POLITICAL NOTES. NOTES ON MEMOIRS OF COL. HUTCHINSON.* Life of Mrs. Lucy Hutchinson, p. 3. The people, by the plenty of their country, not being forced to toyle for bread, &c. Alas! the change (1831)—Query,-Whether the nation, the mechanic and manufacturing class of which is merely adequate to the supply of its learned and landed gentry, and its agriculturists, is not nobler and more prosperous though less powerful, than such as manufactories, stimulated by a widelyextended commerce, now present? Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson, p. 9. In matters of faith, his reason allways submitted to the Word of God, and what he could not comprehend he would believe because 'twas written, &c. Well may I believe what I do not comprehend, when there are so many things which I know, yet do not comprehend;-my life, for instance, my will, my * Memoirs of the Life of Col. Hutchinson, by his widow Lucy, daughter of Sir Allen Apsley. Now first published from the original manuscript, by the Rev. Julius Hutchinson. To which is prefixed the Life of Mrs. Hutchinson, written by herself, a fragment. 4to. 1806. rationality, &c. But let us be on our guard not to confound comprehending with apprehending. I do not, even because I cannot, believe what I do not apprehend; i. e., I cannot assent to the meaning of words to which I attach no meaning, though I may believe in the wisdom of the utterer. But this is to believe the veracity of the Doctor, not the truth of the Doctrine. Ibid. p. 11. Nothing grieved him more than to be oblieged, where he could not hope to returne itt, &c. The youthful reader should be made to see that this was a defect, though a defect symptomatic of a noble nature. Besides, except to God, we cannot be obliged without the power of making the right return ; for, where no more is in our power, to feel, to acknowledge, and duly to appreciate an obligation, is to return it. Nay, God himself accepts our thankfulness and obedience as a return for his free gifts and mercies. Ibid. p. 47. The gentleman that assisted him he converted to a right beliefe in that greate poynt of predestination, he having bene before of the Arminian judgment: till, upon the serious examination of both principles, and comparing them with the Scriptures, Mr. H. convinced him of the truth, &c. A most instructive instance of the delusion consequent on the logic of Dichotomy, or the antithesis of terms, precluding each other, or assumed so to do: ex. gr., Necessity and Freedom; Real and Unreal; Spirit and Body; Cause and Effect, &c. The doctrine of Predestination is built on the assumption, that the distinction of the Terms implies a division of the Things: ex. gr., the Divine Reason and the Divine Will. The former is arbitrarily taken as the antecedent and the cause-the latter as the effect, as a passive clay receiving the impression of the former. Deny this, (or, as you safely may do,) affirm the contrary-namely, that the Will is the antecedent, and the Reason the form or Epiphany of the Will; and the whole argument of the Predestinarian is quashed. Ibid. p. 69. If any one object the fresh example of Queene Elizabeth, let them remember that the felicity of her reigne was the effect of her submission to her masculine and wise councellors. But what was the cause of that submission to men chosen?—of that choice of men worthy to be submitted to? This is an old but just answer to an old detraction from Elizabeth's personal character. Ibid. P. 74. Yet the Parliament showed such a wonderfull respect to the King, that they never mentioned him, as he was, the sole author of all those miscarriages, but imputed them to evill councellors, &c., which flattery I feare they have to answer I am sure they have thereby exposed themselves to much scandall. for; Editor's Note. This is an oversight of Mrs. H.'s of which she is seldom guilty. Good policy required then, as it does now,* that the King should be held incapable of wrong, and the criminality fixed on Ministers, who are amenable to the law. I am yearly more and more inclined to question the expediency of falsehood of any kind; and therefore doubt the wisdom of Julius Hutchinson's censure * If the patriots of that day were the inventors of this maxim we are highly obliged to them.-S. C. |