their cftimate of a man from his parts and abilities; but it is more wife and juft to measure him by the ufe he makes of them, to the benefit or the hurt of mankind for the beams of the fun are used to warm and animate; while the brightnefs of lightning is to fhatter and confume. So long as Dr. Priestley felt nothing (or feemed to feel nothing), it had a bad effect upon him, and made him more troublesome, that fuch perfons as Dr. Horfley and Dr. Horne fhould enter the lifts against him: it made him appear more formidable in the eye of the public, and so it tended to gratify the prevailing paffion of his mind. So far indeed as he deceived and disturbed others, a compaffionate regard to them might be the motive with thofe who difputed with him.

In the year 1786 Dr. Horne preached a fermon at the Primary Vifitation of the Archbishop at Canterbury, on the duty of contending earnestly for the Faith; and, when this was printed, together with another difcourfe on the Trinity, he fubjoined an advertisement, declaring his intention to anfwer the objections against the Divinity of Chrift, which had been urged of late. "Indulgence," faid he, "is re"quefted as to the article of time: I cannot write fo

faft as Dr. Priestley does; and I wish to execute "the work with care and attention; after which it "fhall be left to the judgment of the learned, the "pious, and the candid, of all denominations." At the clofe of this year, he alludes to the advertisement, in a letter from Canterbury: "You fee the task I

have

have undertaken." And here nobody will wonder, that as he had given me his affistance in the first work I published, and its chief merit had been owing to that circumstance, he should demand of me in return any service he thought it in my power to execute: he therefore goes on, "It is undertaken in "confidence of your friendly aid; and I should be happy, as we began together with Clayton, if we might end together with Priestley." For the fake of Dr. Horne, I was ready to work under him, in any capacity he should prefcribe: but it always appeared to me, that Prieftley was a person of too coarse a mind to be the proper object of a serious argument. That he had borrowed most of his objections, I had very little doubt; and that his remarks on Jews, Gnoflics, Ebionites, Plato, Philo, and Juftin Martyr, were not original; there being a magazine in ftore, to which the orthodox of this country do but rarely apply themfelves. If this could have been pointed out, it would have done more toward the curing of his readers, and given more mortification to himself, than the moft laboured confutation of the matter in the four volumes of his Objections.

Dr. Horne, I am very fure, had a mean opinion of Priestley's originality as a scholar: he speaks of him under the character of a man, who is defying all the world, and cannot conftrue a common piece of Greek or Latin*. I find another note concerning him,

with the date of 1788 affixed to it, taken from Dr. Johnson, who spoke his opinion of Priefiley to Mr. Badcock in these words; "You have proved him "as deficient in probity as he is in learning." Mr. Badcock had called him an Index-fcholar: but Johnfon was not willing to allow him even that merit ; faying, that he borrowed from thofe who had been borrowers themselves, and did not know that the miftakes he adopted had been anfwered by others*. There was an expectation about this time, that a controverfy would break out between Priestley and Gibbon; of which an arch Quaker spoke thus: "Let "those who deny, and those who corrupt, the true religion of Jefus Chrift, fight it out together; and "let his faithful followers enjoy their mutual over(6 throw."

In the eyes of all reasonable men, the Church of England could want but little defence, in a literary way, against an adverfary fo enflamed with political hatred against it, and openly avowing a defign to undermine and blow up its foundations, as with an explosion of gunpowder. When it comes to this, the difpute is no longer literary: the perfon, who carries it on in this way, fhould be confidered (if a

*See the Gentleman's Magazine for July 1785, p. 596. + Ibid. p. 600.

It was an observation of Dr. Horne, upon the curious fermon on Free Inquiry, that the author fpoke of this Powder-plot against -the Church of England with as much certainty as if he had held the lantern.

gentleman)

།

gentleman) as a perfon of an unfound mind; if not

a gentleman, then as an object of the penal laws of

his country, if it should have any against fuch offenders. One, who is fo wild and dangerous in his politics, must be a counterfeit in his Christianity; who, being detected, is thereby fufficiently answered.

On these confiderations, without any view to the fparing of my own trouble, I was as well pleafed to fee, that the defign of writing farther against Priestley was not profecuted with vigour. How much had been collected for this purpose, I do not find; yet I know that the fubject had been long and often in the mind of Dr. Horne; who told me when at Nayland in the year 1789, he had fatisfied himself in respect to every objection from the Liturgy, except one : and that was from an expreffion in the Athanafian Creed, which founded like Tritheifm; the Creed affirming each perfon by himself to be God and Lord. I ventured to affure him, that the paffage gave me no trouble, because I did not confider it as a metaphyfical affertion, but as a plain reference to the words of the Scripture; which to each person of the Godhead, diftinctly taken by himself, fo far as that can be done, does certainly give the titles both of God and Lord*. In this, therefore, instead of depending on the Creed, we only depend, as that does, upon the words of the Scripture. With this he was

* See John, xx. 28. A&ts, v. 4. and xxviii. 25. and many other like paffages.

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fatisfied, and allowed that fuch an intention in the Creed removed the difficulty.

The laft confiderable affair in which he concerned himself while Dean of Canterbury, was an application from the Bishops of the Epifcopal Church of Scotland; three of whom, in the year 1789, came up to London, to petition Parliament for relief from the hard penalties under which they had long fuffered. This they I ventured to do, in confideration of the loyalty and attachment they had lately profeffed toward the King and the Conftitution.

It was my lot likewife not to be an unconcerned fpectator in this bufinefs. Through an intimacy which had long subsisted between myself and a gentleman of great worth and learning in the county of Kent (the Reverend Nicholas Brett, of SpringGrove) I became acquainted with the Bishop of Edinburgh, Dr. Abernethy Drummond of Hawthornden, and had frequently correfponded with him. As foon as he came to London with his colleagues on the business aforefaid, he wrote me word of his arrival, and explained the caufe of the journey they had undertaken. Being myself of too inconfiderable a flation to be of any immediate fervice to them in a matter of fuch importance, I thought it the moft prudent step I could take, to forward the letter to a great perfon: who, with his ufual goodness and difcretion, undertook to be an advocate for them; together with many other perfons of high refpecta

bility: