Note 100 — Chapter X

The Rev. Martin Madan, in his “Comments on the Thirty-nine Articles,” relates the following curious anecdote of Lord Bolingbroke and Dr. Church, on the authority of Lady Huntingdon, to whom it was communicated by his Lordship himself. Lord Bolingbroke was one day sitting in his house at Battersea, reading Calvin’s “Institutes,” when he received a morning visit from Dr. Church. After the usual salutations, he asked the Doctor if he could guess what the book was which then lay before him; “and which (says Lord Bolingbroke) I have been studying?” “No, really, my Lord, I cannot,” quoth the Doctor. “It is Calvin’s ‘Institutes’ (said Lord Bolingbroke); what do you think of these matters?” Doctor: “Oh! my Lord, we don’t think about such antiquated stuff; we teach the plain doctrines of virtue and morality, and have long laid aside those abstruse points about grace.” “Look you, Doctor (said Lord Bolingbroke), you know I don’t believe the Bible to be a divine revelation; but they who do can never defend it on any principles but the doctrine of grace. To say the truth, I have at times been almost persuaded to believe it upon this view of things; and there is one argument which has gone very far with me in behalf of its authenticity, which is, that the belief in it exists upon earth, even when committed to the care of such as you, who pretend to believe it, and yet deny the only principles on which it is defensible.”