Boyle, John Alexander, a Methodist Episcopal minister, was born May 1::, 1816, at Baltimore, Md.
His early years were spent in Philadelphia, and he en- tired the itinerant ministry in the Philadelphia Con- ference in [839. lie soon became marked as a preach- er of vigor and promise; but his health failed, and in
relief. At the same time, in illustration of what we shall presently have to say on the distinction between Boyle as an eye-witness and Boyle as a judge of evi- dence, we find him in 1669 not indisposed to receive, and that upon the hypothesis implied in the words, the 'true relation of the things which an unclean spirit did and said at Mascon in Burgundy,' etc. That he should have been inclined to prosecute inquiries about the transmutation of metals needs no excuse, considering the state of chemical knowledge in his day." Much of his leisure was given to theological studies and to the advancement of religion, for which latter object he expended very considerable sums. He " had been for years a director of the East India Company, and we find a letter of his in 1676 pressing upon that body the duty of promoting Christianity in the East. He caused the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles to be trans- lated into Mala}-, at his own cost, by Dr. Thomas Hyde, and he promoted an Irish version. He also gave a large reward to the translator of Grotius's ' De Veri- tate,' etc., into Arabic; and would have been at the whole expense of a Turkish Testament had not the East India Company relieved him of a part. In the year 1680 he was elected president of the Royal Soci- ety, a post which he declined, as appears by a letter to Hooke (Works, i, p. 74), from scruples of conscience about the religious tests and oaths required. In 1688 he advertised the public that some of his manuscripts had been lost or stolen, and others mutilated by acci- dent ; and in 1689, finding his health declining, he re- fused most visits, and set himself to repair the loss." In his critical and theological studies he had the as- sistance of Pocock, Hyde, and Clark, all eminent Ori- entalists. In view of the poverty to which Sanderson bad been reduced by his attachment to the royal cause, Bojde gave him a stipend of £50 a year. This stipend was given as an encouragement to that excellent mas- ter of reasoning to apply himself to the writing of "Cases of Conscience;" and accordingly he printed his lectures " De Obligatione Conscientiae," which he read at Oxford 1647, and dedicated them to his friend and patron. Among his pious acts was the founding
BOYLE LECTURES
869
BOZKATH
of a lecture for the defence of natural and revealed re- ligion. See Boyle Lectures. The characteristics of Boyle as a theological writer are much the same as those which appertain to him as a philosopher. lie does not enter at all into disputed articles of faith, and preserves a quiet and argumentative tone throughout ; but the ver}r great prolixity into which he falls renders him almost unreadable. The treatises On Seraphic Love, Considerations on the Style of the Scriptures, and On the great Veneration that Man's Intellect vires to God, have a place in the Index Ubrorum prohibitorum of the Roman Church. Boyle was never married. He died on the 30th of December, 1691. Bishop Burnet, in his funeral sermon on Boyle, declares that " his knowl- edge was of so vast an extent that, if it were not for the variety of vouchers in their several sorts, I should be afraid to say all I know. He carried the study of Hebrew very far into the rabbinical writings and the other Oriental tongues. He had read so much of the fathers that he had formed out of it a clear judgment of all the eminent ones. He had read a vast deal on the Scriptures, had gone very nicely through the various controversies in religion, and was a true master of the whole body of divinity. He read the whole compass of the mathematical sciences; and, though he did not set himself to spring any new game, yet he knew even the abstrusest parts of geometry. Geography, in the several parts of it that related to navigation or travel- ling, history, and books of novels, were his diversions. He went very nicety through all the parts of physic ; only the tenderness of his nature made him less able to endure the exactness of anatomical dissections, es- pecially of living animals, though he knew these to be most instructing. But for the history of nature, an- cient and modern, of the productions of all countries, of the virtues and improvements of plants, of ores and minerals, and all the varieties that are in them in dif- ferent climates, he was by much — by very much — the readiest and the perfectest I ever knew." The best edition of his works is that of 1772 (Lond. 6 vols. 4to), the first volume of which contains his Life by Birch. — Jones, Relic/. Biography ; English Cyelopcedia, s. v. ; New General Dictionary, ii, 374.
Boyle Lectures, a foundation under the will of the Hon. Robert Boyle in 1691, which charged upon his dwelling-house in St. Michael's, Crooked Lane, London, an annual stipend for "a divine or preaching minister to preach eight sermons in the year for prov- ing the Christian religion against Atheists, Deists, Pa- gans, Jews, and Mohammedans, not descending to any controversies among Christians themselves." The lecturer is to be "assisting to all companies, and en- couraging them in any undertaking for propagating the Christian religion, and is farther to be ready to satisfy such real scruples as any have concerning such nutters." This provision shows that Boyle desired to m:ike England's then increasing colonies a means of extending Christianity. The preacher is elected for a period not exceeding three years. A collection of the lectures delivered up to 1732 was published in 1739 (Lond. 3 vols, fol.), and over fifty volumes have been printed of those since preached. The most important are, Bentley, Confutation of Atheism (1692); Kidder, Demonstration of Messiah (1694); Williams, On Divine /,', ut lation (1696) ; Gastrell, Certainty and Necessity of Religion (1697); Harris, Refutation of Atheism (1698); Bradford, Credibility of Revelation (1700); Blackball, Suffici nry of Revelation (1717) ; Stanhope, Truth of the Cliristian Religion (1702); Clarke, Demons/ration of Being of God (1705) ; Hancock, Being of God (1707) ; Turner, Wisdom rf God in Redemption (1709); Wood- ward, Divine Excellency of Christianity (1712) ; Derliam, rhysi co-Theology (1711-12); Benjamin, On Free-think- ing (1727) ; Clarke, Origin of Evil (1720-21) ; Gurdon, Difficulties no Excuse for Infidelity (1723) ; Burnet, Dem- onstration of True Religion (1726); Berriman, Gradual Revelation of the Gospel (1733); Biscoe, On the Acts