’And yet I did usually put in something in my Sermon which was above their own discovery, and which they had not known before; and this I did, that they might be kept humble, and still perceive their ignorance, and be willing to keep in a learning state. (For when Preachers tell their People of no more than they know, and do not shew that they excel them in knowledge, and easily overtop them in Abilities, the People will be tempted to turn Preachers themselves, and think that they have learnt all that the Ministers can teach them, and are as wise as they------).  And this I did also to increase their knowledge; and also to make Religion pleasant to them, by a daily addition to their former Sight, and to draw them on with desire and Delight.’

Opposition to Sir Joshua Reynolds in the Royal Academy.

(Vol. iv, p. 219, n. 4.)

’JAMES BOSWELL, ESQ., TO BISHOP PERCY.
’12 March, 1790.

’Sir Joshua has been shamefully used by a junto of the Academicians.  I live a great deal with him, and he is much better than you would suppose.’  —­Nichols’s Literary History, vii. 313.

Richard Baxter on the possible salvation of a Suicide.  (Vol. iv, p. 225.)

The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies writes to me that ’Dr. Johnson’s quotation about suicide must surely be wrong.  I have no recollection in any of Baxter’s Works of such a statement, and it is in direct contradiction to all that is known of his sentiments.  ’Mr. Davies sends me the following passage, which possibly Johnson might have very imperfectly remembered:—­

’The commonest cause [of suicide] is melancholy, &c.  Though there be much more hope of the salvation of such as want the use of their understandings, because so far it may be called involuntary, yet it is a very dreadful case, especially so far as reason remaineth in any power.’  —­Baxter’s Christian Directory, edited by Orme, part iv, p. 138.

Haslitt’s report of Baxter’s Sermon.

(Vol. iv, p. 226, n. 2.)

The Rev. J. Hamilton Davies tells me that he ’entirely disbelieves that Baxter said, “Hell was paved with infants’ skulls.”  The same thing, or something very like it, has been said of Calvin, but I could never,’ Mr. Davies continues, ‘find it in his Works.’  He kindly sends me the following extract from Reliquiae Baxterianae, ed. 1696, p. 24:—­

’Once all the ignorant Rout were raging mad against me for preaching the Doctrine of Original Sin to them, and telling them that Infants before Regeneration had so much Guilt and Corruption, as made them loathsome in the Eyes of God:  whereupon they vented it abroad in the Country, That I preached that God hated, or loathed Infants; so that they railed at me as I passed through the streets.  The next Lord’s Day, I cleared and confirmed it, and shewed them that if this were not true, their Infants had no need of Christ, of Baptism, or of Renewing by the Holy Ghost.  And I asked them whether they durst say that their Children were saved without a Saviour, and were no Christians, and why they baptized them, with much more to that purpose, and afterwards they were ashamed and as mute as fishes.’