Hervey, James, an English di\'ine and popidar
riter, was bom at Hardingstone, near Northampton, 'Feb. 26, 1713. At eighteen he was sent to Oxford, and there, becoming acquainted with John Wesley, he be- came seriously impressed with the importance of relig- ion. He afterwards became a Cal\dnist. At tweuty-
two lie became curate of Weston Favel, and a few years after curate of Biddeford. Diuring that time he wrote his celebrated Meditations and Contemplations (1746, 8vo), which obtained immense circulation. It was fol- lowed by Contem2)lations on the Night and Starry Heav- ens, and A Winter Piece (1747, 8vo). In 1750, on the death of his father, he succeeded to the livuigs of Wes- ton and Collingtree ; and he devoted himself earnestly to his clerical duties. In 1753 he published Remarks on Lord Bolingbroke's Letters on the Study and Use of His- tory, so far as they relate to the History of the Old Tes- tament, etc., in a Letter to a Lady of Quality (1753, 8vo). In 1755 he pubUshed Theron and Asjmsio, or a Series of Dialogues ami iMters on the most important Subjects (1755, 3 vols. 8vo), which was attacked by Robert San- deman, of Edinburgh, on the nature of justifying faith, and other pouits connected with it, in a work entitled Letters on Theron and Aspasio. See Saxdejlvn. John Wesley WTOte a brief review of his Theron and A spasio, and Hervey wrote in reply Eleven iMIers to John Wes- ley, but before his death he directed that the MS. of this work should be destroyed. " His brother, however, judged that it would be a desirable pecuniary specula- tion to publish it, and placed it in the hands of Cud- worth, an erratic dissenting preacher, to be finished, giving him liberty ' to put out and put in' whatever he judged expedient. Cudworth's Antinomian sentiments led him to abhor Wesley's opinions ; he caricatiured them relentlessly by his interpolations of Hervey's pages, and sent forth in Hervey's name the first and most reckless and odious caveat agamst Methodism that ever emana- ted from any one who had sustained friendly relations to it. It was republished in Scotland, and tended much to forestall the spread of Methodism there. Wesley felt keenly the injustice and heartlcssness of this attack, but his sonwv was mitigated by the ki^owledge that the most of the abuse in the publication was interpola- ted, and that Hervey, who had delighted to call him his 'friend and father,' knew him too well to have thus struck at him from the grave. He answered the book ; but time has answered it more effectually — time, the invincible guardian of the characters of great men." He died in 1758. Mr. Herv'ey's -(vri tings are viciously turgid and extravagant in style. " He was eminently pious, though not deeply learned ; habitually spiritual- ly-minded ; animated with ardent love to the Saviour ; and his hmnility, meekness, submission to the will of God, and patience under his afilicting hand, exemplified the Christian character, and adorned his profession." His Amtings were collected and published after his death (London, 1797, 7 vols.). His correspondence was pub- lished separately (1760, 2 vols. 8vo). See Ryland, Life of Hervey ; Letters of Hervey, and Life prefixed ; Chal- mers, General Biog. Diet. ; Jones, Christian Biography ; Stevens, History of Methodism, i, 372; Wesley's Works, vi, 103, 125 ; Jackson, Life of Charles Wesley, ch. xxi ; Coke and Moore, Life of Wesley, iii, 2.
He'sed (Heb. Che'sed, "lOH, kindness, as often; Sept. "EaeS), the name of a man whose son (Ben-Hesed) was Solomon's purveyor in the district of Aniboth, Sochoh, and Hepher (1 Kings iv, 10). B.C. cir. 995. See also Jushah-Hesed.
Heser, George, a German ecclesiastical -miter, was bom at Weyem, near Passau, Austria, in 1609. He joined the Jesuits in 1625, and taught rhetoric, dialec- tics, and controversy at jMunich and Ingolstadt. In 1 642 he became preacher at St. Maurice's Church, Augsbiu-g, and in 1649 went in the same capacity to St. JIarj-'s Church, Ingolstadt. In 1662 he retired to :JImiich, where he was still living in 1676. The exact time of his death is not ascertained. He is especially not«d for his efforts in proving Thomas a Kempis (q. v.) as the author of De imitatione Christi. In his Dioptra Kempensis he has gathered a niunber of testimonies, and describes pretty accurately a number of editions and of translations of Kempis, which appeared durmg the 16th
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and 17th centuries. He wrote also Vifa et Syllabus om- nium Operum Thomas a Kempis ab auctore anomjmo, seel
cocevo. non i
longejjost obihmi illius consaipta (Ingolstadt
1650, i2nio ; Paris, 1651, 8vo) •.—Frcemonitio nova ad lec- torem Thomce a Kemjm (Ingolstadt, 1651, 18mo; Paris,
1651, 8vo) : — LXX Palmce, sen jMnegyricus in laudem libromm IV Thoma a Kempis, ex hominnm piorum elo- cjiis LXX concimatus (Ingolstadt, 1651, 8vo), etc. See Veitli, Bihlioth. Aitgustana; Ersch und Grnhex, Allgem. EncyUopddie ; Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, xxiv, 559.