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WHIPPLE, HENRY BENJAMIN: Protestant Episcopal bishop; b. at Adams, Jefferson County, N. Y., Feb. 15, 1822; d. at Faribault, Minn., Sept. 16, 1901. He was educated at private schools, but, prevented by ill-health from entering college, engaged in business and in politics for several years; took a theological course under W. D. Williams; became deacon, 1849; priest, 1850; was rector of Zion Church, Rome, N. Y., 1850-57; of the Church of the Holy Communion, Chicago, Ill., 1857-59; and became bishop, 1859. He was a founder of Seabury Divinity School, of St. Mary's Hall, and Shattuck Military School, at Faribault, Minn. He devoted a great deal of time and energy to the Indiana, and was an authority on all Indian problems, often being called in to the aid of the government. He was the author of Five Sermons (New York, 1890); and Lights and Shadows of a Long Episcopate (1899, new ed., 1902).

Bibliography: Besides the autobiographic Lights and Shadows, ut sup., consult: W. 8. Perry, The Episcopate in America, p. 145. New York, 1895.

WHISTON, WILLIAM: Mathematician and Arian theologian; best known to-day as the translator of Josephus; b. at Norton (16 m. w. of Leicester), Leicestershire, Dec. 9, 1667; d. at Lyndon (20 m. e. of Leicester), Rutland, Aug. 22, 1752. He was educated by his father (a clergyman who had been converted from Presbyterianism), at a school at Tamworth and at Clare Hall, Cambridge (B.A., 1690). He was ordained deacon in 1693, and then gave private lessons at Cambridge; but because of ill-health he exchanged teaching for the position of chaplain to John Moors, bishop of Norwich, and later (1698) received from Moors the vicarage of Lowestoft, cum-Kiasingland, Suffolk, where he proved himself faithful and energetic in the per-

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formance of clerical duties. In 1701 he was appointed deputy to Newton's Lucasian professorship at Cam bridge, and in 1703 succeeded Newton Early as professor and gave up his living. As Life and professor, Whiston lectured on mathe Cambridge matics and natural philosophy, besides Career. engaging in scientific experimentation and being one of the first to popu larize the theories of Newton. He advocated va rious reforms, both academic and general, perhaps with more zeal than judgment; and, making theo logical as well as scientific investigations, he became convinced that Arianism was the dominant faith of the first two centuries and that the Apostolic Constitutions (see Apostolic Constitutions and Canons) was " the most sacred of the canonical books of the New Testament." This view he ex pounded in an essay (1708) which the Cambridge vice-chancellor refused to license, though it was printed later in his Primitive Christianity Revived. Remonstrances of friends only served to prove the depth of Whiston's conviction-or his stubbornness -and in Oct., 1710, he was deprived of his profes sorship. Proceedings for his prosecution; instigated by convocation, dragged along for four or five years, but were finally dropped after the death of Queen Anne. Thenceforth Whiston lived in London. He had a small property and received many gifts from friends and public personages, which, he states, " with eclipses, comets, and lectures," provided him " such a competency as greatly contented him." His lec tures were on various topics, e.g., meteors, eclipses, earthquakes, and the like (in which he generally saw the fulfilment of prophecy), the tabernacle of Moses and the temple at Jerusalem (illustrated by models), and the return of the Jews to Life in Palestine (which he believed to be im London. minent). He was one of the first (per haps the first) to present scientific ex periments before popular audiences in London. He tried unsuccessfully to win a reward offered by par liament for the discovery of a means of determining longitude. A fund of £500 raised for him by sub scription about 1740 he used for making a survey of the coasts. In 1715 he organized a society for pro moting "primitive Christianity," which for two years held weekly meetings in his house in London and numbered among its members John Gale (a Baptist), Arthur Onslow, Thomas Emlyn (Uni tarian), Thomas Rundle (afterward bishop of Derry), and Thomas Chubb (q.v.). Until 1747 he main tained co iilmunion with the Church of England, but then he joined the Baptists so that he might no longer hear the Athanasian Creed repeated. Among certain "new discoveries" of his later years were that anointing the sick with oil is a Christian duty, that the Tatars are the lost tribes, and that the millennium would begin in 1766. In spite of his vagaries, Whiston was well liked by a large circle, including such men as Samuel Clarks, the philosopher, and Bishop Benjamin Hoadly (qq.v.; both of whom privately shared some of his views), as well as Addison and Steels, whom he knew well. His integrity and simple minded honesty won respect, and so consistent was

his practise of these virtues that a somewhat blunt manner of commending them to others was generally received with good-nature. The chief of his many publications (for a list of fifty-two titles, "omitting a few occasional papers," cf. DNB, lxi. 13-14) was his Primitive Christianity Revived (4 vols., London, 1711), which contains the Epistles of Ignatius, the Apostolic Constitutions, and dissertations, a fifth volume, containing

Writings. the "Recognitions" of Clement, being added in 1712. His first book, A New Theory of the Earth (1696; 5th ed., with appendix, 1736), was the result of studies in the Cartesian philosophy and Newton's Principia, confirming the narrative of Genesis on Newtonian grounds and explaining the deluge by collision with a comet: The Accomplishment of Scripture Prophecies (1708) was the Boyle lectures for 1707 (cf. The Literal Ac complishment of Scripture Prophecies, 1724, an an swer to Collies' Grounds and Reasons). The Gen uine Works of Flavius Josephus, the Jewish Historian, in English, with dissertations, appeared in 1737. That this has been reprinted innumerable times (as late as 1906, ed. D. S. Margoliouth) and is still the standard English translation of Josephus is due to other causes than the merits of the translator, for Whiston's scholarship was defective for the task even in his time, and the advance of knowledge since the early eighteenth century, as well as the better text now available; make a new translation much to be desired. Other of Whiston's more note worthy works are: A Short View of the Chronology of the Old Testament and of the Harmony of the Four Evangelists (London, 1702); An Essay on the Revela tion of St. John (1706); Prcelectiones physico-mathe maticte sive philosophicc clarissimi Newtoni mathe matics illustrates (1710; English, 1716); Athanasiws Convicted of Forgery (1712); An Argument to Prove that All Persons Solemnly though Irregularly Set Apart for the Ministry Are Real Clergymen (1714); The True Origin of the Sabellian and Athanasian Doc trine of the Trinity (1720); A Chronological Table Containing the Hebrew, Phoenician, Egyptian, and Chaldcean Antiquities (1721); Athanasian Forgeries, Impositions, and Interpellations (by a "Lover of Truth," 1736); The Primitive New Testament, a translation of the Gospels and Acts from the Codex, Bezce, of the Pauline epistles from the Clermont manuscripts, and of the catholic epistles from the Codex Alexandrinus (1745); and Memoirs of Will iam Whiston, Written by Himself (1749; 2d ed., 1753).

Bibliography: Besides the autobiographic Memoirs, lit sup., consult: J. Nichols, Literary Anecdotes of the 18th Century, i. 494-506, London, 1812; L. Stephen, Hist. of English Thought in the 18th Century; 2 vols., New York, 1881; J. H. Overton and F. Belton, The English Church (1711,1800), London, 1906; DNB, Ixi. 10-14.

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