otator; he wishes to persuade soundly, caring no more for the public than for nothing more. We enjoy this clear himself; so that or ce, when he had ness, this naturalness, this preciseness, spoken for three hours and a half bethis entire loyalty. In one of his ser-fore the Lord Mayor, he replied to mois he says:

those who asked him if he was not “Truth and reality have all the advantages tired, “I did, in fact, begin to be weary of appearance, and many more. If the show of of standing so long." But the heart anything be good for anything, I am sure sin- and mind were so full and so rich, that cerity is better ; for why does any man dissem

He had a ble, or seem to be that which he is not, but be his faults became a power. cause he thinks it good to have such a quality geometrical method and clearness, * as he pretends to? For to counterfeit and dis- an inexhaustible fertility, extraordinary semble, is to put on the appearance of some impetuosity and tenacity of logic, wri. real excellency. Now, the best way in the world for a man to seem to be anything, is ting the same sermon three or four really to be what he would seem to be. Be- times over, insatiable in his craving to sidrs, that it is many times as troublesome to explain and prove, obstinately confinec make good the pretence of a good quality, as to have it; and if a man have it not, it is ten to with a minuteness of division, an ex

to his already overflowing thoughts one but he is discovered to want it, and then all his pains and labour to seem to have it are actness of connection, a superfluity of lost. There is something unnatural in paint explanations, so astonishing that the ing, which a skilful eye will easily discern attention of the hearer at last gives from native beauty and complexion.

" It is hard to personate and act a part long; way; and yet the mind turns with the for where truth is not at the bottom, nature vast engine, carried away and doubled will always be endeavouring to return, and will peep out and betray herself one time of up as by the rolling weight of a flattenother. Therefore, if any man think it conve

ing machine. nient to seem good, let him be so indeed, and Let us listen to his sermon, “Of the then his goodness will appear to everybody's Love of God.” Never was a more cosatisfaction ; ... so that, upon all accounts, pious and forcible analysis seen in sincerity is true wisdom."**

England, so penetrating, and unweary. We are led to believe a man who speaks ing a decomposition of an idea into all thus; we say to ourselves, “This is its parts, a more powerful logic, more true, he is right, we must do as he rigorously collecting into one network

The impression received is all the threads of a subject : moral, not literary; the sermon is efficacious, rot rhetorical ; it does not

“Although no such benefit or advantage can

accrue to God, which increase his essenplease, it leads to action.

tial and indefectible happiness; no harm or In this great manufactory of morality, damage can arrive that may impair it (for he where every loom goes on as regularly as

can be neither really more or less rich, or its neighbor, with a monotonous noise, glorious, or joyful than he is ; neither have

our desire or our fear, our delight or our grief, we distinguish two which sound louder our designs or our endeavours any object, ang and better than the rest-Barrow and South. Not that they were free from doth immediately discover) they bear a relation dulness. Barrow had all the air of a to, and have a fit

coherence with,

those that college pedant, and dressed so badly, precede, may yet (especially considering $t. that one day in Loi.don, before an au- Paul's style and manner of expression in the dience who did not know him, he saw tles), without any violence or prejudice or

preceptive and exhortative parts of his Epis almost the whole congregation at once either hand, be severed from the context, and leave the church. He explained the considered distinctly by themselves. : : : First; word evxaproteiv in the pulpit with all then, concerning the duty itself, to give thanks the charm of a dictionary, commenting, not only signify gratias agere, reddere, dicere,

or rather to be thankful for evxaploteiv doth translating, dividing, subdividing like to give, render, or declare thanks, but also the most formidable of scholiasts, tsatias habere, spate affectum esse, to be

Thankfully disposed, to entertain a grateful af• Tillotson's Sermons, iv. 15-16; Sermon fection, sense, or memory: • . I say, con 352 “Of Sincerity towards God and Man," cerring this duty itself (abstractedly considJohn i. 47. This was the last sermon Tillotson ered), as it involves a respect to benefits of preached'; July 29, 1694.-TR.

good things received ; so in its employment Barrow's Theological Works, 6 vols. Ox- about them it imports, requires, or supposer kord, 1818, i. 141-142 ; Sermon viji. “ The these following particulars. Datz of Thanksgiving," Eph. V. 20.

• He was a mather atician of the highest or “There words, although (as the very syntax der, and had resigned his chair to Newton.

says."

may

ground in those respects); yet hath he de- | There is here a sort of effusion of grat. clared, that there be certain interests and conitude ; and at the end of the sermon, cernments, which, out of his abundant goodness and condescension, he doth tender and when we think him exhausted, the ex prosecute as his own; as if he did really re- pansion becomes more copious by the ceive advantage by the good, and prejudice by enumeration of the unlimited blessings the bad success, respectively belonging to amidst which we move like fishes in them; that he earnestly desires and is greatly delighted with some things, very much dis the sea, not perceiving them, because likes and is grievously displeased with other we are surrounded and submerged by things : for instance, that he bears a fatherly them. During ten pages the idea affection towards his creatures, and earnestly overflows in a continuous and similar desires their welfare ; and delights to see them enjoy the good he designed them;

as also dis- phrase, without fear of crowding or likes the contrary events ; doth commiserate monotony, in spite of all rules, so and condole their misery; that he is conse- loaded are the heart and imagination, quently well pleased when piety and justice, and so satisfied are they to bring and peace and order (the chief means conducing to our welfare) do flourish; and displeased, when collect all nature as a single offering: impiety and iniquity, dissension and disorder (those cesain sources of mischief to us) do end, the most obliging manner of whose benefi

"To him, the excellent quality, the noble prevail ; that he is well satisfied with our rendering to him that obedience, honour, and re

cence doth surpass the matter thereof and spect, which are due to him; and highly of- hugely augment the benefits: who, not com fended with our injurious and 'disrespectful bea pelled by any necessity, not obliged by any lan haviour toward him, in the commission of sin | or previous compact), not induced by any ex. and violation of his most just and holy com

trinsic arguments, not inclined by our merits, mandments ; so that there wants not sufficient not wearied with our importunities, not in matter of our exercising good-will both in af- stigated by troublesome passions of pity, fection and action toward God; we are capa- shame,

or fear (as we are wont to be), not fat ble both of wishing and (in a manner, as he

tered with promises of recompense, nor bribed will interpret and accept it) of doing good to

with expectation of emolument, thence to achim, by our concurrence with him in promo of his own actions, only both lawgiver and

crue unto himself; but being absolute master ting those things which he approves and de- counsellor to himself, all-sufficient, and incapa. lights in, and in removing the contrary.". *

ble of admitting any accession to his perfect This entanglement wearies us, but blissfulness; most willingly and freely, out of what a force and dash is there in this pure bounty and good-will, is our Friend and

Benefactor; preventing not only our desires, well considered and complete thought! but our knowledge; surpassing not our deserts Truth thus supported on all

its founda- only, but our wishes, yea, even our conceits, in tions can never be shaken. Rhetoric is the dispensation of his inestimable and unreabsent. There is no art here; the guitable benefits ; having no other drift in the

collation of them, beside our real good and whole oratorical art ccnsists in the de- welfare, our profit and advantage, our pleasure sire thoroughly to explain and prove what he has to say. He is even un- Zealous energy and lack of taste; studied and artless; and it is just this such are the features common to all ingenuousness which raises him to the this eloquence. Let us leave this maantique level. We may meet with an thematician, this man of the closet, this image in his writings which seems to antique man, who proves too much belong to the finest period of Latin and is too eager, and let us look out simplicity and dignity :

amongst the men of the world him who “The middle, we may observe, and the was called the wittiest of ecclesiastics, safest, and the fairest, and the most conspicu- Robert South, as different from Bar. ous places in cities are usually deputed for the row in his character and life as in his erections of statues and monuments dedicated works and his mind; armed for war, to the memory of worthy men, who have nobly an impassioned royalist, a partisan of deserved of their countries. In like manner should we in the heart and centre of our soul, divine right and passive obedience, an in the best and highest apartments thereof, in acrimonious controversialist, a defamer he places most exposed to ordinary obser- of the dissenters, a foe to the Act of vation, and most secure from the invasions of worldly care, erect lively representations Toleration, who never avoided in his of, and lasting memorials unto, the divine enmities the license of an insult or a bounty." +

foul word. By his side Father Bri Barrow's Theological Works, i., Sermon daine, who seems so coarse to the

* Barrow's Theological Works, i. 159-1644 * Ibid. 1: 145.;

Sermon viii., "The Duty of Se mon viii. Thanksgiving," Eph. V. 20.

Jacques Bridaine (1761-1767), a celebrator

and content.

xxiii. 500-501.

66

French, was polished. His sermons Wycherley. T. e pulpit had the plain are like a conversation of that time; dealing and coarseness of the stage and we know in what style they con- and in this picture of forcible, honest versed then in England. South is not men, whom the world considers as bad afraid to use any popular and impas- characters, we find the pungent samil. sioned image. He sets forth little vul- iarity of the Plain Dealer : gar facts, with their low and striking

Again, there are some, who have a certain details. He never shrinks, he never ill-natured stiffness (forsooth) in their tongue, minces matters; he speaks the lan- so as not to be able to applaud and keep pace guage of the people. His style is with this or that self-admiring, vain-gloric u anecdotic, striking, abrupt, with change self, and telling fulsome stories

in his own com

Thraso, while he is pluming and praising time of tone, forcible and clownish ges- mendation for three or four hours by the clocks tures, with every species of original- and at the same time reviling and throwing

dirt ity, vehemence, and boldness. He

all mankind besides. upon

“There is also a sort of odd ill-natured men, aneers in the pulpit, he rails, he whom neither hopes nor fears, frowns zor to plays the mimic and comedian. He vours, can prevail upon, to have any of use paints his characters as if he had them cast, beggarly,

forlorn nieces or kinswomea of before his eyes. The audience will any lord or grandee, spiritual or emporal,

trumped upon them. recognize the originals again in the “ To which we may add anoʻzer sort of obstreets; they could put the names to stinate ill-natured persons, who are not to be his portraits. Read this bit on hypo-speak or write, or to swear or lie, as they are

brought by any one's guilt or greatness, to crites :

bidden, or to give up their own consciences in “Suppose a man infinitely ambitious, and

a compliment to those, who have none them

selves. equally spiteful and malicious ; one who poisons the ears of great men by venomous whispers,

“And lastly, there are some, so extremely and rises by the fall of better men than him ill-natured, as to think it very lawful and alself; yet if he steps forth with a Friday look injured or oppressed, when they are slandered

lowable for them to be sensible when they are and a Lenten face, with a blessed Jesu! and a mournful ditty for the vices of the times; oh!

in their good names, and wronged in their just then he is a saint upon earth: an Ambrose or

interests; and withal, to dare to own what they an Augustine (I mean not for that earthly find, and feel without being such beasts of trash of book-learning; for, alas ! such are

burden as to bear tamely, whatsoever is cast above that, or at least that's above them), but

upon them; or such spaniels as to lick the foot for zeal and for fasting, for a devout elevation

which kicks them, or to thank the goodly great of the eyes, and a holy rage against other

one for doing them all these back favours. men's sins.' And happy those ladies and re. In this eccentric style all blows tell ; ligious dames, characterized in the ad of Timothy, ch. iii. 6, who can have such self

we might call it a boxing-match in denying, thriving, able men for their confes which sneers inflict bruises. But see sors! and thrice happy those families where the effect of these churls' vulgarities. they vouchsafe to take their Friday night's re- We issue thence with a soul iull of freshments! and thereby demonstrate to the world what Christian abstinence, and what energetic feeling; we have seen the primitive, self-mortifying rigor there is in for- very objects, as they are, without disbearing a dinner, that they may have the bet- guise; we find ourselves battered, but ter stomach to their supper. In fine, the whole seized by a vigorous hand. This pulworld stands in admiration of them; fools are fond of them, and wise men are afraid of them; pit is effective;

and indeed, as comthey are talked of, they are pointed at; and, as pared with the French pulpit, this is they order the matter, they draw the eyes of its characteristic. These sermons have ull men after them, and generally someth ng

not the art and artifice, the propriety

and moderation of French sermons ; A man so frank of specch was sure to they are not, like the latter, monucommend frankness; he has done so ments of style, composition, harmony, with the bitter irony the brutality of a veiled science, tempered imagination, and zealous French preacher, whose sermons disguised logic, sustained good taste, were always extempore, and hence not very exquisite proportion, equal to the har. cultivated and refined in style.-TR. * South's Sermons, 1715, i vols., vi. 110.

angues of the Roman forum and the The fourth and last discourse from those . Athenian agora. They are not claswords in Isaiah v. 20, "Woe unto them that sical. No, they are practical. A biz call evil good and good evil ; that put dark. workman-like shovel, roughly handled, Dess for light, and lig!! fo: darkness ; tbat and encrusted with pedantic rust, was put hitter lor sweet, and sweet for bi:cer! .

alse,".

as

necessary to dig in this coarse civiliza- principle, throwing up all around : tion. The delicate French gardening breastwork of arguments, covering would have done nothing with it. If every thing with texts, marching calm Barrow is redundant, Tillotson heavy, ly underground in the long shafts South vulgar, the rest unreadable, which he has dug; we approach and they are all convincing; their sermons

see a sallow-faced pioneer creep out, are not models of elegance, but instru- with frowning brow, stiff hands, dirty ments of edification. Their glory is clothes; he thinks he is protected froid not in their books, but in their works. all attacks; his eyes, glued to the They have framed morals, not literary ground, have not seen the broad level productions

road beside his bastion, by which the

enemy will outflank and surprise him. VI.

A sort of incurable mediocrity keeps To form mora s is not all; there are

men like him, mattock in hand, in their CJ seds to be defended. We must com- trenches, where no one is likely to pass. bat doubt as well as vice, and theology They understand neither their texts goes side by side with preaching. It nor their formulas. They are impo abounds at this moment in England. tent in criticism and philosophy. Anglicans, Presbyterians, Independ. They treat the poetic figures of Scrip. ents, Quakers, Baptists, Antitrinita- ture, the bold style, the approximations rians, wrangle with each other,

to improvisation, the mystical Hebrew heartily as a Jansenist damns a Jes- emotion, the subtilties and abstractions uit," and are never tired of forging of Alexandrian metaphysics, with the weapons. What is there to take hold precision of a jurist and a psycholo of and preserve in all this arsenal ? In gist: They wish actually to make of France at least theology is lofty; the Scripture an exact code of prescripfairest flowers of mind and genius have tions and definitions, drawn up by a there grown over the briars of scho- convention of legislators. Open the lastics; if the subject repels, the dress first that comes to hand, one of the attracts. Pascal and Bossuet, Féne- oldest – John Hales. He comments lon and La Bruyère, Voltaire, Dide-on a passage of St. Matthew, where a rot and Montesquieu, friends and ene- question arises on a matter forbidden mies, all have scattered their wealth of on the Sabbath.

What was this? pearls and gold. Over the threadbare “The disciples plucked the ears of woof of barren doctrines the seven

corn and did eat them." * Then fol. teenth century has embroidered a ma- low divisions and arguments raining jestic stole of purple and silk; and the down by myriads. † Take the most eighteenth century, crumpling and celebrated : Sherlock, applying the new tearing it, scatters it in a thousand psychology, invents an explanation of golden threads which sparkle like a the Trinity, and imagines three divine ball-dress. But in England all is duli, souls, each knowing what passes in the dry, and gloomy; the great men them- others. Stillingfleet refutes Locke, who gelves, Addison and Locke, when they meddle in the defence of Christianity, 1765, i. 4.

* John Hales of Eaton, Works, 3 vols, 12mo, become flat and wearisome. From + He examines, amongst other things, Chillingworth to Paley, apologies, ref. sin against the Holy Ghost.”. They would very utations, expositions, discussions, mul- nothing is more obscure.

much like to know in what this consists. But tiply and make us yawn; they reason theologians each gave a different definition. well and that is all. The theologian After a minute dissertation, Hales conceder enters on a campaign against the Pa

And though negative proofs from Scrip pists of the seventeenth century and the lence of the apostles may at least help to infa

ture are not demonstrative, yet the general siDeists of the eighteenth,* like a tacti a probability that the blasphemy against the cian by rule, taking a positior. on a Holy Ghost is not committable by any Chris

the

Calvin and other

thus :

thought that the soul in the resurec- | They would have scruples of contion, though having a body, would not science if they indulged in free inquiry perhaps have exactly the same one in without limitation. In reality there is which it had lived. Let us look at the a sort of sin in traly free inquiry, be most illustrious of all, the learned cause it presupposes skepticism, aban Clarke, a mathematician, philosopher, dons reverence, weighs good and evil scholar, theologian; he is busy patch in the same balance, and equally e. ing up Arianism. The great Newton ceives all doctrines, scandalous or himself comments on the Apocalypse, edifying, as soon as they are proved and proves that the Pope is Antichrist. They banish these dissolving specu. In vain have these men genius; as lations; they look on them as occupa soon as they touch religion, they be. tions of the slothful ; they seek froni come antiquated, narrow-minded; they argument only motives and means for make no way; they are stubborn, and right conduct. They do not love it for obstinately knock their heads against itself ; they, repress it as soon as it the same obstacle. They bury them- strives to become independent; they selves generation after generation, in demand that reason shall be Christian the heriditary hole with English pa- and Protestant; they would give it the tience and conscientiousness, whilst lie under any other form: they reduce the enemy marches by, a league off. it to the humble position of a handınaid, Yet in the hole they argue; they and set over it their own inner biblical square it, round it, face it with stones, and utilitarian sense. In vain did freethen with bricks, and wonder that, not thinkers arise in the beginning of the. withstanding, all these expedients, the century; forty years later they were enemy marches on. I have read a drowned in forgetfulness.* Deism and host of these treatises, and I have not atheism were in England only a trangleaned a single idea. We are an- sient eruption developed on the surnoyed to see so much lost labor, and face of the social body, in the bad air amazed that, during so many genera of the great world and the plethora of tions, people so virtuous, zealous, native energy. Professed irreligious thoughtful, loyal, well read, well trained men, Toland, Tindal, Mandeville, Bo in discussion, have only succeeded in lingbroke, met foes stronger than them. filling the lower shelves of libraries. selves. The leaders of experimental We muse sadly on this second scholas- philosophy,t the most learned and tic theology, and end by perceiving accredited of the scholars of the age, that if it was without effect in the the most witty authors, the most beloved kingdom of science, it was because it and able, & all the authority of science only strove to bear fruit in the king, and genius was employed in putting dom of action.

them down. Refutations abound. All these speculative minds were so Every year, on the foundation of Robert in appearance only. They were apolo- Boyle, men noted for their talent or gists, and not inquirers.' They busy knowledge come to London to preach themselves with morality, not with eight sermons, for proving the Chris truth.* They would shrink from treat- tian religion against notorious infidels, ing God as a hypothesis, and the Bible viz., atheists, deists, pagans, Moham as a document. They would see a medans, and Jews. And these apolo vicious tendency in the broad impar- gies are solid, able to convince a liberal tiality of criticism and philosophy. mind, infallible for the conviction of a

*" Tae Scripture is a book of morality, and moral mind. The clergymen who write act of philosophy, Everything there relates them, Clarke, Bentley, Law, Watt, to practice. It is evident, from a cursory Warburton, Butler, are not below the view of the Old and New Testament, that they lay science and intellect. Moreover, are miscellaneous books, some parts of which are history, others writ in a poetical style,

and the lay element assists them. Addison others prophetical ; but the design of them all, * Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in is professedly to recommend the practice of true France. religion and virtue."- John Clarke, Chaplain Ray, Boyle, Barrow, Newton. of the King, 1721. [I have not been able to Bentley, Clarke, Warburton, Berkeley. find these exact words in the edition of Clarke $ Locke, Addison, Swift, Johnson, Richard accessible to me.-T.)