philosophy-" not many wise men after the flesh are called."-" Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven :" -the soul must be even as a weaned child.

In 1773, Mr. Jones collected together into a volume, Disquisitions on some select subjects of Scripture, which had been before printed in separate tracts, all in the highest degree instructive and edifying.

In a curious Disquisition published in this volume on the Mosaic Distinction of Animals into clean and unclean, he observes, "that as we did not invent the Bible itself, God hath wisely provided against our inventing the interpretation of it; the Scripture, when properly searched, being sufficient for the unfolding of its own difficulties. If any subject is left without an explanation, where it is first delivered, we find it resumed or referred to in other places; and some new circumstances are introduced, which serve to enlarge our views, and to clear up what is obscure. Hence it comes to pass, that howsoever other books may be explained, the only rational method of interpreting the Scripture is to compare spiritual things with spiritual, to clear up one passage of divine writ by others which relate to it; and in the mouth of two or three witnesses of this sort every word ought to be established."

Under the direction of this rule, the best which can be devised, he enters on a discussion of the subject, and proves, beyond contradiction, from the Law itself, the vision of St. Peter, and other passages of Scripture laid together, that in this distinction of animals into clean and unclean, there was a moral design; under which the Jews were instructed, as by an apologue or parable, that this was the will of God, even their sanctification, that every one of them should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honour, not in the lust of concupiscence, as the Gentiles which knew not God. Agreeably to his uniform opinion, that the spiritual is to be seen through the natural world, which no glass but that of the Scripture will enable man to do, he concludes, that in the formation of the world, a moral use of the animal creation was originally intended, because it would be a supposition unworthy of God, that the works of nature should be capable of answering any good end, which his wisdom did

not foresee, and consequently design; and if the institution was figurative, carrying with it a moral obligation, it will be found worthy of divine wisdom, and, therefore, worth the consideration of every Naturalist, who hath sense enough to understand, that irreligion is no necessary part of his profession as a philosopher. He does not, with Æsop, make the animals argue, like human creatures, but, by examining into their various instincts and properties, their manners, and different ways of life, as a christian naturalist, he shews that they speak a very intelligible language, and impart lessons of admirable instruction to men, according to the intention, and will of their Creator-teaching us what we are to do, and what to avoid. In the course of the disquisition he pertinently remarks, that the Law of Moses is the foundation of the Scriptures that follow, whether of the Old or New Testament, and, therefore, if the sense of any institution is rightly collected and ascertained, it cannot fail to open many figurative passages of the Bible, of which he gives some examples; and he takes occasion to correct the mistakes of Dr. Spenser in his work De legibus IIebræorum ritualibus. The Doctor represents the Jews as a people of a gross apprehension, unfit for all the refinements. of allusion. But why the chosen people of God are to be supposed more gross in their apprehensions, than those who knew him not, does not at first sight appear; the vulgar, whether Jews, Heathens, or Christians, have always miscarried, by taking images for realities; and to say, as he does, that the Law was intended only for the outward man, is formally to contradict the New Testament, for then it would have followed that he was truly a Jew, who was such outwardly; but, saith the Apostle, he is a Jew which is one inwardly, and circumcision is that of the heart. Then in regard to giving the seniority to Heathenism, because many ritual Laws were common both to the Hebrew and the Heathens it is only to go far enough backward, to come to one common fountain of Patriarchal Tradition. But surely nothing can be more monstrous than to deduce the Mosaic Ritual, as he attempts to do, from the practices of Idolatry -to imagine, that God indulged the Jews with an Image in their temple, so contrived as to be a Compendium of all

the Imagery of Paganism, because the heathens had Images of their Deities in their temples-that the divine symbol, then called the Cherubim of Glory, and set up first at Eden, was not originally in the true worship, but taken from the false and that God, who is said to have dwelt between the Cherubim, condescended to inhabit figures invented by the Devil! To mention such absurdities is to confute them.

In 1776, under the character of a PRESBYTER of the CHURCH of ENGLAND, he published in a Letter to a Friend at Oxford, which was reprinted in the Scholar Armed, Reflections on the Growth of Heathenism among modern Christians. In the advertisement prefixed, he says, "The Reader may be

shocked, when he is told that there is a disposition to "Heathenism in an age of so much improvement, and pro"nounce the accusation improbable and visionary; but he ❝is requested to weigh impartially the facts here offered, "and then to form his judgment." And when the facts are weighed which he adduces, the conclusion must be, that the accusation is not visionary but just. In all the sciences -among poets, orators, artists, and natural philosophers, the tokens of this Pagan infection are very observable. "Whi"ther at last (says he) will this taste for Heathen Learning, "which hath been prevailing and increasing for so many

years, from the days of Lord Herbert to the present time, "lead us? Whither can it lead us, but to indifference and " atheism? A Christian corrupted with Heathenish affec"tions, degenerates into something worse than the original "Heathen of Antiquity." And, as if he had then before his eyes (in 1776) that beginning of sorrows to Europe, the French Revolution and Apostacy, the introduction of the old abominable Pagan idolatry, and revival of Pagan rites in the dedication of Altars to Liberty and Reason, he observes, "Should any person ask me how Christianity is to "be banished out of Christendom, as the predictions of the "Gospel give us reason to expect it will be, I should "make no scruple to answer, that it will certainly be brought "to pass by this growing affection to Heathenism. And, "therefore, it is devoutly to be wished, that some censor "would arise, with the zeal and spirit of Martin Luther, to remonstrate effectually against this indulgence of Pagan

"ism, which is more fatal to the interests of Christianity, "than all the abuses purged away at the Reformation. This " is now the grand abuse, against which, the zeal of a Luther "and the wit of an Erasmus ought to be directed: it is the "abomination of desolation, standing where it ought not,

even in the sanctuary of Christianity, and is a worse "offence than all the profanations that ever happened to "the Jewish temple."

During his residence at Pluckley, which was upwards of twelve years, he carried on his philosophical work with his usual ardour; he taught his pupils learning by instruction, and virtue by example: and in his attention to the flock, of which he was overseer, pursuing the plan he had adopted at Wadenho, he was a watchful shepherd; the day the drought consumed him, and the frost by night, and sleep departed from his eyes.”

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But man continueth not in one stay." The good Rector was induced to remove from Pluckley, and, accepting the perpetual Curacy of Nayland in Suffolk, he went thither to reside with his family. Soon after, he effected an exchange of Pluckley for Paston in Northamptonshire, which he visited annually; but he set up his staff at Nayland for the remainder of his days, not being "led into temptation" ever to quit that post by any future offer of preferment. It being matter of surprise to many, that he, who laboured more abundantly than they all," (which might be said without disparagement to any) should have been so miserably neglected, and that so much merit should meet with so little reward, a friend, who was no great misanthrope neither, nor out of humour with the world for any disappointments he had met with in it, used to smile at the conceit of any one being preferred for his merit, and said, if a man was preferred notwithstanding his merit, it was as much, all things considered, as could reasonably be expected. He had a notion, that being quite in the right, stood more in a man's way than being a good deal in the wrong: there are unfashionable, unpalatable truths, which must be kept out of sight, or brought forward as little as possible" This is an hard saying, who can hear it ?" "From that time, many went back, and walked no b

VOL. I.

more with him." must be allowed, whatever part of his merit might keep him back from honour," some of it had a share in the preferment be did obtain. To Archbishop Secker, who gave him the living of Pluckley, he was first known only as the Author of the Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity; and from the present Archbishop of Canterbury, who always spake of him with the affection of a Brother, he received most unequivocal proofs of sincere friendship, independent of the sine-cure Rectory of Hollingbourn, and very valuable Living of Lachington, given to Mr. Jones's son, in the lifetime of his father.

Though, in regard to Mr. Jones, it

The Physiological Disquisitions, before alluded to, having received their last revise, they were added to the public stock of philosophical knowledge in 1781. In the Introduction (from which the present is printed verbatim) the Author mentions his intention of confining himself to the compass of two volumes in quarto, and his being obliged to reserve for the last a Discourse on Electricity, which he had given his friends reason to expect in this volume. It is to be regretted, that other engagements prevented the execution of his whole plan, but since his death, Six Letters on Electricity, which he had prepared for the press, have been published. Whatever prejudices might have subsisted against them at that time, it is to be supposed they soon died away, for the impression has long since been sold off, and the book is now in great request. And indeed what wonder, when the view which he gives of nature is so rational and consistent, so agreeable to fact and experiment! If we are to be pleased on rational grounds with the study of nature, we must be pleased with the works of God as they are in themselves, and not as human fancy may have conceived of them and represented them.

Motion, it is now plain enough, is maintained in the heavens and the earth by the action of the elements on one another, and true philosophy consists in observing and explaining the relations subsisting between them, as he has done. All philosophers agree, that nature being uniform and simple in its operations, things in heaven are conducted upon the same principles as things upon earth. Allowing