I own, I have little hope for those who are only acquainted with St. Paul, through the interpreting medium of Luther or Calvin, Dr. Owen or Mr. Romaine. Confident I am, they will awake, and wonder how they could have dreamed of man's chief hope, resting on any ground but that moral one, upon which our omniscient Lord himself has placed it, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God;" or of a state of favour with God, existing, for one moment, independently of moral qualification. They will, I doubt not, at length discover this strange defect, in the present favourite systems; and should no sounder system have come within their view, what will follow, but lapse, by masses, into Socinianism or Deism?

On the principles which I have been led, I trust providentially, to embrace, I have nothing about which to be apprehensive. I do not believe with the moderns, and, therefore, am in no danger from their vacillation. It is, doubtless, no little comfort to me, that the Church of England (legitimately defined) seems so substantially to sanction my views; and it is a still greater comfort, that, if I know my own heart, my sentiments lead to no self-deception, no relaxing of self-discipline, no needless conformity to the world. I find, or think I find, the quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est1, an equally sure guide, both as to belief and practice ; and, while I am in rational unison with this concurrent voice, I seem to myself to be, in some measure, within the citadel of that mystic city, whose outer court was left open to the treading down of the Gentiles, but whose central enclosure was to be fortified by an invisible but impassable barrier.

1 That which hath been believed in all places, at all times, by all the faithful.

Yet this would be poor consolation, if I had not happy prospects, for the world, as well as for myself. Yes, I earnestly hope, that the worst which can happen, will be only so much the more subservient, to the cause of eternal immutable truth. Opinionum commenta delet dies; judicia naturæ confirmat.'

And assured I am, that, in God's good time, the real essentials of revealed truth, namely, the Trinity in Unity, the incarnation of the second Person, verus Deus ex vero Deo (very God of very God), and the influences of the co-eternal Spirit, as real as they are necessary in order to regeneration and sanctification (life and growth); these, I say, I am assured, will shine forth, to the eye of unsophisticated reason, with such bright evidence, as will abash opposition, silence cavil, satisfy doubt, and create settled, immoveable conviction. Then, and not before, I conceive, will the doctrinal admixtures, which have successively been employed, like loam about the junction of a graft, by Augustine, Calvin, Dr. Owen, Mr. Romaine, &c., be superseded; and truth and nature will be knit together, in perfect, indissoluble union.

I have only to add, that, when you have got to the end of this paper, you will oblige me by laying it where you will easily find it again; as I may possibly wish, myself, to recur to what I have now very rapidly reduced, for the first time, to writing.

Believe me, dear Sir,

With sincere respect,

Your very obedient servant,
ALEX. KNOX.

P.S. I am afraid there may be several incorrectnesses in this letter; but I must absolutely dispatch it without a revisal.

1 Time destroys the fictions of the imagination, and confirms the decisions of

nature.

289

LETTER TO D. PARKEN, ESQ. ON THE CHARACTER OF

MY DEAR SIR,

MYSTICISM.

February 9. 1811.

I HOPE YOU know before this, from Mr. Butterworth, that my apparent neglect of your letters, has not been wilful. I have been, and still am, in less perfect health, than for seven years preceding the last eight months. These, (from about May,) have been a season of continued indisposition, under one form or other; I thank God, seldom severe, and never, I believe, dangerous; but always such, as to make me feel very differently from what I used to do, in a more healthful time. I am now better, but cannot pronounce myself recovered.

This, I trust, will be my apology, for the inattention which I have seemed to show to your interesting letters. I had particularly promised to say something to you about Brydayne. I never forgot it; but my state of health induced me to put it off from time to time. I should, probably, now endeavour to redeem my pledge, did not your last letter, and kind present of Fénelon's life, call me to another subject.

I assure you, I duly esteem your solid testimonial, to the little faculty of thinking and writing, with which it has pleased God to intrust me. I say nothing about your over-rating it; because, in the judgment made by a kind and candid mind, (however discerning,) of another's talents, over-rating is unavoidable. All that is pleasant is seen, and will, of course, have its full praise; while all that gave consciousness of weakness, while the work was going

on, is out of view, and therefore occasions no drawback in the estimation. All this, however, remains in the recollection of the person himself; and, if he has common good sense, will make him hear with humility, what it would imply insensibility, not to hear with pleasure.

I must come, however, to the main point. What you propose respecting the Review, gives me some little feeling of pain; because I cannot give the answer which you wish. wish. I have happened to be able to assist you in three instances; but it was the accidental fitness of the cases, which put it in my power. And, even as it was, I felt it an up-hill work. Reviewing is not my vocation. To read a book, so as to be able to review it, would be to me, at any time, an oppressive drudgery. And to cast my thoughts into that form, which is requisite for a Review, is to me (from whatever cause) peculiarly difficult. But that is not the worst of it. How How very few subjects could I write on, without giving alarm to your honest readers. You yourself were fully sensible of my narrow escape, the last time. And another attempt could hardly fail to verify the proverb, "The farther in, the deeper."

Your

The truth is, it could not be otherwise. Review has taken its ground, and avows its character. It is self-evidently calvinistic and puritanic. Moderately, beyond a doubt; as much so, perhaps, as it could be, consistently with retaining those characters at all. Still, these are its properties. Now I am of another species. My sentiments, both theological and ecclesiastical, are not merely dissimilar ; in many respects, they are adverse. And, in me, these sentiments are, perhaps more than in most others, habitually influential. They enter, more or

;

less, into all the movements of my mind; and to keep them back, would be doing violence to my nature. But, what I make much more account of, it would be doing injury to my general notion of truth. In a word, I must either walk in fetters, (which I never can do,) or your review would be, -like Caliban, a pretty kind of monster with two voices.

For your own sake, therefore, as well as for mine, I say, do not ask, nor expect aid from me. The case involves a moral impossibility; were it otherwise, your kind earnestness would draw forth a different answer.

As, however, you are pleased to value my thoughts, as a private communication; I cannot omit saying something on the point, which your letter brings before me. Fénelon has been, if I mistake not, the greatest favourite with Protestants, that his church has produced. The most rigid in pronouncing general fulminations, when Fénelon is named, abate somewhat of their wonted sternness. The Christian Observer, for example, has moderated even its accustomed anti-papistical tone, to do honour, (like the Duke of Marlborough, heretofore,) to this fascinating individual.

These, I own, are not quite my feelings. I see much in Fénelon to admire and love. He had a fine classical taste, and his piety was pure and exalted. But I cannot relish either his intellectual, or religious peculiarities. It is the tendency of some minds to contemplate moral truth abstractedly, as it is in itself; and, for the purpose of doing so more perfectly, to withdraw their thoughts and feelings, as much as possible, from the influences of animal nature. Others, on the contrary, think, that we are