LETTER LXV.

To A. Knox, Esq.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

Cashel, June 1. 1808.

I CANNOT let this large packet go to you, unaccompanied by a few lines; though, from a rheumaticobilious attack, I feel unable to write as I could wish, either in matter, manner, or length.

My journey was safe, but not prosperous : bad roads, and worse carriages, detained me; so that I was obliged to sleep a second night on the road. On reaching Cashel, however, I felt myself quite indemnified, by finding my friends well; and by being cordially received; and by learning, that all matters are in good train and especially, by perceiving, that home was not irksome, even after the matchless scenes, and the beloved friends, I had left behind. My first employment has been, to transcribe for Mrs. L, the sermon which she began to copy; in which, you will perceive, that I have paid some attention to your suggested alterations. To it, I have added the next sermon, as a suitable accompaniment; and I shall be much obliged by your conveying them, together with the enclosed note.

I have yet no opportunity of judging, whether I am improved by my absence. All that I can predicate of myself, is, that I am enabled to bear up with tolerable complacency, under a debilitating, and incapacitating frame of body; and, that I feel an earnest desire, when it shall please God to remove the inability, to be employed in his service.

I can, at present, only promise to write a letter, when in a better frame of body. Meantime, a few lines from you would rejoice

Your most obliged,

and affectionate Friend,

ON coming to town this day, I received yours; me from anxiety. I was afraid you were unwell.

and it relieved

I find I was

not altogether wrong; but I am happy to find, that it is only such an indisposition, as the state of the weather is sufficient to explain. Since I arrived, I saw Mrs. L-, and handed her your note, and its accompaniment. She desired me to assure you of her gratitude; and I feel myself more safe in doing so, than most persons are in a diplomatique trust.

I sympathize with you in the kindly feelings, that your meeting with your Cashel friends has excited; and I beg to be remembered to Messrs. and with sincere cordiality. I do hope and trust, you will be more and more happy; and, consequently, be fitted to lead others to happiness. In fact, I am as sure of it, as a creature conscious of shortsightedness of mind (far beyond the same creature's bodily shortsightedness) can be.

I had the pleasure of a letter from the invaluable Archbishop, the same time with yours; who says, 'Remember me to Jebb, to whom I have behaved with shameful neglect, though not, in reality, so ill, as it must appear to him; for I executed his commission, and sent the books to meet Major - at Holyhead; where I conclude they now are, he not having yet reached that place.'

The Archbishop encloses me a warm-hearted letter, written to him by Wilberforce, in consequence of a note from me. They have not yet met, but I think they will meet; and I am authorized to anticipate a right pleasant meeting; both being a little heretical about the R- C's. They may compare notes, while I meditate my schemes of revenge against both; against Mr. W., more than the Archbishop; for his Grace, to his honor be it spoken, was silent.

I was not a little struck, a day or two ago, with what I well remembered to have read before,.. the following passage in a quotation from Farrer's sermons, at the Bampton Lecture, on the Beatitudes. Eclec. Rev. for Aug. 1815.

'It deserves our attention, that, as they are formed on the model of certain introductory sentences in the Psalms, which pronounce a blessing on various dispositions; so, they are delivered, in the same sententious and proverbial style. Thence, they bear the complexion of the poetry of the Hebrews; which, in its prevailing character, is combined of parallel sentences; clauses, wherein proposition corresponds with proposition, and term is answerable to term. Thus, every sentence, in this series, is composed of two clauses; of which the former pronounces a certain disposition blessed; as the latter states, wherein this blessedness consists.' This is a curious coincidence. Farewell, and believe me, ever yours, ALEX. KNOX.

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LETTER 57.

To the Rev. J. Jebb.

Dublin, June 29. 1808.

MY DEAR FRIEND, YOUR letter has given me sincere pleasure, as it contains as good an account, as I could have reasonably expected. You say about poor Whitty, exactly what fits you to say: at the same time, the load of labor on you, is to be regretted. I hope it will not actually hurt you; and if it does not, it may do you good, though not consciously, while you are doing it. Whitty stays so long from Cashel, with great reluctance; and the moment he can venture to return, he will; all which you know.

I am glad you have taken that disporting walk, through the paths of the ancients. Your own idea, founded on the article in the Athanasian creed, I conceive very just: and I suppose, a particular attention to our Lord's manner of speaking respecting himself, would add still more and more strength to it. His language being, I imagine, always Оεαvолεлηs, except when he meant to conceal his real nature. If you have Nelson's Life of Bull, you will find the whole matter in debate largely expatiated on, (Sect. lvii. &c.) in the account of the Fidei Nicenæ Defensio; and, what is curious, Calvin appears to be the great antagonist of the ancient doctrine: what a universal innovator, that man was! and yet, it seems, that his zeal against the subordination, did not imply equal zeal for sameness of nature. See Orton's Letters to Dissenting Ministers, pages 189. and 196. (By the way, I could wish to see that tract of Fawcett's.) Thus, you see, the apparently highest ground, is not always the safest. But how natural was it, in Calvin, to take the ground, that excluded from his faith, what he so strongly rejected in practice; personally, no less than ecclesiastically. In fact, subordination, was not a term in John Calvin's vocabulary. But the worst of it was, that, by not allowing such an order in the Divine Essence, as would safely explain certain texts, which seem to exclude strict co-ordinateness, he created a necessity for himself, and his followers, to explain them, when accidentally occurring, in a manner, not strictly consistent with the co-essentiality: all which, however, evinces more and more, that calvinism, altogether, is a temporary scaffolding; which has so little firm work in it, as to need time, and its own weight only, at length to bring it down.

A new work, which has pleased the Archbishop much, which G― brought, and has left with me, and which you will see, as soon as the Archbishop reaches you, would convince me of the truth of this last position; if I wanted any fresh conviction. It is called 'Zeal without Innovation'; * and is meant as an apology for evangelical ministers and preaching. It is the work of a fair, good, ingenious, and liberal, mind. It concedes so much, as to the excesses and anomalies of those pleaded for, that I suspect they will give small thanks to their advocate; and yet it maintains enough of calvinism, to make it sure of having no effect, in conciliating one of the opponents. I do not believe the writer is a predestinarian, though not clear from puzzle even about that; but his calvinism lies in his notions about justification by faith; concerning which, he talks with superior incongruity, from the wish to make it palatable. More, in this way, than he has done, cannot be done: yet, I conceive, the attempt is only the more abortive. Nothing, therefore, that I ever saw, proves more to me the present increasing necessity, for some new, and sounder system. In describing the dilapidation of the establishment, (which he honestly loves, though imperfectly understood by him) he gives a strong, and deplorably just picture; but he offers nothing, which any but his own side, and but a very few of the more moderate of those, will deem a remedy. I need say no more of it, till you see it; except this only, that since filling the foregoing pages, I have read a section, with this title, of their (the evangelical ministers) insisting on the necessity of a change of heart' in which, there is, at once, actual excellence, and obvious defect: on the whole, it seems to be a link in a chain, no doubt well fitted to its place; and, compared with all I have seen before from the same quarter, wonderfully interesting and valuable.

Two editions of Law's Theory, the 4th and 7th, lie, at this moment, before me. At the 161st page of the 4th, and at the 178th page of the 7th, there is a note, which, by this double direction, you will easily find, that seems to me highly curious. The part I refer to, is a quotaton from Jeffery on the Philipians; followed by Law's own abbreviation of Jeffery's view; the whole of which, together, gives a progressive view, remarkably according, in all parts but the first and last, with our notion; and partially falling in with Villers in his sketch. The first period, he extends, you will see, from the commencement, to Saint Augustin; which he calls the period of simplicity: but neither our Lord, nor his apostles, were simple, in his sense; see beginning of the quotation; nor, after such simplicity had

By the late Reverend and excellent James Bean, afterwards a valued friend of the Bishop of Limerick: he died 'the death of the righteous', in 1826... ED.

commenced, did it continue more than two generations; Clemens Alexandrinus, clearly introducing a new system, as Villers has seen, and stated. The second period, is pretty accurately described; the third, with some justness, but indiscriminately, and over severely; the fourth, the most accurate of all; the fifth, a specimen of sutor ultra crepidum; yet still adding to the interest of the whole. But mark the still farther contraction : for, however erroneous, it is neat and ingenious. 1. Virtue and piety, &c. 2. Nature and grace, &c. 3. Church and sacrament, &c. 4. Christ and faith, &c. being a refinement upon the doctrine of the second period: well guessed; a modification, surely, but not a refinement. Even here, the old is better.' The concluding words about the fifth period, contain as ill-defined, and cloudy a hope, as could easily be expressed there is a truth in it, though not as he understood it.

and yet,

A thought struck me last night, which brought some new light with it. Compare carefully, Gal. iii. 19. with Deut. v. 5., and both, with Heb. viii. 1, 2. &c. especially 6., and then judge, whether Christ's mediatorship and priesthood, are not strictly distinguished from each other. Moses, being exclusively the type of the former; and Aaron, and his successors, of the latter; and the excellency of the service, which he performs as true Дovoros, arising from the excellency of the covenant, of which he is Meons: clearly, then, according to the obvious parallelism, it is as Aerovgyos, like the high priest within the sanctuary, that he acts on our behalf with God; and as clearly it is, as Meσuns, like Moses, that he is stated to act, on God's great business with us: that is, 'He stands between the Lord and us, to show us', most substantially and sublimely, the word of the Lord'; inasmuch as human nature must still be afraid, by reason of the fire'; and could not go 'up unto the mount.' Now, for the strictest, most apposite, and most beautiful expansion of Κρειττονος διαθήκης μεσιτης επι κρείττοσιν Exaɣeliais, read closely the third, and to the sixth verse inclusive, of fourth of II Corinthians. In my judgment, nothing could harmonize more exquisitely, than these different passages.

I thank you for the quotation. It is clearly as you say. The danger, in that kind of composition, is quaintness; of which Seneca is proof. How wonderful, then, that it should have been so largely, and so artfully practised, without falling into quaintness. That the Hebrew poetry is not quaint, is clear, from the fact of its poetic character being so generally undiscovered. It pleases, without its being known how.

I will endeavor speedily to do your bidding about Mr. I will send you Shaw's Emmanuel, from Keene's, by Whitty, who goes on Friday. Dr. P. thinks he should stay longer at