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 every thing 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. This declaration, however clear it may be to me, is more than some of my readers will be willing to admit, or able to bear. I perceive, by what has been written, that, if it can be effected, bishop Horne must be taken away from the Hutchinsonians: or, if that cannot be done, his character must not be set too high; we must beware of exaggeration; he must be represented as good and pious, rather than wise or great. This comes not from the truth but from the times: and it is what we must expect to hear, till the times shall alter, and a few stumbling-blocks shall be removed out of the way. After what I had related, with so little disguise, concerning the early studies of doctor 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.

But, while I heard some things which were unpleasant, I heard others which gave me encouragement. For, though it was 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 judgement, 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 judgement 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 labour 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 out 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? The 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 analogy is not permitted to us, is that of the light; but it holds in this case as strictly as in the other for our Saviour calls himself the "true light, which

lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" and a prophet calls him "the sun of righteousness." All the men of this world who have light, have it from the same sun; and all that have the light of life, have it from the same Saviour. And the operations and attributes of the true light in the kingdom of grace are the same as those of the light in the natural world. We took the authority of bishop Andrews in the former example; we may now take that of archbishop Leighton; who sees the analogy between the natural and divine light-first, in their

* See Sermon V. of archbishop Leighton's eighteen.