and and America. Noteworthy is it
that Cotton Mather, bitter as was his orthodoxy regarding witchcraft,
accepted, in 1721, the modern astronomy fully, with all its
consequences.

In the following year came an even more striking evidence that the new
scientific ideas were making their way in England. In 1722 Thomas Burnet
published the sixth edition of his Sacred Theory of the Earth. In this
he argues, as usual, to establish the scriptural doctrine of the
earth's stability; but in his preface he sounds a remarkable warning.
He mentions the great mistake into which St. Augustine led the Church
regarding the doctrine of the antipodes, and says, "If within a
few years or in the next generation it should prove as certain and
demonstrable that the earth is moved, as it is now that there are
antipodes, those that have been zealous against it, and engaged the
Scripture in the controversy, would have the same reason to repent of
their forwardness that St. Augustine would now, if he were still alive."

Fortunately, too, Protestantism had no such power to oppose the
development of the Copernican ideas as the older Church had enjoyed.
Yet there were some things in its warfare against science even more
indefensible. In 1772 the famous English expedition for scientific
discovery sailed from England under Captain Cook. Greatest by far of all
the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. Priestley. Sir
Joseph Banks had especially invited him. But the clergy of Oxford and
Cambridge interfered. Priestley was considered unsound in his views
of the Trinity; it was evidently suspected that this might vitiate his
astronomical observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled.

The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other branches of the
Protestant Church. In Germany even Leibnitz attacked the Newtonian
theory of gravitation on theological grounds, though he found some
little consolation in thinking that it might be used to support the
Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.

In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous against the
whole new system, but we possess a comical proof that Calvinism even in
its strongholds was powerless against it; for in 1642 Blaer published at
Amsterdam his book on the use of globes, and, in order to be on the safe
side, devoted one part of his work to the Ptolemaic and the other to the
Copernican scheme, leaving the benevolent reader to take his choice.(69)

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