_Deus Justificatus_ (Vol. ii., p. 441.).--There is no doubt that this work
was written by Henry Hallywell, and not by Cudworth. Dr. Worthington, whose
intercourse with the latter was of the most intimate kind, and who would
have been fully aware of the fact had he been the author, observes, in a
letter not dated, but written circ. September, 1668, addressed to Dr. More,
and of which I have a copy now before me:
"I bought at London Mr. Hallywell's _Deus Justificatus_. Methinks it is
better written than his former Letter. He will write better and
better."
In a short account of Hallywell, who was of the school of Cudworth and
More, and whose MS. correspondence with the latter is now in my possession,
in Wood's _Fasti_, vol. ii. p. 187. Edit. Bliss, Wood, "amongst several
things that he hath published," enumerates five only, but does not give the
_Deus Justificatus_ amongst them. It {196} appears (Wood's _Athenae_, vol.
iv. p. 230.) that he was ignorant who the author of this tract was.
It is somewhat singular that the mistake in ascribing _Deus Justificatus_
to Cudworth should have been continued in Kippis's edition of the
_Biographia Britannica_. It was so ascribed to him, first, as far as I can
find, by a writer of the name of Fancourt, in the preface to his _Free
Agency of Accountable Creatures Examined_, London, 1733, 8vo. On his
authority it was included in the list of Cudworth's works in the _General
Dictionary_, 1736, folio, vol. iv. p. 487., and in the _Biographia
Britannica_, 1750, vol. iii. p. 1581., and in the last edition by Kippis.
Birch, in the mean time, finding, no doubt, on inquiry, that there was no
ground for ascribing it to Cudworth, made no mention of it in his accurate
life prefixed to the edition of the _Intellectual System_ in 1742.
Hallywell, the author, deserves to be better known. In many passages in his
works he gives ample proof that he had fully imbibed the lofty Platonism
and true Christian spirit of his great master.