Lord Bacon not the author of "The Christian Paradoxes," being a reprint
of "Memorials of Godliness and Christianity," by Herbert Palmer,
B.D.[297] With Introduction, Memoir, and Notes, by the Rev. Alexander
B. Grosart,[298] Kenross. (Private circulation, 1864).
I insert the above in this place on account of a slight connection with the
last. Bacon's Paradoxes,--so attributed--were first published as his in
some asserted "Remains," 1648.[299] They were admitted into his works in
1730, and remain there to this day. The title is "The Character of a
believing Christian, set forth in paradoxes and seeming contradictions."
The following is a specimen:
"He believes three to be one and one to be three; a father not to be older
than his son; a son to be equal with his father; and one proceeding from
both to be equal with both: he believes three persons in one nature, and
two natures in one person.... He believes the God of all grace to have been
angry with one that never offended Him; and that God that hates sin to be
reconciled to himself though sinning continually, and never making or being
able to make Him any satisfaction. He believes a most just God to have
punished a most just person, and to have justified himself, though a most
ungodly sinner. He believes himself freely pardoned, and yet a sufficient
satisfaction was made for him."
Who can doubt that if Bacon had written this it must have been wrong? Many
writers, especially on the {142} Continent, have taken him as sneering at
(Athanasian) Christianity right and left. Many Englishmen have taken him to
be quite in earnest, and to have produced a body of edifying doctrine. More
than a century ago the Paradoxes were published as a penny tract; and,
again, at the same price, in the _Penny Sunday Reader_, vol. vi, No. 148, a
few passages were omitted, as _too strong_. But all did not agree: in my
copy of Peter Shaw's [300] edition (vol. ii, p. 283) the Paradoxes have
been cut out by the binder, who has left the backs of the leaves. I never
had the curiosity to see whether other copies of the edition have been
served in the same way. The Religious Tract Society republished them
recently in _Selections from the Writings of Lord Bacon_, (no date; bad
plan; about 1863, I suppose). No omissions were made, so far as I find.
I never believed that Bacon wrote this paper; it has neither his _sparkle_
nor his idiom. I stated my doubts even before I heard that Mr. Spedding,
one of Bacon's editors, was of the same mind. (_Athenaeum_, July 16, 1864).
I was little moved by the wide consent of orthodox men: for I knew how
Bacon, Milton, Newton, Locke, etc., were always claimed as orthodox until
almost the present day. Of this there is a remarkable instance.