Chapter CLXXVII

SOMETHING ON THE SCIENCE AND MYSTERY OF NUMBERS WHICH IS NOT ACCORDING TO COCKER.—REVERIES OF JEAN D'ESPAGNE, MINISTER OF THE FRENCH-REFORMED CHURCH IN WESTMINSTER, AND OF MR. JOHN BELLAMY.—A PITHY REMARK OF FULLER'S AND AN EXTRACT FROM HIS PISGAH SIGHT OF PALESTINE, TO RECREATE THE READER.

It may easily be supposed that the Doctor was versed in the science of numbers; not merely that common science which is taught at schools and may be learnt from Cocker's Arithmetic, but the more recondite mysteries which have in all ages delighted minds like his; and of which the richest specimens may be seen in the writings of the Hugonot Minister Jean de l'Espagne, and in those of our contemporary Mr. John Bellamy, author of the Ophion, of various papers in the Classical Journal, and defender of the Old and New Testament.

Cet auteur est assez digne d'etre lu, says Bayle of Jean de l'Espagne, and he says it in some unaccountable humour, too gravely for a jest. The writer who is thus recommended was Minister of the Reformed French Church in Westminster, which met at that time in Somerset Chapel, and his friend Dr. De Garencieres, who wrote commendatory verses upon him in French, Latin and Greek, calls him

He was one of those men to whom the Bible comes as a book of problems and riddles, a mine in which they are always at work, thinking that whatever they can throw up must needs be gold. Among the various observations which he gave the world without any other order, as he says, than that in which they presented themselves to his memory, there may be found good, bad and indifferent. He thought the English Church had improperly appointed a Clerk to say Amen for the people. Amen being intended, among other reasons, as a mark whereby to distinguish those who believed with the officiating Priest from Idolaters and Heretics. He thought it was not expedient that Jews should be allowed to reside in England, for a Jew would perceive in the number of our tolerated sects, a confusion worse than that of Babel; and as the multitude here are always susceptible of every folly which is offered, and the more monstrous the faith, to them the better mystery, it was to be feared, he said, that for the sake of converting two or three Jews we were exposing a million Christians to the danger of Judaizing; or at least that we should see new religions start up, compounded of Judaism with Christianity. He was of opinion, in opposition to what was then generally thought in England that one might innocently say God bless you, to a person who sneezed, though he candidly admitted that there was no example either in the Old or New Testament, and that in all the Scriptures only one person is mentioned as having sneezed, to wit the Shunamite's son. He thought it more probable from certain texts that the Soul at death departs by way of the nostrils, than by way of the mouth according to the vulgar notion:—had he previously ascertained which way it came in, he would have had no difficulty in deciding which way it went out. And he propounded and resolved a question concerning Jephtha which no person but himself ever thought of asking: Pourquoy Dieu voulant delivrer les Israelites, leur donna pour liberateur, voire pour Chef et Gouverneur perpetuel, un fils d'une paillarde? “O Jephtha, Judge of Israel,” that a Frenchman should call thee in filthy French fils d'une putain!

But the peculiar talent of the Belle Lumiere des Pasteurs was for cabalistic researches concerning numbers, or what he calls L'Harmonie du Temps. Numbers, he held, (and every generation, every family, every individual was marked with one,) were not the causes of what came to pass, but they were marks or impresses which God set upon his works, distinguishing them by the difference of these their cyphers. And he laid it down as a rule that in doubtful points of computation, the one wherein some mystery could be discovered was always to be preferred. QUOY?—(think how triumphantly his mouth opened and his nose was erected and his nostrils were dilated, when he pronounced that interrogation)—QUOY? la varieté de nos opinions qui provient d'imperfection, aneantira-t-elle les merveilles de Dieu? In the course of his Scriptural computations he discovered that when the Sun stood still at the command of Joshua, it was precisely 2555 years after the Creation, that is seven years of years, a solar week, after which it had been preordained that the Sun should thus have its sabbath of rest: Ceci n'est il pas admirable? It was on the tenth year of the tenth year of the years that the Sun went back ten degrees, which was done to show the chronology: ou est le stupide qui ne soit ravi en admiration d'une si celeste harmonie? With equal sagacity and equal triumph he discovered how the generations from Adam to Christ went by twenty-twos; and the generations of Christ by sevens, being 77 in all, and that from the time the promise of the Seed was given till its fulfilment there elapsed a week of years, seven times seventy years, seventy weeks of years, and seven times seventy weeks of years by which beautiful geometry, if he might be permitted to use so inadequate a term, the fullness of time was made up.

What wonderful significations also hath Mr. Bellamy in his kindred pursuits discovered and darkly pointed out! Doth he not tell us of seven steps, seven days, seven priests, seven rams, seven bullocks, seven trumpets, seven shepherds, seven stars, seven spirits, seven eyes, seven lamps, seven pipes, seven heads, four wings, four beasts, four kings, four kingdoms, four carpenters; the number three he has left unimproved,—but for two,—

for this number Mr. Bellamy has two cherubims, two calves, two turtles, two birds alive, two ¹, two baskets of figs, two olive trees, two women grinding, two men in the fields, two woes, two witnesses, two candlesticks; and when he descends to the unit, he tells us of one tree, one heart, one stick, one fold, one pearl,—to which we must add one Mr. John Bellamy the Pearl of Commentators.

¹ The blank is in the MS.

But what is this to the exquisite manner in which he elucidates the polytheism of the Greeks and Romans, showing us that the inferior Gods of their mythology were in their origin only men who had exercised certain departments in the state, a discovery which he illustrates in a manner the most familiar, and at the same time the most striking for its originality. Thus, he says, if the Greeks and Romans had been Englishmen, or if we Englishmen of the present day were Greeks and Romans, we should call our Secretary at War, Lord Bathurst for instance, Mars; the Lord Chancellor (Lord Eldon to wit) Mercury,—as being at the head of the department for eloquence.—(But as Mercury is also the God of thieves may not Mr. Bellamy, grave as he is, be suspected of insinuating here that the Gentlemen of the Long Robe are the most dextrous of pickpockets?)—The first Lord of the Admiralty, Neptune. The President of the College of Physicians, Apollo. The President of the Board of Agriculture, Janus. Because with one face he looked forward to the new year, while at the same time he looked back with the other on the good or bad management of the agriculture of the last, wherefore he was symbolically represented with a second face at the back of his head. Again Mr. Bellamy seems to be malicious, in thus typifying or seeming to typify Sir John Sinclair between two administrations with a face for both. The ranger of the forests he proceeds, would be denominated Diana. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Minerva;—Minerva in a Bishop's wig! The first Lord of the Treasury, Juno; and the Society of Suppression of Vice,—Reader, lay thy watch upon the table, and guess for three whole minutes what the Society for the Suppression of Vice would be called upon this ingenious scheme, if the Greeks and Romans were Englishmen of the present generation, or if we of the present generation were heathen Greeks and Romans. I leave a carte blanche before this, lest thine eye outrunning thy judgement, should deprive thee of that proper satisfaction which thou wilt feel if thou shouldst guess aright. But exceed not the time which I have affixed for thee, for if thou dost not guess aright in three minutes, thou wouldest not in as many years.

VENUS. Yes Reader. By Cyprus and Paphos and the Groves of Idalia. By the little God Cupid,—by all the Loves and Doves,—and by the lobbies of the London theatres—he calls the Society for the Suppression of Vice, VENUS!

Fancy, says Fuller, runs riot when spurred with superstition. This is his marginal remark upon a characteristic paragraph concerning the Chambers about Solomon's Temple, with which I will here recreate the reader. “As for the mystical meaning of these chambers, Bede no doubt, thought he hit the very mark—when finding therein the three conditions of life, all belonging to God's Church: in the ground chamber, such as live in marriage; in the middle chamber such as contract; but in the excelsis or third story, such as have attained to the sublimity of perpetual virginity. Rupertus in the lowest chamber lodgeth those of practical lives with Noah; in the middle—those of mixed lives with Job; and in the highest—such as spend their days with Daniel in holy speculations. But is not this rather lusus, than allusio, sporting with, than expounding of scriptures? Thus when the gates of the Oracle are made five square, Ribera therein reads our conquest over the five senses, and when those of the door of the Temple are said to be four square, therein saith he is denoted the quaternion of Evangelists. After this rate, Hiram (though no doubt dexterous in his art) could not so soon fit a pillar with a fashion as a Friar can fit that fashion with a mystery. If made three square, then the Trinity of Persons: four square, the cardinal virtues: five square, the Pentateuch of Moses: six square, the Petitions or the Lord's Prayer: seven square, their Sacraments: eight square, the Beatitudes: nine square, the Orders of Angels: ten square, the Commandments: eleven square, the moral virtues: twelve square, the articles of the creed are therein contained. In a word—for matter of numbers—fancy is never at a loss—like a beggar, never out of her way, but hath some haunts where to repose itself. But such as in expounding scriptures reap more than God did sow there, never eat what they reap themselves, because such grainless husks, when seriously thrashed out, vanish all into chaff.”²

² Pisgah Sight of Palestine, Book iii. c. vii.