to do with the common people, who cannot comprehend or attend to a long deduction or chain of things. They can only see simple truths, and it is well they can see them. Take a plain man with an honest heart, give him his Bible, and make him conversant in it, and I will engage for him he will never be at a loss to know how to act, agreeably to his duty, in every circumstance of life. Yet give this man a good English translation of Aristotle's Ethics, (one of the most complete works for method in its kind,) and by the time he has got to the end of it, I dare say he will not understand one word he has been reading. But is the explanation of the economy of grace, in which is contained the system of prophecy, that is, the connexion and dependance of the prophecies of the several ages of the church of God, therefore of no use? Surely the greatest. And I am confident nothing but the light which will arise from thence can support Christianity under its present circumstances. But the contending for single prophecies only, and by a man who thinks they relate to Christ in a secondary sense only, and who appears to have no high opinion of second senses, looks very suspicious. What would one think of an advocate at the bar, who, when the contrary party had made ont his point by a number of various circumstances that supported and threw light on one another, should reply and say, you are a maker of fanciful hypothesis? you have brought all these various unrelated circumstances into a body or a system but you should consider them as separate and distinct, for so they were delivered in at the bar by the witnesses? If the Doctor ever considers these prophecies, as he seems to promise he will, I perhaps shall have something to say to him. The other point is the Fall. It is managed just in the manner you say,-He will have it to be an allegory. I agree it is so. In this we differ,-He supposes it to be an allegory of a moral truth, namely, that man soon corrupted his ways; and seems to think, by his way of speaking, that an allegory can convey no other kind of information. I say it is an allegory of a moral fact, namely, that man had transgressed that positive command, (whatever it was,) on the observance of which the free gift of immortality was conditionally given. In this interpretation Christianity has something to bottom itself on. On the Doctor's notion it is a mere castle in the air. But I do not pretend you should understand what I mean, till you see it

developed in my Discourse of the Nature of Christianity, which makes the IXth Book of the Div. Leg. But on this point the Doctor's and the Bishop's notions are not very different, though controversy has kept them at a distance.*

Sherlock, at his first entrance into the see of London, had a dispute with Archbishop Herring concerning the right of options. That which was selected by his Grace in this instance was the valuable rectory of St. George's, Hanover Square, the incumbent of which, Dr. Trebeck, was very old and infirm. The Bishop, vexed at being deprived of one his best pieces of preferment, drew up a pamphlet on the subject, and for a while determined to oppose the claim; but at length a compromise took place, and the Archbishop consented to accept of St. Anne's, Soho, instead of St. George's. This was submitted to by the Bishop; but in 1755 he printed his opinions in a folio pamphlet, though he did not think proper to publish them; and this was afterwards reprinted by Archbishop Herring, in 4to. for his friends, with a short answer by Mr. Joddrell and Archdeacon Denne.‡

* Warburton and Hurd's Correspondence, Letter xvii. Jan. 30, 1749-50.

+ Fifty copies only were struck off for those that were interested in the subject: a copy was presented to each of the Advocates in Doctors Commons.-Nichols's Lit. Anecd. vol. ix. p. 311.

↑ Having never seen either of these pamphlets, and having been obliged to compose this biography by fits and starts, far removed from my literary resources, and in the midst of a severe domestic affliction, I am totally unprepared to enter into the merits of the question, though I conceive that many who have hitherto touched on it, have deviated from the main point by arguing from hearsay. A curious and interesting letter on the subject from Dr. Nathaniel Forster to the Archbishop is published by Nichols in his Lit. Anecdotes, vol. ix. p. 297.

Bishop Sherlock however soon had an opportunity of shining in his proper sphere, and effecting more good than he could expect to produce by controversy. In the month of February, 1750, a violent shock of an earthquake, which had been, as it were, announced by some remarkable coruscations of aurora borealis, with tremendous tempests of thunder, lightning, hail, and rain, greatly terrified the inhabitants of the metropolis: and this terror was redoubled by a similar phenomenon, on the very same day of the following month, between five and six in the morning. The shock was immediately preceded by a succession of thick low flashes of lightning, and a rumbling noise like that of a heavy carriage rolling over a hollow pavement: its vibrations shook every house from top to bottom, and in many places the church-bells were heard to strike; people started naked from their beds, and ran to their doors and windows in a state of distraction; yet no house was overthrown and no life was lost. However the periodical recurrence of the shocks, and the superior violence of the second, made a deep impression on the minds of the more ignorant and superstitious part of the community; who began to fear lest another such visitation might be attended with more dismal consequences. These sentiments of terror and dismay soon spread, and were augmented to an extraordinary degree by a fanatical soldier, who went about the streets preaching up repentance, and boldly prophesying that another shock on the same day in April would lay the mighty Babylon in ruins. 'Considering the infectious nature of fear and superstition,' says the historian,* and the emphatic manner in which the imagination had been prepared and prepossessed, it was no

* Smollett in his History of England: reign of George II.

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wonder that the prediction of this illiterate enthusiast should have contributed in a great measure to augment the general terror. The churches were crowded with penitent sinners; the sons of riot and profligacy were overawed into sobriety and decorum. The streets no longer resounded with execrations or the noise of brutal licentiousness; and the hand of charity was liberally opened. Those whom fortune had enabled to retire from the devoted city, fled to the country with hurry and precipitation; insomuch that the highways were encumbered with horses and carriages. Many who had in the beginning combated these groundless fears with the weapons of reason and ridicule, began insensibly to imbibe the contagion, and felt their hearts fail in proportion as the hour of probation approached even science and philosophy were not proof against the unaccountable effects of this communication: in after ages it will hardly be believed that on the evening of the 8th day of April, the open fields that skirt the metropolis were filled with an incredible number of people assembled in chairs, in chaises, and coaches, as well as on foot, who waited in the most fearful suspense, until morning and the return of day disproved the truth of the dreaded prophecy. Then their fears vanished; they returned to their respective habitations in a transport of joy ; were soon reconciled to their abandoned vices, which they seemed to resume with redoubled affection; and once more bade defiance to the vengeance of heaven.'

The Bishop of London took advantage of the peculiar state of feeling into which the public mind had been forced by these extraordinary events, to address 'a Pastoral Letter to the Clergy and Inhabitants of London and Westminster, on occasion of the late Earthquakes.' This was bought up and read with such avidity by all ranks of

people, that more than 100,000 copies were sold within a month. A tract also which he composed on the observance of Good Friday is said to have had great effect, in a moral and religious point of view. Nor would it be right if we omitted to mention his admirable Charge, the only one he published,* which he printed and distributed among his clergy in 1759, and in which a profound knowlege of the law, both of church and state, is applied with paternal affection to their use and service. It is thus noticed by that eminent critic, Mr. Jonathan Toup, at a time when it excited a considerable controversy, and some illiberal feeling against its author:-'The Bishop of London's late charge against non-residence is such a masterly, sensible, and seasonable piece, that it deserves. the attention of every clergyman; nay, I could wish that every parish would get a copy of it, to be kept in the vestry-room, for the service and inspection of future incumbents; for I am of the same opinion with the author of a late spirited letter to the Bishop of E-that the residence of the clergy is absolutely necessary to the wellbeing of Christianity. The apology which Dr. lately published in answer to the Bishop of London, is not properly an apology for the clergy, but an apology for a set of worthless, insignificant ecclesiastics, who scarce deserve the name of clergymen ; who, instead of residing on their proper cures, where they are in duty and con

has

* It appears that he was able to make only one general visitation of his diocese in person, on account of his growing infirmities: though certain it is,' says Dr. Nichols, that for the first three or four years he applied himself closely to business, &c.: nay, he extended his care to parts abroad, and began his correspondence there, which would have been very useful to the church, if his health had permitted him to carry it on.'-Funeral Sermon.