By this truly pious and excellent woman, who knew no other use of wealth, or of talents of any kind, than to do good, and who never spared herself for this purpose, I was sent to several schools in the neighbourhood, especially to a large free school, under the care of a clergyman, Mr. Hague, under whom, at the age of twelve or fifteen, I first began to make any progress in the Latin Tongue, and acquired the elements of Greek. But about the same time that I began to learn Greek at this public school, I learned Hebrew on holidays of the dissenting minister of the place, Mr. Kirkby, and upon the removal of Mr. Hague from the free school, Mr. Kirkby opening a school of his own, I was wholly under his care. With this instruction I had acquired a pretty good knowledge of the learned languages at the age of sixteen. But from this time Mr. Kirkby’s increasing infirmities obliged him to relinquish his school, and beginning to be of a weakly consumptive habit, so that it was not thought adviseable to send me to any other place of education, I was left to conduct my studies as well as I could till I went to the academy at Daventry in the year 1752.
From the time I discovered any fondness for books my aunt entertained hopes of my being a minister, and I readily entered into her views. But my ill health obliged me to turn my thoughts another way, and with a view to trade, I learned the modern languages, French, Italian, and High Dutch without a master; and in the first and last of them I translated, and wrote letters, for an uncle of mine who was a merchant, and who intended to put me into a counting house in Lisbon. A house was actually engaged to receive me there, and every thing was nearly ready for my undertaking the voyage. But getting better health my former destination for the ministry was resumed, and I was sent to Daventry, to study under Mr. Ashworth, afterwards Dr. Ashworth.
Looking back, as I often do, upon this period of my life, I see the greatest reason to be thankful to God for the pious care of my parents and friends, in giving me religious instruction. My mother was a woman of exemplary piety, and my father also had a strong sense of religion, praying with his family morning and evening, and carefully teaching his children and servants the Assembly’s Catechism, which was all the system of which he had any knowledge. In the latter part of his life he became very fond of Mr. Whitfield’s writings, and other works of a similar kind, having been brought up in the principles of Calvinism, and adopting them, but without ever giving much attention to matters of speculation, and entertaining no bigotted aversion to those who differed from him on the subject.
The same was the case with my excellent aunt, she was truly Calvinistic in principle, but was far from confining salvation to those who thought as she did on religious subjects. Being left in good circumstances, her home was the resort of all the dissenting ministers in the neighbourhood without distinction, and those who were the most obnoxious on account of their heresy were almost as welcome to her, if she thought them honest and good men, (which she was not unwilling to do) as any others.
The most heretical ministers in the neighbourhood were Mr. Graham of Halifax, and Mr. Walker of Leeds, but they were frequently my Aunt’s guests. With the former of these my intimacy grew with my years, but chiefly after I became a preacher. We kept up a correspondence to the last, thinking alike on most subjects. To him I dedicated my Disquisitions on Matter and Spirit, and when he died, he left me his manuscripts, his Polyglot bible, and two hundred pounds. Besides being a rational Christian, he was an excellent classical scholar, and wrote Latin with great facility and elegance. He frequently wrote to me in that language.
Thus I was brought up with sentiments of piety, but without bigotry, and having from my earliest years given much attention to the subject of religion, I was as much confirmed as I well could be in the principles of Calvinism, all the books that came in my way having that tendency.
The weakness of my constitution, which often led me to think that I should not be long lived, contributed to give my mind a still more serious turn, and having read many books of experiences, and in consequence believing that a new birth produced by the immediate agency of the Spirit of God, was necessary to salvation, and not being able to satisfy myself that I had experienced any thing of the kind, I felt occasionally such distress of mind as it is not in my power to describe, and which I still look back upon with horror. Notwithstanding I had nothing very material to reproach myself with, I often concluded that God had forsaken me, and that mine was like the case of Francis Spira, to whom, as he imagined, repentance and salvation were denied. In that state of mind I remember reading the account of the man in the iron cage in the Pilgrim’s Progress with the greatest perturbation.
I imagine that even these conflicts of mind were not without their use, as they led me to think habitually of God and a future state. And though my feelings were then, no doubt, too full of terror, what remained of them was a deep reverence for divine things, and in time a pleasing satisfaction which can never be effaced, and I hope, was strengthened as I have advanced in life, and acquired more rational notions of religion. The remembrance, however, of what I sometimes felt in that state of ignorance and darkness gives me a peculiar sense of the value of rational principles of religion, and of which I can give but an imperfect description to others.
As truth, we cannot doubt, must have an advantage over error, we may conclude that the want of these peculiar feelings is compensated by something of greater value, which arises to others from always having seen things in a just and pleasing light; from having always considered the Supreme Being as the kind parent of all his offspring. This, however, not having been my case, I cannot be so good a judge of the effects of it. At all events, we ought always to inculcate just views of things, assuring ourselves that proper feelings and right conduct will be the consequence of them.
In the latter part of the interval between my leaving the grammar school and going to the academy, which was something more than two years, I attended two days in the week upon Mr. Haggerstone, a dissenting minister in the neighbourhood, who had been educated under Mr. Maclaurin. Of him I learned Geometry, Algebra and various branches of Mathematics, theoretical and practical. And at the same time I read, but with little assistance from him, Gravesend’s Elements of Natural Philosophy, Watt’s Logic, Locke’s Essay on the Human Understanding, &c, and made such a proficiency in other branches of learning, that when I was admitted at the academy (which was on Coward’s foundation) I was excused all the studies of the first year, and a great part of those of the second.