we have then too much reason to apprehend, | are able to reconcile it with the wisdom of that the spirit of life, which is still to be Greek and Roman authors. He was rather found, even in the worst copies and poorest of opinion, with a certain writer, that the editions, will be less regarded and under- Bible will explain all the books in the world, stood. We should have but a mean opinion of the gardener, who should always be clearing and raking his borders, but never raising anything from them to support the life of man. Thus, if collating ends in collation, the tendency of it may be bad, though it be ever so well executed and I believe this was, at the bottom of the chief objection against it in the mind of Mr. Horne. He was shy of speaking too plain, through a fear of giving offence; but the time has now many greater dangers than that of offending some few modern critics and editors. us, I relate it as a singular occurrence, that when the mind of Mr. Horne was first filled with the design of commenting upon the Pslams, he should meet with a traveller in a stage-coach, who was in principle the very reverse of himself. The man gave his judgment with all freedom on all subjects of divinity, and among the rest on the use of the Psalms in the service of the church. The Psalms of David, he said, were nothing to and he thought other compositions might be substituted, which were much more to the purpose than David's Psalms. He happened to be speaking to a person, who could see deeper than most men into the ignorance and folly of his discourse, but was wise enough to hear him with patience, and leave him to proceed in his own way. Yet this poor man was but the pattern of too many more, who want to be taught again, that David was a Prophet, and speaks of the Messiah where he seems to be speaking of himself; as the tle St. Peter taught the Jews, in the second chapter of the Acts, and thereby converted three thousand of them at once to the belief of Christ's resurrection. apos but wants rot them to explain it. St. Paul Quum prorepserunt primis animalia terris HOR. It was a doctrine of the Heathen poets that men, when first made, were without speech, creeping on all four like beasts, living upon acorns, and lodging like swine in a forest: whereas, when we consult the Bible, we find the first man conversing with his Maker, placed under a state of instruction and probation, and in a condition but little lower than an angel. What must the consequence be, when an attempt is made to reconcile these two accounts, and melt them down together? Yet was this actually done by the learned Dr. Shuckford, as it may be seen in the last written Preface to his Connection; where the history of Adam, and of Eve, and of Paradise, and the intercourse of man with his Creator, is commented upon and illustrated from Ovid, and Tully, and Mr. Pope's poetical system of deism, called an Essay on Man; till the whole is involved in obscurity, and becomes even childish and insignificant; as if it had been the design of the critic to expose the sacred history to the contempt of blasphemers and infidels. This abuse of learning Mr. Horne could not see without a mixture of grief and indignation: he is therefore supposed to be the person who, in a little anonymous pamphlet, made his remarks on this unworthy manner of handling the Scripture. While he was young, his zeal was ardent, and his strictures were There is another modern way ot criticising upon the Scripture, to which Mr. Horne had no great affection, as thinking it could never be of much service: I mean that custom, which has prevailed since the days of Grotius, of justifying and illustrating the things revealed to us in the Scripture from heathen authorities. I had seen too much of this among some of my acquaintance, persons of no mean learning, but who, instead of employing themselves in the more successful labor of comparing spiritual things with spiritual, in order to understand them, were diligent in collecting parallel passages from Heathen authors, to compare them with the ed. Yet I can never persuade myself, that Scripture; as if the sun wanted the assistance it was the intention of Dr. Shuckford to of a candle; or the word of God was not put a slight upon the Bible; though he cerworthy to be received, but so far only as we * See Acts, xvii. 23. 28. unreserv tainly has made the Mosaic account as ridiculous in simplicity, as Dr. Middleton did in malice. I rather think he was betrayed into the mistake by a prevailing custom of the age. When the learned are less studious of the Scripture, and become vain of other learning, it may easily be foreseen how the Scripture must suffer under their expositions; and, if they do not foresee it, we would refer them for evidence to the Supplemental Discourse on the Creation and Fall of Man, by Dr. Shuckford. The reformer who dares to censure a corrupt practice, can never be well received by the parties who are in fault. This was the lot of Mr. Horne and his friends. The candle which they had lighted at the Scripture, and held up to show some dangers and absurdities in modern learning, was blown out, and they themselves were accused as persons of great zeal and little understanding. How often do we see that when men should be reformed, and are not, they are only provoked past remedy! This being, upon the whole, but an unpleasant subject, I shall proceed to one that will entertain us better. thought it more advisable to throw the matter out of that form, and cast an abridgment of the whole into the form of Considerations; on which performance I have already spoken my mind, and, I believe, the mind of every competent judge, in the beginning of this work. (See Pref. Epist.) I can only say here, that if there be any Christian reader who wishes to know what a saint is, and aspires to be one himself, let him keep before his eyes that beautiful and finished picture of St. John the Baptist, to the executing of which but one person of the age was equal. But behold how this was described by the Critical Reviewers of the time! "In the Considerations," they say, "there are some judicious and solid remarks relative to practice, but nothing to engage the attention of a curious, inquisitive, or critical reader." They might have said the same of the Sermon on the Mount. It looks as if they would have been better pleased with a dissertation upon the manner in which the wild honey was made and collected for John to eat,* properly interspersed with quotations from A letter of July the 25th, 1755, informed Athenæus and other authors, to show the me that Mr. Horne, according to an estab- learning of the writer, and that, perhaps, but lished custom at Magdalen College, in Ox- impertinently introduced. When there is a ford, had begun to preach before the univer-party always ready, and always upon the sity, on the day of St. John the Baptist. For watch to hinder the success of every good the preaching of this annual sermon a permanent pulpit of stone is inserted into a corner of the first quadrangle; and, so long as the stone pulpit was in use (of which I have been a witness) the quadrangle was furnished round the sides with a large fence of green boughs, that the preaching might more nearly resemble that of John the Baptist in the wilderness; and a pleasant sight it was but for many years the custom hath been discontinued, and the assembly have thought it safer to take shelter under the roof of the chapel. Our forefathers, it seems, were not so much afraid of being injured by the falling of a little rain, or the blowing of the wind, or the shining of the In this example we have two very different modes sun upon their heads. The preacher of 1755 of treating the Scripture. No man that loves learning will condemn the critical disquisitor: let him pleased the audience very much by his man- pursue his inquiries; there is no harin in them: but ner and style, and all agreed that he had a when he presumes, as from an upper region, to disvery fine imagination; but he was not very mendation, he pays too great a compliment to his dain the Christian divine as unworthy of all comwell pleased with the compliment. As a own importance, and raises a very just suspicion Christian teacher, he was much more de- against his own religious principles. The case of sirous that his hearers should receive, and Zaccheus is considered in the Christian way by understand, and enter into the spirit of the Bishop Hall, (see Mr. Glasse's edition, vol. ii. p. doctrines he had delivered; but in this he 219,) and matter enough for the critical way may be found in the Voyages of Frederic Hasselfound them slower than he wished, and quist, p. 129, et alib. The same inquisitive person laments it heavily in a private letter. Two was, as he tells us, very solicitious to discover what sermons on the subject of St. John the Bap-kind of tree in particular David had his eye upon tist were printed, and many others succeeded if his expressions, as they seem, have an allusion to which were not printed: for the author, at the Tree of Life. See our author's Commentary on last, on a review of what he had done, the first Psalm; who inclines to this opinion. * Many examples might be given, to illustrate the distinction between Christian divinity, by which men are edified, and curious divinity, by which they Gospel, Luke, xix. 4. that Zaccheus climbed up into are only amused and entertained. We read in the a sycamore tree, to see Jesus pass by, and was led by tnat circumstance to repentance and salvation. When this case is considered by the Christian didesiring to see the Saviour of the world, and the vine, he dwells upon the circumstance of Zaccheus's inestimable blessing of being called by him, as Zaccheus was, to a state of salvation. But when the curious divine hears that Zaccheus climbs up into a tree, he climbs up after him; not to see what he saw, but to examine the nature of the tree, and ascertain to what species of plants, botanically considered, it properly belongs. in the first Psalm: which never can be discovered, on Enoch, the third on Noah. Of these 1 have the copy, and hope it will be published. Whoever looks at them, will wish he had lived to satisfy his mind about all the rest. They would certainly have been improved by such a revision; yet, perhaps, not so much as he supposed. First thoughts, upon a favorite subject, are warm and lively; and the language they bring with them is strong and attempt, and mislead the ignorant on subjects | life, however, he set about it, but got no of the first importance, such a writer as the farther than through the third discourse. The author of those Considerations had little first is on the Character of Abel, the second chance of escaping. Their artifices had been so well observed and understood by him, that he was able to predict their proceedings. When I had printed a discourse on the Mosaic distinction of animals in the book of Leviticus, which had cost me much research and meditation, under the title of Zoologia Ethica, in which I had traced the moral intention of that curious institution, he foretold me how it would be represented to the pub-natural; but prudence is apt to be cold and lic; that the critics would select some part timorous; and, while it adds a polish, takes of the work, which was either ambiguous in away something from the spirit of the comitself, or might be made so by their manner position. of exhibiting it, and give that as a specimen of the plan, to discourage the examination of it. "The passage," said he, "at page 19, &c., about the camel and the swine will probably be selected by the reviewers, given to the reader without a syllable of the evidence, and then the whole book dismissed with a sneer." In a few months after, his prediction was so exactly verified, that one would have suspected him to have been in the secret. "If you look into the Critical Review, you will be tempted to think I wrote the article on the Zoologia, to verify my own prediction. Without giving the least account of your plan, and the arguments by which it is so irrefragably supported and demonstrated, the give the very passage about the swine and the camel, and conclude the whole scheme to be visionary and problematical, as they phrase it."* Thus is a malignant party gratified, and the public is beguiled by false accounts: the deception may continue for a time; but truth and justice generally take place at last. There is a portion of the New Testament, very interesting and full of matter, on which the author of the Considerations, soon after he was in holy orders, bestowed much thought and labor. I mean the eleventh chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews. On this he composed at least twenty sermons, which are all excellent; but being more agreeable to the spirit of the first ages than of the present, he was not forward, though frequently solicited, to give them to the world. He objected, that they wanted to be reviewed with a more critical eye, and even to be recomposed; and that this would be a work of time. Toward the latter end of his The date of the letter from which this extract is taken is Feb. 12, 1772. The work, thus unfairly treated, I sent to the learned Bishop Newton, a writer of profound skill in the language of the Scripture; who allowed that I had proved the moral intention of that law which is the subject of it. But the greatest work of his life, of which he now began to form the design, was a Commentary on the whole Book of Psalms. In the year 1758, he told me how he had been meditating on the Book of Psalms, and had finished those for the first day of the month, upon the following plan: 1. An analysis of the Psalm, by way of argument. 2. A paraphrase on each verse. 3. The substance digested into a prayer. "The work," said he, "delights me greatly, and seems, so far as I can judge of my own turn and talents, to suit me the best of any I can think of. May he, who hath the keys of David, prosper it in my hand; granting me the knowledge and utterance necessary to make it serviceable to the church!" Let any person of judgment peruse the work, and he will see how well the author has succeeded, and kept up the spirit of it to the end. His application of the book of Psalms is agreeable to the testimony so repeatedly given to it, and the use made of it, in the New Testament. This question is stated and settled beyond a doubt, in a learned preface to the work. The style is that of an accomplished writer; and its ornaments distinguish the vigor of his imagination. That all readers should admire it as I do, is not to be expected; yet it has certainly met with great admiration; and I have seen letters to him, from persons of the first judgment, on the publication of the book. It will never be neglected, if the church and its religion should continue; for which he prayed fervently every day of his life. When it first came from the press, Mr. Daniel Prince, his bookseller at Oxford, was walking to or from Magdalen College with a copy of it under his arm. "What have you there, Mr. Prince?" said a gentleman who met him. This, sir, is a copy of Dr. Horne's Psalms, just now finished. The President, sir, began This plan he afterwards thought proper to alter, and, as it is judged, for the better. to write very young: but this is the work in | retirement; and I can scarcely wish a greater which he will always live." In this Mr. blessing to the age, than that it may daily be Prince judged very rightly: he will certainly better known and more approved. live in this work; but there are many others of his works, in which he will not die, till all learning and piety shall die with him. His Commentary on the Psalms was under his hand about twenty years. The labor to which he submitted in the course of the work, was prodigious; his reading for many years was allotted chiefly to this subject; and his study and meditation together produced as fine a_work, and as finely written, as most in the English language. There are good and learned men who cannot but speak well of the work, and yet are forward to let us know that they do not follow Dr. Horne as an interpreter. I believe them; but this is one of the things we have to lament: and, while they may think this an honor to their judgment, I am afraid it is a symptom that we are retrograde in theological learning. The author was sensible that, after the pleasure he had received in studying for the work, and the labor of composing and correcting, he was to offer what the age was ill prepared to receive. This put him upon his guard; and the work is in some respects the better for it, in others not so good; it is more cautiously and correctly written, but perhaps not so richly furnished with matter as it might have been. Had he been composing a novel, he would have been under none of these fears his imagination might then have taken its course without a bridle, and the world would have followed as fast as he could wish. About the time when it was published, that systematical infidel, David Hume, died. It had been the aim of his life, to invent a sort of philosophy that should effect the overthrow of Christianity. For this he lived; and his ambition was to die, or be thought to die, hard and impenitent, yea, and even cheerful and happy, to show the world the power of his own principles; which, however, were weakly founded, and so inconsistent with common sense, that Dr. Beattie attacked and demolished them in the life-time of the author. Special pains were taken by Hume himself, and by his friends after him, to persuade the world that his life, at the last stage of it, was perfectly tranquil and composed; and the part is so labored and over-acted, that there is just cause of suspicion, even before the detection appears. Dr. Horne, whose mind was ever in action for some good end, could not sit still and see the public so imposed upon. He addressed an anonymous Letter to Dr. Adam Smith from the Clarendon press; of which the argument is so clear, and the humor so easy and natural, that no honest man can keep his countenance while he reads it, and none but an infidel can be angry. While Dr. Adam Smith affects to be very serious and solemn in the cause of his friend Hume, the author of the Letter plays them both off with wonderful effect. He alludes to certain anecdotes concerning Mr. Hume, which are very inconsistent with the account given in his Life; for at the very period, when he is reported not to have suffered a moment's abatement of his spirits, none of his friends dared to mention the name of a certain author in his presence, lest it should throw him into a transport of passion and swearing: a certain indication that his mind had been greatly hurt; and nobody will think it was without reason, if he will read the Essay on Truth by Dr. Beattie; which is not only a confutation of Hume's philosophy; it is much more; it is an extirpation of his principles, and delivers them to be scattered like stubble by the winds. The first edition in quarto was published in the year 1776, when the author was vicechancellor; and it happened, soon after its publication, that I was at Paris. There was then a Christian University in the place! and I had an opportunity of recommending it to some learned gentlemen who were members of it, and understood the English language well. I took the liberty to tell them, our church had lately been enriched by a Commentary on the Psalms, the best, in our opinion, that had ever appeared, and such as St. Austin would have perused with delight, if he had lived to see it. At my return the The Letter to Dr. Adam Smith, like the author was so obliging as to furnish me with Essay of Dr. Beattie, has a great deal of truth, a copy to send over to them as a present; recommended by a great deal of wit; and if and I was highly gratified by the approbation the reader has not seen it, he has some pleawith which it was received. With those sure in store. We allow to the memory of who could read English, it was so much in request, that I was told the book was never out of hand; and I apprehend more copies were sent for. Every intelligent Christian who once knows the value of it, will keep it, to the end of his life, as the companion of his Dr. Adam Smith, that he was a person of quick understanding and diligent research, in things relating merely to this world; of which, his Inquiry into the Causes of the Wealth of Nations will be a lasting monument; and it is a work of great use to those who would obtain a comprehensive view of business and commerce: but when he set up Mr. Hume as a pattern of perfection, and judged of all religion by the principles of that philosopher, he was very much out of his line. it may be as criminal to act for the preservation of life, as for its destruction: that as life is so insignificant and vague, there can be no harm in disposing of it as we please: that there can be no more crime in turning a few ounces of blood out of their course (that is, The Letter was followed in course of time in cutting one's throat,) than in turning the by Letters on Infidelity; which are very in- waters of a river out of their channel. What structive and entertaining, and highly proper is murder? it is nothing more than turning for the preventing or lessening that respect a little blood out of its way. And so the which young people may conceive unawares Irishman said, by the same figure of rhetoric, for unbelieving philosophers. It has been that perjury was nothing more than kissing a objected by some readers of a more severe book, or, as he worded it, smacking the calvetemper, that these Letters are occasionally skin. This is the sage Mr. Hume! whom too light and I must confess I should have Dr. Adam Smith delivers to the world, after been as well pleased if the story of Dr. Rad- his death, as a perfect character; while a man cliffe and his man had been omitted; but of plain sense, who takes things as they are, there is this to be said, that these are not ser- would think it impossible that any person, mons, but familiar letters; that Dr. Horne who is not out of his mind, should argue at considered the profession of infidelity as a this rate. Mr. Hume seems to me to have thing more ridiculous and insignificant in borrowed from the school of the old Pyritself than some of his learned readers might rhonists much of that system which he is do; that, as it appeared in some persons, it supposed to have invented. They made all was really too absurd to be treated with things indifferent, and doubted of everything, seriousness; and, as Voltaire had treated reli- that there might be nothing true or real left gion with ridicule instead of argument, and to disturb them. The chief good they aimed had done infinite mischief by it, justice re- at in everything, was what they called arapaia quired that he and his friends should be treated a state of undisturbance or tranquillity, in a little in their own way. Besides, as infidels have nothing to support them but their vanity, let them once appear as ridiculous as they are impious, and they cannot live. They can never approve themselves, but so far only as they are upheld and approved by other people. To treat them with seriousness (as Watson has treated Gibbon) is to make them important; which is all they want. The opinions of Mr. Hume, as they are displayed in these Letters, are many of them ridiculous from their palpable absurdity: but, it must be owned, they are sometimes horrible and shocking; such as, that man is not an accountable but a necessary agent; consequently that there is no such thing as sin, or that God is the author of it: that the life of a man and the life of an oyster are of equal value :‡ that In his preface to these Letters, the author has endeavored to obviate this objection; and we think he has done it very sufficiently. One of the severest reflections that ever came from the pen of Dr. Horne, was aimed, as I suppose, at this Mr. David Hume; yet it is all very fair. This philosopher had observed, that all the devout persons he had ever met with were melancholy; which is thus answered: "This might very probably be; for, in the first place, it is most likely, that he saw very few, his friends and acquaintance being of another sort; and, secondly, the sight of him would make a devout person melancholy at any time." These Letters are a demonstration that all devout persons are not melancholy. which the mind cares for nothing; and it was the ambition of Mr. Hume to be thought to have lived and died in this state; but by all accounts his araçağıa was not quite perfect.* substance of which all living creatures equally Principio cœlum, ac terras, camposque liquentes, volantum. And in Mr. Pope's Essay on Man: All are but parts of one stupendous whole, Whose body Nature is, and God the soul, &c. Ep. i. 267, &c. What follows is in exact conformity with the principle of Virgil, and of our philosophical deists. * Pliny the natural historian has rightly observed, that philosophers, through the affectation of apathy, divested themselves of all human affections; that this was the case with Diogenes the cynic, Pyrrho, Heraclitus, and Timon of Athens; the last of whom actually sunk into a professed hatred of all mankind. "Exit hic animi tenor aliquando in rigorem quemdam, torvitatemque naturæ duram et inflexibilem; adfectusque humanos adimit, quales apathes, Græei vocant, multos ejus generis experti." Nat. Hist. lib. It is a fundamental doctrine in the creed of materialism, that nature consists of matter and a living | vii. c. 19. |
