if she had any more, as he should like
to read them all if she had. Having received and read them, he
was so much pleased, that he resolved to print them; and having
them prepared for the press, he published them with a preface
recommending the sermons and highly praising the author."

It appears that the sermons were prepared for the press, at Lord
Shaftesbury's instance, by the Rev. William Stephens, rector of Sutton,
in Surrey; but the fact of the preface being by himself rests on the
undoubted evidence of his sister, Lady Betty Harris (wife of James
Harris of Salisbury, the author of _Hermes_), who mentioned having
written it from her brother's dictation, he being at that time too ill
to write himself.

The letters to Michael Aynsworth are very interesting, from their
benevolent, earnest, and truly pious spirit, and might even now be read
with advantage by a young student of theology: but, being very severe in
many places upon the greater part of the body of the clergy _called_ the
Church of England, could have been by no means palatable to the High
Church party,--

"Who no more esteem themselves a Protestant Church, or in union
with those of Protestant communion, though they pretend to the
name of Christian, and would have us judge of the spirit of
Christianity from theirs; which God prevent! lest men should in
time forsake Christianity through their means."

The eleventh letter in the MS. is important on account of the
observations it contains on the consequences which must inevitably arise
from Locke's doctrine respecting innate ideas. Locke had been tutor both
to Lord Shaftesbury and his father:--

"Mr. Locke, much as I honour him, and well as I know him, and
can answer for his sincerity as a most zealous Christian
believer, has espoused those principles which Mr. Hobbes set on
foot in the last century, and has been followed by the Tindals
and all the other free authors of our time. 'Twas Mr. Locke that
struck the home blow, (for Hobbes' character and base slavish
principles of government took off the poison of his philosophy),
struck at all fundamentals, threw all _order_ and _virtue_ out
of the world, and made the very _ideas_ of these (which are the
same as those of God), unnatural and without foundation in our
minds."

It is remarkable that the volume of Whichcote's Sermons printed by Lord
Shaftesbury should have been re