731 



STILLINGFLEET, EDWARD. 



STIRLING, JAMES. 



733 



Excommunication. This work which was intended to prove that uo 

 particular form of church government is appointed in the New Testa- 

 ment, was thought by the high church party to savour of Presby- 

 teriauism ; and in deference to them, according to Bishop Burnet, 

 Stillii^fleet afterwards retracted it. Stillingfleet himself saya, that 

 "there are many things in it which, if he were to write again, he 

 would not say; some which show his youth and want of due con- 

 sideration ; others which he yielded too far, in hopes of gaining the 

 dissenting parties to the Church of England." (Stillingfleet's 'Life,' 

 p. 12.) The work on which his reputation mainly rests is hia 'Origines 

 Sacne, or Rational Account of the Christian Faith as to the Truth and 

 Divine Authority of the Scriptures,' which was published in 1662. 

 He meant to have continued it, but died before he could do so. The 

 additions to the folio edition, published after his death are of little 

 value. This work is still one of the most valuable defences of the 

 truth of the Scriptures, though it is more adapted to the theologian 

 than to the general reader. 



Stilliugfleet was a fierce and indefatigable polemic. During the 

 greater part of his life, he had his hands full of controversy, with the 

 Romanists on the one side, and the Nonconformists on the other. In 

 1664 he engaged, at the request of Dr. Henchman, bishop of London, 

 in the defence of the views maintained by Laud in his conference with 

 Fisher the Jesuit. A work having been published on this subject in 

 Paris, entitled ' Labyrinthus Cantuariensis,' with the design of proving 

 the Church of England to be schismatical in her separation from 

 Rome, Stillingfleet defended the Church of England, and retorted 

 upon Rome the charge of schism in ' A rational Account of the Grounds 

 of the Protestant Religion,' which was received with great favour by 

 Protestants. 



In 1665 he was presented by the Earl of Southampton to the rectory 

 of St. Andrew's, Holborn, having been already appointed preacher at 

 the Rolls chapel. This preferment was speedily followed by his ap- 

 pointment as lecturer to the Temple, and also as chaplain in ordinary 

 to Charles II. In 1668 he took the degree of D.D., and was nominated 

 by Charles, in 1670, canon residentiary of St. Paul's, and in 1678 

 dean of the same cathedral. In the meantime he published his ' Dis- 

 course concerning the Idolatry practised in the Church of Rome, and 

 the Hazard of Salvation in its Communion,' 1671 ; and other tracts 

 against the Roman Catholics, and also against the Socinians, as well as 

 ' A Letter of Resolution to a Person unsatisfied about the Truth and 

 Authority of the Scriptures.' In 1680 he plunged into a new contro- 

 versy, by preaching before the lord mayor a sermon, on Philipp. iii., 

 10, which he afterwards published, entitled 'The Mischief of Separa- 

 tion.' This sermon consisted of a violent attack on the Nonconformists, 

 which was little expected from the author of the ' Irenicum.' Mr. 

 Orme justly observes that " the rector of Sutton^ who wrote the 

 ' Irenicum ' wh< n the Church of England was but a sect among other 

 sects, was a very different person from the dean of St. Paul's exposing 

 the unreasonableness of separation from an apostolic church in all its 

 glory. The one publication breathes a spirit of moderation, and uses 

 the language of entreaty ; the other is stern, severe, and uncom- 

 promising." (Orme's 'Life of Baxter,' p. 632.) In this discourse 

 Stillingdeet maintains the curious position, that " though the really 

 conscientious Nonconformist is justified in not worshipping after the 

 prescribed forms of the Church of England, or rather, would be 

 criminal if he did so, yet he is not less criminal in setting up a separate 

 assembly." The sermon was replied to by Owen, Baxter, Howe, and 

 other eminent Nonconformists. Howe directed his attention chiefly 

 to the above position, and added some remarks concerning Stillingfleet 

 himself, giving him such full credit for piety, purity of motive, and 

 general moderation, that the dean confessed ''that Howe had discoursed 

 gravely and piously, more like a gentleman than a divine." (Rogers's 

 Life of Howe,' pp. 251-266.) Stillingfleet replkd to his opponents in 

 a large quarto volume, entitled ' The Unreasonableness of Separation,' 

 1681, in which he traces the history of Nonconformity; and Baxter 

 rejoined in 'A second true Defence of the mere Nonconformists, 

 against the untrue Accusations, Reasonings, and History of Dr. 

 Edward Stillingfleet,' 1681, to which the dean made no reply, though 

 several writers carried on his side of the argument. A full account of 

 this controversy is given by Mr. Orme in his ' Lives of Owen and 

 Baxter.' 



la 1685 Stillingfleet published his 'Origines Britannicae, or Anti- 

 quities of the British Churches,' which gives a full account of the 

 early ecclesiastical history of Britain, from the first introduction of 

 Christianity to the conversion of the Saxons. He rejects many of the 

 traditions respecting the British churches, but is disposed to believe in 

 the alleged visit of Paul to Britain. 



When James II. revived the court of ecclesiastical commission, 

 Stillingfleet refused to be a member of it ; and after the Revolution he 

 published ' A Discourse concerning the Illegality of the Ecclesiastical 

 Commission, in answer to the Vindication and Defence of it,' 1689. 

 Under Charles and James he was prolocutor of the convocation. 

 After the revolution of 1638, Stilling fleet's services to the Protestant 

 cause were rewarded with the bishopric of Worcester, to which he was 

 consecrated in 1689. He immediately addressed himself, with his usual 

 ardour, to correct the irregularities which had arisen in the diocese; 

 he appeared with distinction in the House of Lords : and he still found 

 leisure for polemics. In ' A Vindication of the Trinity, with an Answer 



to the late Objections against it from Scripture, Antiquity, and Reason,' 

 he made some objections to Locke's definition of substance, and to his 

 theory of ideas in general, which gave rise to a sharp contest between 

 him and Locke. 



Stillingfleet died of gout, at Westminster, March 27, 1699. His 

 remains were interred in the cathedral of Worcester, where a monu- 

 ment was erected to him by his son, with a long and highly eulogistic 

 Latin epitaph by Bentley, who was his chaplain. 



The character of Bishop Stillingfleet has always commanded the 

 praise even of his opponents, and perhaps many will find a more 

 genuine expression of his worth in Howe's testimony than in Bentley 's 

 epitaph. His works prove his industry and learning. Besides the 

 works noticed above, he wrote several theological pamphlets, and a 

 very able defence of the jurisdiction of the bishops as peers in capital 

 cases. His works were printed in 1710, in 6 vols. folio, and a volume 

 of his miscellaneous works was published in 1735 by his son, the Rev. 

 James Stillingfleet, canon of Worcester. Stillingfleet had collected u 

 splendid library, which Dr. Marsh, archbishop of Armagh, purchased, 

 in order to throw it open to the public in Dublin. The manuscript* 

 were bought by the Earl of Oxford, and are now in the Bodleian 

 library. 



(Life of Dr. Edward Stillingfleet, late Lord Bishop of Worcester, &c., 

 London, 1710, 1735.) 



STILPO ('2,ri\ir<av), a native of Megara, was a philosopher of the 

 Megarian school, who flourished about B.C. 300. Respecting his life 

 we know very little. He appears to have enjoyed the highest 

 estimation among his countrymen both as a man and a philosopher. 

 Ptolemaeus Soter, when he was at Megara, endeavoured to persuade 

 him to come to Egypt, but Stilpo refused, and withdrew to vKgina 

 until Ptolemseus had left Megara. When Demetrius Poliorcetes took 

 Megara, he commanded his soldiers to spare the habitation of the 

 philosopher, who,- in his eyes, was the wisest of all the Greeks living. 

 Cicero (' De Fato,' 5), apparently on good authority, states that Stilpo, 

 who was naturally fond of wine and women, exercised such control 

 over his passions, that no one ever saw in him any sign of indulgence 

 in sensual pleasures. 



As a philosopher. Stilpo, on the whole, followed the doctrines of 

 the Megarian school, but he went further, and denied the objective 

 reality of the ideas of species and genera. He asserted that the cLa- 

 racter of a philosopher consisted in perfect freedom from passions ; 

 and in this theory he was followed by his disciple Zeno, the founder 

 of the Stoic school of philosophy. Diogenes Laertius, in his account 

 of Stilpo (ii., c. 12), states that he wrote nine dialogues, which he 

 characterises by the epithet "frigid" (\f/vxpoi) ; no part of them is now 

 extant. 



(G. L. Spalding, Vindicice Philosophorum Megaricorum, p. 20, &c. ; 

 Ritter and Preller, Hist. Philos., p. 181, &c.) 



STIRLING, JAMES, an English mathematician of considerable 

 eminence, but of whom, except the works which he published, scarcely 

 any thing is known. He must have been born near the end of the 

 17th century, and he was a student in the University of Oxford ; in 

 1726 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society, and his death must 

 have taken place subsequently to the year 1764. 



Mr. Stirling's first work is entitled 'Linese Tertii Ordinis New- 

 tonianse, sive,' &c. : this work, which was published at Oxford, in 8vo, 

 in 1717, contains a commentary on Newton's tract on the subject of 

 lines of the third order. In this tract it is shown that all such lines 

 may be expressed by four different equations, of the third degree, 

 between two variable quantities x and y ; and that of these equations 

 one, which consists of terms involving the three first powers of x and 

 the two first powers of y, comprehends sixty-five species of hyper- 

 bolic curves. Stirling discovered that the same equation contained 

 two additional species, and the Abbe" De Gua (' Usage de 1' Analyse de 

 Descartes ') subsequently detected in it four others which had been 

 overlooked by Stirling, probably because he directed his researches 

 almost entirely in the steps of his author. The English mathematician 

 has the honour of being the first who observed, if the ,value of y in 

 the given equation be found in an infinite series of terms containing 

 descending powers of x, that on taking one term only of such series 

 for the value of y, there is obtained an equation of the first degree, 

 which determines the position of a rectilinear asymptote to the curve: 

 that on taking two terms, there is obtained an equation of a curve, 

 which may be considered as an asymptote to the original curve, and 

 which approaches nearer to it than the rectilinear asymptote; and so 

 on. It may be observed however that the division of curve lines into 

 classes and species is arbitrary ; Newton, Euler, and Cramer having 

 made the number of curves of the same order very different : it is 

 also now of small importance, since when the equation of any curve 

 is given, the rules of analysis enable the mathematician to determine 

 immediately its tangents, asymptotes, normals, and 'singular' points. 



The work which contributed most to Stirling's reputation is bis 

 ' Methodus Differentialis, sive Tractatus de Summatioue et Interpo- 

 latione Serierum Infinitarum :' this work was published in London, in 

 4to, in 1730 ; and in the first part of it there are investigated general 

 formulae, expressing the sums of given series by means of a factor, by 

 which each term in a series being multiplied, the product is equal to 

 the next following term : the factor itself is in the form of a series 

 consisting of terms arranged according to the ascending or descending 



