Soon after the accession of William and Mary (1689) Stillingfleet became bishop of Worcester; and Bentley, having taken orders in 1690, was appointed his chaplain. In 1689 James Stillingfleet had entered Wadham College, Oxford, and Bentley, having accompanied his pupil thither, continued to reside at Oxford till near the end of 1690. The treasures of the Bodleian Library powerfully stimulated his enthusiasm for classical study. We find him forming vast projects, interesting by the enormous appetite for work which they imply in the mind that conceived them. He is also interested in some special studies, which he afterwards carried to fruitful results, and, above all, in the study of ancient metres — a province in which he afterwards excelled all predecessors. Hitherto Bentley had published nothing, and it was the urgency of a friend which caused his first appearance in print. In 1690 the curators of the Sheldonian Press resolved to print a Greek chronicle by a certain John of Antioch (of date uncertain between circ. 600 and 1000 A.D.), commonly called John Malelas ('John the Rhetor') — a chronological sketch of universal history down to 560 A.D.
Though of small intrinsic worth, the chronicle has some indirect value, as containing references to lost prose-writers and poets. Hence its interest for the seventeenth-century scholars who were labouring to reconstruct ancient chronology. Dr. John Mill, principal of St. Edmund Hall — well known by his edition of the New Testament — was to supervise the edition, and he consented that Bentley should see it before publication on condition of communicating any remarks that occurred to him. Bentley sent his remarks in the form of a Latin letter addressed to Mr. Mill. In June 1691 the 'Chronicle of Malelas' was published at the Sheldonian Press, with Bentley's 'Letter to Mill' in an appendix of ninety-eight pages. He corrects and illustrates the chronicler's references to the Greek and Latin classics in a series of brilliant criticisms, which range over almost the whole field of ancient literature. In those days there were no Smith's Dictionaries, there was no Liddell and Scott's Lexicon. Bentley was drawing on the stores of his own reading. The 'Letter to Mill' is a precocious masterpiece of accurate erudition and native acuteness. It is wonderful that it should have been written by a scholar of twenty-eight in the year 1690. The lively style, often combative or derisive, is already that which stamped Bentley's work through life. The chronicler, John Malelas, was, as Bentley shows, an incorrigible blunderer; and having convicted him of a gross mistake in geography, Bentley exclaims, 'Euge vero, & Ίωαννίδιον ('Good indeed, Johnny). Dr. Monk, Bentley's excellent biographer, thought that this was said to Dr. John Mill, and reproved it as 'an indecorum which neither the familiarity of friendship, nor the license of a dead language, can justify towards the dignified head of a house.' The slip was pointed out by a reviewer of Monk's first edition (1830), and is absent from the second (1833). The 'Letter to Mill' strongly impressed the continental scholars who read it. 'A new and already bright star' of English letters is the title with which Bentley was greeted by John George Graevius and Ezechiel Spanheim. Long after Bentley's death David Ruhnken spoke of the letter as showing its author's superiority to timid prejudice. 'Bentley shook off the servile yoke, and put forth that famous "Letter to Mill" — a wonderful monument of genius and learning, such as could have come only from the first critic of his time.'
In the year which followed the publication of the 'Letter to Mill,' Bentley found an opportunity of distinction in a different field. He was appointed to deliver the first course of Boyle Lectures. Robert Boyle (1627–1691), eminent for his studies in several branches of physical science, had bequeathed an annual stipend of 50l. 'for some divine, or preaching minister,' who should 'preach eight sermons in the year for proving the christian religion against notorious infidels, . . . not descending to any controversies that are among christians themselves.' John Evelyn, the author of the 'Sylva' and the 'Diary,' was one of the four trustees in whom the election was vested. 'We made choice of one Mr. Bentley,' he says, 'chaplain to the Bishop of Worcester.' Bentley took for his subject 'A Confutation of Atheism,' and delivered the first of his eight lectures from the pulpit of St. Martin's Church on 7 March 1692. In the first five discourses he argues the existence of a Deity from the human soul and body, and in the last three from 'the origin and frame of the world.' The last three have a peculiar interest. In 1692 five years had elapsed since Newton had given to the world, in his 'Principia,' the proofs of the law of gravitation; but, except with a select few, the Cartesian system was still in vogue. Bentley, in the sixth, seventh, and eighth of his 'Boyle Lectures,' takes up Newton's great discovery, and uses it to prove the existence of an intelligent and omnipotent Creator. Before printing the last two lectures, Bentley wished to be sure that his application of Newton's principles was such as Newton himself would approve.
