an higher tone, his Whosoever; the king continued silent; at length the Apostle's Creed was repeated by the minister, and the king followed him throughout with a distinct and audible voice."

He adds-

"I certainly dislike the imposition of all creeds formed by human authority; though I do not dislike them, as useful summaries of what their compilers believe to be true, either in natural or revealed religion.

"As to natural religion, the creeds of the the most distinguished philosophers, from Plato and Cicero to Leibnitz and Clarke, are extremely various, with respect to the origin of things-the existence and attributes natural and moral, of the Supreme Being-the natural mortality and immortality of the human soul-the liberty and necessity of human actions-the principle of virtue, and other important points. And, as to revealed religion, though all its doctrines are expressed in one book, yet such a diversity of interpretations has been given to the same passages of Scripture, that not only individuals, but whole churches, have formed to themselves different creeds, and introduced them into their forms of worship. The Greek church admits not into its ritual either the Apostle's Creed, or the Athanasian, but merely the Nicene. The Episcopal church in America admits the Nicene and the Apostle's Creed, but rejects the Athanasian. The church of England admits the whole three into its liturgy; and some of the foreign Protestant churches admit none but the Apostle's. These, and other creeds which might be mentioned, are all of human fabrication; they oblige conscience, as far as they are conformable to Scripture, and of that conformity every man must judge for himself. This liberty of private judgment is recognised by our church (notwithstanding subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles) when, in the service for the ordering of priests, it proposes this question: "Are you determined, out of the said Scriptures, to instruct the people committed to your charge, and to teach nothing, as required of necessity to eternal salvation, but that which you shall be persuaded may be concluded and proved by the Scriptures?"

In a letter to the duke of Grafton, in 1791, the Bishop thus explicitly declares his religious and political opinions.

"In England we want not a fundamental revolution, but we certainly want a reform both in the civil and ecclesiastical part of our constitution; men's minds, however, I think, are not yet generally prepared for admitting its necessity. A reformer of Luther's temper and talents would, in five years, persuade the people to compel the parliament to abolish tithes, to extinguish pluralities, to enforce residence, to confine episcopacy to the overseeing of dioceses, to expunge the Athanasian Creed from our liturgy, to free

dissenters from test acts, and the ministers
of the establishment from subscription to
human articles of faith.-These, and other
matters respecting the church, ought to be
done. I want not courage to attempt doing
what I think ought to be done, and I am not
held back by considerations of personal in-
terest; but my temper is peaceable, I dislike
contention, and trust that the still voice of
reason will at length be heard.”

In regard to the Test Act, he thus
expresses himself, again :-

"There appear to me but two reasons for excluding any honest man from eligibility to public office,―want of capacity to serve the office, and want of attacliment to the civil constitution of the country. That the dissenters want capacity, will not be asserted; that they want attachment to the civil constitution of the country, is asserted by many On this point the but proved by none. whole question turns. If the dissenters have secret views of undermining the civil constitution, of introducing a republican form of government in the place of that which, notwithstanding its defects, we at present so happily enjoy, the Test Act ought not to be repealed; and if they have no such views, its continuance is an oppression. Whether they have or have not such views cannot be known from the affirmation of their ene mies on the one hand, or from the denial of their friends on the other: on both sides it may be said, Quiescat lingua, interroga vitem. Now the history of the conduct of the dissenters since the revolution, nay at and since the restoration, proves (to me at least it proves) that they have no such views."

In a letter to an intimate friend, be more fully developes his religious sentiments,-sentiments not idly professed, but exhibited in practice.

"My religion is not founded, I hope, in presumption, but in piety. I cannot look upon the Author of my existence in any other light than as the most commiserating parent; not extreme to mark what is done amiss, not implacable, not revengeful, not disposed to punish past offences when the heart abhors them, but ready, with the utmost benignity, to receive into his favour every repentant sinner.

By the constitution of nature, which may properly be considered as indicating the will of God, all excess in sensual indulgences tends to the depravation of the mind, repug. and to the debilitation of the body, and may, on that account, be esteemed nant to the will of God. This repugnancy is made more apparent by the gospel. Now all our happiness in this world, and in the next, depending ultimately on the will of God, every one may see a moral necessity of conforming his actions to that will. But as the will of God has no degree of selfishness in it, is not excited on any occasion to gratify the resentment or any other passion

Every denunciation of God against intemperance in the pleasures of sense, against injustice in our intercourse with mankind, against impiety towards himself, seems to proceed from his extreme affection for us, by which he warns us from a course of conduct, the final issue of which we cannot, in this state, comprehend.

was thanked, among others, by the Convention of the Episcopal Church of Connecticut.

The following extract is from a letter, written in 1801, to the duke of Grafton:

of the Supreme Being (as often happens in the will of man,) I cannot but believe, that a change of temper, accompanied by a change of conduct is all that God requires of us in order to be restored, after our greatest transgressions, to his perfect acceptance. "We know not in what the felicity of the "Both reason and revelation instruct us next world will consist, but we do know that to believe that the Creator of the universe it will not consist in the gratification of our wills the happiness of his creatures, not for present senses; yet God is not a harsh Mas- his own sake but for theirs. It would be imter, for he hath furnished us with abundant pious to suppose that our vices could disturb means of present enjoyment; and had every his peace, or our virtues augment his felienjoyment of sense been sinful, he certainly city; this would be to make a God with the would neither have given us senses nor ob- passions of a man, to render the infinite perjects adapted to them; he hath done both; fection of the Creator dependent on the imand be requires from us such a moderation in perfection of the creature. When, therethe use of them, as may preserve our minds fore, we read of the punishment denounced from being so addicted to them, as to pre- in the gospel against all manner of wickedvent us from having any relish for the duties ness, we may properly consider the threatof benevolence and holiness, in the exercise ening as the gracious warning of a wise and of which it is not improbable that our future affectionate Father, rather than as the tyhappiness may consist. rannical declaration of a cruel and vindictive God. Vice, and consequent misery arising from loss of health, of character, of fortune, of self-government, and other sources, are generally, if not universally, connected together in this world, and we may from reason analogically infer that, if there is another world, they will be so con. nected there also. Now it hath pleased God, through Jesus Christ, to assure us that there is another world, and to confirm this analogical inference by a positive declaration, that the connexion which we observe here between vice and misery will remain hereafter. This declaration is made to us as if it were the arbitrary appointment of God, that punishment should follow sin rather than a certain consequence springing from the nature of things, that misery should follow vice; but the conclusion rests on the same foundation in whatever way we consider the matter; for what is the nature of things, what the constitution of this world and of the next, but the positive appointment of God himself? Transgress and die is a positive law, be vicious and be miserable is a natural law, they are equally the means of God's moral government of free agents; the latter is intimated to us by reason, the former is promulgated in the gospel, and they are, like their Author, both of them immutable. But these are not the only laws of God's moral government; there is another intimated to us by reason, and clearly made known to us by the gospel, and it is a law which mitigates the severity of the others, which administers consolation to our fears, and strength to our inability, it is this--Repent and be forgiven, turn away from wickedness, do that which is lawful and right, and though you have sinned you shall save your soul alive; this is the voice of Revelation; will lessen if not wholly annihilate the and reason says, Cease from vice, and you misery attendant on it.

"The love of God casteth out fear; let us once bottom our principle of action on the desire of obeying him, and though we may be impelled by our passions to occasional deviations from what is right, yet this obliquity of conduct will not continue long; the hope of living under his fatherly kindness and protection will bring us to a rational sense of duty, to a just confidence of acceptance with him.

"There is much mechanism in our constitution; our thoughts are influenced by the state of the body to a degree, and in a manner, which no philosophy can explain. A bodily infirmity produces in the minds of some men a dejection of spirits, a despondency of sentiment, which other men, with equal or superior cause for dejection and despondency, and under apparently equal bodily infirmities, feel not at all. It is difficult, perhaps impossible, for beings such as we are, to account for this difference, but we may be persuaded of this, that God who made us knows this diversity of temper, and will make a kind and fatherly allowance for it, and not impute more than is just to him whose mind is oppressed by unreasonable apprehensions, originating in corporal imbecility."

In 1795, Bishop Watson published two Sermons, one of them entitled, "Atheism and Infidelity refuted from reason and Scripture;" the other, "The Christian Religion no Imposture." In 1796, he published his "Apology for the Bible," being, as he says, 66 a defence of that Holy Book against the scurrilous abuse of Thomas Paine." For this work he

"Repentance is a change of mind accompanied by a change of conduct; this change of mind is then most perfect when it pre

ceeds from the fear of God, from fear grounded on our love to him, and regulated by filial reverence and humble confidence in his mercy; and it is then most sincere and certain when it is followed by a change of conduct, from visciousness to sobriety of manners, from habitual sinfulness to habitual righteousness of life. A man may be actuated by fear of punishment, and change his conduct from vice to virtue, but this does not, strictly speaking, imply such a change of mind as is essential to true repentance. When a man abstains from murder, theft, robbery, merely because he fears the gallows; when he conceals his intemperance, pride, envy, malignity, and evil propensities of any kind, merely to preserve his character from censure, and to exhibit a fair outside to the world, his heart is not right, his mind is not changed, his old man is not put off, his repentance is nothing. But when a man might commit sin with secresy, and as to all human tribunals with impunity; when he might indulge his sensuality, gratify his revenge, satiate his envy, feed his malignity, without danger to his health, fame, or fortune; when he might do these things and yet abstains from doing them, because God has forbidden him to do them, and because he is persuaded that God loves him and forbids him nothing but with a gracious design to preserve him from misery here and hereafter, then is his repentance sincere, his obedience is a reasonable service, his heart is in a proper state of resignation, humility, love, trust, and gratitude, toward the Author of all good."

In a letter to Doctor Falconer of Bath, in the year 1804, we meet with a political prediction, which seems to be in the progress of fulfilment.

"The death of a single prince in any part of Europe, remarkable either for wisdom or folly, renders political conjectures of future contingencies so extremely uncertain, that I seldom indulge myself in forming them; yet it seems to me probable, that Europe will soon be divided among three powers, France, Austria, and Russia; and in half a century between two, France and Russia; and that America will become the greatest naval power on the globe, and be replenished by migrations of oppressed and discontented people from every part of Europe."

Mr. Tyrwhitt of Jesus College, Cambridge, had published a Sermon, in which he had undertaken to prove that the baptismal form (Mat. xxviii. 19.) contains no doctrine in support of the Trinity. In writing to him, Bishop Watson says:—

"I am disposed to accede to your remark, that whatever doctrine is not contained in the form prescribed by Christ for receiving disciples by baptism into his church, cannot be necessary to be believed by Christians; and you have excited a reasonable doubt,

whether the doctrine of the Trinity be positively contained in the baptismal form. Yet I must own, that it sticks with me, that as the Father and the Son are persons, how the Holy Ghost can be otherwise conceived than as a person, in that form.

"Were I at Cambridge, I should be happy to discuss this, and some other points of your judicious discourse, in charming conference with yourself. I am certain, that whether we agreed or not in opinion on every point, we should agree in thinking, that free discussion was the best mean of investigating truth.

"I rejoice in your quotation from Locke. That great man has done more for the enlargement of the human faculties, and for the establishment of pure Christianity, than any author I am acquainted with."

Notwithstanding the number and length of the quotations we have made, we cannot resist our inclination to give place to а letter elicited, by an interesting occasion, on a very important point.

"My daughter Elizabeth wrote to me in March, 1805, at the request of Miss Dutton, who wished to consult me on a point of some delicacy. The Russian prince, Bariatinski, was paying his addresses to her: she had some scruples, and her mother, lady Sherborne, had more, respecting the propriety of her entering into a matrimonial connexion with a person of the Greek Church. I had no knowledge of either Miss Dutton or of her parents; but being thus called upon, I sent the following letter to my daughter to be communicated to the young lady.

"Calgarth Park, March 27, 1805. “My dear Elizabeth,---In answering Miss Dutton's inquiry, I shall certainly do it with sincerity, but my opinions on any subject though sincere are not infallible: I musi act in conformity to them myself, but I am far from wishing any person to rely on them.

"The Christian religion is wholly comprised in the New Testament, but men have interpreted that book in various ways, and hence have sprung up a great variety of Christian churches. I scruple not giving the name of Christian churches to assemblies of men uniting together for public worship, though they may differ somewhat from each other in doctrine and discipline, whilst they all agree in the fundamental principle of the Christian religion--that Jesus is the Christ, the Saviour of the world.

"In this the Greek, the Latin, and all the reformed churches have one and the same faith. They all believe, too, that Christ rose from the dead-that there will be a resurrection of all men-that there will be a fu ture state, in which all men will be rewarded or punished according to their works done in this. These are some of the chie points in which all churches agree; they disagree in matters of less importance; and each church esteeming itself the true church,