To [ALEXANDER GORDON]99
MS: BL, Add. MS 6190, fols. 56–57; unpubl.
London, 10 March 1737/38
Dear Sir
I had the honour of your kind Letter by which you acquaint me of the resolution of the committee of the Society of Learning with regard to my work.100
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I reckon my self under the greatest obligations to the Honourable & worthy members of the committee for their very generous resolution to encourage my undertaking, in a private capacity. I should never have thought of carrying on my design by subscription, had I not been perswaded that the Society not having a fund for undertaking it, it was impossible to accomplish in any other way what had already cost me a very considerable Expence. I will take it as a very great favour to be allowed to wait on the committee from time to time in order to have their opinion of my work as it advances, Having nothing more at heart than to have it Ex<e>cuted to the satisfaction of such good judges & generous Encouragers of all the ingenious arts & Sciences.
At the next meeting of the Committee I will have the honour to wait on them & shew them several Specimens of the Engraving with which I flatter my self they will be very well pleased.101
I am very sensible from the obliging manner in which the Committee received my proposals and hath all along treated me, that the Encouragement of Learning for which the Society was formed, is entrusted with persons disposed to promote that noble design with the greatest zeal agreably to the Excellent rules of the Society. I beg leave to return my most sincere & hearty thanks to the Committee in general & to Every member of it in particular for all their favours and for their Last very generous resolution which you did me the favour to communicate to me. I am fully perswaded that very great advantages must redound to Learning from their Excellent management. Please to communicate this to the Committee and you will highly oblige Dear Sir
Your most obedient
humble servant
George Turnbull.
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15. To THOMAS BIRCH102
Address: To The Reverend Mr. Thomas Birch Over Against
Mr. Bettenham’s103 in St Johns Lane near St John’s Gate104
MS: BL, Add. MS 4319, fols. 279–80; unpubl.
26 February 1738/39
Reverend Sir
Allow me to ask your friendly assistance in an affair that was proposed to me yesterday. Many candidates appearing for the Secretary-ship to the Society &c if Mr Gordon goes some of my friends chid me for not thinking of my self & got my consent to use their interest for me.105 I can’t help thinking that a member has a better title to ask it than one who is not. You have a very universal acquaintance with the members; and are very justly esteemed by all who know you; and you are therefore able to do me very great service in this affair, and to Lay a very great obligation on
Reverend Sir
your very humble
and obedient Servant
George Turnbull.
Dear Sir106
I would have waited on you with the above letter of my freind Mr Trumbulls: which I just received, but was affraid of your being abroad & therefor have sent
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it you knowing you’l have as great a regard to the desire of that Gentleman as if I had delivered it. I Asshure you it will be doing me a wery great favour if you can serve him in this point, & I am sensible it will be serving the Society & oblidging a worthy man. I am
Dear Sir
Your very humble Servant
And: Millar
Monday Afternoon
4 O’Clock
16. To THOMAS BIRCH
Address: To The Reverend Mr Thomas Birch
MS: BL, Add. MS 4319, fols. 281–85; unpubl.
7 April 1739
Reverend Sir
I know very well that you have a great deal to do; and I am very unwilling to take you off one moment from the useful way in which you are always employed; the more so that I am fully convinced of your extreme readiness to do good offices for any one you think has any degree of merit & your disposition to think favourably of Every one. But Kind Sir I must beg you to accomplish what you have begun. I have already found by the kind reception I have met with from Dr Sykes107 that your recommendation hath the weight with him I was perswaded it must have with all who know you. I should be glad on several accounts to have the affair over;108 I am a<n>xious to have it done; & my Friends daily press me more & more not to delay it. Yesterday the Doctor asked me if I continued in my resolution to which I answered I had always devoted my self to that Study & only repented my having delayed so long going into orders; and therefore I entreated
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him to speak to the Bishop109 that it might be done as soon as possible; which he most obligingly undertook. But the Doctor leaves town after Easter & in that case I may happen to fall into an unknown Chaplain’s hands; whereas now after the conversations I have had with the Doctor & the obliging things he has been pleased to say I look upon my Examination as almost pass’d.110 I have no manner of title to ask the Bishop to appoint a day for me alone; yet I would gladly have private ordination & should be very proud to be known to the Bishop. I might I am sure press the Doctor himself. But tho’ I have seen a good deal of the world I believe I shal always continue timid in my own affairs. It is proper my name should be given in form to the Bishop; and I should be glad to know from you what testimonials are necessary.111 I am very well known to Dr Freind & his son112 who I think is one of the Bishop’s chaplains; But I am afraid they are not in town. I know very few other <C>lergymen beside your self Except some at Oxford & three or four in town<.> I have been confined to the house ever since I had the pleasure of seeing you by a severe Cough a disease quite new to me other wise I would have waited upon you instead of writing.
It is proper I should know in time whether a title is absolutely necessary or not that is whether the Bishop demands there should be one because in
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that case it is time to look about me in order to get one.113 I can’t help wishing you had more idle time on your hands for I am now about revising a work which has long lain by me called the Moral philosopher that I should be very glad to have your opinion about.114 The shortest wiew I can give you of the Design is this: “The phenomena in the material world are justly reckoned to be well Explained physicaly & moraly when they are reduced to good general laws: The phenomena therefore in the moral world that are reduced to good general laws are likewise well Explained physicaly & moraly. & I attempt to point out several good general laws to which many phenomena in the moral world are reducible” But in order to prepare my way I begin with showing how natural philosophy proceeds; and next that General laws in the moral world are so far from being inconsistent with liberty that the activity, power or dominion of created agents necessarily supposes the prevalence of general laws as far as it extends. I have set apart this summer for revising this work & reading what hath been published, that I have not yet seen, upon the subject. I must not forget to tell you that I think I have set a future state that is the arguments for it in a light somewhat uncommon. And I conclude with shewing that the doctrine of the gospel concerning God’s government of the world is Exactly agreable to reason & yet receives a new, a different Evidence from testimony. And by gathering together into proper Classes all the texts relative to a future state I have endeavoured to take off an objection made against Christianity as not giving us any satisfactory account of a future State tho it pretends