Then, and not before, I conceive, will the doctrinal admixtures, which have successively been employed, like loam about the juncture of a graft, by Augustin, Calvin, Dr. Owen, and Mr. Romaine, &c., be superseded; and truth and nature will be knit together in perfect, indissoluble union."

I have done it was once my intention to have given here, from Mr. Knox's published writings, a refutation of the calumnies that have been heaped on him as the denier of some doctrines which he cordially maintained, and the upholder of others which he disavowed as cordially. It was, also, in my thoughts to have brought together, from the same publications, the entire system of Mr. Knox's published sentiments, and profession of doctrinal belief. But, I have already filled too many pages of these volumes; and have myself occupied a place far too conspicuous for my liking. Here, therefore, I close; having, I would fain hope, accomplished all that is, strictly, needful to vindicate the truth which it was my duty to defend. I am not conscious of having, according to my ability, left any thing undone that is due to the memory of Mr. Knox: I have not wilfully hurt the feelings of any to whom I am opposed; neither, I believe, have I, in any respect, broken my faith with the public.* Last autumn, I requested them to "suspend their judgment till the ensuing spring;" when documents should appear" that would enable every candid and discerning man to form a true judgment." I have now produced such means of judging without reserve. I appeal to that judgment with confidence. And, further, I appeal, whether, in any respect, I have fallen short of my promise, that, in the end, it would be seen, "that Mr. Knox's theological views remained unchanged; that, to his friends of what is called the evangelical persuasion, he, to the last, expressed his continued dissent from their views; that to those who thought with him, he reiterated his constancy of opinion,

• Letter to the Morning Herald, Nov. 2, 1836.

and the support which he derived under great nervous suffering, from the influences of the Holy Spirit, in the line of those doctrinal sentiments which he had unvaryingly maintained; and that the last lines which his hand traced, in characters scarcely legible, were a Prayer for the deepening of evangelical religion in his heart, but under no altered views of evangelical doctrines."

"These facts" are "before the public" now; and "they will, I have no doubt, correctly draw their own inferences."

Winwick Hall. April 21, 1837.

JAMES J. HORNBY.

P.S. I beg to express my cordial thanks for the kind and liberal assistance which I have received from many quarters. I am particularly indebted to the Rev. Dr. Stedman, the Rev. Charles Forster, John Schoales, Esq. and J. S. Harford, Esq. for the use of valuable letters and private papers. Nor am I under less obligation to the friendly zeal of those gentlemen who have borne their testimony to the consistency of Mr. Knox's doctrinal sentiments. To all I return my most sincere thanks.

A FRAGMENT

ON THE LEADING POINTS INSISTED ON IN THE

NEW TESTAMENT.

SECTION I.

1805.

IF the question should be asked, "What is the leading point insisted on in the New Testament?" probably not many, even of the more thinking class of Christians, would be able to give a clear and ready answer.

One reason of this is, that most readers of the Holy Scriptures regard them merely as a miscellaneous assemblage of truths to be believed, precepts to be obeyed, and examples to be imitated, without ever inquiring whether this apparently unstudied arrangement does not actually contain within it a most regular system, in which one part is strictly dependent on another, and all the parts meet in one grand central principle.

The inattention I refer to is, however, not confined to readers. No small number of commentators appear chargeable with the same oversight. While they have been attentive to the parts, they have neglected the scope of the whole. In what concerns the history, the philology, and even the morality of the Scripture, they have often done

valuable service. But that which not unfitly may be called the philosophy of the Sacred Volume in general, and of the New Testament in particular, has seldom, if ever, been adequately investigated.

There was, doubtless, a time in which a systematic method of interpreting Scripture was carried to a hurtful excess, each commentator having his own mind preoccupied with some scheme of theology which it was his great object to maintain by authorities derived from the word of inspiration. Of this scholastic method, the wise Lord Bacon expressed a disapprobation, which may possibly have given countenance to the opposite extreme. It was no unjust representation of those systematising theologists, to describe them as "forcing up" the water of life" into a cistern, and from thence fetching and deriving" it "for use;" in which state, adds he, "though it seems to be more ready, yet, in my judgment," it "is more subject to corrupt." When, however, he recommends as a substitute the "solute," or immethodical plan (which he considers as "drawing or receiving" the Divine Water "in buckets and vessels immediately where it springeth,") may we not justly apprehend that one error is suggested as a remedy for the other? But although the generality of modern annotators and paraphrasts have looked for no connected scheme in the Scripture, and have, consequently, pursued no regular method in their interpretation of it, some even to this day have persevered in the very course which Bacon censured, and are as zealous as any of their predecessors, in ascribing to our Redeemer and his

Apostles those subtle systems of metaphysical divinity, which were scarcely known in the Christian Church for the first four hundred years.

That the disciples of these theologists would readily undertake to answer the question which I first stated, is not to be doubted. But their reply would too probably be derived rather from the authors whom they most admire, than from the Scripture itself. This, however, I most readily allow, that, in proportion as they themselves were personally pious, they would be apt to rise above their own dogmatic system; and express, from an honest feeling, those central truths which their hearts, rather than their understandings, had deduced from the sacred volume.

In order, then, to do full justice to that word with which God has favoured us, and to ascertain with clearness what is meant by that " one thing needful" to which the divine apparatus of the Gospel is, by that very expression of our Saviour, declared to be subordinate, ought we not to avoid both the extremes which have been mentioned, and adopt a middle course, which, being neither (in Lord Bacon's sense)" methodical" nor "solute," may possibly combine the advantages of both? Instead of forcing divine truth, on the one hand, into a mould which man has formed for it, or of assuming, on the other hand, that it has no regular form of its own, ought we not, with unprejudiced attention, to examine it in itself as it lies before us in the Sacred Volume? And, as the great writer already referred to has compared philosophy in general to a tree whose many "branches meet in