confirming, illustrating, and enforcing the dictates of this sense, but as necessary for the redemption of mankind. This is quite after his distinguishing manner. In the 8th, he makes sympathy the natural parent of the social virtues; observing that God has implanted in man, not only the 'power of reason, which enables him to see the connection

and luminous galaxies of imagery diffused through the Works of Bishop Taylor, the mild and unsullied lustre of Addison, the variegated and expanded eloquence of Burke, the exuberance and dignified ease of Middleton, the gorgeous declamation of Bolingbroke, and the majestic energy of Johnson. But, if I were to do justice, my Lord, to the more excellent parts of your own writings and Warburton's, I should say that the English language, even in its widest extent, cannot furnish passages more strongly marked, either by grandeur in the thought, by felicity in the expression, by pauses varied and harmonious, or by full and sonorous periods. See the character of Bayle D. L. 1, 4. description of the inspectors general over clerical faith, p. 26. vol. 3, the different characters of eloquence p. 53, and 54, in the Doctrine of Grace, and above all, the representation of the Christian Church in the introduction to Julian edit. 1751. Instead of referring particularly to beautiful passages in Warburton's friend, I shall only say that some may be gleaned, here and there, even in his critical writings, that many are to be found in those, which treat of politics, and more, when he ascends to subjects of morality and religion." Tracts by Warburton and a Warburtonian p. 150. E. H. B.]

"In 1752, and 1753, he published two occasional Sermons, the one at the Assizes at Norwich, on the Mischiefs of Enthusiasm and Bigotry, and the other for the Charity-Schools at Cambridge; neither of which has been retained in his Works." Chalmers's Biogr. Dict. E. H. B.]

'between his own happiness and that of others, but also ' certain instincts and propensities, which make him feel it, and, without reflexion, incline him to take part in 'foreign interests. For, among the other wonders of our 'make, this is one, that we are so formed as, whether we 'will or no, to rejoice with them that rejoice, and to weep 'with them that weep.' And in the next Discourse he adduces this principle, as that natural corrective upon a conscious sense of dignity,' (leading by itself to an offensive, injurious pride,) which constitutes 'politeness;' and maintains that the perfection of our nature consists in the due operation of both these principles. His 10th Sermon, and the last in the volume, are fine examples of his 'toils in chasing the subtle.'" P. 165. "Oct. 14. Read the 3d and last volume of Hurd's Sermons. The first of these is of a very peculiar character: there is a pithy, sententious brevity of period, and deep earnestness of manner in it, strikingly different from what we meet with in any of the other Discourses. The fourth, in which he deduces the divinity of the Gospel from Never spake as this man;' and the seventh, its authenticity from We preach not ourselves but Christ Jesus the Lord,' are most powerful addresses. Such internal marks of truth, as are here forcibly exhibited, weigh more in my mind than all the external evidences of Christianity put together; and, for strokes of eloquence, what can be finer than this passage in the fourth? When a voice speaks, as from

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' heaven, it naturally turns our attention to that quarter; ' and when it speaks in inimitable thunder, it speaks, methinks, like itself, and in accents that cannot well be misunderstood,' judiciously prepared too, as this sublime ejaculation has been by what precedes it. For I feel,

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while I am transcribing the sentence, how much it suffers by this detached exhibition. In the fourteenth he divides the different cardinal principles, upon which the various systems of moral philosophy hinge, into 1. abstract truth, or the differences of things, 2. an instinctive moral sense, 3. private happiness; and intimates that these systems might be made to consist together, but maintains that they do little more than inform us what virtue is, while they slenderly provide for the practice of it :- He had his eye, here, on Warburton's D. L. 1, 4. In a note to his nineteenth Sermon he observes that Christianity is a religion founded, not on opinions, but facts; that the Apostles shewed by their sufferings that they knew what they attested to be a true fact; succeeding sufferers shewed that they believed it to be so. On the whole, I have never met with Discourses, which without yielding to the prevalent laxity of opinion, are so admirably adapted to work upon the reason and feelings of the age as these." P. 166.

"Sept. 29, 1799. Finished Hurd's Lectures on the Prophecies.* The same spirit of discrimination, which leads him, on some occasions, to distinguish too subtly, prompts him, however, on others, to view a question in all its phases, and not to content himself, as writers of a more sanguine temperament frequently do, with one leading circumstance, in the solution of a difficulty, where many ought to be taken into account as conspiring to solve it: he is often eminently happy in this respect. In the character of objector, he frequently proposes his objections in very irreverent, not to say, indecent terms.

* [In the Bibl. Parr. 58. Dr. Parr characterises the Introduction to the Study of the Prophecies as "very learned, argumentative, and elegant."

They certainly ought to be proposed strongly, and met as he meets them, directly and fairly, in their full force, without examination or evasion. His style, abating a few affected impurities from quaint idioms and colloquial cant, is really a fine one; and his account of Mede, in the 10th Discourse, is in every respect, in sublimity of conception, and in felicity, force, and grandeur of expressionworthy of Burke." P. 163.

SHIPLEY AND JORTIN.

"Oct. 1, 1799. Finished Bishop Shipley's Works, to the reading of which I had been powerfully recommended by Mackintosh. A vein of good sense, expressed in an original, unaffected, and frequently energetic and impressive manner, runs through the whole of these compositions. In religion I suspect the Bishop was a great latitudinarian.* In morals, though manifestly enamoured of

*[The suspicion reflects credit on the sagacity of Mr. Green; for the Rev. Wm. Field, a well-known Unitarian, thus writes in his Letters addressed to the Calvinistic Christians of Warwick, 1820. 154.: p. "Jonathan Shipley, D. D. Bishop of St. Asaph, was born in 1714, and died in 1788. His Works, consisting chiefly of Sermons and Charges, were published in 2 vols. 8vo. 1792. He is placed (in) among the number of those, who approved and adopted the Unitarian doctrine, rather from common report, derived originally perhaps from those, who personally knew him, and strongly confirmed by the general strain of his writings, than from any public or explicit declaration of his religious sentiments, which is anywhere left upon record."

In p. 152, Mr. Field thus speaks of Dr. Jortin; "John Jortin, D.D. so well known and so greatly distinguished as a writer, on various subjects of theology, ethics, and criticism;

the principle of utility as a standard of right and wrong, and applying this principle pretty largely, he still seems to cherish a salutary prejudice in favour of the manners and institutions of our forefathers. In politics, though espousing a side, which in a Prelate must always be admired, I confess he meddles more than I could wish; for

was no less highly estimated for the integrity and excellence of his character, displayed in all the relations of domestic and social life, and in his more public capacity, as a member of the Church and the State. He was a great friend to freedom of enquiry, and was in himself an amiable example of that charity, 'which consists in judging candidly and favourably of others;' and which he inculcated so forcibly as a preacher and an author; especially in the third of his ingenious and beautiful Dissertations. He was not one of those, who think that the first reformers reached the point of perfection; and therefore he was a sincere, though, like his own ERASMUSs, a somewhat timid and cautious advocate for those further reforms and improvements in our ecclesiastical institutions, which the changes of time demand, and the progressive advancement of mankind, as moral and social beings, must require. His sentiments on some of the most interesting points of controversial divinity are nowhere explicitly declared in his writings; but it is certain that he rejected the Calvinistic doctrine of arbitrary predestination, and highly probable, if not certain, that he adopted the creed of Arius, in preference to that of Athanasius, 'to the doctrine, as well as to the curses of which,' says his biographer Dr. Disney, ' I imagine, he looked with no friendly eye; for, the one offended against the natural mildness of his temper, so the other stood out against every principle of reason, ' and every page of revelation.' What he thought of the need of reformation in the doctrine and the discipline of the Church, appears in many observations scattered throughout his writings;

as