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THOMAS ASTLE, 1734-1803, was a distinguished antiquary, and Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London. By appointment of the House of Lords, 1770, he superintended the printing of the Ancient Records of Parliament, in 6 folio volumes. He was an active member of the Society of Antiquaries, and contributed numerous papers to the Archæologia. His greatest work is his Origin and Progress of Writing, 1784. "This work will fully establish Mr. Astle's literary fame, and will transmit his name with lustre to posterity." — Gentleman's Magazine.

JOHN FERRIAR, M. D., 1764-1815, was a man of literary taste and culture, and something of an antiquary.

Ferriar was a resident of Manchester, and Physician to the Infirmary at that place. Works: The Prince of Angola, a Tragedy; Medical Histories and Reflections, 3 vols., 8vo; Illustrations of Sterne, showing that Sterne pillaged largely from Burton, Hale, and the old French novelists; Foxglove; Biblomania, etc. "If we look closely into the style of composition which Sterne thought proper to adopt, we find a sure guide in the ingenious Dr. Ferriar, who, with the most scrupulous patience, has traced our author through the hidden sources whence he borrowed most of his striking and peculiar expressions."- Sir Walter Scott.

IV. THEOLOGICAL WRITERS.

The Wesleys.

John Wesley, 1703-1791, and Charles Wesley, 17081788, are distinguished as the founders of Methodism, the greatest religious movement since the Reformation.

These great and good men were sons of the Rev. Samuel Wesley. They were born at Epworth, Lincolnshire, where their father was rector. Like the other members of the family, they were educated at Oxford; both also entered the ministry of the Church of England. John was elected Fellow of Lincoln College, and was appointed Greek Lecturer. The two brothers, with fourteen others, members of the University, moved by a consideration of the low state of religion in the University, formed an association for the promotion of greater personal holiness, and received from the other students various nicknames, such as The Holy Club, The God Club, The Bible Bigots, The Methodists, etc. The term last named, thus given in derision, has adhered permanently to them and their followers. .

When General Oglethorpe went to America, in 1735, to found his new colony of Georgia, John and Charles Wesley accompanied him. They travelled a good deal through the colonies, preaching in different places, and returned to England, Charles in 1737, and John in 1738.

In their subsequent labors in England and elsewhere, the work of organization and management fell upon John, whose talents for administration have rarely been

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equalled. Charles was a zealous and efficient preacher, but is especially noted as a hymnist.

Wesleyan Hymnody. — A vein of poetry and music seems to have run through all the members of this remarkable family. The father, Samuel, wrote several vol umes of poetry on religious subjects. Even John, in the midst of his overwhelming cares and labors, wrote many hymns, some of them excellent. Samuel, another brother, published a volume of poems. Samuel and Charles, in the next generation, sons of the hymnist, were famous as musical composers. But in Charles, the associate of John in the great work of founding Methodism, this kind of faculty was developed to an extraordinary degree, and he turned it to excellent account in the work in which they were both engaged. The Hymns of Charles Wesley were a great help to John in giving form and expression to the new religious movement. No man has written so my hymns as Charles Wesley, and no one has written so many that have obtained general acceptance. As a literary monument, they are worthy to be placed beside the other great productions of genius.

John Wesley lived to his eighty-eighth year, and continued his life of incessant ministerial labors to the last,-travelling, preaching, and writing. It is said that during his ministry of fifty-three years, he travelled 225,000 miles, a great part of it on horseback, and preached more than 40,000 sermons. His printed works, as published immediately after his death, filled 32 vols., 8vo. A later edition, revised and condensed, is in 14 vols., 8vo. It is impossible, in a work like the present, to particularize in regard to this great man. He wrote, as occasion required, on almost every topic growing out of the exigencies of a new religious community, -expository, hortatory, controversial, and although no one work of his stands out as a special monument of genius, few men have left upon the minds of their race so strong and abiding an impression of their own individuality.

Some further details in regard to the Hymns of Charles and John Wesley are given in the Chapter on English Hymnody.

SAMUEL WESLEY, SEN., 1664–1735, father of John and Charles, was a clergyman of the English Church, rector of Epworth, Lincolnshire.

Wesley was educated at Oxford, and was a man of learning, poetically inclined, and the author of several works: The Life of our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, an Heroic Poem; The History of the Old and New Testament Attempted in Verse; Marlborough, or The Fate of Europe, a Poem; Elegies on Queen Mary and Archbishop Tillotson; Maggots, or Poems on Several Subjects never before handled; Defence of a Letter concerning the Education of Dissenters; Dissertations and Conjectures on the Book of Job, folio. "Poor Job! it was his eternal fate to be persecuted by his friends. His three comforters passed sentence of condemnation upon him, and he has been executing in effigy ever since. He was first bound to the stake by a long catena of Greek Fathers; then tortured by Pineda; then strangled by Caryl; and afterwards cut up by Wesley, and anatomized by Garnet. Pray don't reckon me amongst his hangmen." Warburton.

SAMUEL WESLEY, JUN., 1690-1739, son of the preceding, and brother of John and Charles, was educated at Oxford, took orders in the church, and was for many years Head-Master of Tiverton School, Devonshire.

Like most of the Wesleys, he had a bent towards poetry. He published a quarto volume of Poems.

Whitefield.

George Whitefield, 1714-1770, was the founder of the Calvinistic branch of the Methodists, and was the greatest preacher of his day, if not the greatest uninspired preacher of all time.

Whitefield was born at Gloucester, and educated at Oxford. He was ordained in 1736; and embarked for Georgia in 1737; returned to England in 1738; and began preaching in the open air in 1739.

The accounts given of the effects of Whitefield's eloquence border on the marvellous, and would be set down to credulity, were they not authenticated by so many and such unimpeachable witnesses. That these effects were in a great measure the fruits of mere oratory,-of voice, tone, and gesture,-is evident from the fact that his published sermons are decidedly commonplace, giving the reader no idea of unusual power or eloquence. Whitefield's Works and Life have been published in 7 vols., 8vo. The contents consist of Letters, Journals, and Sermons. Whitefield preached extensively in America, and died here, at Newburyport, Mass. For over thirty years he was engaged with most extraordinary activity in public ministrations, chiefly itinerant. When his health began to fail, he put himself on what he called "short allowance," that is, preaching only once every week-day and three times on Sunday. In the course of his ministry, it is said, he crossed the Atlantic seven times, and preached 18,000 sermons.

"There are extant seventy-five of the sermons by which Whitefield agitated nations, and the more remote influence of which is still distinctly to be traced in the popular divinity and the national character of Great Britain and of the United States. Deficient in learning, meagre in thought, and redundant in language as are these discourses, they yet fulfil the one great condition of genuine eloquence. They propagate their own kindly warmth, and leave their stings behind them."- Sir James Stephen in the Edinburgh Review.

As an evidence of the persuasive power of Whitefield's eloquence, the following instance is related by Franklin. Whitefield had much at heart the establishment of an Orphan House in Savannah.

"I did not disapprove of the design; but, as Georgia was then destitute of materials and workmen, and it was proposed to send them from Philadelphia at a great expense, I thought it would have been better to have built the House at Philadelphia and brought the children to it. This I advised; but he was resolute in his first project, rejected my counsel, and I, therefore, refused to contribute. I happened soon after to attend one of his sermons, in the course of which I perceived he intended to finish with a collection, and I silently resolved he should get nothing from me. I had in my pocket a handful of copper money, three or four silver dollars, and five pistoles in gold. As he proceeded, I began to soften, and concluded to give the copper. Another stroke of his oratory made me ashamed of that, and determined me to give the silver; and he finished so admirably that I emptied my pocket wholly into the collector's

dish, gold and all. At this sermon there was also one of our club, who, being of my sentiments respecting the building in Georgia, and, suspecting a collection might be intended, had, by precaution, emptied his pockets before he came from home. Towards the conclusion of the discourse, however, he felt a strong inclination to give, and applied to a neighbor, who stood near him, to lend him some money for the purpose. The request was fortunately made to perhaps the only man in the company who had the firmness not to be affected by the preacher. His answer was, 'At any other time, friend Hopkinson, I would lend to thee freely; but not now, for thee seems to be out of thy right senses.' — Franklin's Autobiography,

Toplady.

AUGUSTUS M. TOPLADY, 1740-1778, born at Farnham, in Surrey, and educated at Westminster School, and in Trinity College, Dublin, was one of the ultra Calvinists of the English Church, and was noted for his assaults upon John Wesley on points of doctrine.

Toplady's chief works on this subject are: The Doctrine of Absolute Predestination Stated and Asserted; Historic Proof of the Doctrinal Calvinism of the Church of England; The Scheme of Christian and Philosophical Necessity Asserted, in opposition to Mr. John Wesley, etc. Besides these controversial writings, Toplady was the author of a large number of Hymns, many of them of great excellence. Some of Toplady's Hymns are found in nearly every collection. The hymn, Rock of Ages, the best probably in the language, will keep his memory fresh in the heart of the Christian Church long after all his sharp controversial essays are forgotten.

WILLIAM HUNTINGTON, S. S., 1744-1813, a popular Methodist preacher of London, was originally a laborer. He was the author of a number of sermons and controversial writings. The title S. S. is thus explained by Huntington himself: "As I cannot get a D. D. for the want of cash, neither can I get an M. A. for the want of learning; therefore am I compelled to fly for refuge to S. S., by which I mean Sinner Saved."

THOMAS COKE, LL. D., 1747-1814, a Wesleyan missionary and writer, made nine voyages to the West Indies and the United States, as a missionary preacher. He wrote a general Commentary on the Old and New Testament, in 6 vols., 4to, and a Life of Wesley. He was the first Bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.

Jones of Nayland.

WILLIAM JONES of Nayland, 1726-1800, was an Oxford scholar, of great eminence for erudition, and a voluminous writer.

Jones's works have been printed in 12 vols., 8vo. The following are the principal: The Catholic Doctrine of the Trinity Proved; Answer to Bishop Clayton's Essay on the Spirit; Natural Philosophy; Physiological Disquisitions; Lectures on the Figurative Language of the Scriptures; The Scholar Armed against the Errors of the Times; Life of Bishop Horne, etc. Jones belonged to the Hutchinsonian school of theology. Besides his general erudition, he was specially skilled in music, and was a musical composer of no inconsiderable celebrity.

THOMAS GIBBONS, D. D., 1720-1785, a Calvinistic Dissenting preacher in London, wrote a large number of works, chiefly theological. The Christian Minister, in

three Poetical Epistles; Rhetoric, 8vo; Memoirs of Eminently Pious Women, 2 vols., Svo; Memoirs of Dr. Watts; Sermons on Practical Subjects, 3 vols., 8vo.

ROBERT HAWKES, 1753–1827, a Calvinistic divine, settled for fifty years at Plymouth, was the author of several religious works, mainly Commentaries. The following are the chief: Commentary on the Old Testament, 9 vols.; The Poor Man's Commentary on the Old Testament, 6 vols., 12mo; The Poor Man's Commentary on the New Testament, 4 vols., 12mo; The Poor Man's Morning and Evening Portion, etc.

McKnight.

JAMES MCKNIGHT, 1721-1800, is celebrated as a Commentator and as a Harmonist.

He was a native of Argyleshire, Scotland, and was educated partly at the University of Glasgow, and partly at Leyden. After preaching at Jedburgh and elsewhere, he was settled for the last twenty-eight years of his life at Edinburgh.

McKnight is known chiefly by two works, each a monument of laborious diligence and scholarship. The first was A Harmony of the Four Gospels, in which the natural or of each is preserved, with a paraphrase and notes. McKnight's Harmony is One of the standard works in the literature of the subject. His other great work, on which he spent, it is said, nearly thirty years, is A New Literal Translation from the Original Greek of All the Apostolical Epistles, with a Commentary and Notes, philological, critical, explanatory, and practical, 4 vols., 4to. McKnight on the Epistles is also one of the standard works which every theologian wishes to have in his library. Neither of these works is exhaustive or final. The science of hermeneutics has made great advances since McKnight's day. Yet they are works of great ability and of original research, and no interpreter even now can safely pass them by as superseded.

REV. JOHN WILLIAMS, LL. D., 1726-1798, a learned Dissenting minister, was for forty years settled over a congregation at Sydenham, Kent. He published A Concordance to the Greek Testament; Thoughts on Subscription to the Thirty-Nine Articles; Free Inquiry into the Authenticity of the First and Second Chapters of St. Matthew; On the Origin, and the Most Natural Method of Teaching the Languages; The Tradition Concerning the Discovery of America by Prince Madog ab Owen Gwynedd.

DAVID WILLIAMS, 1738-1816, was born near Cardigan, in Wales. He was a Dissenting minister, and preached in various places. In 1773 he established an Academy at Chelsea. In 1776 he opened an independent chapel in London for public worship, to which all were invited "who acknowledged the being of a God and the utility of prayer and praise;" in other words, a church for religious Deists. It maintained a feeble existence for about four years. In 1788-9 he founded the Royal Literary Fund. His chief publications were: Lectures on the Universal Principles and Duties of Religion and Morality, 2 vols., 4to; Apology for Preferring the Religion of Nature; Essays on Public Worship, Patriotism, and Projects for Reformation; Sermons on Religious Hypocrisy; Nature and Extent of Intellectual Liberty; Lectures on Political Principles; Lectures on Education, 4 vols., 8vo; Claims of Literature, giving an ac count of the origin and objects of the Literary Fund, etc.

HENRY HUNTER, D. D., 1741-1802, a native of Culross, Scotland, was pastor of the Scotch Church, London Wall. Hunter published, 1783-1802, seven volumes of Sacred

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