As to other books which may fit you for the discharge of your duty, Mr. Hooker, Bp. Sanderson, Bp. Pearson, Bp. Stillingfleet, Dr. Jackson, and Archbishop Tillotson, cannot be read too often. Happy is the man that can form his style upon the last of these; and, in plain practical preaching, upon the rational, instructive, and familiar way of the Whole Duty of Man, and Bishop Blackall. I had rather you should be told by any other person, that the time may not be quite lost which is employed in casting an eye now and then upon my Boyle's Lectures, my volume of Sermons, printed in 1700, and Comments upon the Epistles and Gospels, for the course of the whole year. I am sure, at least, that will be well spent which you bestow on Scot's Christian Life, and Lucas's Inquiry after Happiness, and Sherlock's Treatises of Death, Judgment, and Providence.

There is a French Testament, in 4 volumes 8vo, the very book of Quesnell, which hath made such a bustle of late, by giving rise to the famous Bull Unigenitus, which if you are not master of the French, may be had translated into English. This abounds with many excellent reflections, both moral and devotional; and though some there might better have been saved (which a person of your parts and attainments will find no difficulty to distinguish from the rest); yet upon the whole, the book may do great service to a discerning reader, both for framing in himself a religious temper of mind, and for instructing others in their duty.

Your country I know, swarms with Papists and Dissenters. For maintaining your ground against the former, I know not a shorter or more effectual way than to make yourself master of the tracts written against them in the reign of King James II. and for the latter, besides Hooker and Sanderson, the London Cases against the Dissenters, and Bishop Stillingfleet's Unreasonableness of Separation, as to the Discipline part; and as to the Doctrinal, besides Dr. Jackson, Bishop Bull of Justification, Clagett upon the Operations of the Spirit, and the Collection of Tracts concerning Predestination and Providence, printed at Cambridge, 1719, are excellently good. I mention only these several authors above, as fit to be studied, without enlarging upon Ecclesiastical History, Fathers, or Casuistical Divinity, which will naturally hereafter fall into your way, because at present I design to recommend what may soon lay a sure foundation for a true Church of England divine. And supposing you think, as I do, that it is high time to have done, Į will only add one word more about preaching, which is, that you would not disdain to do it in as low and familiar,

provided always it be in a clear and proper, language as you can possibly contrive. The more you converse with the common people, the more you will find the necessity of this advice, and depend upon it, the more intelligible to the meanest, the more acceptable you will be to the best and most judicious of your hearers.

I take for granted you will expound the Catechism frequently; and if you suffer yourself, after having digested the heads of what you would say, to enlarge extempore, this perhaps may be better both for you and those you instruct, than a set and elaborate discourse,

The same way of talking off-hand will be likewise necessary in your visits to the sick, for which you may reap some benefit from a little book written in Latin by Dr. Stearne of Ireland. Many things more might probably occur, had I opportunity of conversing with you.

In the mean time I only add, that you will do well so to demean yourself in all the offices of your function, that your people may think you are in very good earnest, and so to order your whole conversation, that they may be sure you are so. To which purpose, as you will have my hearty prayers, so I beg yours for your most affectionate cousin, 1792, May. GEO. STANHOPE.

LXXVII. Bp. Horne to a Young Clergyman.

DEAR

I AM much pleased to hear you have been for some time stationary at Oxford; a place where a man may best prepare himself to go forth as a burning and shining light into a world where charity is waxed cold, and where truth is well-nigh obscured. Whenever it pleases God to appoint you to the government of a parish, you will find work enough to employ you; and therefore, before that time comes, you should be careful to provide yourself with all necessary knowledge, lest, by-and-by, when you should be building, you should have your materials to look for, and bring together; besides, that the habit of studying and thinking, if it be not got in the first part of life, rarely comes afterwards. A man is miserably drawn into the eddy of worldly dissipation, and knows not how to get out of it again, till, in the end, for want of spiritual exercises, the faculties of the soul are beaumbed, and he sinks into indolence,

till the night cometh, when no man can work. Happy, therefore, is the man who betimes acquires a relish for holy solitude, and accustoms himself to bear the yoke of Christ's discipline in his youth; who can sit alone, and keep silence, and seek wisdom diligently where she may be found, in the Scriptures of faith, and in the writings of the Saints. From these flowers of Paradise he extracts the honey of knowledge and divine love, and therewith fills every cell of his understanding and affections. The winter of affliction, disease, and old age, will not surprise such an one in an unprepared state. He will not be confounded in the perilous time; and in the days of dearth he will have enough to strengthen, comfort, and support him and his brethren. Precious beyond rubies are the hours of youth and health! Let none of them pass unprofitably away, for surely they make to themselves wings, and are as a bird cutting swiftly the air, and the trace of her can no more be found. If wellspent, they fly to Heaven with news that rejoices angels, and meet us again as witnesses for us at the tribunal of our Lord. When the graces of the time run into the glories of eternity, how trifling will the labour then seem that has procured us (through grace) everlasting rest, for which the Apostles toiled night and day, and the Martyrs loved not their lives unto death!

These, my dear, are my sentiments; would to God my practice were more conformable to them than it is, that I might be less unworthy to advise and exhort others! But I trust the persuasion I have of the truth of what is said above (which every day's experience more and more confirms) will influence my conduct in this particular, and make me more watchful in time to come. In the mean season, I cannot forbear pressing the same upon you, as I should do with my dying breath; since upon the due proportioning and employing our time all our progress in grace and knowledge depends.

of

If there be any thing with regard to the choice or matter your studies in which I can assist you, let me know, as you can have no doubt of, my being, in all things, most affectionately yours,

1792, July.

G. HORNE.

LXXVIII. From Bp. Horne.

MR. URBAN, Nayland, Aug. 21, 1793. A GENTLEMAN with whom the late Dr. Horne, Bishop of Norwich, kept up a literary correspondence for many years, has preserved a very large and valuable collection of his letters. The following, which was written near thirty years ago, was the first we laid our hands upon by accident: but, being so remarkable in itself, and so suitable to the present times (for it is actually prophetical of the present state of France), we send it as a specimen of the style and manner of his private correspondence, and of the great subjects which were always uppermost in his mind. By giving it a place in your valuable Miscellany, you will probably gratify many of your friends, and oblige your constant reader,

W. J.

Coll. Mag. June 6, 1764.

"MY DEAR FRIEND, HAVE you heard yet from the Abbé Nolet? A friend saw, the other day, a letter from Sir James Macdonald, now at Paris with Lord Hertford, in which Sir James informed his correspondent, that the French philosophers liked Mr. Hume (secretary to the British ambassador) in the main very well; but disproved of certain religious prejudices not yet shaken off, which hindered him from aspiring to perfection. But this at first seems an irony, and a pretty strong one. But Sir James explains himself by adding, that the great men in France were, most of them, deep in Materialism, and had discarded the belief of God, which our worthy Scottish philosopher refused to do: "so that poor Hume," says Sir James, "who on your side of the water was thought to have too little religion, is here thought to have too much." Is not this a very amazing anecdote? Yet upon inquiry, I am apt to fear there is too much truth in the representation. D'Alembert, they tell me, is such a character, The Czarina sent for him to educate her children; but he would not go: he is a great favourite with the Prussian hero. Maupertuis was of the same sort. In short, so far as I can find, infidelity and republicanism have crossed the straits of Dover, and are more likely to subdue France than any other of her enemies. A young gentleman wrote to his father from Paris, that a notion prevailed, of

the government ere long intending to seize the religious houses, and send the monks after the Jesuits. And now we talk of Jesuits, an Englishman of that order, Thomas Phillips, has just published a quarto volume, being the first part of the Life of Cardinal Pole, printed here by Jackson. He is a writer of great learning and elegant taste. The character of his hero is a very amiable one; and he has introduced us to most of the celebrated Italian wits of that age, with whom Pole was intimate, as Sadolet, Bembo, Longolius, Contarini, &c. Sir Thomas More, and Bishop Fisher, appear with great lustre. King Henry VIII. Vicar-General Cromwell, poor Nanny Boleyn, Luther, Calvin, and the reformers, cut very sorry figures indeed. Erasmus has justice as a scholar, but is pronounced an Arian, a scoffer, a blasphemer. The last section, and it is the longest in the book, contains the proceedings and decrees of the council of Trent, where for some time Pole presided as legate. That council, Mr. Phillips gives us to understand, was composed of the most learned and holy fathers, who exhibited to mankind the most perfect plan of Christian doctrine and discipline, without advancing any thing but what had been in the church from the beginning. It was, in his opinion, a council which bore the nearest possible resemblance to that which met at Jerusalem. I observe, he denies the pope's deposing power, and pleads, as Pole himself ever did, against all sanguinary methods of propagating the Catholic religion. The book, I think, must make a great noise in the world, and is, at this time of day, a pretty extraordinary performance to be published in England with the author's name.

I have just finished my comment on the 92d Psalm; I am getting some of the work transcribed, to carry with me into Kent, by way of specimen. We must have much talk on the subject there, where I hope to find you comfortably settled in six weeks or two months. O! may the day come when we shall think no more of journeyings and removals, but sit down with the once-sojourning Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of God! for whose blessing on you and yours, now and ever, most fervently prayeth,

G. H."

P. S. To this letter give me leave to subjoin the following anecdote:-Two French noblemen were dining lately with a worthy baronet in this country; when one of them took the liberty of conversing loosely on some subjects of religion;