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76 The Autobiography of Archbishop Thomas Seeker
Dr Clarke: the "learned and ingenious" Samuel Clarke (1675-1729),
friend and disciple of Isaac Newton. After the granting of his B.A. from
Cambridge in 1695 and ordination, he held several livings, among them
the rectory of St. James's, Westminster from 1709. His works in
speculative divinity and philosophy were very influential. He had
temerarious opinions about the Athanasian and Nicene creeds, expounded
chiefly in his Scripture Doctrine of the Trinity (1712), and was
accused of Arianism. Admired by Benjamin Hoadly, a leading Clarkeian,
he disappointed more radical thinkers like William Whiston by
compromising with the establishment. For the letters of Butler to
Clarke, see The Works of Joseph Butler, ed. Samuel Hallifax, II (Oxford,
1874), pp. 349-75. Seeker also addressed a letter of enquiry to Clarke to
which there came no reply (L.P.L. Seeker Papers 2, fols. 208-9).
FOLIO 6 (1714-15)
Mr Hardy: Thomas Hardy, who was probably assistant minister,
1714-23 and then sole minister 1723-27 of High Pavement Chapel,
Nottingham. A man of considerable learning, he ran an academy there.
After conforming, he became vicar of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire
(McLachlan, English Education, p. 12). The Nottingham congregation,
which was Presbyterian, was large and influential, with considerable
political interest (Dr. Williams's Library, Evans MS, fol. 92). His
conformity, sprung very suddenly on his congregation in 1727, caused a
sensation [B. Carpenter, Some Account of the Original Introduction of
Presbyterianism in Nottingham (London, 1862), pp. 126-42, citing P.
Doddridge, Correspondence and Diary, ed. J.D. Humphreys (London,
1829), II, pp. 360-62]. The earliest account of Hardy is by Edmund
Calamy, who had known him well: An Historical Account of my Own Life
. . . 1671-1731 ed. J.T. Rutt (London, 1830), II, pp. 500-03.
Sentimens de Quelques Theologiens d'Hollande sur PHistoire Critique
du Vieux Testament, composee par R. Simon (Amsterdam,
1685), which Seeker, whose French was excellent, no doubt read in the
original language. Simon was an Oratorian in Paris (d. 1712) who
expressed critical views about the historicity of parts of the Old
Testament. The author of the Sentimens, hardly less radical than Simon,
was Jean Leclerc (1657-1736), a Dutch protestant. There appeared two
English versions, one attributed to John Locke, Five Letters Concerning the
Inspiration of the Holy Scriptures . . . translated out of French, 1690 and the
other, Free and Important Disquisitions concerning the Inspiration of the Holy
Scriptures . . . translated from the . . . French of Leclerc, 1750.