Protestant Exiles from France/Volume 2 - Book Third - Chapter 23 - Archdeacon Jortin
Archdeacon Jortin was the son of René (or Renatus) Jortin, and the grandson of Monsieur Jortin, a gentleman of good family in Brittany, both refugees in England in 1687. His mother was Martha, daughter of Rev. Daniel Rogers of Haversham, Buckinghamshire. René Jortin was a student in the Protestant College of Saumar, and brought with him his academical certificate, which became an heirloom in the refugee family. In 1691 William III. made him one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber. Thereafter he served at sea as secretary to three British Admirals successively, namely, Edward, Earl of Orford, Sir George Rooke, and Sir Cloudesley Shovel. In H.M.S. Association, he, with his chief and all on board, perished by shipwreck, 22nd October 1707. In an official document he was called “Mr. Jourdain.” His reverend son gives this explanation:— “My father came over, a young man, to England with his father, mother, uncle, two aunts, and two sisters, about 1687. He was made one of the gentlemen of the Privy Chamber in 1691 by the name of Renatus Jortin; I have his patent. After this, and before I was born, he took a fancy to change his name to Jordain, to give it an English appearance, being fond (I suppose) of passing for an Englishman, as he spoke English perfectly and without any foreign accent. This gave me some trouble afterwards when I went into Deacon’s Orders under Bishop Kennet, for the registrar of St. Giles-in-the-Fields wrote my name (as it stood there) Jordain; I gave the bishop an account of how it came to pass. After my father’s death, my mother thought it proper to assume the true name of Jortin; and she and I always wrote it so.”
John Jortin was born on 23rd October 1698. When his mother became a widow, she removed to the neighbourhood of the Charterhouse, where he passed his schooldays with distinction, being a remarkable linguist; he went to Cambridge in 1715. Dr. Styan Thirlby recommended him to Pope as a coadjutor in compiling notes to Homer. Jortin furnished to the poet all his translations from the commentary of Eustathius. “When that part of Homer came out in which I had been concerned,” says Jortin, “I was eager (as it may be supposed) to see how things stood, and much pleased to find that he had not only used almost all my notes, but had hardly made any alteration in the expressions. I observed, also, that in a subsequent edition he corrected the place to which I had made objections. I was in some hopes in those days (for I was young) that Mr. Pope would make inquiry about his coadjutor and take some civil notice of him, but he did not; and I had no notion of obtruding myself upon him. I never saw his face.”
John Jortin became B.A. in 1719, Fellow of Jesus College in 1721, and M.A. in 1722. The fellowship was vacant by the death of another descendant of a French refugee, William Rosen, who had held it since 1710. The following is the entry in the books of Jesus College:—
1710. Gul. Rosen, Londinensis, A.B., e Galliâ oriundus, in cujus demortui locum successit (1721) Joan. Jortin, A.B., Londinensis, sed e Galliâ hic quoque oriundus — A.M. 1722 — taxator academiae 1723 — presentatus ad vicariam de Swavesey 1726 — per matrimonium cessit (1727) Georgio Lewis, A.M.
The phrase taxator academiae means the university office of taxer, which Jortin discharged in 1723. His vicarage of Swavesey was in Cambridgeshire; his marriage (in 1727) was to Anne Chibnall of Newport Pagnell. About 1730 he removed to London, and settled there as the minister of a chapel in New Street, St. Giles-in-the-Fields (his native parish). In 1731 and 1732, he edited a new periodical entitled, Miscellaneous Observations on Authors Ancient and Modern. (On its discontinuance, Burmann’s Miscellanae Observationes . . . . ab eruditis Britannis inchoatae succeeded it.) In 1737 he became Vicar of Eastwell in Kent, but soon returned to London, and his friend, Rev. Dr. Zachary Pearce, made him the minister of a chapel of ease in his parish of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Dr. Pearce being, in 1747, made Bishop of Bangor, his consecration sermon was preached by Mr. Jortin. At this time Archbishop Herring had come to the See of Canterbury, and he heard the sermon with such admiration that he at once became his friend and patron. The Primate once said to Jortin, “I will be to you what Warham was to Erasmus;” and he kept his word both by uniting with Bishop Sherlock (of London) in recommending him for the Boyle Lectureship in 1749, and by presenting him to the Rectory of St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East in 1751. Also, in 1755, in virtue of his powers as Archbishop of Canterbury, he conferred on him the degree of D.D. In 1762 Dr. Osbaldeston became Bishop of London, and immediately made Dr. Jortin his chaplain, and a Prebendary of St. Paul’s, translated him to the Vicarage of Kensington, and, in 1764, made him Archdeacon of London.
The Rev. Thomas Birch inducted him to his new vicarage. Dr. Jortin’s letters to this clerical friend give us some insight into his every-day life. On “Monday, 22nd April 1751,” he wrote:—
“Dear Sir — You and I have sought one another very often to no purpose, being both of us afternoon-ramblers and street-walkers. Mr. Warburton is in town and would be very glad to see you; therefore this is to invite and summon you to meet me at his house on Wednesday morning, to breakfast there, and to settle such points as may arise. Your most obedient, &c.
Eleven years later, on “Saturday, 25th September 1762,” he wrote to the same friend:—
“Dear Sir, — I am in some uncertainty about the future operations of my campaign, but yet not without hopes of doing my business on Tuesday. I need not use any apologies for begging the favour of you, who are an early man, to come to me, dressed, on Tuesday morning, between eight and nine, to go with me to the Bishop, and dine with him, and after dinner to induct me at Kensington. This was Dr. Parker’s advice to me this morning.”
Another letter, still preserved in the mansion of New Hailes, shows that Dr. Jortin corresponded with the literati of Scotland. The letter was written to the admirable Lord Hailes, when much concerned about the grief of a brother judge, Lord Auchinleck, whose son, James Boswell, then in his twentieth year (afterwards Dr. Johnson’s Boswell), had declared his intention to become a Roman Catholic. Lord Hailes had given the young man, on his going to London, a letter of introduction to Jortin, who replied thus:—
“Your young gentleman called at my house on Thursday noon, April 3. I was gone out for the day, and he seemed to be concerned at the disappointment, and proposed to come the day following. My daughter told him I should be engaged at church, it being Good Friday. He then left your letter, and a note with it for me, promising to be with me on Saturday morning. But from that time to this I have heard nothing of him. He began, I suppose, to suspect some design upon him; and his new friends and fathers may have represented me to him as a heretic and an infidel, whom he ought to avoid as he would the plague. I should gladly have used my best endeavours upon this melancholy occasion, but, to tell you the truth, my hopes of success would have been small. Nothing is more intractable than a fanatic. I heartily pity your good friend. If his son be really sincere in his new superstition, and sober in his morals, there is some comfort in that; for surely a man may be a papist and an honest man. It is not to be expected that the son should feel much for his father’s sorrows. Religious bigotry eats up natural affection, and tears asunder the dearest bonds. Yet, if I had an opportunity I should have touched that string, and tried whether there remained in his breast any of the veteris vestigia flammae.”[2]
His readiness in conversation is illustrated by the following anecdote connected with Bowyer’s Greek Testament, published in 1763:—
Whilst Mr. Bowyer’s edition of the Greek Testament was preparing, and when it was ready for the press, that incomparable scholar and divine, Dr. Jortin, mentioned the work in a mixed company, and in terms of warm approbation. A gentleman present, who was a stranger to Mr. Bowyer’s literary abilities, expressed some surprise that a printer should engage in so arduous a task, and with great simplicity asked Who helped him? Jortin, with his usual spirit, immediately answered, Who helped him? why, he helps himself, and where can he meet with a better assistant?” — (Gentleman’s Magazine, vol. vi.)
Archdeacon Jortin’s celebrity arises from his learned works published both during his life and after his death. His best known performance is his elaborate Life of Erasmus, which, though it incorporated Le Clerc’s authentic compilations, was substantially a new work (vol. i., 1758; ii., 1760). The volumes most characteristic of the man contained his “Remarks on Ecclesiastical History” (of which volume i. appeared in 1751, volume ii. in 1752, volume iii. in 1754, and volumes iv. and v. posthumously in 1773 — all founded on his Boyle Lectures, which he had not printed), in which we see the preciseness and gaiety of the Frenchman combined with the judgment and directness of an Englishman. This book startled many excellent divines as dealing rather unceremoniously and flippantly with “trifles which persons of greater zeal than discretion would obtrude upon the world as golden relics of primitive Christianity.” Southey said (in a letter to John May, Esq., dated Christchurch, Hampshire, 4th June 1797): —
Jortin’s work, however, has survived this and similar insinuations.
The Rev. William Trollope, in his life of the author, prefixed to a new edition of Dr. Jortin’s “Remarks on Ecclesiastical History,” informs us that he left, in writing, the following directions:—
“Bury me in a private manner, by daylight, at Kensington, in the church, or rather in the new churchyard, and lay a flat stone over the grave. Let the inscription be only thus:
Joannes Jortin,
mortalis esse desiit,
anno salutis. . . .
aetatis. . . .”
The Rev. T. B. Murray, rector of St. Dunstan’s, supposed that the thought expressed in this epitaph was suggested by the conclusion of an old epitaph in the chancel of that church, dated 1697, on Francis March, a Turkey merchant:—
Ineluctabili morbo cessit, et mortalitati non vita; valedixit.
The blanks in the epitaph had to filled up, as to time with mdcclxx., and as to age with lxxii. Dr. Jortin’s last illness began on 27th August, and he died on 8th September 1770.[3] Mrs. Jortin survived till 24th June 1778. One son and one daughter survived their parents. The daughter, Martha, wife of Rev. Samuel Darby, Rector of Whatfield, died in 1817, aged eighty-six. The son, Rogers Jortin, Esq., of Lincoln’s Inn, one of the four attorneys in His Majesty’s Exchequer Office for pleas, married, first, Anne (who died in 1774), daughter of William Prowting, surgeon; and, secondly, a descendant of French Protestant ancestry, Louisa, daughter of Dr. Maty, Principal Librarian of the British Museum. Rogers Jortin died in 1795, aged sixty-three, and his widow survived him nearly fourteen years. Archdeacon Jortin was celebrated for pithy sayings, such as:—
“A desire to say things which no one ever said makes some people say things which no one ought to say.”
“It is observable that Pharaoh, tyrant and persecutor as he was, never compelled the Hebrews to forsake the religion of their fathers and to adopt that of the Egyptians. Such improvements in persecution were reserved for Christians.”
Some men threaten to take revenge on the persecutions and superstitions of Popery by going over to scepticism or infidelity. What does Archdeacon Jortin say to that? — “Miserable spirit of contradiction! because a man would deprive me of common sense, I must, in resentment, throw away my religion? This is fulfilling, in a very bad way, the precept, If any man will take away thy coat let him have thy cloak also.”
As to Philip’s Life of Cardinal Pole he denounced it as a work “undertaken to recommend to us the very scum and dregs of Popery, and to vilify and calumniate the Reformation and the Reformers, in a bigoted, disingenuous, and superficial performance.”
“Men will compel others — not to think with them (for that is impossible) — but to say they do; upon which they obtain full leave not to think or reason at all, and this they call unity.”
“Their writers assure us that Papists are now grown much more mild and moderate, and have none of the ferocity and cruelty which was the temper of former times, and that they condemn persecution for a mere diversity of religious sentiments. They may say so; and they must be fools who believe them. It is probable enough that among their laity there are several who dislike all sanguinary methods of supporting their religion; but it is because they do not fully understand their own ecclesiastical system, into the very contexture of which persecution is so closely woven that nothing can separate it. Upon blood it was built, and by blood it must be supported.” (1770.)
Dr. Jortin, himself a good and learned writer, has been the theme of much good writing by learned men. Dr. Samuel Parr’s eulogy has been much admired; he said —
“As to Jortin, whether I look back to his verse, to his prose, to his critical, or to his theological works, there are few authors to whom I am so much indebted for rational entertainment or for solid instruction. Learned he was without pedantry. He was ingenious without the affectation of singularity. He was a lover of truth without hovering over the gloomy abyss of scepticism, and a friend to free enquiry without roving into the dreary and pathless wilds of latitudinarianism. He had a heart which never disgraced the powers of his understanding. With a lively imagination, an elegant taste, and a judgment most masculine and most correct; he united the artless and amiable negligence of a school boy. Let me not be charged with pedantry if, for the want of English words equally correspondent with my ideas, I say that in the lighter parts of Jortin’s writings may be found that εύτραπελία which is defied by Aristotle τεταιδευμένη ϋβνιξ, and that in the more serious is preserved that σεμνόης, which the same philosopher most accurately and beautifully explains, σεμνόηςμαλαχή χαί εύσχήμων βαρύτης.[4] Wit without ill nature, and sense without effort, he could at will scatter upon every subject; and in every book the writer presents us with a near and distinct view of the real man —
ut omnis
Votivâ pateat tanquam descripta tabellâ
Vita senis.[5]
His style, though inartificial, is sometimes elevated — though familiar, it is never mean — and though employed upon various topics of theology, ethics, and criticism, it is not arrayed in any delusive resemblance either of solemnity from fanatical cant, of profoundness from scholastic jargon, of precision from the crabbed formalities of cloudy philologists, or of refinement from the technical babble of frivolous connoisseurs. At the shadowy and fleeting reputation which is sometimes gained by the frolics of literary vanity, or the mischievous struggles of controversial rage, Jortin never grasped. Truth, which some men are ambitious of seizing by surprise in the trackless and dark recess, he was content to overtake in the broad and beaten path; and in the pursuit of it, if he does not excite our astonishment by the rapidity of his strides, he at least secures our confidence by the firmness of his step. To the examination of positions advanced by other men he always brought a mind, which neither prepossession had seduced, nor malevolence polluted. He imposed not his own conjectures as infallible or irresistible truths, nor endeavoured to give an air of importance to trifles by dogmatical vehemence. He could support his more serious opinions without the versatility of a sophist, the fierceness of a disputant, or the impertinence of a buffoon — more than this, — he could relinquish or correct them with the calm and steady dignity of a writer who, while he yielded something to the arguments of his antagonists, was conscious of retaining enough to command their respect. He had too much discernment to confound difference of opinion with malignity or dulness, and too much candour to insult where he could not persuade. Though his sensibilities were neither coarse nor sluggish, he was yet exempt from those fickle humours, those rankling jealousies, and that restless waywardness which men of the brightest talents are too prone to indulge. He carried with him into every station in which he was placed, and every subject which he explored, a solid greatness of soul which could spare an inferior though in the offensive form of an adversary, and endure an equal with or without the sacred name of a friend. The importance of commendation, as well to him who bestows as to him who claims it, he estimated not only with justice but with delicacy, and therefore he neither wantonly lavished it nor withheld it austerely. But invective he neither provoked nor feared; and as to the severities of contempt, he reserved them for occasions where alone they could be employed with propriety, and where by himself they were employed with effect, for the chastisement of arrant dunces, of censorious sciolists, of intolerant bigots in every sect, and unprincipled impostors in every profession. Distinguished in various forms of literary composition, engaged in various duties of his ecclesiastical profession, and blessed with a long and honourable life, he nobly exemplified the rare and illustrious virtue of charity. The esteem, the affection, the reverence, which I feel for so profound a scholar and so honest a man as Dr. Jortin, make me wholly indifferent to the praise and censure of those who vilify without reading his writings, or read them without finding some incentive to study, some proficiency in knowledge, or some improvement in virtue.”[6]
Dean Milman (in the Quarterly Review, July 1859) praised and criticised Jortin in the following paragraph (which I quote, although I acquit the refugees of a blind hatred of Romanism):—
“If we could have designated the modern scholar, whose congenial mind would best have appreciated and entered most fully into the whole life of Erasmus, it would have been Jortin. Jortin had wit, and a kindred quiet sarcasm. From no book, except, perhaps, the Lettres Provinciates, has Gibbon drawn so much of his subtle scorn, his covert sneer, as from Jortin’s ‘Remarks on Ecclesiastical History.’ In Jortin lived the inextinguishable hatred of Romanism which most of the descendants of the Exiles, after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, cherished in their inmost hearts, and carried with them to every part of Europe — that hatred which in Bayle, Le Clerc, and many others, had an influence not yet adequately traced on the literature, and through the literature, on the politics and religion of Christendom. It was this feeling which gave its bitterness to so much of Jortin’s views on every event and dispute in Church history. In these he read the nascent and initiatory bigotry which in later days shed the blood of his ancestors. He detected in the fourth or fifth century the spirit which animated the dragonnades. Jortin was an excellent and an elegant scholar; his latinity, hardly surpassed by any modern writer, must have caused him to revel in the pages of Erasmus; he was a liberal divine, of calm but sincere piety, to whose sympathies the passionless moderation of Erasmus must have been congenial; nor was there one of his day who would feel more sincere gratitude to Erasmus for his invaluable services to classical learning and to biblical criticism. We cannot altogether assent to the brief review of Jortin’s book growled out by the stern old dictator of the last century, ‘Sir, it is a dull book.’ It is not a dull book; it contains much lively and pleasant remark, much amusing anecdote, many observations of excellent sense, conveyed in a style singularly terse, clever, and sometimes of the finest cutting sarcasm. But never was a book so ill composed; it consists of many rambling parts, without arrangement, without order, without proportion; it is no more than an abstract and summary of the letters of Erasmus, interspersed with explanatory or critical comments, and copious patches from other books. It is, in fact, Remarks on the life of Erasmus — no more a biography than the ‘Remarks on Ecclesiastical History’ are a History of the Church.”
The Rev. Vicesimus Knock (or Knox, as latterly he spelt his name) was Dr. Jortin’s curate at St. Dunstan’s-in-the-East for many years. His son, Vicesimus Knox, M.A. and D.D., became an eminent man in the literary world, and printed some “Cursory Remarks on the Life and Writings of Dr Jortin,” which I transcribe:—
“The mind feels a secret complacency in contemplating characters eminent for virtue, learning, and religion; and there are few who are not delighted, as well as instructed, by the praises bestowed on departed merit. Notwithstanding the depravity of human nature, virtue still appears amiable to the vicious, and knowledge to the ignorant. Experience, indeed, seems to confirm the opinion of Plato, that goodness, exclusive of its collateral advantages, is possessed of charms irresistibly captivating. A review of the life of the late Dr. Jortin cannot but suggest the most pleasing reflections. As a poet, a divine, a philosopher, and a man, he served the cause of religion, learning, and morality. There are, indeed, many writers whose reputation is more diffused among the vulgar and illiterate, but few will be found whose names stand higher than Ur. Jortin in the esteem of the judicious. His Latin poetry is classically elegant — his discourses and dissertations sensible, ingenious, and argumentative — his remarks on ecclesiastical history interesting and impartial — his sermons replete with sound sense and rational morality, expressed in a style simple, pure, and perspicuous. Simplicity of style is a grace which, though it may not captivate at first sight, is sure in the end to give permanent satisfaction. It does not excite admiration, but it raises esteem. It does not warm to rapture, but it soothes to complacency. Unskilful writers seldom aim at this excellence. They imagine that what is natural and common cannot be beautiful. Everything in their compositions must be strained — everything affected; but Dr. Jortin had studied the ancients, and perhaps formed himself on the model of Xenophon. He wrote on subjects of morality, and morality is founded on reason, and reason is always cool and dispassionate. A florid declamation, embellished with rhetorical figures and animated with pathetic description, may, indeed, amuse the fancy and raise a transient emotion in the heart, but rational discourse alone can convince the understanding and reform the conduct.
“The first efforts of genius have commonly been in poetry. Unrestrained by the frigidity of argument and the confinement of rules, the young mind gladly indulges the flights of imagination. Cicero, as well as many other ancient philosophers, orators, and historians, is known to have sacrificed to the Muses in his earlier productions. Dr. Jortin adds to the number of those who confirm the observation. In his Lusus Poetici, one of the first of his works, are united classical language, tender sentiment, and harmonious verse. Among the modern Latin poets there are few who do not yield to Dr. Jortin. His sapphics on the story of Bacchus and Ariadne are easy, elegant, and poetical. The little ode, in which the calm life of the philosopher is compared to the gentle stream gliding through a silent grove, is highly pleasing to the mind, and is perfectly elegant in the composition. The lyrics are, indeed, all excellent. The poem on the immortality of the soul is ingenious, poetical, and an exact imitation of the style of Lucretius. In short, the whole collection is such as would scarcely have disgraced a Roman in the age of an Augustus. Time, if it does not cool the fire of imagination, certainly strengthens the powers of the judgment. As our author advanced in life, he cultivated his reason rather than his fancy, and desisted from his efforts in poetry to exert his abilities in the disquisitions of criticism. His observations on one of the fathers of English poetry need but to be more generally known in order to be more generally approved.
“Classical productions are rather amusing than instructive. His works of this kind are all juvenile, and naturally flowed from a classical education. These, however, were but preparatory to his higher designs, and soon gave way to the more important inquiries which were peculiar to his profession. His Discourses on the Christian Religion, one of the first-fruits of his theological pursuits, abound with sound sense and solid argument, which entitle their author to a rank very near the celebrated Grotius. His Dissertations are equally remarkable for taste, learning, originality, and ingenuity. His Life of Erasmus has extended his reputation beyond the limits of his native country, and established his literary character in the remotest Universities of Europe. Erasmus had long been an object of universal admiration; and it is matter of surprise that his Life had never been written with accuracy and judgment. This task was reserved for Dr. Jortin; and the avidity with which the work was received by the learned is a proof of the merit of the execution. It abounds with matter interesting to the scholar; but the style and method are such as will not please every reader. There is a carelessness in it, and a want of dignity and delicacy. His Remarks on Ecclesiastical History are full of manly sense, ingenious strictures, and sound erudition. The work is highly beneficial to mankind, as it represents that superstition, which disgraced mankind, in its proper light, and gives a right sense of the advantages derived from religious Reformation. He everywhere expresses himself with peculiar vehemence against the infatuation of bigotry and fanaticism. Convinced that true happiness is founded on a right use of the reasoning powers, he makes it the scope of all his religious works to lead mankind from the errors of imagination, to embrace the dictates of dispassionate reason.
“Posthumous publications, it has been remarked, are usually inferior to these which are published in an author’s lifetime. And indeed the opinion is plausible, as it may be presumed that an author’s reason for not publishing his works is a consciousness of their inferiority. The Sermons of Dr. Jortin are, however, an exception. Good sense and sound morality appear in them — not, indeed, dressed out in the meretricious ornaments of a florid style, but in all the manly force and simple grace of natural eloquence. The same caprice which raises to reputation those trifling discourses which have nothing to recommend them but a prettiness of fancy and a flowery language, will again consign them to oblivion; but the sermons of Dr. Jortin will always be read with pleasure and edification.
“The transition from an author’s writings to his life is frequently disadvantageous to his character. Dr. Jortin, however, when no longer considered as an author but as a man, is so far from being lessened in our opinion, that he excites still greater esteem and applause. A simplicity of manners, an inoffensive behaviour, a universal benevolence, candour, modesty, and good sense were his characteristics. Though his genius and love of letters led him to choose the still vale of sequestered life, yet was his merit conspicuous enough to attract the notice of a certain primate who did honour to episcopacy. Unknown by personal acquaintance and unrecommended by the solicitation of friends or the interposition of power, he was presented by Archbishop Herring to a valuable benefice[7] in London, as a reward for his exertions as a scholar and a divine. Some time after he became chaplain to a late bishop of London, who gave him the vicarage of Kensington and appointed him archdeacon of his diocese. This was all the preferment he had, nor had he this till he was advanced in life. He did not, however, repine. Thus he speaks of himself, Not to his erudition, but to his constant love and pursuit of it, he owes a situation and a station better than he expected, and as good as he ought to desire.
“Since the above remarks were written I have been informed that several of the sermons of Dr. Jortin are translations from the French. He certainly was a great reader of French divinity, and he confessedly borrowed from it freely. It has been suggested to me that he was not so remarkable for genius and invention as industry and learning. His poetry, I think, proves that he possessed genius; perhaps he overwhelmed it by a multifarious reading of authors who had much genius, and are not likely to excite it. I must confess that it is possible I may have gone into the style of panegyric from having known him personally, and beheld him, when a boy, with reverence. But my opinion of him is confirmed by the best judges, and by public fame.”[8]
The Rev. Christopher Hunter, of Cambridge, wrote, 22nd October 1770: —
“I find by the papers, that the world in general, and the Christian world in particular, have lately lost a very valuable member in Dr. Jortin, Vicar of Kensington. During my residence at Kensington I had frequent opportunities of admiring his excellent Discourses; and the opportunities I have had since of perusing some of his other works have increased my admiration into reverence and esteem. His “Remarks on Ecclesiastical History” abound with good sense, profound erudition, and entertaining matter — and, above all, that grand desideratum among Divines ever since the apostolical times, Christian moderation.”[9]
Having transcribed so much eulogy, I may be allowed to say that Jortin well deserved it as a literary man and a moral instructor; but like other divines of the moderate school, he failed as a preacher of Gospel. He did not (I think) understand it to be his duty to preach gratuitous salvation to poor sinners, nor did he attempt more than the composing of religious addresses to good Christian people. Being scarcely convinced of the poverty and depravity of the human soul, he could neither see nor declare “the multitude of God’s mercy,” or “the unsearchable riches of Christ.” In this estimate of him I am supported by his amiable cotemporary, the Rev. James Hervey, “the learned and pious author of the well-known Meditations,” who said:—
“I have read Mr. Jortin. He aggravates features — misrepresents his opponents — and, in my opinion, mistakes the meaning, diminishes the blessing, of Gospel-salvation. On such points controversy, unless it be conducted by minds free from prejudice (and where are these to be found?), is endless.”[10]
- ↑ Nichols’ Illustrations, vol. i. p. 822.
- ↑ Boswelliana, with a memoir of James Boswell, by Rev. Charles Rogers, LL.D., London, published for the Grampian Club, 1876; p. 13. (Boswell’s Romish inclinations soon vanished.)
- ↑ I follow the dates given by Mr. Trollope, who took commendable pains to secure accuracy.
- ↑ Rhetoric, lib. ii., cap. 12 and 17.
- ↑ Horat., Sat. I., lib. ii.
- ↑ Parr’s Works, vol. iii., pp. 419, &c.
- ↑ Emendation by John Nichols. — “To a benefice in London, worth £200 a year, as a reward, &c.”
- ↑ Knox’s “Essays,” in three volumes, sixteenth edition, London, 1808, Essay No. 114 (in other editions No. 115). The supplementary paragraph, “Since the above remarks were written” &c., here appears in its most finished form. The author altered and retouched it two or three times, and modern printers have omitted it altogether. The following is the original form:—
“While persons of inferior attainments were made bishops, a man, who had been uncommonly eminent in the service of learning and religion, was left to pine in the shade of obscurity. Many, who were thought to have little more than the shadow of piety and learning, have had the substantial reward of them if secular advantages could bestow it. Jortin was acknowledged to possess true virtue and real knowledge, but was left to receive his recompense in the suggestions of a good conscience, and the applause of posterity. The writer of this eulogium (as it has been called) is not conscious of exaggeration. lie owns, however, that he entertained a favourable prepossession concerning this liberal and laborious scholar at a very early age. When a schoolboy he had the honour of being several times in his company, and always looked up to him with a degree of veneration natural to a young mind strongly attached to letters. He is happy to find that the unprejudiced coincide with him in his maturer judgment.” Quoted by Nichols from the Second Edition of “Essays.” [Dr. Knox was born 8th December 1752, and died 6th September 1821.]
- ↑ Nichols’ “Illustrations of Literature,” vol. v., p. 816.
- ↑ Nichols’ “Illustrations of Literature,” vol. ii., pp. S41, S43.