandest specimens of humanity; but, lacking this true obedience to God, he made his life an utter failure, and his character amoral wreck."
"Prayers born out of murmuring are always dangerous. When, therefore, we are in a discontented mood, let'us take care what we cry for, lest God give it to us, and thereby punish us."
"They tell us of the fixed laws of nature! but who dares maintain that He who fixed these laws cannot use them for the purpose of answering His people's prayers?"
"True repentance has as its constituent elements not only grief and hatred of sin, but also an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ. It hates the sin, and not simply the penalty; and it hates the sin most of all because it has discovered God's love."
"You cannot stay the shell in its flight; after it has left the mortar, it goes on to its mark, and there explodes, dealing destruction all around. Just as little can you stay the consequences of a sin after it has been committed. You may repent of it, you may even be forgiven for it, but still it goes on its deadly and desolating way. It has passed entirely beyond your reach; once done, it cannot be undone."
"It is impossible to look into the Bible with the most ordinary attention without feeling that we have got into a moral atmosphere quite different from that which we breathe in the world, and in the world's literature."
"Faith is the nail which fastens the soul to Christ; and love is that grace that drives the nail to the head. Faith takes hold of Him, and love helps to keep the grip. Christ dwells in the heart by faith, and He burns in the heart by love, like a fire melting the breast. Faith casts the knot, and love draws it fast."
"To depend partly upon Christ's righteousness and partly upon our own, is to set one foot upon a. rock and another in the quicksands. Christ will either be to us all in all in point of righteousness, or else nothing at all."
"The movement of the soul along the path of duty, under the influence of holy love to God, constitutes what we call good works."
"sic: si omnes homines natura scire desiderant, ergo maxime scientiam maxime desiderabunt. Ita arguit Philosophus I huius cap. 2. Et ibidem subdit: "quae sit maxime scientia, illa scilicet quae est circa maxime scibilia". Maxime autem dicuntur scibilia dupliciter: uel quia primo omnium sciuntur sine quibus non possunt alia sciri; uel quia sunt certissima cognoscibilia. Utroque autem modo considerat ista scientia maxime scibilia. Haec igitur est maxime scientia, et per consequens maxime desiderabilis."
"loquimur de materia "circa quam" est scientia, quae dicitur a quibusdam subiectum scientiae, uel magis proprie obiectum, sicut et illud circa quod est uirtus dicitur obiectum uirtutis proprie, non subiectum. De isto autem obiecto huius scientiae ostensum est prius quod haec scientia est circa transcendentia; ostensum est autem quod est circa altissimas causas. Quod autem istorum debeat poni proprium eius obiectum, uariae sunt opiniones. Ideo de hoc quaeritur primo utrum proprium subiectum metaphysicae sit ens in quantum ens (sicut posuit Auicenna) uel Deus et Intelligentiae (sicut posuit Commentator Auerroes.)"
"I say that some things can be said to belong to the law of nature in two ways: One way is as first practical principles known from their terms or as conclusions necessarily entailed by them. These are said to belong to the natural law in the strictest sense, and there can be no dispensation in their regard... But this is not the case when we speak in general of all the precepts of the second table. For the reasons behind the commands and prohibitions there are not practical principles that are necessary in an unqualified sense, nor are they simply necessary conclusions from such. For they contain no goodness such as is necessarily prescribed for attaining the goodness of the ultimate end, nor in what is forbidden is there such malice as would turn one away necessarily from the last end, for even if the good found in these [precepts] were not commanded, the ultimate end could still be loved and attained, whereas if the evil proscribed by them were not forbidden, it would still be consistent with the acquisition of the ultimate end."
"There had been implanted along through the ages germs of another growth in human thinking, some of them even as early as the Babylonian period. In the Assyrian inscriptions we find recorded the Chaldeo-Babylonian idea of an evolution of the universe out of the primeval flood or "great deep," and of the animal creation out of the earth and sea. This idea, recast, partially at least, into monotheistic form, passed naturally into the sacred books of the neighbors and pupils of the Chaldeans—the Hebrews; but its growth in Christendom afterward was checked, as we shall hereafter find, by the more powerful influence of other inherited statements which appealed more intelligibly to the mind of the Church...In the minds of Ionians like Anaximander and Anaximenes it was most clearly developed: the first of these conceiving of the visible universe as the result of processes of evolution, and the latter pressing further the same mode of reasoning, and dwelling on agencies in cosmic development recognized in modern science. ...Aristotle sometimes developed it in a manner which reminds us of modern views. ...Lucretius caught much from it extending the evolutionary process virtually to all things. ...Scotus Erigena and Duns Scotus, among the schoolmen, bewildered though they were, had caught some rays of this ancient light, and passed on to their successors, in modified form, doctrines of an evolutionary process in the universe. ...In the latter half of the sixteenth century these evolutionary theories seemed to take more definite form in the mind of Giordano Bruno... but with his murder by the Inquisition at Rome this idea seemed utterly to disappear."
"Therefore, Sir, let it be your Majesty's continuall study (as called and charged thereunto by God) to reforme the universall enormities of your country, and first (taking example of the princely prophet David) to begin at your Majesty's owne house, familie and court, and purge the same of all suspicion of Papists and Atheists and Newtrals, whereof this Revelation foretelleth that the number shall greatly increase in these latter daies. For shall any Prince be able to be one of the destroyers of that great seate, and a purger of the world from Antichristianisme, who purgeth not his owne countrie? Shall he purge his whole countrie who purgeth not his owne house? Or shall he purge his house, who is not purged himself by private meditations with his God?"
"In my tender years and bairn-age, at schools, having on the one part contracted a loving familiaritie with a certain gentleman a papist, and on the other part being attentive to the sermons of that worthy man of God, Maister Christopher Goodman, teaching upon the Apocalyps, I was moved in admiration against the blindness of papists that could not most evidentlie see their seven hilled Citie of Rome, painted out there so lively by Saint John, as the Mother of all Spiritual Whoredome: that not onlie bursted I oute in continuall reasoning against my said familiar, but also from thence forth I determined with myself by the assistance of God's spirit to employ my study and diligence to search out the remanent mysteries of that holy booke (as to this houre praised be the Lord I have bin doing at all such times as convenientlie I might have occasion) &c."
"Here then (belove reader) thou hast this work devided into two treatises, the first is the said introduction and reasoning, for investigation of the true sense of every cheife Theological tearme and date contained in the Revelation, whereby, not onely is it opened, explained and interpreted, but also that same explanation and interpretation is proved, confirmed and demonstrated, by evidente proofe and coherence of scriptures, agreeable with the event of histories. The seconde is, the principall treatise, in which the whole Apocalyps, Chapter by chapter, Verse by verse, and Sentence by sentence, is both Paraphrastically expounded and Historically applyed. ...And because this whole work of Revelation concerneth most the discoverie of the Antichristian and Papisticall kingdome, I have therefore (for removing of all suspition) in al histories and prophane matters, taken my authorities and cited my places either out of Ethnick auctors, or then papistical writers, whose testimonies by no reason can be refuted against themselves. But in matters of divinitie, doctrine & interpretation of mysteries (leaving all opinions of men) I take me onely to the interpretation and discoverie thereof, by coherence of scripture, and godly reasons following thereupon; which also not only no Papist, but even no Christian may justly refuse. And forasmuch as our scripturs herein are of two fortes, the one our ordinary text, the other extraordinary citations; In our ordinary text, I follow not altogether the vulgar English translation, but the best learned in the Greek tong, so that (for satisfying the Papists) I differ nothing from their vulgar text of S. Jerome, as they cal it, except is such places, where I prove by good reasons, that hee differeth from the Original Greek. In the extraordinary texts of other scriptures cited by me, I followe ever Jeromes latine translation, where any controverse stands betwixt us and the Papists, and that moveth me in divers places to insert his very latine text, for their cause, with the just English thereof, for supply of the unlearned."
"The First Proposition. In propheticall dates of daies, weekes, moneths, and yeares, everie common propheticall day is taken for a yeare."
"2. Proposition. The Seven Trumpets of the 8. and 9. chapters, and the Seven Vials of the 16. Chapter, are all one."
"3. Proposition. The Star and locusts of the fift trumpet, are not the greate Antichrist and his Cleargie, but the Dominator of the Turkes and his armie, who began their dominion in anno Christi 1051."
"4 Proposition. The kinges of the East, or four Angels, specified in the sixt trumpet, or sixt vial. Cap. 9. & 16. are the four nations, Mahometanes beyond and about Euphrates, who began their empire by Ottoman, in the yeare of Christ, 1296. or thereabout."
"5 Proposition. The space of the fift trumpet or vial containeth 245. years, and so much also, every one of the rest of the trumpets or vials doe containe."
"6 Proposition. The first Trumpet or Viall began at the Jubelee, in anno Christi 71."
"7 Proposition. The last of the Seven Seales, and first of the Seven Trumpets or Vials, begin both at once, in An. 71."
"8 Proposition. The first Seal beginneth to be opened in Anno Christi 29. compleat."
"9 Proposition. Everie Seale must containe the Space of Seven yeares."
"10 Proposition. The last Trumpet and Viall beginneth anno Christe 1541 and should end in anno Christi 1786."
"11 Proposition. The Seven Thunders, whose voices are commanded to bee sealed, and not written (cap.10.4.) are the Seven Angels, specified cap.14. vers. 6.8.9.14.15.17.18."
"12 Proposition. The first of the Seven thunders, and the seventh and last Trumpet or Viall, begin both at once in An.1541."
"13 Proposition. Every one of the first three thundering Angels containeth a Jubelee, and then the last foure al at once compleateth the day of judgement."
"14 Proposition. The day of Gods judgement appears to fall betwixt the yeares of Christ, 1688. and 1700."
"15 Proposition. The 42. moneths, a thousand two hundred and three score propheticall daies, three greate daies and a halfe, and a time, times, and a halfe a time mentioned in Daniel, & in the Revelation, are all one date."
"16 Proposition. The 42. moneths, 1260 propheticall daies, three great daies and a halfe: And a time, times and halfe a time, signifieth everie one of them, 1260 Julliane yeares."
"17 Proposition. The description of the throne of God in the fourth chapter, is not the description of the majestie of God in heaven, but of his true religion, wherein he is authorised and sits in the throne among his holy elect on earth."
"18 Proposition. The 24. Elders, are the 24 books of the old Testament, and (metonymicè) all the true professors thereof."
"19 Proposition. The foure beasts are the foure Evangelles with all the true writers and professors thereof."
"20 Proposition. Gods Temple, although in heaven, is also taken for his holy Church among his heavenly Elect upon the earth, and metonymicè for the whole contents thereof."
"21 Proposition. The two witnesses mentioned (Reve.11) are the two Testamĕts, and (metonymicè) the whole true professors thereof."
"22 Proposition. The Woman clad with the Sunne (chap. 12) is the true Church of God."
"23 Proposition. The Whoore, who in the Revelation is Stiled Spirituall Babylon, is not reallie Babylon, but the verie present Citie of Rome."
"24 Proposition. The great ten-horned beast, is the whole bodie of the Latine Empire, whereof the Antichrist is a part."
"25 Proposition. The two horned Beast, is the Antichrist and his kingdome, it alone."
"26 Proposition. The Pope is that only Antichrist, prophecied of, in particular."
"27 Proposition. The image, marke, name, and number of the beast: are of the first great Romane beast, and whole Latine impyre universallie, and not of the second beaste, or Antichrist alone in particular."
"28 Proposition. The image of the Beast, is these degenerate Princes, that in name onely were called Roman Emporours, and were neither Romans of blood, nor Emperours of Magnanimitie."
"29 Proposition. The name of the beast expressed by the number 666. (cap. 13.) is the name λαγεινος onely."
"30 Proposition. The marke of the Romane beast, is that invisible profession of servitude and obedience, that his subjects hath professed to his Empire, since the first beginning thereof, noted afterward by the Pope, with divers visible markes."
"31 Proposition. The visible marks of the Beast, are the abused characters, of λρς and crosses of all kindes, taken out of the number of the first beasts name."
"32 Proposition. Gog is the Pope, and Magog is the Turkes and Mahometanes."
"33 Proposition. The armies of Gog and Magog (cap. 20) are all one with the armies of the sixt Trumpet and sixt Viall."
"34 Proposition. The thousand yeares that Sathan was bound (Revel. 20.) began in Anno Christi 300. or thereabout."
"35 Proposition. The Devils bondage a thousand yeares (cap. 20) is no waies els, but from stirring up of universall warres among nations."
"36 Proposition. The 1260 years of the Antichrists universal raign over Christians, begins about the year of Christ 300. or 316. at the farthest."
"So ends this demonstratiue resolution of all difficulties of the Revelation, first of all dates and times, and last of the principall termes and matters, as to the meaner termes and smaller matters, they are interpreted in the notes of the principall treatise."
"Conclusion. Then for conclusion, by these interpretative propositions, followeth foure thinges marvelous and notable. First, that the interpretation of every parte of the Revelation, is accessorie or consectarie to other: that is to say, it is so chained and linked together, that every mysterie opens other to the discoverie of the whole. Secondly, that the first halfe of the book is orderly, that is to say, it containeth in order of time the most notable accidents that concerneth Gods Church, from the time of Christs Baptisme successively to the latter day. Thirdly, that every historie prophecied, is limited or dated with his own nŭber of years. Fourthly and last of all, that whatsoever historie is more orderlie and summarlie, than plainly set downe in the first orderlie parte of the booke, the same is repeated, interpreted, or amplified in the last part of the booke: deviding the whole Revelation according to the table following, before we proceed to the principall matter."
"Seeing there is nothing, (right well beloved students of mathematics,) that is so troublesome to mathematical practice, nor that doth more molest and hinder calculations, that the multiplications, divisions, square and cubical extractions of great numbers, which besides the tedious expence of time, are for the most part subject to many slippery errors, I began, therefore, to consider in my mind, by what certain and ready art I might remove these hindrances. And having thought upon many things to this purpose, I found at length some excellent brief rules to be treated of perhaps hereafter: But amongst all, none more profitable than this, which together with the hard and tedious multiplications, divisions, and extractions of roots, doth also cast away even the very numbers themselves that are to be multiplied, divided, and resolved into roots, and putteth other numbers in their place which perform as much as they can do, only by addition and substraction, division by two, or division by three. Which secret invention being, (as all other good things are,) so much the better as it shall be the more common, I thought good heretofore, to set forth in Latin for the public use of mathematicians."
"But now, some of our countrymen in this island, well affected to these studies, and the more public good, procured a most learned mathematician to translate the same into our vulgar English tongue, who after he had finished it, sent a copy of it to me, to be seen and considered on by myself. I having most willingly and gladly done the same, find it to be most exact and precisely conformable to my mind and the original. Therefore it may please you who are inclined to these studies, to receive it from me and the translator, with as much good will as we recommend it unto you.—Fare thee well."
"A Logarithmic Table is a small table by the use of which we can obtain a knowledge of all geometrical dimensions and motions in space, by a very easy calculation. It is deservedly called very small, because it does not exceed in size a table of sines; very easy, because by it all multiplications, divisions, and the more difficult extractions of roots are avoided; for by only a very few most easy additions, subtractions, and divisions by two, it measures quite generally all figures and motions."
"It is picked out from numbers progressing in continuous proportion. Of continuous progressions, an arithmetical is one which proceeds by equal intervals; a geometrical one which advances by unequal and proportionally increasing or decreasing intervals. Arithmetical progressions: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, &c.; or 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, &c, Geometrical progressions: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, &c.; or 243, 81, 27, 9, 3, 1."
"To decrease geometrically is this, that in equal times, first the whole quantity then each of its successive remainders is diminished, always by a like proportional part."
"Whence a geometrically moving point approaching a fixed one has its velocities proportionate to its distances from the fixed one."
"From the Radical table completed in this way, you will find with great exactness the logarithms of all sines between radius and the sine 45 degrees; from the arc of 45 degrees doubled, you will find the logarithm of half radius; having obtained all these, you will find the other logarithms. Arrange all these results as described, and you will produce a Table, certainly the most excellent of all Mathematical tables, and prepared for the most important uses."
"If a first sine be multiplied into a second producing a third, the Logarithm of the first added to the Logarithm of the second produces the Logarithm of the third. So in division, the Logarithm of the divisor subtracted from the Logarithm of the dividend leaves the Logarithm of the quotient."
"And if any number of equals to a first sine be multiplied together producing a second, just so many equals to the Logarithm of the first added together produce the Logarithm of the second."
"Any desired geometrical mean between two sines has for its Logarithm the corresponding arithmetical mean between the Logarithms of the sines."
"The invention of logarithms, without which many of the numerical calculations which have constantly to be made would be practically impossible, was due to Napier of Merchiston. The first public announcement of the discovery was made in his Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio, published in 1614, and of which an English translation was issued in the following year; but he had privately communicated a summary of his results to Tycho Brahe as early as 1594. In the work Napier explains the nature of logarithms by a comparison between corresponding terms of an arithmetical and geometrical progression. He illustrates their use, and gives tables of the logarithms of the sines and tangents of all angles of the first quadrant, for differences of every minute, calculated to seven decimal places. His definition of the logarithm of a quantity n was what we should now express by 10^7 \log_{e} \!\left( \frac{10^7}{n} \right). This work... is the first valuable contribution to the progress of mathematics which was made by any British writer."
"The method by which the logarithms were calculated was explained in the Constructio, a posthumous work issued in 1619: it seems to have been very laborious, and depended either on direct involution and evolution, or on the formation of geometrical means. The method by finding the approximated value of a convergent series was introduced by Newton, Cotes, and Euler. Napier had determined to change the base to one which was a power of 10, but died before he could effect it"
"The rapid recognition throughout Europe of the advantages of using logarithms in practical calculations was mainly due to Briggs, who was one of the earliest to recognize the value of Napier's invention. Briggs at once realized that the base to which Napier's logarithms were calculated were inconvenient; he accordingly visited Napier in 1616, and urged the change to a decimal base, which was recognized by Napier as an improvement. On his return Briggs immediately set to work to calculate tables to a decimal base, and in 1617 he brought out a table of logarithms of the numbers from 1 to 1000 calculated to fourteen decimal places."
"These properties of the indices of numbers were taken notice of by Stifelius, and even by Archimedes in his work on the numbering of the sands; but it is to Baron Napier, of Merchiston, in Scotland, that we are indebted for the happy idea of applying such numbers to the purposes of arithmetical and trigonometrical calculation, which first appeared in his "Mirisici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio," published at Edinburgh in 1614. This work was translated by Mr. Edward Wright, and published by his son in 1616. The method of constructing the table was reserved by the ingenious author till the sense of the learned, upon his invention, should be known; nevertheless Kepler, in his "Chilias Logarithmorum," &c. published in 1624; [John] Speidell, in his "New Logarithms," published in 1619; [Benjamin] Ursinius, in his "Table of Logarithms," 1625; and many other mathematicians constructed small tables conformably to the plan of Lord Napier. But of all those who assisted in the construction of logarithmic tables, Briggs is the most conspicuous; it was he who first suggested our present system, the advantages of which are incalculably greater than those first constructed by Napier, at the same time that he laboured more than anyone in the construction of them."
"Napier, in 1614, ...employed the idea of the fluxion of a quantity to picture by means of lines the relation between logarithms and numbers."
"Napier, Lord of Merchiston, hath set my head and hands at work with his new and admirable Logarithms. I hope to see him this Summer, if it please God, for I never saw a book [Mirifici Logarithmorum Canonis Descriptio] which pleased me better, and made me more wonder."
"Many computing devices have been used since the invention of the abacus. These include , sector compasses, slide rules, calculators, and computers."
"Let our judgment not be too harsh. The period under consideration is too near the Middle Ages to admit of complete emancipation from mysticism even among scientists. Scholars like Kepler, Napier, Albrecht Duerer, while in the van of progress and planting one foot upon the firm ground of truly scientific inquiry, were still resting with the other foot upon the scholastic ideas of preceding ages."
"It is no exaggeration to say that the invention of logarithms "by shortening the labours doubled the life of the astronomer." Logarithms were invented by John Napier, Baron of Merchiston, in Scotland. It is one of the greatest curiosities of the history of science that Napier constructed logarithms before exponents were used. To be sure, Stifel and Stevin made some attempts to denote powers by indices, but this notation was not generally known,—not even to Harriot, whose algebra appeared long after Napier's death. That logarithms flow naturally from the exponential symbol was not observed until much later. It was Euler who first considered logarithms as being indices of powers. What then was Napier's line of thought?"
"Early in the 1660s, a pair of mathematicians from the British Isles, John Napier and Henry Briggs, jointly introduced, perfected, and exploited the "logarithm," a concept having tremendous practical and theoretical significance. Logarithms have the remarkable property of simplifying such otherwise tedious computations as multiplication, division, and the extraction of roots so that no scientist of sound mind would thereafter go about finding \sqrt[7]{234.65} without the benefit of logarithms."
"Napier considered the synchronized motion of two points, each moving on a straight line, the one with constant velocity, and the other with a decreasing velocity proportional to the distance remaining to a fixed point, the initial velocity being the same. In modern notation his model may be written as"
"Among other persons of distinction, who united themselves to him [the earl of Montrose, in support of the royalists and Charles I of England], was Lord Napier of Merchiston, son of the famous inventor of the logarithms, the person to whom the title of GREAT MAN is more justly due, than to any other whom his country ever produced."
"Napier also invented a calculating device known as Napier's bones in 1617 and made common use of decimal multiplications and divisions. The device itself does not use logarithms, but rather is a convenient tool to reduce multiplication and division to a sequence of simple addition and subtraction operations. The method employed by Napier's bones was based on Arab mathematics and Fibonacci's Liber Abaci."
"The biggest improvement in arithmetic during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was the invention of logarithms. The basic idea was noted by Stifel. In Arithmetica Integra [1544] he observed that the terms of the geometric progression 1, r, r2, r3, ... correspond to the terms in the arithmetic progression 0, 1, 2, 3, ... . Multiplication of two terms in the geometric progression yields a term whose exponent is the sum of the corresponding terms in the arithmetic progression. Division of two terms in the geometric progression yields a term whose exponent is the difference of the corresponding terms in the arithmetic progression. This observation had also been made by Chuquet in Le Triparty en la science des nombres (1484). Stifel extended this connection between the two progressions to negative and fractional exponents. Thus the division of r2 by r3 yields r-1, which corresponds to the term -1 in the arithmetic progression. Stifel, however, did not make use of this connection between the two progressions to introduce logarithms. John Napier, the Scotsman who did develop logarithms about 1594, was guided by this correspondence between the terms of a geometric progression and those of the corresponding arithmetic progression. Napier was interested in facilitating calculations in spherical trigonometry that were being made on behalf of astronomical problems."
"It will be admitted... that... artificial helps may prove useful in laborious and protracted multiplications, by sparing the exercise of memory, and preventing the attention from being overstrained. Of this description are the Rods or Bones, which we owe to the early studies of the great Napier, whose life, devoted to the improvement of the science of calculation, was crowned by the invention of logarithms, the noblest conquest ever achieved by man."
"Napier presented his concept of logarithms as a boon to mankind for, as he pointed out, working with logarithms reduces the drudgery of numerical computations enormously."
"Napier's book required the intensity of concentration that had allowed Newton to conceptualize his remarkable vision of a universe governed by a pervasive law of gravitation; yet, while Newton's book was packed with tedious geometric axioms, it was probably much more enjoyable to compose than Napier's mind-numbing treatise which consisted of thousands of laborious calculations of the logarithms of numbers."
"It may seem extraordinary to quote Lilly the astrologer, with respect to so great a man as Napier; yet as the passage I propose to transcribe from Lilly's Life, gives a picturesque view of the meeting betwixt Briggs and the Inventor of the Logarithms, at Merchiston near Edinburgh, I shall set it down in the original words of that mountebank knave: "I will acquaint you with one memorable story related unto me by John Marr, an excellent mathematician and geometrician... When Merchiston first published his Logarithms, Mr. Briggs, then reader of the Astronomy Lectures at Gresham College in London, was so surprised with admiration of them, that he could have no quietness in himself, until he had seen that noble person whose only invention they were: He acquaints John Marr therewith who went into Scotland before Mr. Briggs purposely to be there when these two so learned persons should meet... He brings Mr. Briggs up into My Lord's chamber, where almost one quarter of an hour was spent, each beholding other with admiration before one word was spoken: at last Mr Briggs began. "My Lord, I have undertaken this long journey purposely to see your person, and to know by what engine of wit or ingenuity you came first to think of this most excellent help unto Astronomy, viz. the Logarithms; but My Lord, being by you found out, I wonder nobody else found it out before, when now being known it appears so easy." He was nobly entertained by the Lord Napier, and every Summer after that, during the Laird's being alive, this venerable man Mr. Briggs went purposely to Scotland to visit him.""
"David Stuart & John Minto in "Account of the Life of John Napier of Merchiston," The Edinburgh Magazine, or Literary Miscellany (1787) Vol.6"
"SIR, AS the writings of Archimedes were addressed of Sicily, who had perused and relished them, so I do myself the honour, to address to Your Majesty, the following account of the Life, Writings, and Inventions of our British Archimedes..."
"I Have undertaken to write the Life of John Napier, of Merchiston, a man famous all the world over, for his great and fortunate discovery of Logarithms in Trigonometry, by which the ease and expedition in calculation, have so wonderfully assisted the Science of Astronomy, and the arts of practical Geometry and Navigation. Elevated above the age in which he lived, and a benefactor to the world in general, he deserves the epithet of Great. Napier lived in a country of proud Barons, where barbarous hospitality, hunting, the military art, and religious controversy, occupied the time and attention of his contemporaries, and where he had no learned society to assist him in his researches."
"It is fit, that men should be taught to aim at higher and more permanent glory than wealth, office, titles or parade can afford; and I like the task, of making such great men look little, by comparing them with men who resemble the subject of my present enquiry."
"As the accuracy of astronomical observation had been continually advancing, it was necessary that the correctness of trigonometrical calculation, and of course its difficulty, should advance in the same proportion. The sines and tangents of angles could not be expressed with sufficient correctness without decimal fractions, extending to five or six places below unity, and when to three such numbers a fourth proportional was to be found, the work of multiplication and division became extremely laborious. Accordingly, in the end of the sixteenth century, the time and labour consumed in such calculations had become excessive, and were felt as extremely burdensome by the mathematicians and astronomers all over Europe. Napier of Merchiston, whose mind seems to have been peculiarly turned to arithmetical researches, and who was also devoted to the study of astronomy, had early sought for the means of relieving himself and others from this difficulty. He had viewed the subject in a variety of lights, and a number of ingenious devices had occurred to him, by which the tediousness of arithmetical operations might, more or less completely, be avoided. In the course of these attempts, he did not fail to observe, that whenever the numbers to be multiplied or divided were terms of a geometrical progression, the product or the quotient must also be a term of that progression, and must occupy a place in it pointed out by the places of the given numbers, so that it might be found from mere inspection, if the progression were far enough continued. If, for instance, the third term of the progression were to be multiplied by the seventh, the product must be the tenth, and if the twelfth were to be divided by the fourth, the quotient must be the eighth; so that the multiplication and division of such terms was reduced to the addition and subtraction of the numbers which indicated their places in the progression. This observation or one very similar to it was made by Archimedes..."
"The discovery might certainly have been made by men much inferior either to Napier or Archimedes. What remained to be done, what Archimedes did not attempt, and what Napier completely performed, involved two great difficulties. It is plain that the resource of the geometrical progression was sufficient, when the given numbers were terms of that progression; but if they were not, it did not seem that any advantage could be derived from it. Napier, however, perceived, and it was by no means obvious, that all numbers whatsoever might be inserted in the progression, and have their places assigned in it."
"It is probable... that the greatest inventor in science was never able to do more than to accelerate the progress of discovery, and to anticipate what time, "the author of authors," would have gradually brought to light. Though logarithms had not been invented by Napier, they would have been discovered in the progress of the algebraic analysis, when the arithmetic of powers and exponents, both integral and fractional, came to be fully understood. The idea of considering all numbers, as powers of one given number, would then have readily occurred, and the doctrine of series would have greatly facilitated the calculations which it was necessary to undertake. Napier had none of these advantages, and they were all supplied by the resources of his own mind. Indeed, as there never was any invention for which the state of knowledge had less prepared the way, there never was any where more merit fell to the share of the inventor."
"Even the sagacity of their author did not see the immense fertility of the principle he had discovered; he calculated his tables merely to facilitate arithmetical, and chiefly trigonometrical computation, and little imagined that he was at the same time constructing a scale whereon to measure the density of the strata of the atmosphere, and the heights of mountains; that he was actually computing the areas and the lengths of innumerable curves, and was preparing for a calculus which was yet to be discovered, many of the most refined and most valuable of its resources. Of Napier, therefore, if of any man, it may safely be pronounced, that his name will never be eclipsed by any one more conspicuous, or his invention superseded by any thing more valuable."
"That his invention was the greatest boon genius could bestow upon a Maritime Empire is a truth universally felt, and which no person is better qualified to appreciate than your Majesty. It is a proud reflection for Britain, that she does not owe to a stranger the creation of that intellectual aid which renders your Majesty's Fleets as free and fearless in Navigation as they have ever been in battle."
"From every line of his descent talent seems to have flowed in upon John Napier."
"He was born in the year 1550, at Merchiston, the seat of his forefathers, near Edinburgh; four years after the birth of Tycho, fourteen before Galileo, and twenty one before Kepler."
"He was distant and isolated from the great arena of letters; cooped up within the narrow limits of desolate Scotland, and encircled with savage sights and sounds of civil discord, above which the name of God was howled by those whose hands were red with murder. When we regard his times, and observe the influence that for so long a period of his life, the war of religion exercised over his intellectual exertions, the wonder is, not that his great contemporaries of the continent became distinguished before him, but that after all he should have extricated his mind from so many toils, and have placed himself by a single effort—though one like the spring of a roused lion—at the side of the astonished demi-gods of science, who had been unconscious of their rival."
"The Church of Scotland was planted by such noblemen as Argyle and Glencairn; such barons as Tullibardine and Grange. It was rendered popular, and thus greatly aided, by such preachers as Knox and Goodman; and it became dignified in the eyes of Protestant Europe by its first and greatest theologian, John Napier."
"It may surprise the reader to find this honour claimed for the Inventor of Logarithms, who has hitherto been regarded only on his throne of science, and that by the limited number capable of appreciating his genius. The celebrated historian and philosopher [David Hume] who pronounced him to be the greatest man his country ever produced, founded, probably, none of that estimate upon his theological merits; and more recent authors, ranking high among the historians of Christianity and theological learning in Scotland, have omitted to illustrate their subject with the most efficient example they could have found."
"Rather curiously, his works of greatest scientific interest, the Descriptio and Constructio have been most neglected. The former was reprinted in 1620, and also in Scriptores Logarithmici, besides being translated into English. The latter was reprinted in 1620 only. This neglect is no doubt largely accounted for by the advantage for practical purposes of tables computed to the base 10, an advantage which Napier seems to have been aware of even before he had made public his invention in 1614."
"Several years ago (Reader, Lover of the Mathematics) my Father, of memory always to be revered, made public the use of the Wonderful Canon of Logarithms; but, as he himself mentioned on the seventh and on the last pages of the Logarithms, he was decidedly against committing to types the theory and method of its creation, until he had ascertained the opinion and criticism on the Canon of those who are versed in this kind of learning. But, since his departure from this life, it has been made plain to me by unmistakable proofs, that the most skilled in the mathematical sciences consider this new invention of very great importance, and that nothing more agreeable to them could happen, than if the construction of this Wonderful Canon, or at least so much as might suffice to explain it, go forth into the light for the public benefit."
"You have then (kind Reader) in this little book most amply unfolded the theory of the construction of logarithms, (here called by him artificial numbers, for he had this treatise written out beside him several years before the word Logarithm was invented,) in which their nature, characteristics, and various relations to their natural numbers, are clearly demonstrated."
"We have also taken care to have printed some Studies on the above-mentioned Propositions, and on the new kind of Logarithms, by that most excellent Mathematician Henry Briggs, public Professor at London, who for the singular friendship which subsisted between him and my father of illustrious memory, took upon himself, in the most willing spirit, the very heavy labour of computing this new Canon, the method of its creation and the explanation of its use being left to the Inventor. Now, however, as he has been called away from this life, the burden of the whole business would appear to rest on the shoulders of the most learned Briggs, on whom, too, would appear by some chance to have fallen the task of adorning this Sparta. Meanwhile (Reader) enjoy the fruits of these labours such as they are, and receive them in good part according to your culture. Farewell, Robert Napier, Son"
"The invention of logarithms came on the world as a bolt from the blue. No previous work had led up to it, nothing had foreshadowed it or heralded its arrival. It stands isolated, breaking in upon human thought abruptly without borrowing from the work of other intellects or following known lines of mathematical thought. It reminds me of those islands in the ocean which rise up suddenly from great depths and which stand solitary with deep water close around all their shores. In such cases we may believe that some cataclysm has thrust them up suddenly with earth-rending force. But can it be so with human thought? Did this discovery come as a revelation to Napier, bursting on him as a light from Heaven, or was it the result of slow growth, the evidences of which are now obliterated, like those rocks whose abrupt sides are due, not to sudden and isolated disruption, but to the denudation which has carried away the neighbouring rocks, which, while they remained, testified to the gradual upheaval of the whole?"
"The undoubted fact that Napier worked for some twenty years at the invention of logarithms before he published his first book relating to them is, to my mind, decisive upon this point. It must have been a slow and gradual evolution, even though that which remains furnishes so few traces of the earlier efforts. Is it then possible, out of what he has left us and out of the circumstances of the times, to read the history of this evolution to reconstitute the process of discovery by deciphering the half-effaced records of its growth?"
"All that Napier has left us on the subject of logarithms is contained in two short books, the one known as the Descriptio, published in 1614, and the other known as the Constructio, published after his death in 1619. Internal evidence as well as the distinct statement of his son, who published the Constructio, make it clear that it was in fact written many years before the Descriptio, and it represents in many passages an earlier stratum of thought. ...Napier saw and approved of a translation into English of the Descriptio, and about twenty-five years ago an excellent translation of the Constructio was published in Edinburgh."
"In the Descriptio the author published only so much of the reasoning on which his calculations rested as was necessary to enable the mathematical world to appreciate the nature and use of the tables which are to be found there. Indeed, we find Napier expressly stating in it that he does not propose to publish to the world the manner in which the tables were calculated until he finds that they have justified their existence by their acknowledged usefulness. The Descriptio therefore bears evidence of being written all at one time, to serve as an introduction and guide to the tables which were printed with it."
"The Constructio was evidently written at several different times. The order of its contents is peculiar, and there are to be seen in it evidences of different stages of the discovery. Its object was to explain fully the mode in which he had calculated the Tables and incidentally the reasoning on which they were based, but there are no historical references to the way in which he originally arrived either at the idea of a Table of Logarithms or at the method of constructing it."
"What set Napier to work on creating tables which were to enable multiplication to be performed by a process of addition? What first gave him the idea of any such thing? ...there is a peculiarity in the form of his investigations which gives us a useful clue. He usually frames his propositions as though they applied exclusively or at all events specially to sines. Now it is evident that all that concerns logarithms must relate to numbers generally, and that their being sines has no bearing on the matter. Hence his confining his work to sines must indicate that he set out with the idea of working on them only, and that it was only at a later stage and perhaps incidentally that he realised that his results could with like advantage be applied to numbers generally. I conclude from this that his original idea was only to construct tables that would enable the product of two sines to be readily ascertained. If I am right in this, the suggestion may well have come to him from his familiarity with the well known trigonometrical formula:— \sin A \sin B = \frac{1}{2} ({\cos(A - B) - \cos(A + B)})"
"Writing about the middle of the eighteenth century, David Hume proclaimed John Napier of Merchiston as 'the person to whom the title of a great man is more justly due than to any other whom his country ever produced.' This judgment of Hume is the more remarkable, seeing he was himself naturally disposed to exalt literature above science. ...when he awarded the first place among his countrymen to Napier... it was doubtless from an enlivened conviction that his work had been of greater service to humanity."
"Napier, the explorer of the secrets of nature, passed among his countrymen for a trafficker with Satan. Even to-day a certain mystery surrounds the figure of the Laird of Merchiston. ...In Scotland, as in other countries, the universities were exclusive centres of intellectual activity, and the studies at the universities were under the sole dominion of the Church, which naturally laid its ban on investigations that might imperil its own teaching. By his isolation Napier is thus wrapped in a certain mystery, and the mystery is deepened by the fact that we know so little of him, and what we know is at times strangely incongruous with the main preoccupations of his life."
"The "marvellous Merchiston" (so he was known to the populace of his day) was born at Merchiston Castle in 1550. The period in which his birth and boyhood fell is the most momentous in the national history, and it determined and gave their peculiar character to his fundamental conceptions of human life and destiny. At the date of his birth the controversy had already begun which was eventually to cleave in twain the history of the Scottish people. The issue whether Roman Catholicism or Protestantism was to prevail was already joined. In 1546, four years before Napier was born, was condemned by the Church and burned as a heretic, and in the same year Cardinal Beaton, the principal agent in his death, was assassinated. In 1547 John Knox began his mission which, after an interval, he was to see crowned with success. During the first ten years of Napier's life the struggle between the two religions was virtually settled. Between the years 1550 and 1560 the country was distracted by civil war, one party being for the old religion and alliance with France, the other for Protestantism and alliance with England. The contest ended in the victory of the Protestant party, and in 1560 a Convention of the Estates set up Protestantism as the national religion. It is in youth that the strongest and most permanent prepossessions and prejudices are formed, and we may trace the origin of Napier's abiding horror of the Church of Rome to the air which he breathed in the opening years of his life. ...it came to be his burning conviction that the salvation of mankind was bound up with the overthrow of the Papacy."
"In 1563, the year of his mother's death, John was sent to the University of St. Andrews, the mother university of Scotland. He was only thirteen, but this was the usual age at which lads then entered the universities."
"Be pitiful, for every man is fighting a hard battle."
"The two men who lived there were father & son – that his name was Maretts [perhaps Maritz] ... We gave him some tracts which he received with great pleasure – observing this we asked if he had a bible, he feelingly answered no, and that when he was last in the Cape about two years ago he was about purchasing a bible, but he found he had not as many dollars with him as would pay for it. Mr. Moffat immediate brought his octavo bible from which he preached and presented it to him. He hugged the bible in his arms with the apparent affection as if it has been his own child. I mentioned that it would show him the way to heaven, which he said he believed it would do. Nothing which I witnessed on the journey delighted me more than the manner in which the father and son acted towards this copy of the scriptures. After the evening worship was over they carried the treasure in triumph to their home."
"Presumably those who profess and call themselves Christians believe their religion to be in some sense true; but in what sense? ... The truth of the Christian faith is the truth of a faith, or a way of life which shows itself true ... for those who live it."
"It is certain, higher powers are not to be resisted; but some persons in power may be resisted. The powers are ordained of God; but kings commanding unjust things are not ordained of God to do such things; but to apply this to tyrants, I do not understand. Magistrates in some acts may be guilty of tyranny, and yet retain the power of magistracy; but tyrants cannot be capable of magistracy, nor any one of the scripture-characters of righteous rulers. They cannot retain that which they have forfeited, and which they have overturned; and usurpers cannot retain that which they never had. They may act and enact some things materially just, but they are not formally such as can make them magistrates, no more than some unjust actions can make a magistrate a tyrant. A murderer, saving the life of one and killing another, does not make him no murderer: once a murderer ay a murderer, once a robber ay a robber, till he restore what he hath robbed: so once a tyrant ay a tyrant, till he makes amends for his tyranny, and that will be hard to do. [...] The concrete does specificate the abstract in actuating it, as a magistrate in his exercising government, makes his power to be magistry; a robber, in his robbing, makes his power to be robbery; an usurper in his usurping makes his power to be usurpation; so a tyrant in his tyrannizing, can have no power but tyranny. As the abstract of a magistrate is nothing but magistracy, so the abstract of a tyrant is nothing but tyranny. It is frivolous then to distinguish between a tyrannical power in the concrete, and tyranny in the abstract; the power and the abuse of the power: for he hath no power as a tyrant, but what is abused. [...] It is altogether impertinent to use such a distinction, with application to tyrants or usurpers, as many do in their pleading for the owning of our oppressors; for they have no power, but what is the abuse of power."
"Gamaliel had a reputation for mildness and moderation, but his brilliant young pupil flung himself with fanatical zeal into the task of stamping out the new heresy of the Nazarenes."
"'The theology of the gospels!' some will exclaim in dismay, 'and we verily thought the gospels were a refuge from theology!'"
"Hell is an element of any religion which is morally healthy."
"... since the Sacred Book is a phenomenon of religion in general, and as isolation is a fruitful source of wrong judgment in the historical investigation of ideas and institutions, we decline to detach our Sacred Book from similar books of its class in other faiths of the world. Now, in surveying the history of religion, I seem to detect four negative truths about the Sacred Book. (i) Not every religion possesses a sacred book. (ii) The sacred book does not lie beside the cradle of the faith in question. (iii) No religion lives by its sacred book alone. And (iv) no sacred book can be judged apart from the specific ethos of the faith out of which it rose and for which it exists."
"The roots of human wrongdoing reach far deeper than mere ignorance or social malformation."
"In 1882, William Hastie, principal of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland's institu- tion in Calcutta, in letters he addressed to "educated Hindus" about their religion, consid- ered that "no pen has yet adequately depicted all the hideousness and grossness of the monstrous system." Hastie was well aware that Hindu idolatry originated from the same Aryan stem as that of the Greeks. But the latter had been "recalled from their idolatrous errors," while India remained "the most stupendous fortress and citadel of ancient error and idolatry, . . . paralleled only by the spirits of Pandemonium," a country whose reli- gion consisted of "senseless mummeries, loathsome impurities and bloody barbarous sacrifices." It has "consecrated and encouraged every conceivable form of licentiousness, falsehood, injustice, cruelty, robbery, murder," and "its sublimest spiritual states have been but the reflex of physiological conditions in disease" (24-33)."
"Hastie (1882) appealed to the "twin branches on the same original Aryan stem"—in this case the ancient Greek and modern Indie cultures—in order to suggest that the Church could extinguish the "tenacious survival of the old Aryan world" in modern India just as Paul had extinguished "the brighter and fairer Hellenism" in the ancient West (25-26)."
"No arguments unaccompanied by the influences of the Holy Spirit, can convert the soul from sin to God; though even to such conversion, arguments are, by the agency of the Spirit, rendered subservient."
"All art is founded in science, and the science is of little value which does not serve as a foundation to some beneficial art. On the most sublime of all sciences, theology and ethics, is built the most important of all arts, the art of living. The abstract mathematical sciences serve as a groundwork to the arts of the land-measurer and the accountant; and in conjunction with natural philosophy, including geography and astronomy, to those of the architect, the navigator, the dialist, and many others. Of what consequence anatomy is to surgery, and that part of physiology which teaches the laws of gravitation and of motion, is to the artificer, is a matter too obvious to need illustration. The general remark might, if necessary, be exemplified throughout the whole circle of arts, both useful and elegant. Valuable knowledge, therefore, always leads to some practical skill, and is perfected in it. On the other hand, the practical skill loses much of its beauty and extensive utility which does not originate in knowledge. There is, by consequence, a natural relation between the sciences and the arts, like that which subsists between the parent and the offspring."
"Dr. Campbell, writing in the middle of the last century, held that a word which had not appeared in any book written since 1688, or which was to be found in the works of living authors only, should not be deemed in present use; but in these days of change words go and come more rapidly."
"How peculiar is that policy, which reckons on the perpetuity of an Empire in the East, without the aid of religion…will flourish forever in the heart of Asia, by arms or commerce alone!"
"It is easy for the fool, especially the learned and scientific fool, to prove that there is no God, but, like the murmuring sea, which heeds not the scream of wandering birds, the soul of humanity murmurs for God, and confutes the erudite folly of the fool by disregarding it."
"He who with his whole heart believes in Jesus as the Son of God is thereby committed to much else besides. He is committed to a view of God, to a view of man, to a view of sin, to a view of Redemption, to a view of the purpose of God in creation and history, to a view of human destiny found only in Christianity."