APPENDIX TO THE LIFE OF BISHOP HORNE, 77-86. The last letter of the Rev. Robert Wel- IN publishing the Memoirs of the Life of This declaration, however clear it may be to Dr. Horne, my intention was only to give a me, is more than some of my readers will be true idea of that good man, as it presented willing to admit, or able to bear. I perceive, itself to my memory and affections, and to by what has been written, that, if it can be produce an edifying book, rather than a for- effected, bishop Horne must be taken away mal history. I flatter myself it has done from the Hutchinsonians: or, if that cannot If be done, his character must not be set too some good; and I hope it may do more. any offence has been given, I can only say high; we must beware of exaggeration; he it was no part of my plan: but it is a com- must be represented as good and pious, rather mon fault with plain Christians, who know than wise or great. This comes not from little of the world, to tell more truth than is the truth, but from the times: and it is what wanted; and they have nothing left but a we must expect to hear, till the times shall good conscience, to support them under the alter, and a few stumbling-blocks shall be removed out of the way. After what I had mistake. related, with so little disguise, concerning the early studies of Dr. Horne, I could foresee that his character, excellent as it is, had a fiery trial to pass: I therefore prepared myself to see what I have seen. Some few exceptions have been made to the performance by little cavillers, which are not worth mentioning: but I brought myself into the most serious difficulty of all, by representing bishop Horne as a Hutchinsonian; which thing, it seems, ought not to have been done; as it was strongly suggested to me, from the late learned Dr. Farmer, while my work was in hand. On this matter I beg leave to explain myself a little. I never said, nor did I ever think, that bishop Horne owed everything to Hutchinson, or was his implicit follower. I knew the contrary: but this I will say, because I know it to be true, that he owed to him the beginning of his extensive knowledge; for such a beginning as he made placed him on a new spot of high ground; from which he took all his prospects of religion and learning; and saw that whole road lying before him, which he afterwards pursued, with so much pleasure to himself, and benefit to the world. VOL. I. 1 But, while I heard some things which were unpleasant, I heard others which gave For, though it was me encouragement. commonly reported that I had bestowed too many words upon a cause which neither required nor deserved them, one of the wisest men of this age, who is an host of himself, wished I had said more; it being a cause of which the world heard much, but knew little, and wanted to know more. I shall take this opportunity of satisfying their curiosity as faithfully as I can. But I find myself called upon, by the way, to justify the bishop against an unexpected accusation of a late author, who charges him with fancifulness and presumption; for what reason, and with how much justice, learning, and judgment, we shall see presently and I am glad this second edition was deferred, because the delay has given me an opportunity of seeing some things of which I ought not to be ignorant. In a New Biographical Dictionary, a life of Dr. Horne is inserted; the author of which speaks of him with as much caution as a man would handle hot coals. For what he is pleased to say of me, as a writer of doctor Horne's life, I am much obliged to him; and I think it more than I deserve or desire: but, I should be false to the bishop's memory, were I to allow his account of him to be either just or true. He gives him the praise of being a blameless man! (cold enough!) when they that have eyes to see, and judgment to discern, must discover him to be, both for matter and manner, one of the first orators and teachers this church can boast; and that he often displays a rich vein of wit, rarely indeed to be found in a man of so much sweetness and good temper. What a poor figure does Priestley make in the hands of the undergraduate! and the great philosopher Hume, in the letter to doctor Adam Smith! Where the bishop is reflected upon, for being a Hutchinsonian, it is allowed, nevertheless, that he might be partly right in his natural philosophy; though I do not understand the biographer's method of making it out; and I question whether he understood it himself. But then it is added, that “if he proceeded to a supposed analogy between material and immaterial things, and compared the agency of the Son and Holy Ghost to that of light and air in the natural world; it will surely be thought that he went upon very uncertain and fanciful, not to say presumptuous grounds." I thank him for speaking out. But is this true divinity? Is there then no analogy between things natural and divine? And have I been beating the air, and writing a volume, to prove and explain it, and demonstrate the great use and value of it; and has this author discovered at last, that there is no such thing? How mortifying is it to me to hear, that so much of the labor of my life has been thrown away! This analogy, which he will not suffer bishop Horne to suppose, without being fanciful and presumptuous, has been admitted and insisted upon, as plain and certain, by the best divines of the Christian church; who used it, and admired it, because they found it in the word of God: and it holds particularly in the two great objects of nature, air and light, where this modern divine (for such I suppose him) cannot see it himself, and will not permit us to see it without him. Was not the presence of the divine Spirit, on the day of Pentecost, announced to the senses of men by the "sound of a rushing, mighty wind?" Did not our Saviour, in his discourse with Nicodemus, illustrate the agency of the divine Spirit by that of the natural? "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Why did he communicate the Holy Ghost under the outward sign of breathing upon them, if no comparison is to be made between the sign and the thing signified? The word inspiration, which is the act of the Holy Ghost, denotes a blowing or breathing as of the air; and the name Spirit is common to the natural air and to the Holy Ghost. What is the meaning of all this? Does the word of God make comparisons, and put one thing for another; and shall we say, there is no analogy or likeness; that is, no sense nor propriety in the substitution? That would indeed be presumptuous, if not blasphemous: and the author would not have entangled himself in this manner, if he had not been frightened out of his wits at Hutchinsonianism. But, after all, to those who search for it, the analogy must instantly discover itself; and it hath been pointed to us without reserve, by a divine of the old school, bishop Andrews; who was in no fear of being called to an account for it by the learned of that age. In his first discourse, on the descent of the Holy Ghost, he has these words: "The wind, which is here the type of the Holy Ghost, doth of all creatures best express it: for, of all bodily things, it is the least bodily, and even invisible, as a spirit is. It is mighty or violent; seemingly of little force, and yet of the greatest: but never so vehement as the Spirit is in its proceedings. As the wind serveth for breath, so doth the Spirit give life, and is called the Spirit of life. As it serveth for speech, so doth the Spirit give utterance: and, as the one serveth for sound, so by the other the sound of the apostles went out into all lands." This, and more to the same purpose, saith bishop Andrews; and I call this true divinity: he was in no fear about types and analogies: he finds the analogy as strict as if the air had been created for this use. And what Christian, who reads his Bible, will find fault with bishop Horne, if he thought, and preached, as bishop Andrews did before him? This one was the delight of his times, and the other may continue to be the delight of our times; notwithstanding the censures which have been thrown out against him, with so little experience, that I am ashamed for the author of them. The other great object of nature, where the ture. All who do not know the use of this analogy is not permitted to us, is that of the grand speculum, are under the poverty of iglight: but it holds in this case as strictly as norance; they lose a great help to their faith, in the other for our Saviour calls himself the together with a great instrument for the im"true light, which lighteth every man that proving of their understanding; at least in cometh into the world ;" and a prophet calls spiritual things. What would divinity be, him "the sun of righteousness." "All the men and what can a teacher of it be, without the of this world who have light, have it from use of analogies, and the power we acquire the same sun; and all that have the light of when we argue from them? They are so life, have it from the same Saviour. And the universal in the Scripture, that a man may as operations and attributes of the true light in well read English without the alphabet, as the kingdom of grace are the same as those read the Bible without understanding its anof the light in the natural world. We took alogies. They are, therefore, never to be the authority of bishop Andrews in the former given up, but to be insisted upon, and recomexample; we may now take that of arch-mended to others, as the very life and soul bishop Leighton; who sees the analogy be- of Christian wisdom.* tween the natural and divine light :-first, in their purity; both are incapable of pollution: secondly, in their universality; both are imparted to all, without being diminished: thirdly, in their vivifying power; the one raises plants and vegetables from the earth, the other raises men from the dead: fourthly, in their dispelling darkness; all shadows fly before the sun; all the types and shadows of the law, all the mists of darkness and idolatry, at the appearance of the other, who is the light of the Gentiles and the glory of Israel; even that glory, which had been so often foreshowed to them: for, as the glory was in their tabernacle and filled it, so the fulness of the Godhead dwelt bodily in Christ: sdxnvwv Ev hu-he dwelt in a tabernacle amongst us. Is not this a just and beautiful analogy? And can there be any man of taste, who will not see and admire it? Is the Scripture fanciful in teaching it? And is this good bishop presumptuous in following it? It is a grief to me to be urging so many questions in so plain a case but wise men lay us under a cruel necessity, when they are in such a hurry to run away from doctrines, which they call Hutchinsonian, without knowing that they have been common to the Christian world; and that every master in Israel (supposing this gentleman to be of that character) is expected to have acquired, from a proper study of the Scripture, that experience which makes all these things plain, and enables us to see the spiritual in the natural world; the glass in which (dia, by means of which †) God hath been pleased to show us that and Himself, till we shall see him face to face; and not, as we do now, by reflection from the objects of na I would willingly have avoided a party name, being conscious that I am not a party man, but disposed to exercise an independent judgment and take what is good and useful from every quarter where I can find it, either for my own benefit or that of the public. If I can do good, I am willing to do it under any character which an honest man may wear. But my adversaries (who are not a few) have found such an advantage, for many years past, in giving me the name of a Hutchinsonian, that they will never part with it. So, as I am stamped with that name, I may speak freely, without losing any ground. Too many of the learned have shown an unusual propensity, for many years, to censure and reject every principle reported to be Hutchinsonian, without first knowing what it is, and what is to be said for it. The biographer, against whom I have defended bishop Horne, attacks him as a Hutchinsonian, without knowing that he was making his attack on that quarter where the Hutchinsonians are strongest; and this, not with weak arguments, but with no arguments at all; unless we can find one in the words—it will surely be thought-which is not an argument, but an appeal to the judgment of others who are under the same prejudice with himself. To prevent which for the time to come, and to satisfy those who, having heard some things to perplex them, would be glad of better information; I shall tell them, as well as I can, what the principles really are by which a Hutchinsonian is distinguished from other men. But when I consider, that this inquiry will lead us into some great, deep, and difficult subjects of which no man can speak worthily-and of which so many have spoken rashly-I tremble at my undertaking; and entreat every wise and good man to make allowances for me, at a stage of life when * For the bishop's sentiments on this subject, see the Life, p. 74. 75. |