Transcribed from the 1853 Rivingtons edition ,
sometime
LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.
“I am more indebted to his writings than to those of any other uninspired writer, for the insight which I have been enabled to attain into the motives of the Divine Economy and the grounds of moral obligation.”
From a Letter of the late Bishop Kaye, of Lincoln.
LONDON:
RIVINGTONS, WATERLOO PLACE.
1853.
p. 2LONDON:
gilbert and rivington, printers,
st. john’s square
It has long been a subject of regret that we should have so few remains of so great a writer as the author of the “Analogy,” not only the greatest thinker of his day, but one almost equally remarkable for his personal religion and amiability.
The few fragments and letters which remain unpublished, derivefrom this circumstance a value wholly incommensurate with their extent, though, as to the few I have been able to recover, they seem to me worthy of notice even for their own sake.
There can, I suppose, be no doubt but that many letters on subjects connected with their common pursuit,—the defence of religion by rational arguments,—must have passed betweenDr. Clarke and the “Gentleman in Gloucestershire,” even up to the time of the former’s decease; and the specimen I am now able to exhibit certainly excites a wish that one could recover more of a series which it is most likely that Dr. Clarke at least carefully preserved. The three letters now printed were all addressed to p. 4Dr. Clarke; thefirst and last, though little known, were published many years ago in the European Magazine.
The second and third Fragments are printed as they were written, having apparently been noted down from time to time as the ideas occurred to their author; thus at the end of the first paragraph of the third Fragment, the word “direction”was originally written “advice,” but was subsequentlyaltered in a different ink, being the same with that in which thesentences immediately following were written. I have not thought myself at liberty to make any attempt to reduce these Fragments to better consistency; indeed, their present disorderedstate seems to me rather to add to their interest, as showing themode in which the stones were gathered for building up such worksas the “Analogy” and the “Sermons.” It will be observed that I have found a difficulty in reading thelast part of the third Fragment, and I am by no means sure that Ihave quite hit the sense intended; I should like it to apply either to the Cross set up at Bristol, or to the famous Charge delivered at Durham.
I have added a cotemporary notice of the buildings at Bristol,and an anecdote showing how they were thought of, as well as a statement, made after the Bishop’s death, of his proceedings with regard to the church, which is now St. George’s, near Bristol, in order to establish the fact of the separation of the property there mentioned from the bulk of his p. 5estate;—showing his desire to do something for the benefit of the people of Kingswood, a district the moral degradation of which had already attracted the