SOURCE: "Chapter XXIV," in Memoirs of the Life, Writings, and Discoveries of Sir Isaac Newton, Vol. II, Thomas Constable and Co., 1855, pp. 313-59.

In the excerpt below, Brewster comments in detail on Newton's religious writings, asserting that "if Sir Isaac Newton had not been distinguished as a mathematician and a natural philosopher, he would have enjoyed a high reputation as a theologian. "

If Sir Isaac Newton had not been distinguished as a mathematician and a natural philosopher, he would have enjoyed a high reputation as a theologian. The occupation of his time, however, with those profound studies, for which his genius was so peculiarly adapted, and in the prosecution of which he was so eminently successful, prevented him from preparing for the press the theological works which he had begun at a very early period of life, and to which he devoted much of his time even when...