strating what he knew to the great advantage of all "his pupils."

Usus et impigræ simul experientia mentis

Paullatim docuit pedetentim progredientes. Lucr. 1. v. 1451.

Of the same sentiment is Bishop Horsley, who making mention of Mr. Jones in the seasonable Charge to his Clergy in the year 1800, says, "Of that faithful "servant of God, I can speak both from personal

knowledge and from his writings. He was a map "of quick penetration, of extensive learning, and the "soundest piety. And he had beyond any other man "I ever knew, the talent of writing upon the deepest subjects to the plainest understanding." As he had undertaken the tuition of two young Gentlemen when he was at Bothersden, he continued the practice after he removed to Pluckley.

In 1766 he preached the Visitation Sermon before Archbishop Secker at Ashford, greatly to the satisfaction of his Grace and the whole audience. It was not printed at the time; but in the year 1769 the substance of it was published in the form of A Letter to a young Gentleman at Oxford intended for Holy Orders, containing some seasonable Cautions against Errors in Doctrine; and it may be read to great advantage by every candidate for the sacred profession.

On the publication of a work intitled The Confessional, an artful libel on Creeds, Confessions, Articles of Faith, &c. the Archbishop considered Mr. Jones as a proper person to write an Answer to it; and accordingly he drew up some remarks on it; but he had then neither health nor leisure to fit them for the press. This he was the less uneasy about, as the argument was undertaken by others, of whose

learning

learning and experience he had a better opinion than of his own; and a full confutation of the work was published in three Letters addressed to its Author, written by the judicious hand of Dr. Glocester Ridley. But a new edition being called for of the Answer to an Essay on Spirit, Mr. Jones thought it advisable to add, by way of sequel, the Remarks he had originally drawn up on the principles and spirit of the Confessional; not as supposing they had not been fairly and fully refuted in the three Letters, but as they were in a smaller compass, thinking that they might better suit the taste of some readers; and in 1770 they were published.

It is mentioned in Bishop Porteus's Life of Archbishop Secker, that all the tracts written by Dr. Sharp, in the Hutchinsonian Controversy, were submitted to his Grace's inspection, previously to their publication, who corrected and improved them throughout; from whence we are to conclude that he approved them. But whatever his prejudices were originally against what is called Hutchinsonianism, (and they were supposed at one time to be pretty strong), they must have been greatly done away before he became the patron of Mr. Jones. When the Essay on the first Principles of Natural Philosophy was published, his Grace observed to a Gentleman, who saw it lying on his table" this work of Mr. Jones's is not to be treated with neglect; it is sensibly and candidly written; and if it is not answered, we little folks shall infer, that it cannot be answered;" and it never was answered. And he told Mr. Jones himself, by way of consolation (knowing possibly how difficult it was to get rid of old prejudices) that he must be content to be accounted, for a while, an heretic in philosophy.

How

However the time is at hand, it is to be hoped, when the subject will meet with a more impartial examination, and then, Hutchinsonianism, which has been for so many years a kind of bugbear, may turn out to be a harmless thing at last, of which no man need be afraid.

He had a correspondence likewise, about the same time, with Archbishop Secker on the subject of Natural Religion. To have seen the question learnedly and fairly discussed by two such characters would have been highly gratifying, but unfortunately the Letters are not to be found. Mr. Jones, it is known, was of opinion, that neither the works of Porphyry, Celsus, and Lucian, nor all the blasphemies of Heathenism, ever did so much mischief to Christianity as the admission of the pretended Religion of Nature hath done in the Church of England. Our Canons, he would say, require us to preach four times in a year against popery, but as things are now, if we were to preach forty times in a year against this insidious philosophy of Deism, which has made such ravages amongst us, it would be much more to the purpose. It may possibly seem strange to speak in such derogatory terms, as he does, of Natural Religion, when so many even of our eminent divines make it a part of their creed, and aver that they see nothing hurtful in it. But surely, it may be said with confidence, that they do not admit of a power in man to discover the will of God, and to invent a religion for himself, as the Deist contends, whose Natural Religion is only traditional infidelity: they can mean no more, it is presumed, than to distinguish between the written and unwritten Revelation of God to man, since a Revelation there was from the beginning, and God never

left

left himself without witness; thus calling that, Natural Religion, which was derived from the Original Revelation (miserably corrupted) by tradition through succeeding generations after the apostacy at Babel, and calling that, Revealed Religion, which is contained in the word of God, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament. So far is Natural Religion, in the deistical sense, from being the foundation of Revealed, as some incorrectly suppose, that Revealed Religion is the foundation of what is erroneously called Natural. Certainly all the knowledge which man has of divine things is derived from Revelation, and not from Reason or Nature a.

The Religion proper for man, as this deep Divine used to argue, must be built upon the history of man, which is to be found only in Revelation; as all true philosophy in Nature must be built upon the history of Nature. But man is ignorant of his own history, until it is revealed to him; whence it follows that the Religion of Nature, as the term is now understood, must be nugatory in itself, and pernicious in its effects, as being adverse to every doctrine of Christianity.

It must be nugatory in itself, because as the ideas of man are not innate, but enter by the senses, hè cannot have that knowledge of heavenly things necessary in Religion; for he has no ideas of them til they are revealed.

This further appears from the case of the heathens, who never followed what we call Natural Religion,

On this subject see Bishop Horsley's admirable Charge delivered at his primary Visitation in the year 1796, to the Clergy of the Diocese of Rochester, p. 15, et feq. and an excellent Discourse on The Object af Christian Faith; published in a volume of Sermons by the Rev. G. H. Glasse. [Serm. xii. p. 229,]

but

but universally admitted a Religion of Priesthood and Sacrificature, received from their forefathers by tradition. Reason requires that we should give to facts the same force in Religion as they have in Philosophy. If we would know what man can do by nature, we must enquire what man hath actually done while in a staté of nature; but man in that state never did discover the doctrines which are now called natural.

And it must be, he always maintained, pernicious in its effects; for when we come to the nature of it, we find it adverse to Christianity in every article. Christianity is a religion which gives us doctrines and precepts, the latter built upon the former. But Natural Religion, to make the best of it, being a religion of precepts without doctrines, it thence comes to be supposed that religion consists only in what we are to do, whereas it also consists in what we are to be; it tells us we are to be saved by faith, that we are to live by what we believe, and that we must be spiritual men, with the knowledge of God, and the gifts of God, and the love of God in us, before we can be accepted. By supposing that Religion consists only in what we are to do, the whole system of faith, with its engagement of the affections, is dropped of course, as a thing of no value; and the consequence is either the direct infidelity of the Deist, or the mock-christianity of the Socinian, which in effect are but the same thing under different names.

Therefore when Natural Religion proceeds to give us doctrines, we find them all false. Instead of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost of the Gospel, it gives us the deity of the Koran in one person; instead of the Fall of Man, it asserts the sufficiency and perfection of man; instead of a Saviour to cleanse us from sin and

redeem