Having first apologized to his father for sive only) hath been waged with them to not visiting him in the vacation, he gives great advantage, by a gentleman, whose mind him an account of his teacher. "I am and manners are as remote from illiberal scurobliged for the happiness I have enjoyed of rility and abuse, as his adversaries appear to late to a gentleman of this society, and shall be from learning, from candor, and from always bless God that his providence ever every character of true criticism. Mr. Watbrought me acquainted with him. He is a son, the defendant here mentioned, hath, in fellow of our house; and, though but six- return to their scurrility, answered and exand-twenty, as complete a scholar in the posed them with strong, clear, and irresistible whole circle of learning, as great a divine, as reasoning, and such a meek, calm, and Chrisgood a man, and as polite a gentleman, as the tian spirit, as hath done honor to his own present age can boast of." These words of character, and uncommon justice to the ChrisMr. Horne I introduce with peculiar satisfac- tian cause; such as were sufficient to silence tion; because they afford so strong a concur- anything but effrontery, hardened in ignoring testimony to the truth of what I have rance, to the end of the world." Mr. Watson already ventured to say of Mr. Watson. also printed a sermon, preached before the This excellent man never published any large university, on the 29th of May, which he work, and will be known to posterity only calls an Admonition to the Church of Engby some occasional pieces which he printed land. In a long preface to this sermon, he in his life-time. His sermon on the 19th has thrown out such valuable observations, Psalm, which he preached before the Univer- that an excellent manual might be formed out sity, and afterwards left the printing of to my of them, for preserving the members of the care, so delighted Mr. Horne (as it appears church of England steady in their profession; from these letters to his father,) that it proba- by showing to them, so plainly as is here bly raised in his mind the first desire of un- done, the principal dangers to which they are dertaking that Commentary on the whole now exposed. Having said thus much of his book of Psalms, which he afterwards brought teacher (and I could with pleasure have said to such perfection.* Mr. Watson published much more,) I must now show what he another sermon on the Divine Appearance learned under him. in Gen. 18; which was furiously shot at by the bush-fighters of that time in the Monthly Review; insomuch that the author thought it might be of some service to take up his pen and write them a letter; in which their insolence is reproved with such superior dignity of mind and serenity of temper, and their ignorance and error so learnedly exposed, that, if I were desirous of showing to any reader what Mr. Watson was, and what they were, I would by all means put that letter into his hand; of which I suppose no copies are now to be found, but in the possession of some of his surviving friends. It is, however, made mention of with due honor by Dr. Delany, the celebrated Dean of Down, in Ireland, who was once the intimate friend of Swift, and has given us the best account of his life and character in his Observations in answer to Lord Orrery. In a preface to the third volume of his Revelation examined with Candor, which he printed at London very late in life, he speaks of a malignant style of criticism, in practice at that time with the obscure and unknown authors of a Monthly Review; and observes upon the case, that "he must seem at first sight a rash as well as a bold man, who would venture to wage war at once with Billingsgate and banditti. And yet in truth," says he, "such a war (defen

This is the gentleman who is spoken of in a note

to the Comment on Psal. xix.

From the general account he gives of his studies, he appears, in consequence of his intercourse with Mr. Watson, to have been persuaded, that the System of Divinity in the Holy Scripture is explained and attested by the scriptural account of created nature; and that this account, including the Mosaic Cosmogony, is true so far as it goes: and that the Bible, in virtue of its originality, is fitter to explain all the books in the world, than they are to explain it that much of the learning of the age was either unprofitable in itself, or dangerous in its effect; and that literature, so far as it was a fashion, was in general unfavorable to Christianity, and to a right understanding of the Scripture: that the Jews had done much hurt in the Hebrew ; not to the text by corrupting it, but by leading us into their false way of interpreting and understanding it; and that their rabbinical writers were therefore not to be taken as teachers by Christian students: that a notion lately conceived of the Mosaic law, as an institution merely civil or secular, without the doctrines of life and immortality in it, was of pernicious tendency; contrary to the sense of all the primitive writers, and the avowed doctrine of the church of England: that the sciences of metaphysics and ethics had a near alliance to deism; and that, in consequence of the authority they had obtained, the doctrine of our pulpits was in general fallen be

low the Christian standard; and that the Sa- | delivers to us under a very different characviour and the redemption, without which our ter, which the experience of the world is religion is nothing, were in a manner forgot- daily confirming. That infidels and profliten; which had given too much occasion to the irregular teaching of the tabernacle: that the sin of modern deism is the same in kind with the sin of paradise, which brought death into the world; because it aspires to divine wisdom, that is, to the knowledge of divine things, and the distinction between good and evil, independently of God.

gates should wish to establish their own opinions upon the ruins of revelation was not to be wondered at; but that they whose office it was to dress and defend the sacred vineyard, should fall in with them, and join with the wild boar out of the wood to root it up, was a matter of grief and surprise. A distemper must indeed be epidemical, when the He had learned farther, that the Hebrew physicians themselves are seized with it. language, and the Hebrew antiquities, lead to This malady, when traced to its fountain a superior way of understanding the mythol- head, appears to have arisen from a general ogy and writing of the Heathen classical neglect in schools and seminaries of the study authors; and that the Hebrew is a language of the Scriptures in their original languages; of ideas, whose terms for invisible and spirit-where they attend so much to the works of ual things are taken with great advantage heathens, and so little to the book of light, from the objects of nature, and that there life, and immortality. While the heads of can be no other way of conceiving such things, because all our ideas enter by the senses, whereas in all other languages there are arbitrary sounds without ideas.

boys are filled with tales of Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Bacchus, and Venus, the Bible is little heard of; and so the Heathen creed becomes not only the first, but the whole study. Jews, It appeared to him farther, that unbelief mistaken as they are, are still diligent in and blasphemy were gaining ground upon teaching the Scripture to their children in us, in virtue of some popular mistakes in their own way; while we are teaching natural philosophy, and threatened to banish what even Jews are wise enough to abomall religion out of the world. Voltaire be-inate. Possessed by this opinion, that all gan very early to make his use of philoso- polite knowledge is in heathen authors, and phy, and corrupt the world with it. He the Bible but a dull heavy book, which, innever was fit to mount it; but he walked by the side of it, and used it as a stalking-horse. It is therefore of great consequence to the learned to know, that, as the heavens and the elements of the world had been set up by the Heathens, as having power themselves; and that as the Heathens, building on this false foundation, had lost the knowledge of God; the modern doctrine, which gives innate powers to matter, as the followers of Democritus and Epicurus did, would probably end in atheism that the forces, which the modern philosophy uses, are not the forces, of nature; but that the world is carried on by the action of the elements on one another, and all under God: that it is no better than raving, to give active powers to matter, supposing it capable of acting where it is not; and to affirm at the same time, that all matter is inert, that is inactive, and that even the Deity, cannot act but where he is present, because his power cannot be but where his substance is.

He was also convinced, that infinite mischief had been done, not only by the tribe of deists and philosophers, but by some of our most celebrated divines, in extolling the dignity of human nature and the wisdom of human reason; both of which the Scipture

This hath now actually come to pass.

stead of promoting, rather stands in the way of improvement, a lad is sent from school to the university. Here is a very alarming crisis. If he happens to be of a sprightly wit, he falls into loose company, and, for want of religious principles, is led into all manner of wickedness. Should he study, he obtains logic under the form of a scholastic jargon, which in its simplicity* is of excellent use. Then he learns a system of ethics, which teaches morals without religious data, as the Heathens did. After which, he probably goes on to Wollaston, Shaftsbury, and others, and is at length fixed in the opinion, that reason is sufficient for man with revelation. Our young philosopher, having succeeded thus far, wants nothing but metaphysics to complete him; by setting him to reason without principles, to judge without evidence, and to comprehend without ideas. He learns to deduce the being and attributes of God a priori; in consequence of which he discovers that God is not a Trinity, but a single person. When a gentleman, thus equipped, takes the Bible into his hand and commences divinity, what must become of it,

*The more simple the better: but the old logic, than the new which has superseded it; and is found even with all its jargon, is a better guard to truth, by many, who have considered the difference, so to be.

and of him! Thus it appears, that, as things understood by Bishop Bull, who did not congo now, a man may be a master of what tent himself with a slight and superficial knowis called human learning, and yet ignorant ledge of it; and judged it so necessary in to the last degree of what only is worth divinity, that it was usual with him to recomknowing. mend the study of it to the candidates for orders, as a foundation for their future theological performances. Without this knowledge in Mr. Horne, we should never have seen his Commentary upon the Psalms.

England, toward the beginning this century; which, having become very scarce hath been

lately reprinted with some other of his works :* and I will venture to say thus much in its behalf, that, whatever becomes of the argument, the manner in which it is handled shows Mr. Horne, who, when he wrote it, was only in his twenty-third year, to have been a very extraordinary young man.

The

of which the Pantheisticon of Janis Junius Eoganesius, a technical name for John Toland, is a sufficient proof: and Hutchinson, who knew all the parties concerned, and the designs going forward, dropped such hints in his Treatise on Power Essential and Mechanical,* as gave a serious alarm to many persons well disposed. But our young scholar, view- New studies and new principles never fail ing the whole matter at first on the ridiculous to bring a man into new company; all manside, and considering it not only as a danger- kind being naturally disposed to associate ous attempt upon religion, but a palpable with those who agree best with themselves. offence against truth and reason, drew a Of these his new friends it will be just and parallel between the Heathen doctrines in the proper to give some short account. Somnium Scipionis of Cicero, and the New-chief of them was Mr. Watson, whom I tonian philosophy; which he published, but have already mentioned. Another of them without his name, in the year Î751; all the was Dr. Hodges, the Provost of Oriel Colparticulars of which parallel I shall not un- lege; who composed a work, to which he dertake to justify. I see its faulty flights gave the title of Elihu; the chief subject of and wanderings, from a want of more mature it being the character of Elihu in the book judgment and experience. It provoked sev- of Job. The style of it has great dignity and eral remarks, some in print, and some in stateliness, without being formal; and is, at the manuscript; of which remarks the judgment same time, clear and easy to be understood. was not greater, and the levity not less. The Dr. Hodges was undoubtedly a very great question was in reality too deep for those master of his pen; but, having declared who attempted to fathom it at that time. Mr. himself without reserve in favor of Mr. Horne soon saw the impropriety of the style Hutchinson's doctrines, his work was viruand manner, which as a young man he had lently assaulted, and grossly misrepresented. assumed for merriment in that little piece: Of this he complained; as he might well do: these were by no means agreeable to the con- and what did he get by it? He was told, in stitution of his mind and temper. He there- return, that a writer upon the book of Job fore observed a very different manner after- should take every thing with patience! His wards; and, as soon as he had taken time to book, however, went into a second edition. bethink himself, he resumed and reconsidered He was a man of a venerable appearance, the subject; publishing his sentiments in 1753 with an address and delivery which made (the year after that in which he had taken him very popular as a preacher in the univerhis degree of M. A.) in a mild and serious sity. pamphlet, which he called A fair, candid, and impartial State of the Case between Sir Isaac Newton and Mr. Hutchinson: allowing to Sir Isaac the great merit of having settled laws and rules in natural philosophy; but at the same time claiming for Mr. Hutchinson the discovery of the true physiological causes, by which, under the power of the Creator, the natural world is moved and directed. The piece certainly is, what it calls itself, fair, candid. and impartial; and the merits of the cause are very judiciously stated between the two parties; in consequence of which, a reader will distinguish that Newton may be of sovereign skill in measuring forces as a mathematician, and yet that Hutchinson may be right in assigning causes as a physiologist. It would carry me out too far, if I were to show by what arguments and evidence Mr. Horne has supported this distinction. For these I must refer to the pamphlet itself,

See p. 243, &c. of the old edition; beginning with the account of Woodward's conduct.

The learned Provost of Oriel, so far as it occurs to me, was the first who with a strong hand sounded the alarm-bell against those speculations and their consequences, which have now prevailed to the overthrow of the church and kingdom of France. A piece entitled Les Maurs (Manners) was published there in the year 1748; the tendency of which was to establish natural religion on the ruins of all external worship, and so to free the world from all laws, human and divine; that man might be guided by nothing but the light of his own mind. This was burned by the hangman at Paris; the soil, as Dr. Hodges observed, being not quite, though nearly, prepared for the reception of these tares. The country and the climate chosen by the writer, were certainly promising, on this consideration, that superstition and irreligion are generally observed to be the

*This pamphlet, together with another entitled of Oxford, is now added to the present collection of An Apology for certain Gentlemen in the University

his works.

reciprocal causes and effects of each other. | and would bear a long dispute, into which I Against the principles and spirit of this shall not enter: but this must be said in reundertaking, the author of Elihu was so spect to Mr. Horne, that when he first commuch in earnest, that he gave an abridgment menced his theological studies, he derived of the work from a French copy which he many real advantages from his acquaintance procured for that purpose. I could here stop with this gentleman; and I could name one with great pleasure, if it were proper, to ex- of his most shining and useful discourses, tract some of the evidence so powerfully which, in the main argument of it, was taken urged against all such attempts by this from some loose papers of remarks on Warlearned gentleman: but 1 must refer the burton's Divine Legation; to the principles reader to his Preliminary Discourse. It is, of which this learned gentleman, for many however, a fact never to be neglected, which good reasons which he spared not to give, he and others have ascertained by abundant was a zealous adversary. To say the truth, authority, that "all the religion of the there was little cordiality on either side beHeathen world was traditional revelation tween the renowned writer of the Divine corrupted:" which, if it can be made good, Legation and the readers of Mr. Hutchinson. overthrows at once all the modern theories On most subjects of religion and learning, of infidelity. their opinions were irreconcilable. He de

railed at them as Cabbalistical; and they despised his empirical divinity; while, at the same time, they dreaded the ill effect of it, from the boldness of the man, and the popularity of his books, which have a great flash of learning, but with little solidity and less piety. To the purity of Christian literature they have certainly done, and are still doing, much hurt. When the first volume of the Divine Legation was shown to Dr. Bentley (as his son-in-law, the late Bishop Cumberland told me) he looked it over, and then observed of the author to his friend-This man has a monstrous appetite, with a very bad digestion.* In justice to Mr. Holloway, whatever might be said against him, it must be said for him, that he was a sound classical scholar, who had gone farther than most men into the mysteries of the Greek philosophy; and to an attentive study of the Christian fathers had added great skill in the Hebrew and Arabic languages; such as qualified him

The Rev. Mr. Holloway, rector of Middle-spised their doctrines and interpretations, and ton-Stoney, in Oxfordshire, had been a private tutor to Lord Spencer, in the house of the Honorable John Spencer, his father; who, with all his extravagances, never failed to preserve due respect to Mr. Holloway,* and listened to him with attention, when he conversed freely with the company at his table. This gentleman had been personally acquainted with Mr. Hutchinson, and had published an elementary piece in favor of his philosophical principles. But he was better known in the University of Oxford by three excellent discourses on the Doctrine of Repentance, with a Supplement in answer to the perverse glosses of Tindal, the freethinker. The vice-chancellor of that time took a pique against him for dropping a hint, in his Supplement against Tindal, that the person of Melchizedec was an exhibition of Christ before his incarnation. This was no novel opinion: it had been advanced by others, before and after the reformation; and in them the doctrine had given no offence. But Mr. Holloway, being a man suspected and proscribed on some other accounts, met with some hard and unworthy treatment upon the occasion: yet to avoid a misunderstanding with the whole university, when only some individuals were concerned, he suppressed what he had written in his own defence. His scheme for an Analysis of the Hebrew language, though it comprehends a vast compass of learning, is partly fanciful,

*This was written before I had a sight of the learned Bishop Hurd's Life of Dr. Warburton, lately published, in which such sublime praises are bestowed on the Alliance, the Divine Legation, and other works of that fanciful but very ingenious projector of unfounded theories. Though I honor the character of Bishop Hurd, and admire every thing he writes, my opinion of the usefulness of the works of Dr. Warburton is very little changed by what I have seen. I am still persuaded, that neither religion nor learning will ever derive much benefit, nor the Christian world any considerable edification

from the works of that famous writer: neither will *A military gentleman, who was sometimes of they probably derive any great harm; because, it is the party, remarked to a friend, that the strictest apprehended, the reading of Bishop Warburton's decorum was always observed, whenever Mr. Hollo-books will hereafter be much less than it hath been. way, who supported the dignity of his profession, The Methodists despised him for a part of his was present; while another clergyman, who thought Christian character, as much as he depised them for to recommend himself by laying aside the clerical a part of their character; and both had equal reacharacter, was treated with little ceremony, and son. His learning is almost as much unlike to held in sovereign contempt; from which he natu- Christianity, as their Christianity is unlike to learnrally inferred, that the clergy would not fail to meeting. I forbear to indulge any farther reflections on with proper respect, if it was not their own fault. so critical a subject.