At any rate his object was to bring out into greater prominence the bright side of church history. ‘The terms “church” and “Christian,”’ he says, ‘in their natural sense respect only good men. Such a succession of pious men in all ages existed, and it will be no contemptible use of such a history as this if it prove that in every age there have been real followers of Christ.’ With this end in view he brought out the first three volumes— vol. i. in 1794, vol. ii. in 1795, and vol. iii. in 1797. Then death cut short his labours; but even in these first three volumes the hand of Isaac as well as of Joseph may be found, and after Joseph's death Isaac published in 1800 a new and greatly revised edition of vol. i. Vols. ii. and iii. did not require so much revision, because they had been corrected by Isaac in manuscript. In 1803 appeared vol. iv., and in 1809 vol. v., both edited by Isaac, but still containing much of Joseph's work. In 1810 the five volumes were re-edited by Isaac, and John Scott published a new continuation of Milner's ‘Church History’ in three volumes (1826, 1829, and 1831). Both Joseph and Isaac Milner were amateur rather than professional historians, for Joseph's forte was classics, Isaac's mathematics, and both were very busy men also in other departments. When Samuel Roffey Maitland [q. v.] brought his unrivalled knowledge of ‘the dark ages’ to bear upon that part of Joseph Milner's history which related to the Waldenses (1832), he was able to find many flaws in it. Joseph Milner's fellow-townsman, the Rev. John King, ably defended him, but Maitland remained master of the field. His ‘Strictures on Milner's Church History’ (1834) appeared at the time when the high church party was reviving. A controversy ensued, and fresh attention was called to the Milners' work, a new and greatly improved edition of which was published by the Rev. F. Grantham in 1847.
The other works published by Milner in his lifetime were:
- ‘Gibbon's Account of Christianity considered, with some Strictures on Hume's Dialogues on Natural Religion,’ 1781.
- ‘Some Remarkable Passages in the Life of William Howard, who died at North Ferriby on 2 March 1784,’ 1785, a tract which passed through several editions.
- ‘Essays on several Religious Subjects, chiefly tending to illustrate the Scripture Doctrine of the Influence of the Holy Spirit,’ 1789.
He also edited, with the Rev. W. Richardson, ‘Thomas Adam's Posthumous Works,’ 1786. After Joseph Milner's death a vast number of his sermons were found, and these were published in four volumes under the title of ‘Practical Sermons,’ the first (1800) with a brief but touching memoir by the editor, Isaac Milner; the second (1809), edited by the Rev. W. Richardson. These two were afterwards republished together. A third volume (1823) was edited by the Rev. John Fawcett, and a fourth (1830), ‘On the Epistles to the Seven Churches, the Millennium, the Church Triumphant, and the 130th Psalm,’ by Edward Bickersteth. In 1855 Milner's ‘Essentials of Christianity, theoretically and practically considered,’ which had been left by the author in a complete state for publication, and had been revised by his brother, was edited for the Religious Tract Society by Mary Milner, the orphan niece of whom Joseph Milner had taken charge, and writer of her uncle Isaac's ‘Life.’
[Joseph Milner's Works, passim; Dean Isaac Milner's Life of Joseph Milner, prefixed to the first volume of Joseph Milner's Practical Sermons; Mrs. Mary Milner's Life of Dean Milner.]
MILNER, THOMAS, M.D. (1719–1797), physician, son of John Milner, a presbyterian minister, was born at Peckham, near London, where his father preached and kept a school famous in literature from the fact that Goldsmith was in 1757 one of its ushers (Forster, Life of Goldsmith). He graduated M.D. at St. Andrews 20 June 1740, and in 1759 was elected physician to St. Thomas's Hospital. He became a licentiate of the College of Physicians 30 Sept. 1760, but in 1762 resigned his physiciancy at St. Thomas's, and settled in Maidstone, where he attained to large practice and used to walk to the parish church every Sunday bearing a gold-headed cane, and followed in linear succession by the three unmarried sisters who lived with him. In 1783 he published in London ‘Experiments and Observations on Electricity,’ a work in which he described some of the effects which an electrical power is capable of producing on conducting substances, similar effects of the same power on electric bodies themselves, and observations on the air, electric repulsion, the electrified cup, and the analogy between electricity and magnetism. He died at Maidstone 13 Sept. 1797, and is buried in All Saints' Church there.
[Munk's Coll. of Phys. ii. 229; Works.]
MILNER-GIBSON, THOMAS (1806–1884), statesman. [See Gibson, Thomas Milner-.]
MILNES, RICHARD MONCKTON, first Baron Houghton (1809–1885), born on 19 June 1809 in Bolton Street, Mayfair, London, was only son of Robert Pember-
