USRAHy ce Seventeenth Century. A LECTUEE BY THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OE CANTEEBIJRY. LONDON : JAMES NISBET AND CO., 21, BEKNERS STREET ; HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW. THREEPENCE. fubrn s, 1857-8. WILLIAM EDWARD BAXTER, Esq., M.P., The Social Influence of Christianity. Rev. HUGH STOWELL BROWN, Manliness. JOHN B. GOUGH, Esq., Social Responsibilities. Rev. GEORGE SMITH, Modern Geographical Researches in Africa. Rev. J. C. MILLER, D.D., The Silence of Scripture. Rev. WILLIAM LANDELS, The Lessons of the Street. The Very Rev. the DEAN of CARLISLE, Hugh Miller’s “ Testimony of the Rocks”— God in His Word and in His Works. Rev. SAMUEL COLEY, The Church— Its Influence, Duties, and Hopes in the present Age. The Very Rev. the DEAN of CANTERBURY, Pulpit Eloquence of the Seventeenth Century. Rev. JOHN STOUGHTON, Varieties of Spiritual Life. EDWARD CORDEROT, Esq., Progress— Life of George Stephenson. Rev. NORMAN McLEOD, A Life Story, with Characters and Comments. Jjnlpit (Jlaijitenn OF THE SEYENTEENTH CENTURY. A LECTURE BY THE VERY REV. THE DEAN OE CANTERBURY. PULPIT ELOQUENCE OF TEE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. The words, “ Pulpit Eloquence ,” strike a note at which, in these days, men’s interests are* easily stirred. We have witnessed a change come over thoughts and feelings in regard to sermons. Other mighty engines are moving among us, working all but miracles, carrying thousands hither and thither; and some are beginning to require of the mightiest engine among them all, that it should carry its thousands with it likewise. We have borne sermons long enough ; we begin to ask of them that they should bear us. Preaching indeed, considered in regard to its sub- lime object, is, at its best, but foolishness after all ; but this, we venture to think, is a reason why it should do its best, not its worst. We must have the treasure in an earthen vessel ; still we should sometimes like to hear the chink of the gold. The flesh must utter the sounds ; but we want them swept onwards by the living breath of the Spirit within. We live in a busy day, and have not much time for sermons ; but in that time we want our hearts touched, and our lives grasped and turned. We cannot afford our pre- cious hours to a mere sound, “ Vox et prceterea nihil:” the week brings us enough, and more than enough, of the grinding organ in the streets, making, by everlasting repeti- tion, the once-stirring melody into a burden. No, let our 4 PULPIT ELOQUENCE sermons be as Chrysostom said St. Paul’s were, living crea- tures with hands and feet — seeing, feeling, grasping, strug- gling, conquering. If Jove, it was said, spoke Greek, he would speak as Plato wrote; let our preachers take the upward side of the saying, and when they would speak English, speak as their Saviour taught. Such demands as these are beginning to be heard far and wide over society in our Christian England; and not only are they heard, but they are also listened to, and their effect is becoming daily greater. Eor the most part, they are just and reasonable. It is true that, like all just and reasonable claims which become a popular cry, they are in danger ot being pushed to an extreme. You, perhaps, Christian young men, are in as much danger of doing this as any class among us. You love to hear what is lively, stirring, earnest ; you do well. But forget not at the same time, that very much of what is to be done in the pulpit cannot, from its very nature, be thus lively and stirring, and outwardly earnest. What a lively, what a stirring sight is the laying the first stone of a house of prayer. All is liveliness, all is joy ; the sun seems to shine brighter than usual, the work- men wear their holiday dresses, the schools wave their banners ; the great men of the county gather round, and their words do one good to hear : and so, amid the darkness and weakness and worldliness of humanity, that little new- discovered isle of light is inaugurated. Great thoughts swell up in the bosom as we lie down that night, and it seems as if heaven had come down nearer to earth, and earth had risen nearer to heaven. Yet, my friends, from that night onwards, how much dull work has to be done, before any can pray in that temple. How many times in the dusk of the morning, in the noonday heat, in the wide shadows of the gleaming West, will the mortar-boy plod up the weary ladder, and the loaded cart discharge its rumbling HE SEVENTEENTH CENTUKY. 5 load of bricks. How many days and months will be sung to sleep by that dreary jingle of the chipping trowel. Yet all this is necessary to the building ; without those plodding steps, without that monotonous chink, it could not be reared. And think you it is less labour, less weary and continu- ous toil, to rear up the spiritual temple — even the living stones of men’s converted souls — to God? The spiritual temple has its festivals — its days of stirring speech and high interest, of bright sunshine and swelling upward thought ; but O never forget, that the main portion of its work must be line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little. That dull sermon, to which the passing stranger can hardly sit and listen, may be one foot upward of the heaving of some comely stone into its place appointed for eternity : that monotonous and unmoving voice may be the echo of a holy life, full of great and working example. Behind those sentences which fall so flat upon the ear, may rise to the memory of his flock green pastures and still waters, of which you know not. Remember these things, and the like of them. It would be an ill result indeed of an age of demand for pulpit eloquence, if we came to forget, that in mildness and temperate wisdom there is safe and certain power : — if we came to rate the man who says more than he means above the man who says less than he means ; above all, if we came to forget that that much-abused text has a meaning, which says that the testimony of God may be declared without excellency of speech, or what we call wisdom. How this I say by way of passing caution, rather than to damp your ardour in demanding a better tone and style of pulpit discourse; for I am persuaded that the want and defect of our day lies in this direction. We have dwelt in the dry long enough, and cry out for refreshing showers. We see all trees cultivated, all faculties improved, while G PULPIT ELOQUENCE the goodliest of all seems as yet to be untended and barren. The rods of the other princes bring forth buds, and bloom blossoms, and yield almonds ; but the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi alone remains dead and unstirred — “ dry, though the flowering spring be all around.’ ’ But now let us ask ourselves, what is it that we mean by our demand for pulpit eloquence ? What is it that we expect the pulpit to do ? It is a mighty instrument in God’s hand, but worked by man, for the convincing, informing, and saving of human souls. But what is a human soul ? It is a vessel moored in life by a thousand interests, occu- pations, feelings, sympathies ; a plant with far-reaching fibres of root sucking in at their spongioles various and manifold nourishment. And this persuasion, this convic- tion, this information, which the pulpit is to minister to it, is to take it up in all its interests ; to send in nourish- ment through every one of those distant fibres, and by that nourishment to supply it with a new and better life. It surely needs no persuasion to shew, that this cannot be done by theology alone. Where, in the social intercourse with life, does it come into contact with that array of technical and abstract terms which so commonly constitute the staple of addresses from the pulpit ? I say not, mind, that they are not useful ; that they may not be necessary in some discourses and at many times ; but what I ask is, how should such terms, standing alone, having no real representatives in men’s daily lives, lay hold of their feelings, bespeak their interests, barely stated as we often find them ? A number of rustics fresh from the work of the field, and their wives from the cradle or the washtub, and their children from their little games, and their joys at the opening flowers and the spark- ling brooks, wake on a Sunday morning. They put on their best, and, after the family meal, they thread the lanes and the meadow-paths to the house of God. Then, after pray- 01 r THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 7 in g for the Queen on her throne, and the captive in his dungeon, for the fatherless and widows, for them that travel by land and by water, for all that are desolate and oppressed, and after hearing the beautiful lifelike narratives of Scripture, they sit and listen perhaps to a discourse on absolute decrees and final perseverance, and uncon- ditional reprobation, which some thoroughly trained lady- student of divinity, on coming out, pronounces to be a faith- ful testimony to the whole counsel of God. Why, what word of meaning could all the preacher’s doctrine, however sound, all the preacher’s argument, however logical, convey to the minds of nine-tenths of his hearers ? I remember, fifteen years ago, in my younger days of garden- ing, applying to the roots of one of two favourite orange- trees, a new chemical manure, which I had seen advertised in the Gardeners ’ Chronicle . I had followed, I thought, the directions to the letter; I dissolved my crystals, and somewhat mistrusting, poured the mixture round the root of my tree. Imagine my disappointment, three hours after, on entering my greenhouse, to find every leaf black, and the plant killed. Yet the discovery was a sound and good one ; and the other orange-tree, which was treated, but differently, with the same manure, is at this day flourishing at Canterbury, and gladdening us every May by the sweet odour of its beautiful blossoms. And what was the difference ? Why this : On the poor ruined plant I had poured the nourishing mixture not sufficiently diluted. That which ought to have been life to it, became death. Water was its ordinary nourishment, and the new life should have been conveyed to it with this as its ample vehicle and sufficient safeguard. This was not done, and it perished. With the other plant I was wiser, and it lives and blooms to this day. Now I do think that this was a lesson to the preacher, as well as to the gardener. Your undiluted theology is too often a savour of death to 8 PULPIT ELOQUENCE your plants ; it brings torpor, shrivelling, barrenness ; and this, not because your doctrine is unsound, but because .your hearers cannot bear it. Dilute it more with the water of daily life ; clothe it as He did, whom you should imitate, with an ample vehicle of common interests of men, women, and children ; say plainly what you mean ; talk as our articles order us to minister, “in a tongue understanded of the people ; ” call a spade a spade, not “an ordinary implement of manual agriculture,” as if the shadows of Rome yet lingered over us, and we preached, though we do not pray, in Latin. And let us remember, that though we do thus use exceeding plainness of speech, and though we do hold that men’s daily lives are therefore sources for the preacher’s illustrations, and the proper fulcrum for him to rest his lever on, yet we do not deny, nay, we rather strongly assert, that all the various faculties and ranges of the human soul, imagination, memory, fancy, reason, and the rest, are lawful fields on which the preacher may work, and operate on the new life which it is his object, by God’s help, to implant. That this also has been not enough done in our own day, I am fully persuaded. Not only have we administered the food of the new life in a form which our hearers could not bear, but we have left large departments of their being untouched by it at all; — left them open to the world to entice, for the flesh to enthrall, for the devil to take captive ; but have not endeavoured to gain and employ them for God. What is a loftier faculty of the soul than the imagination ? What more accessory to, and powerful for good, and for God, than a hallowed and chastened imagina- tion? Yet what pains has of late years been generally taken in the hallowed culture of the imagination by the pulpit ? All nature is God’s great parable ; frequent and noble was the use made of it by our great Teacher when he OP THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUItY. 9 was on earth ; frequent and noble might be the uses made of it now by the light of His abiding Spirit, if we would. For God’s works, like God’s word, are inexhaustible ; and the more of spiritual light we have in ourselves, the more do they become full of light and meaning to us. And the lessons derived from nature and common life have this advantage ; he that hath ears to hear, heareth them ; in proportion to a man’s own advance is the lesson which he learns from them. Even the child listens delighted — the youth and maiden are lit up with some flashes of a deeper meaning — the matured Christian sees the height, and depth, and breadth of the wisdom, and rejoices while he learns; and there may be present some — fathers and 1 mothers in Israel — who could take up the lesson and better it ; whom God has made wiser than their teachers ; in whom the heavenly Spirit takes the sermon for a text, and preaches another and a deeper one still. But I must not forget that, though some preliminary remarks were necessary to introduce my subject, that sub- ject itself is not pulpit eloquence in general, nor the want of it in our age in particular, but the pulpit eloquence of one especial age in our history, viz., the seventeenth cen- tury. Of this it is my purpose to treat, and to give you some examples of it. And I think that in so doing we shall find, that what I have already said will not have been thrown away ; that the preaching of that day had many excellences in the very matters in which I have complained of our own deficienc} 7- , though it had in its turn faults of its own, which I shall not be sparing in pointing out to you. Let us first say a few words about the age itself. The opening of the seventeenth century is marked by a distinct event, dating the commencement of a new political and ecclesiastical epoch. On March 24th, 1602, Elizabeth died, 10 PULPIT ELOQUENCE and James Stuart, the Sixth of Scotland, ascended the English throne. It is with this family, and the times which went over them, that we have mainly to do to-night. First we have, during the reign of James, and the earlier years of his son Charles I., a period of outward ecclesiastical quiet, however discordant elements may have been fermenting beneath the surface. Then comes a period, during the latter days of Charles I., and the Commonwealth, of revo- lution, and violent change ; then lastly follows the Restora- tion, and the deadly slumber of regained tranquillity under Charles II. With the character of one or other of these three periods every one of the preachers of the time was more or less marked, as he was involved in its quarrels, or reposing in its calm. We all belong to the age in which we live, more than we are apt to think; and as family likenesses, un- traced by those in the family, are clearly perceived by strangers, so those who look on an age from without it best see how it influenced all who lived in it. We cannot counterfeit a handwriting so well, but that a keen judge will discern the trick of our own pen ; and so the men of an age, write as diversely as they will, yet smack of the age, and reflect it more or less in their books. It will be my endeavour to bring before you one preacher at least out of each of these periods, to give a short notice of each man, and some examples of his preaching. In our first period, the most prominent figure that chal- lenges our notice is that of John Donne, dean of St. Paul’s. Donne was born in 1573, and was consequently twenty-nine at the death of Elizabeth. He was brought up a Roman Catholic, and was strong in the points of the controversy between the churches. The whole of this controversy he went diligefitly over on his arriving at man’s estate, and OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 11 the result was, that he deliberately abandoned the Church of Rome, and attached himself to the reformed faith. In early youth, if one may judge from his poems, he appears to have been wild and licentious in life ; but it is, perhaps, not fair thus to judge ; for such was the licence allowed to revolting language in that day, that it may be nearly as unfair to suppose a man licentious, who wrote licentious verses, as it would be now to suppose a boy a heathen, be- cause he composed Latin verses in the spirit of the heathen mythologies. However, Donne’s own confessions, in after days of penitence, seem to go the length of charging him with something more than mere worldliness and gaiety. This penitence certainly began before mature manhood, and the issue of it seems to have been, that though at this time a layman, and secretary to the Lord Chancellor Ellesmere his thoughts and studies were mainly turned towards reli- gious subjects. He did not enter the ministry of the church till the year 16 12, when he was in his fortieth year ; and his doing so was at the special request of King James I. In 1617, he became preacher of Lincoln’s Inn ; and in 1621, Dean of St. Paul’s, where he continued till his death, in 1631. His reputation as a preacher among his contemporaries was exceedingly high. Walton, a frequent hearer of Donne> thus characterizes his preaching : — “ A preacher in earnest, weeping sometimes for his auditory, sometimes with them ; always preaching to himself like an angel from a cloud, but in none ; carrying some, as St. Paul was, to heaven in holy raptures, and enticing others by a sacred art and courtship to amend their lives ; here picturing a vice so as to make it ugly to those that practised it ; and a virtue, so as to make it beloved even by those that loved it not ; and all this with a most particular grace, and an inexpressible addition of comeliness.” 12 PULPIT ELOQUENCE In an elegy by Mr. B. B., we read, — “ Methinks I see him in the pulpit standing, Not ears, nor eyes, but all men’s hearts commanding, When we that heard him, to ourselves did feign Golden Chrysostom was alive again ; And never were we wearied, till we saw His hour (and but an hour) to end did draw.” In another by Mr. Mayne, of Christ Church : — “ Thou with thy words couldst charm thine audience, That at thy sermons, ear was all our sense ; Yet have I seen thee in the pulpit stand, Where we might take notes from thy look and hand ; And from thy speaking action bear away More sermon, than some teachers use to say. Such was thy carriage, and thy gesture such, * As could divide the heart, and conscience touch. Thy motion did confute, and we might see . An error vanquished by delivery.” And I am bound to say, that these eulogies are borne out by his yet remaining sermons. We have in them much of the pedantry and much of the quaintness of the time ; but through both these breaks in on every page a fine vein of manly Christian fervour and eloquence. He does not much study nicety of language, or well-balanced periods, though he is given to play upon words, and point, and antithesis. In copiousness of thought, in many-sided and almost inexhaustible views of truth, no English preacher has ever yet surpassed him ; nor in the solemnity with which, as if standing on a superior place and blending compassion with severity, he fearlessly, and yet affectionately, lays bare the sins, and vices of his hearers. But it is not in diction, nor in genius, nor in power of thought, that we must look for the crowning excellence of Donne’s sermons. We find in them that which we feel to be wanting in some of the great preachers of this, and in almost or THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 13 all of the succeeding age, — a distinct and clear exposition of the evangelical doctrines of redemption. Allowing for all blemishes of puerility or superstition in Donne’s sermons, there yet remains as sound a body of orthodox divinity, ani- mated by a fervid, earnest, tender spirit, as can be found in the whole range of English or foreign divines and preachers. The following extract is from a Christmas sermon on Gal. iv. 4, 5. Speaking of the words, “ that we might receive the adoption of sons,” he says : — “But who are this We? why, they are the elect of God. But who are they, who are these elect ? Qui timide rogat , docet negare ; if a man ask me with a diffidence, can I be the adopted son of God that have rebelled against him in all my affections, that have trodden upon his command- ments in all mine actions, that have divorced myself from him in preferring the love of his creatures before himself ; that have murmured at his corrections, and thought them too much ; that have undervalued his benefits, and thought them too little ; that have abandoned and prostituted my body, his temple, to all uncleanness, and my spirit to inde- votion and contempt of his ordinances ; can I be the adopted son of God, that have done this ? Ne timide roges, ask me not this with a diffidence and distrust in God’s mercy, as if thou thoughtest, with Cain, thy iniquities were greater than could be forgiven ; but ask me with that holy confi- dence which belongs to a true convert, am not I, who though I am never without sin, yet am never without hearty remorse and repentance for my sins ; though the weakness of my flesh sometimes betrays me, the strength of his Spirit still recovers me; though my body be under the paw of that lion that seeks whom he may devour, yet the lion of Judah raises again and upholds my soul ; though I wound my Saviour with many sins, yet all these, be they never so many, I strive against, I lament, confess, and for- 14 PULPIT ELOQUENCE sake as far as I am able ; am not I the child of God, and his adopted son in this state ? Bog a fidenter , ask me with a holy confidence in thine and my God, et doces affirmare , thy very question gives me mine answer to thee ; thou teachest me to say, thou art. God himself teaches me to say so by his apostle, The foundation of God is sure , and this is the seal ; God Icnoweth who are his, and let them that call upon his name depart from all iniquity . He that departs so far, as to repent former sins, and shut up the ways which he knows in his conscience do lead him into temptations, he is of this quorum ; one of us, one of them who are adopted by Christ to be the sons of God. I am of this quorum , if I preach the Gospel sincerely, and live thereafter (for he preaches twice a day that follows his own doctrine, and does as he says) and you are of this quorum, if you preach over the sermons which you hear, to your own souls in your me- ditation, to your families in your relation, to the world in your conversation. If you come to this place to meet the Spirit of God, and not to meet one another ; if you have sat in this place with [a delight in the word of God, and not in the words of any speaker ; if you go out of this place in such a disposition as that, if you should meet the last trum- pets at the gates, and Christ Jesus in the clouds, you would not entreat him to go back, and stay another year ; to enwrap all in one, if you have a religious and sober assur- ance that you are his, and w^alk according to your belief, you are his ; and, as the fulness of time, so the fulness of grace is come upon you, and you are not only within the first commission, of those who were under the law, and so redeemed, but of this quorum , who are selected out of them, the adopted sons of that God, who never disinherits those that forsake not him.” Speaking of eternity, he says : — “ A day that hath no pridie, nor postridie ; yesterday doth not usher it in, nor OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 15 to-morrow shall not drive it out. Methusalem with all his hundreds of years, was but a mushroom of a night’s growth, to this day : all the four monarchies, with all their thousands of years, and all the powerful kings and all the beautiful queens of this world, were but as a bed of flowers, some gathered at six, some at seven, some at eight, all in one morning, in respect of this day.” — Yol. iii. p. 326. In respect of the resurrection, he says : — “ Our flesh, though glorified, cannot make us see God better, nor clearer, than the soul above hath done, all the time, from our death to our resurrection. But as an indulgent father or a tender mother, when they go to see the king in any solemnity, or any other thing of observation and curiosity, delight to carry their child, which is flesh of their flesh, and bone of their bone, with them ; and though the child cannot com- prehend it as well as they, they are as glad that the child sees it, as that they see it themselves ; — such a gladness shall my soul have, that this flesh, (which she will no longer call her prison, nor her tempter, but her friend, her com- panion, her wife,) that this flesh, that is, I, in the re- union and redintegration of both parts, shall see God ; for then one principal clause in her rejoicing and acclamation, shall be, that this flesh is her flesh ; in my flesh shall I see God” — Vol. iv. p. 239. “ Oh, what a Leviathan is sin, how vast, how immense a body ! And then what a spawner, how numerous ! Between these two, the denying of sins which we have done, and the bragging of sins which we have not done, what a space, what a compass is there, for millions of millions of sins!” — Yol. iv. p. 370. Donne is one of the most colossal figures in our group ; a solemn, tender, and mighty spirit; never speaking in anger without being himself most rebuked ; never ruffling into passion, except from the ground-swell of his own deeply 16 PTJLPTT ELOQUENCE moved soul ; a Protestant, because he had seen through and used up Rome ; an earnest penitent, and a weighty and convincing counseller against sin, which he had known, and out of which he had been himself mercifully brought. Donne, it will be observed, belongs entirely to the first of our three periods, — that of tranquillity in the church. He is essentially a preacher of James the First’s age. All the pedantry of his style, all the frequent Latin quotations, and reference to books of learning, belong to the same period. And the same characteristics are found in our second and later example of this age, Bishop Hall. Joseph Hall was son to an officer in the army, and was born at Ashby- de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire in 1574. He was blessed with a pious, and indeed saintly mother, who from his cradle destined him for the sacred ministry. We possess an interesting memoir of his life by himself, in which its various events are traced up to God’s good provi- dence, and commented on with simple and earnest thankful- ness. After being Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and rector of Halstead, in Suffolk, he was noticed for the power of his preaching by Prince Henry; and becoming attached to tbe Court, he was appointed first Dean of Worcester, then in 1627 Bishop of Exeter, and in 1641 Bishop of Norwich. This last date will suggest to us that troublous times were close at hand. In those, Bishop Hall had his full share. In that same year, he was committed with the other bishops to the Tower. In the following March, the sequestrators came down to Norwich, and laid their hands on all he possessed. Shortly after, he was driven out of his palace, and, after remaining several years in exile and poverty, died in 1656. Hall is one of the brightest and holiest saints of the English Church. Simple and childlike in character, living evermore in close communion with God, and continued OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 17 recognition of Him, — his great abilities and earnest elo- quence are seasoned with never-failing odour of Christian experience, and personal proof of his sayings. His “ Con- templations upon the principal Passages in the Holy Story,” are the best known of his works ; and have been often reprinted in forms accessible to every one. These little volumes every Christian young man should, if possible, have in his library, however small it may be. There is a vividness and reality about them, a directness of practical inference, and a sweetness of pathos, which, even set off by their quaintnesses and conceits, go straight to the heart, and make them a very favourite study with all who know them. The same characteristics are found in his sermons. After what I have already said, I need hardly add, that they are full of the cross of Christ, and of the various doctrines and experiences which flow from it, in their purest and holiest form. Hall went through deep troubles, and we see the fruits of them in the deep sayings and feelings of his spiritual mind. Still he was a very bountiful giver forth of the conceits and quaintnesses of his age : and the reader continually finds expressions, aud even trains of thought, which offend against what would be now thought good taste in the pulpit. Believing however, as I do, that this conventional good taste has been the ruin of our English preaching, I own I should like to see, not exactly in the language of those days, but in the plain dealing of those days, and of this holy and earnest preacher, our common life, and common faults, brought out and dealt with as they are in Bishop Hall’s sermons. His sermons, as those of old Latimer in the age before, present us with a perfect picture of the life and faults of the day: go through whole shelves of modern English sermons, and where will you find the least reflection of the habits or vices of our time ? B 18 PULPIT ELOQUENCE But I must hasten on, and give you a few specimens of the style and power, and faults which I have been describing. In a sermon preached before the House of Lords, entitled “The Blessings, Sins, and Judgments of God’s Vineyard,” he says : — “ Lay now all these together, And what could have been done more for our vineyard , 0 God, that thou hast not done f Look about you, honourable and Christian hearers, and see whether God hath done thus with any nation. Oh, never, never was any people so bound to a God. Other neighbouring regions would think themselves happy, in one drop of those blessings, which have poured down thick upon us. Alas ! they are in a vaporous and marish vale, while we are seated on the fruitful hill : they lie open to the mas- sacring knife of an enemy, while we are fenced : they are clogged with miserable encumbrances, while we are free briers and brambles overspread them, while we are choicely planted : their tower is of offence, their winepress is of blood. Oh, the lamentable condition of more likely vineyards than our own ! Who can but weep and bleed, to see those wo- ful calamities, that are fallen upon the late famous and flourishing Churches of Reformed Christendom ? Oh, for that Palatine vine, late inoculated with a precious bud of our royal stem ; that vine, not long since rich in goodly clusters, now the insultation of boars and prey of foxes ! Oh, for those poor distressed Christians in Prance, Bohemia, Silesia, Moravia, Germany, Austria, the Valteline, that groan now under the tyrannous yoke of anti-christian oppression ! How glad would they be of the crumbs of our feasts ! How rich would they esteem themselves with the very gleanings of our plentiful crop of prosperity ! How do they look up at us, as even now militantly triumphant, while they are miserably wallowing in dust and blood, and wonder to see OE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 19 the sunshine upon our hill, while they are drenched with storm and tempest in the valley ! “ What are we, O God, what are we that thou shouldest be thus rich in thy mercies to us, while thou art so severe in thy judgments upon them ? It is too much, Lord, it is too much, that thou hast done for so sinful and rebellious a people. “ 2. Cast now your eyes aside a little ; and, after the view of God’s favours, see some little glimpse of our requital. Say then, say, 0 nation not worthy to be beloved , what fruit have ye returned to your beneficent God ? Sin is impudent : but let me challenge the impudent forehead of sin itself. Are they not sour and wild grapes that we have yielded ? Are we less deep in the sins of Israel than in Israel’s bless- ings ? Complaints, I know, are unpleasing, however just ; but now, not more unpleasing than necessary. Woe is me, my mother , that thou hast borne me a man of contention! Jer. xv. 10. I must cry out in this sad day, of the sins of my people. “ The searchers of Canaan, when they came to the brook of Eshcol, they cut down a branch, with a cluster of grapes, and carried it on a staff between two, to shew Israel the fruit of the land; Numb. xiii. 23. Give me leave, in the search of our Israel, to present your eyes with some of the wild grapes that grow there on every hedge. And what if they be the very same that grew in this degenerated vine- yard of Israel ? “ Where we meet, first, with oppression, a lordly sin, and that challengeth precedency, as being commonly incident to none but the great ; though a poor oppressor (as he is un- kindly, so he) is he a monster of mercilessness. Oh, the loud shrieks and clamours of this crying sin ! What grind- ing of faces, what racking of rents, what detention of wages, what inclosing of commons, what engrossing of commodities, what griping exactions, what straining the advantages of / 20 PULPIT ELOQUENCE greatness, what unequal levies of legal payments, what spiteful suits, what depopulations, what usuries, what vio- lences abound everywhere ! The sighs, the tears, the blood of the poor, pierce the heavens, and call for a fearful retri- bution. This is a sour grape indeed, and that makes God to wring his face in an angry detestation. “ Drunkenness is the next: not so odious in the weakness of it, as in the strength. Oh, woful glory ! Strong to drinlc. Woe is me! how is the world turned beast! what bousing, and quaffing, and whiffing, and healthing is there on every bench, and what reeling and staggering in our streets ! What drinking by the yard, the die, the dozen! What forcing of pledges ! what quarrels for measure and form ! How is that become an excuse of villany, which any villany might rather excuse, ‘ I was drunk !’ How hath this tor- rent, yea, this deluge of excess in meats and drinks, drowned the face of the earth, and risen many cubits above the high- est mountains of religion and good laws ! Tea, would God I might not say that which I fear and shame and grieve to say, that even some of them which square the ark for others, have been inwardly drowned, and discovered their nakedness. That other inundation scoured the world ; this impures it. And what but a deluge of fire can wash it from so abomi- nable filthiness ? “ Let no popish eavesdropper now smile to think what advantage I give by so deep a censure of our own profession. Alas! these sin-s know no difference of religions. Would God they themselves were not rather more deep in these foul enormities ! We extenuate not our guilt ; whatever we sin, we condemn it as mortal; they palliate wickedness, with the fair pretence of veniality. Shortly, they accuse us ; we, them ; God, both. “ But where am I ? How easy is it for a man to lose him- self in the sins of the time ! It is not for me to have my OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUEY. 21 habitation in these black tents ; let me pass through them running. Where can a man cast his eye, not to see that which may vex his soul ? “ Here, bribery and corruption in the seats of judicature ; there, perjuries at the bar; here, partiality and unjust con- nivancy in magistrates ; there, disorder in those that should be teachers : here, sacrilege in patrons ; there, simoniacal contracts in unconscionable Levites : here, bloody oaths and execrations ; there, scurril profaneness : here, cozening in bargains ; there, breaking of promises : here, perfidious un- derminings ; there, flattering supparasitations : here, pride in both sexes, but especially the weaker ; there, luxury and wantonness ; here, contempt of God’s messengers ; there, neglect of his ordinances, and violation of his days. The time, and my breath would sooner fail me, than this woful bead-roll of wickedness.” The following is from a sermon entitled, “ Life a Sojourn- ing:”— “ It is a true observation of Seneca, 1 Velocity temporis? saith he, ‘ The quick speed of time is best discerned when we look at it passed and gone;’ and this I can confirm to you by experience. It hath pleased the providence of my God so to contrive it, that this day, this very morning, four- score years ago, I was born into the world. 6 A great time since,’ you are ready to say ; and so indeed it seems to you that look at it forward ; but to me that look at it as past, it seems so short that it is gone like a tale that is told, or a dream by night, and looks but like yesterday. “ It can be no offence for me to say, that many of you who hear me this day, are not like to see so many suns walk over your heads, as I have done. Yea, what speak I of this ? There is not one of us that can assure himself of his continuance here one day. We are all tenants at will; 22 PULPIT ELOQUENCE and, for aught we know, may be turned out of these clay cottages at an hour’s warning. Oh then, what should we do, but, as wise farmers, who know the time of their lease is expiring, and cannot be renewed, carefully and season- ably provide ourselves for a surer and more during tenure ? “ I remember our witty countryman, Bromiard, tells us of a lord in his time, that had a fool in his house, as many great men in those days had, for their pleasure ; to whom this lord gave a staff, and charged him to keep it till he should meet with one that were more fool than himself, and, if he met with such a one, to deliver it over to him. Not many years after, this lord fell sick, and indeed was sick unto death. His fool came to see him, and was told by his sick lord that he must now shortly leave him. ‘ And whither wilt thou go?’ said the fool. ‘Into another world,’ said his lord. ‘And when wilt thou come again? within a month?’ ‘No.’ — ‘ Within a year ? ’ ‘No.’ — ‘When then?’ ‘Never . 5 ‘Never?’ ‘And what provision hast thou made for thy entertainment there, whither thou goest?’ ‘None at all.’ — ‘No?’ said the fool, ‘none at all? Here, take my staff. Art thou going away for ever, and hast taken no order nor care how thou shalt speed in that other world, whence thou shalt never return ? Take my staff ; for I am not guilty of any such folly as this.’ ” I have quoted from Bishop Hall’s sermons only, as be- came my present subject of pulpit eloquence. But it is, perhaps, in his lesser works, his meditations, devotions, parables, sayings, that the sweet and tender eloquence of his style is best shown. His works may be safely recom- mended to the Christian reader, as a treasure-house of holy thoughts and solemn and comforting words. You will have already seen that we have, in our last preacher, overpast the limits of the first period of the cen- tury, and entered on that of civil and religious conflict, OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 23 which extended through its whole middle portion. I need not to-night characterize this unhappy period. It was one of those divinely-ordained pangs, which attended the birth of our national freedom. None will deny, that ill things were said and ill things done on both sides ; few will main- tain now, that either of the great parties in our state has any right to rise up and charge the other with the cala- mities which then happened, or the crimes which were then committed. It is high time that all such recriminations should for ever cease, and should give way to our universal gratitude to Him who has manifested to us such signal national mercies : who is knitting our hearts together as one family round our throne and our Bible. It is in such a spirit that I would approach the second period of the seventeenth century. Our first great preacher belonging especially to this troubled time is Bishop Jeremy Taylor, who is not unjustly named the English Chrysostom. In genius, imaginative power, weight of persuasive eloquence, Taylor is incomparably the greatest orator of our country. If he is not in all respects, it is because his brilliant parts are carried to excess. He is singularly defective in judg- ment; overworks his most beautiful thoughts; where one or two lovely flowers (and whose so lovely as his?) sufficed, he pours on blooms of all hues and odours, till the reader sickens with sweetness. At the same time, let it not for a moment be denied that Taylor is one of the mightiest masters, both of thought and speech, who have written in our tongue. Shakspeare, Milton, Spenser, Taylor, would, perhaps, be the right order of our four greatest masters of imagination. Nor is Taylor’s power confined to the imagi- nation; though, from my unwillingness that you should lose some of his exquisite similes, it is from that portion of his masterpieces chiefly that I shall select my quotations. Born the son of a barber in an humble street in Cambridge ; 24 PULPIT ELOQUENCE then placed first at that University and then at Oxford ; then rector of Uppingham ; expelled and in want ; thence a chaplain in the king’s army ; then lying hid in retirement in the beautiful vale of Towy, in South Wales; imprisoned, promoted ; at one time mingling with rough soldiers or rude villagers, at another, with the band of elegant and learned cavaliers who sought the shelter of Golden Grove ; and all this with a keen eye for whatever could glitter in descrip- tion, or melt into pathos, or draw the cords of persuasion, — all life was made tributary to his genius ; and air, and earth, and sea, and the habits and interests of men, and the stores and illustrations of ancient lore, seemed all to crowd their contributions into the exuberant treasure-house of his eloquence. But I must content myself to-night with a few specimens — alas, how few! — and leave to your own reading the further establishment of what I have said. There is a truly delightful little work — “ Bishop Jeremy Taylor, a Biography,” by Mr. Wilimott, Incumbent of Bearwood, Berks. To this I can safely refer you for every information which time does not permit me to give to-night about Taylor. I will introduce my specimens with one pleasingly cha- racteristic of the man : he writes from his refuge in .exile, Golden Grove, near Caermarthen: — “ I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestra- tors, and they have taken all from me ; what now ? Let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me ; and I can still discourse, and unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience ; they have still left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too ; and still I sleep and digest, I eat and OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 25 drink, I read and meditate. I can walk in my neighbour’s pleasant fields, and see the variety of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights — that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself. And he that hath so many causes of joy, and so great, is very much in love with sorrows and peevishness, who loses all these pleasures, and chooses to sit down upon his little handful of thorns. Such a person were fit to bear Nero company in his funeral sorrows for the loss of one of Pop- pea’s hairs, or help to mourn for Lesbia’s sparrow ; and because he loves it, he deserves to starve in the midst of plenty, and to want comfort while he is encircled with bless- ings. “ Let everything you see,” he wrote at the same season, “ represent to your spirit the excellency and the power of God, and let your conversation with the creatures lead you unto the Creator ; and so shall your actions be done more frequently with an eye to God’s presence, by "your often seeing him in the glass of the creation. In the face of the sun you may see God’s beauty ; in the fire you may feel his heat warming ; in the water his gentleness to refresh you ; it is the dew of heaven that makes your field give you bread.” “ He followed,” says Mr. Willmott, “the exhortation he gave. His writings at Golden Grove contain lovelier and more numerous specimens of rural description and pic- turesque embellishment, than could be gathered from his col- lective works. A beautiful example occurs in his argument to show how sickness is sanctified by the grace of God — “ Por so have I known the boisterous north -wind pass through the yielding air, which opened its bosom, and appeased its violence, by entertaining it with easy compli- ance in all the regions of its reception. But when the same breath of heaven hath been checked with the stiffness of a tower, or the united strength of a wood, it grew mighty, 26 PULPIT ELOQUENCE and dwelt there, and made the highest tranches stoop , and make a smooth path for it on the top of all its glories The following beautiful simile is from a sermon on the . Return of Prayers : — “ Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest ; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts ; it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to Grod with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and there- fore is contrary to that attention, which presents our prayers in a right line to Grod. Por so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven and climb above the clouds ; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and unconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings ; till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over, and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministeries here below : so is the prayer of a good man ; when his affairs have required business, and his business was a matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with the infirmities of a man ; and anger was its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent, and OF THE SEYEKTEENTII CENTUHY. 27 raised a tempest, and overruled the man; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud, and his thoughts pulled them back again, and made them without intention ; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be content to lose that prayer ; and he must recover it, when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of Grod ; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove and dwells with God, till it returns like the useful bee, laden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.” From a sermon on Lukewarmness and Zeal : — “ So long as the light shines bright, and the fires of de- votion and desires flame out, so long the mind of a man stands close to the altar, and waits upon the sacrifice ; but as the fires die and desires decay, so the mind steals away, and walks abroad to see the little images of beauty and pleasure which it beholds in the falling stars and little glowworms of the world. The river that runs slow and creeps by the banks, and begs leave of every turf to let it pass, is drawn into little hollownesses, and spends itself in smaller portions, and dies with diversion ; but when it runs with vigorousness and a full stream, and breaks down every obstacle, making it even as its own brow ; it stays not to be tempted by little avocations, and to creep into holes, but runs into the sea, through full and useful channels. So is a man’s prayer, if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite, it wanders into the society of every trifling acci- dent, and stays at the corners of the fancy, and talks with every object it meets, and cannot arrive at heaven ; but when it is carried upon the wings of passion and strong de- sires, a swift motion and a hungry appetite ; it passes on through all the intermedial regions of clouds, and stays not 28 PULPIT ELOQUENCE till it dwells at the foot of the throne, where mercy sits, and thence sends holy showers of refreshment. I deny not but some little drops will turn aside, and fall from the full channel by the weakness of the banks and hollowness of the passage ; but the main course is still continued ; and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some looseness of spirit, and unfixed attentions, yet their love and their desire secure the main portions, and make the prayer to be strong, fervent and effectual.’ * Prom the Sermon on Godly Fear : — “ Pardon of sins is a mercy which Christ purchased with his dearest blood, which he ministers to us upon conditions of an infinite kindness ; but yet of great holiness and obedi- ence, and an active living faith ; it is a grace, that the most holy persons beg of God with mighty passion, and labour for with a great diligence, and expect with trembling fears ; and concerning it many times suffer sadnesses with un- certain souls, and receive it by degrees, and it enters upon them by little portions, and it is broken as their sighs and sleeps. But so have I seen the returning sea enter upon the strand, and the waters, rolling towards the shore, throw up little portions of the tide, and retire as if nature meant to play, and not to, change the abode of waters ; but still the flood crept by little stoppings and in- vaded more by his progressions than he lost by his retreat ; and having told the number of its steps, it possesses its new portion till the angel calls it back, that it may leave its unfaithful dwelling of the sand : so is the pardon of our sins ; it comes by slow motions, and first quits a present death, and turns, it may be, into a sharp sick- ness ; and if that sickness prove not health to the soul, it washes off, and, it may be, will dash against the rock again, and proceed to take off the several instances of anger, and OF TIIE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 29 the periods of wrath ; hut all this while it is uu certain con- cerning our final interest, whether it he ebb or flood, and every hearty prayer and every bountiful alms still enlarges the pardon, or adds a degree of probability and hope ; and then a drunken meeting, or a covetous desire, or an act of lust, or looser swearing, idle talk, or neglect of religion, makes the pardon retire ; and while it is disputed between Christ and Christ’s enemy who shall be lord, the pardon fluctuates like the wave striving to climb the rock, and is washed off like its own retinue, and it gets possession by time and uncertainty, by difficulty and the degrees of a hard progression.” From the Roly Dying : — “ Some are called at age at fourteen, some at one and twenty, some never ; but all men late enough ; for the life of a man comes upon him slowly and insensibily. But as when the sun approaches towards the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the lark to matins, and by and by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns like those which decked the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil because himself had seen the face of God ; and still while a man tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly ; — so is man’s reason and his life. He first begins to perceive himself to see or taste, making little reflections upon his actions of sense, and can discourse of flies and dogs, shells and play, horses and liberty. But when he is strong enough to enter into arts and little institutions, he is at first entertained with trifles and 30 PULPIT ELOQUENCE impertinent things, not because he needs them, but because his understanding is no bigger, and little images of things are laid before him, like a cockboat to a whale, only to play withal : but before a man comes to be wise, he is half dead with gouts and consumptions, with catarrhs and aches, with sore eyes and a worn-out body. So that if we must not reckon the life of a man but by the accounts of his reason, he is long before his soul be dressed ; and he is not to be called a man without a wise and an adorned soul — a soul, at least, furnished with what is necessary towards his well-being : but by that time his soul is thus furnished? his body is decayed ; and then you can hardly reckon him to be alive, when his body is possessed by so many degrees of death.” There is one point in which I think a very general mis- take is made about Jeremy Taylor. He is said to be deficient in enforcing the great verities of the doctrines of the Gospel. But this certainly is not the case. They may be, and are, doubtless, too much overlaid by his exuberance of fancy, and sometimes there may appear to be a use of words inconsistent with them ; but when we examine deeper, we find that the pleading is right after all, and that Christ and not man is the great centre of the picture ; and His Cross the source of all acceptance with God. Two more figures I will take the liberty of passing before you, and then close with a general review of the group. We have been of late in the Royalist camp ; we will now pass over into that of the Parliament, and contemplate there England’s greatest puritan divine, preaching, praying, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, in season and out of season. Richard Baxter, whom I believe that any one who takes pains to study his sermons will agree with me in calling the greatest preacher of the century, was born in 1.615 OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 31 and died in 1691. So that he lived through all the great events of the century, even down to the establishment of religious liberty by the revolution in 1688. All through Baxter’s life, he was the friend of moderate measures. Though he left the church of England, and cast in his lot among her enemies, he was himself animated by no hostile spirit towards her or her ministers. He hoped by purifying her to render her the means of diffusing a deeper spirit of religion. He clung to the old institutions of the country ; and boldly told Cromwell, in the very zenith of his power, that “ the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to be a blessing, and not an evil.” My first extract is from a sermon on Repentance, preached before the House of Commons, at the Solemn East “ for the settling of these nations,” April 30, 1660, just before the Restoration. “Will the Lord pardon what is past, I am resolved through his grace to do so no more, but to loathe that filth that I took for pleasure, and to abhor that sin that I made my sport, and to die to the glory and riches of the world, which I made my idol ; and to live entirely to that God that I did so long ago and so unworthily neglect ; and to seek that treasure, that kingdom, that delight, that will fully satisfy my expectation, and answer all my care and labour with such infinite advantage. Holiness or nothing shall be my work and life, and heaven or nothing shall be my portion and felicity. “ These are the thoughts, the affections, the breathing of every regenerate, gracious soul. Eor your souls’ sake inquire now, is • it thus with you ? Or have you thus returned with self-loathing to the Lord, and firmly engaged your souls to him at your entrance into a holy life ? I must be plain with you, gentlemen, or I shall be unfaithful ; and I must deal closely with you, or I cannot deal honestly and 32 PULPIT ELOQUENCE truly with you. As sure as you live, yea, as sure as the word of God is true, you must all be such converted men, and loathe yourselves for your iniquities, or be condemned as impenitent to everlasting fire. To hide this from you is but to deceive you, and that in a matter of a thousand times greater moment than your lives. Perhaps I could have made shift, instead of such serious admonitions, to have wasted this hour in flashy oratory and neat expressions, and ornaments of reading, and other things that are the too com- mon matters of ostentation with men that preach God’s word in jest, and believe not what they are persuading others to believe. Or if you think I could not, I am indifferent, as not much affecting the honour of being able to offend the Lord, and wrong your souls, by dallying with holy things. Flattery in these things of soul concernment is a selfish villany, that hath but a very short reward, and those that are pleased with it to-day may curse the flatterer for ever. Again, therefore, let me tell you that which I think you will confess, that it is not your greatness, not your high looks, not the gallantry of your spirits that scorns to be thus humbled, that will serve your turn when God shall deal with you, or save your carcasses from rottenness and dust, or your guilty souls from the wrath of the Almighty. Nor is it your contempt of the threatenings of the Lord, and your stupid neglect, or scorning at the message, that will endure when the sudden, irresistible light shall come in upon you, and convince you, or you shall see and feel what now you refuse to believe ! Nor is it your outside, hypo- critical religion, made up of mere words or ceremonies, and giving your souls but the leavings of the flesh, and making God an underling to the world, that will do any more to save your souls than the picture of a feast to feed your bodies. Nor is it the stiffest conceits that you shall be saved in an unconverted state, or that you are sanctified OF TITE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 33 when you are not, that will do any more to keep you from damnation than a conceit that you shall never die will do to keep you here for ever. Gentlemen, though you are all here in health and dignity, and honour, to-day, how little a while is it, alas ! how little, until you shall be every man in heaven or hell ! Unless you are infidels you dare not deny it. And it is only Christ and a holy life that is your way to heaven; and only sin, and the neglect of Christ and holiness, that can undo you. Look, therefore, upon sin as you should look on that which would cast you into hell, and is daily undermining all your hopes. Oh that this honourable assembly could know it in some measure as it shall be shortly known ; and judge of it as men do, when time is past, and delusions vanished, and all men are awakened from their fleshly dreams, and their naked souls have seen the Lord ! Oh then what laws would you make against sin ! How speedily would you join your strength against it as against the only enemy of your peace, and as against a fire in your houses, or a plague that were broken out upon the city where you are ! Oh then how zealously would you all concur to promote the interest of holiness in the land, and stu- diously encourage the servants of the Lord ! How severely would you deal with those that by making a mock of god- liness, do hinder the salvation of the people’s souls ! How j carefully would you help the labourers that are sent to guide men in the holy path ; and yourselves would go before the nation as an example of penitent self-loathing for your sins, and hearty conversion to the Lord ! Is this your duty now, or is it not ? If you cannot deny it, I warn you from the Lord do not neglect it ; and do not by your dis- obedience to a convinced conscience prepare for a torment- ing conscience. If you know your Master’s will, and do it not, you shall be beaten with many stripes. “ And your public capacity and work doth make your c 34 PULPIT ELOQUENCE repentance and holiness needful to others as well as to yourselves. “ Had we none to govern us, hut such as entirely subject themselves to the government of Christ, and none to make us laws, but such as have his laws transcribed upon their hearts, oh what a happy people should we be ! Men are unlikely to make strict laws against the vices which they love and live in; or if they make them, they are more unlikely to execute them. We can expect no great help against drunkenness, swearing, gaming, filthiness, and pro- faneness, from men that love these abominations so well, as that they will rather part with God and their salvation than they will let them g o.” My second is from a sermon entitled, “ Bight Rejoicing ” preached at St. Paul’s, before the Corporation of London, May 10, 1660, the day of thanksgiving for the Restoration of Charles II. “ Eor the rectifying, therefore, and elevating of your joys, I am first to tell you, that there is matter of far greater joy before you than all the successes or prosperity of the world ; and if it be not, yet being freely offered you, your acceptance may quickly make it such. Eternal joy and glory is at hand, the door is open, the promise is sure, the way made plain, the helps are many, and safe, and power- ful ; you may have the conduct of Christ, and the company of thousands, (though the smaller number,) if you will go this way : there are passengers every day going on, and entering in ; many that were here the last year, are this year in heaven ; yea, many that were yesterday on earth, are in heaven to-day. It is another kind of assembly and solemnity than this that they are now beholding, and you may behold. One strain of that celestial melody doth afford more ravishing sweetness and delight than all that ever OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 35 earth could yield. If a day in God’s courts here be better than a thousand in common employments or delights, then, sure, a day in heaven is better than ten thousand. That is the court ; and (except the church, which is a garden that hath some celestial plants, and is a seminary, or nursery for heaven) this world is the dunghill. There all is spiritual, pure, and perfect ; the soul, the service, and the joy ; but here they are all so mixed with flesh, and therefore so imperfect and impure, that we are afraid of our very com- forts, and are fain, upon the review, to sorrow over many of our joys. We come now from cares and troubles to our feasts ; and our wedding garments smell of the smoke ; and a secret disquietness in the midst of our delights doth tell us, that the root of our troubles doth remain, and that yet we are not where we should be, and that this is not our resting-place. We lay by our cares and sorrows on these days with our old clothes, to take them up again to-morrow, and alas ! they are our ordinary week-day habits : and it were well if it were only so ; but even in laughter the heart is sorrowful ; and in our sweetest joys we feel such imperfec- tions as threateneth a relapse into our former troubles. But the face of God admitteth no such imperfections in the joy of the beholders ; there we shall have joy without either feeling or fear of sorrow ; and praises without any mixtures of complaint. Our sweetest love to the Lord of love will feel no bounds, and fear no end. Oh what unspeakable delights will fill that soul that now walks mournfully, and feedeth upon complaints and tears! How the glory of God will make that face to shine for ever, that now looks too dejectedly, and is darkened with griefs, and worn with fears, and daily wears a mourning visage ! No trouble can enter into the heavenly Jerusalem ; nor is there a mourn- ful countenance in the presence of our King ! Self- troubling was the fruit of sin and weakness, of ignorance, 36 PULPIT ELOQUENCE mistakes, and passion, and, therefore, is unknown in heaven, being pardoned and laid by with our flesh among the rest of our childish weaknesses and diseases. That poor, afflicted, wounded soul, that breathes in trouble as its daily air, and thinks it is made up of grief and fear, shall be turned into love and joy, and be unspeakably higher in those heavenly delights than ever it w~as low in sorrows. Oh blessed face of the most glorious God ! Oh happy pre- sence of our glorified head ! Oh blessed beams of the eter- nal love, that will continually shine upon us ! Oh blessed work ! to behold, to love, to delight, and praise ! Oh, blessed company of holy angels, and perfect saints, so per- fectly united, so exactly suited, to concord in those felici- tating works ! Where all these are, what sorrows can there be ? what relics of distress, or smallest scars of our ancient wounds ! Had I but one such friend as the meanest angel in heaven to converse with, how easily could I spare the courts of princes, the popular concourse, the learned acade- mies, and all that the world accounteth pleasure, to live in the sweet and secret converse of such a friend ! How de- lightfully should I hear him discourse of the ravishing love of God, of the glory of his face, the person of our Redeemer, the continued union of the glorified human nature with the divine, and of the head, with all the glorified members, and his influences on his imperfect ones below ! of the dig- nity, quality, and work of saints and angels, and of the manner of their mutual converse ! How gladly would I retire from the noise and laughter, the compliments of comic gallants, the clutter and vain-glory of a distracted world, or any of the more mainly inferior delights, to walk with one such heavenly companion ! Oh how the beams of his illuminated intellect would promote my desired illumi- nation ! And the flames of his love to the most glorious God would reach my heart ; what life, and heavenly sweet- OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 37 ness there would be in all his speeches! That little of heaven that I have perceived on some of the servants of the Lord, that are conversant above in the life of faith, doth make them more amiable, and their converse much more delectable to me, than all the feastings, music, or merri- ments in the world. Oh then what a world of joy and glory will that be, where we shall not only converse with them that have seen the Lord, and are perfected in the bea- tifical vision and fruition, but also shall ourselves everlast- ingly behold him, and enjoy him in perfection ! That world all true believers see ; they see it by faith in the holy glass which the Spirit in the apostles and prophets hath set up ; and they have the earnest and first-fruits of it themselves, even that Spirit by which they are sealed hereunto ; that world we are ready to take possession of ; we are almost there ; we are but taking our leave of the inhabitants and affairs of earth, and better putting on our heavenly robes, and we are presently there. A few nights more to stay on earth, a few words more to speak to the sons of men, a few more duties to perform, and a few more troublesome steps to pass, will be a small inconsiderable delay. This room will hold you now but an hour longer, and this world but a few hours more, but heaven will be the dwelling-place of saints to all eternity. These faces of flesh that we see to- day, we shall see but a few times more, if any ; but the face of God we shall see for ever. That glory no dismal times shall darken, that joy no sorrow shall interrupt, no sin shall forfeit, no enemy shall endanger or take from us, no changes shall ever dispossess us of. And should not a believer then rejoice that his name is written in heaven ? and that every providence wheels him on, and whether the way be fair or foul it is thither that he is travelling ? Oh, sirs ! if heaven be better than vanity and vexation; if endless joy be better than the laughter of a child that ends in crying ; and if PULPIT ELOQUENCE 38 God be better than a delusory world, you have then greater matters set before you to be tbe matter of your joy, than prosperity and success, or anything that flesh and blood delights in.” Baxter was not deficient in the powers of the imagination nor in using them in his sermons and writings : — “ As the pretty lark doth sing most sweetly, and never ceaseth her pleasant ditty while she soareth aloft, as if she were there gazing into the glory of the sun, but is suddenly silenced when she falleth to the earth, so is the frame of the soul most delectable and divine while it keepeth in the views of God by contemplation ; but, alas ! we make there too short a stay, but down again we fall, and lay by our music .” — Conclusion of" Saint's Everlasting Rest." "We now finally come to the third period of the sixteenth century, when the Restoration had lulled all into an outward quiet, and the decencies and tranquillities of religion seemed to be re-established in our land. It is always a sad thing to decline as we approach a close, and to end worse than we began ; but such must be our lot to-night. The great spirits with whom we have been holding communion have passed away ; the mighty conflict in which they spent their precious lives subsided; both sides of the militant army are worn out. The Puritan preaching especially had wearied its hearers, and brought about a reaction in an opposite direction. It is to this reaction that 1 shall now introduce you, and to its fittest representative, South. Robert South was born in 1635 and died 1716. He was educated at "Westminster School, and Christ Church, Oxford. His anti-puritan spirit already showed itself by his reading aloud in school the forbidden Church prayers on the day of the execution of Charles I. It is true he is charged with inconsistency, for having written a copy of verses to congratulate Cromwell on a victory over the OE THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 39 Dutch in 1655. But this, it is suggested, may have been only a college exercise ; and those who know the man will accept any hypothesis rather than imagine that he had ever bent the knee to the Protector. In 1660 he was public orator of Cambridge ; in 1663, prebendary of Westminster ; in 1670, canon of Christ Church ; in 1713 he was offered the bishopric of Rochester and deanery of Westminster, both of which he declined. The characteristics of South’s sermons are, first (and it is a sad one indeed), the almost total absence of anything like definite Christian doctrine. Sometimes, indeed, when it can hardly be helped, we find just a passing mention of the truths of redemption — but the seven volumes are a melancholy field indeed for one to dig in who searches for anything spiritual ; dearth and barrenness everywhere reign. Great moral power must be conceded to South: a fine eye for the turnings and windings of human frailty and hypocrisy, which he unmasks with unsparing, and indeed with cruel hand. When he lashes, he mocks and does not weep. Our Lord weeping over the city which had slain the prophets, and this his minister inveighing against the commonwealth — no greater contrast can be imagined. Political rancour, unholy, and even in many places profane jesting, are the staple of his sermons, — the salient and seasoned morsels which made their duller parts go down with his profligate audience, The following epigram will put you at the same time into possession of the man and his hearers : — “ Old South, a witty churchman reckon’d. Was preaching once to Charles the Second : But much too serious for a Court, Who at all preaching made a sport, At length the audience ’gan to nod, Deaf to the zealous man of God. 40 PULPIT ELOQUENCE The doctor stopped — began to call, Pray wake the Earl of Lauderdale ; My Lord, why ’tis a monstrous thing, — You snore so loud, you’ll wake the king ! ” I will now give you some specimens both of South’s moral power, and of his political rancour ; sparing your ears many of those unhallowed witticisms which I have described as frequent in his sermons. The following is from a sermon entitled “ Prevention of Sin an Invaluable Mercy.” “First. This may inform and convince us how vastly greater a pleasure is consequent upon the forbearance of sin, than can possibly accompany the commission of it ; and how much higher a satisfaction is to be found from a conquered, than from a conquering passion. For the proof of which we need look no further than the great example here before us. Revenge is certainly the most luscious morsel that the devil can put into the sinner’s mouth. But do we think that David could have found half that pleasure in the execution of his revenge, that he expresses here upon the disappointment of it ? Possibly it might have pleased him in the present heat and hurry of his rage, but ; must have displeased him infinitely more in the cool, sedate reflections of his mind. For sin can please no longer than for that pitiful space of time while it is committing ; and surely the present pleasure of a sinful act is a poor counter- vail for the bitterness of the review, which begins where the action ends and lasts for ever. There is no ill thing which a man does in his passion but his memory will be revenged on him for it afterwards. “ All pleasure springing from a gratified passion (as most of the pleasure of sin does) must needs determine with that passion. It is short, violent, and fallacious ; and as soon as the imagination is disabused will certainly be at an end. or THE SEVENTEENTH CENTUltY. 41 And therefore Des Cartes prescribes excellently well for the regulation of the passions ; viz., That a man should fix and fore-arm his mind with this settled persuasion, that, during that commotion of his blood and spirits, in which passion properly consists, whatsoever is offered to his ima- gination in favour of it, tends only to deceive his reason. It is indeed a real trepan upon it ; feeding it with colours and appearances instead of arguments ; and driving the very same bargain, which Jacob did with Esau, a mess of pottage for a birthright, a present repast for a perpetuity. “ Secondly. We have here a sure unfailing criterion, by which every man may discover and find out the gracious or ungracious disposition of his own heart. The temper of every man is to be judged of from the thing he most esteems ; and the object of his esteem may be measured by the prime object of his thanks. What is it that opens thy mouth in praises, that fills thy heart, and lifts up thy hands in grateful acknowledgments to thy great Creator and Pre- server ? Is it that thy bags and thy barns are full, that thou hast escaped this sickness, or that danger? Alas! God may have done all this for thee in anger ! All this fair sunshine may have been only to harden thee in thy sins. He may have given thee riches and honour, health and power with a curse ; and if so, it will be found but a poor comfort to have had never so great a share of God’s bounty without his blessing. But has he at any time kept thee from thy sin ? stopped thee in the prosecution of thy lust ? defeated the malicious arts and stratagems of thy mortal enemy the tempter? And does not the sense of this move and affect thy heart more than all the former instances of temporal prosperity, which are but, as it were, the promiscuous scatterings of his common providence, while these are the distinguishing kindnesses of his special grace ? 42 PULPIT ELOQUENCE “ A truly pious mind has certainly another kind of relish and taste of these things; and if it receives a temporal blessing with gratitude, it receives a spiritual one with ecstasy and transport. David, an heroic instance of such a temper, overlooks the rich and seasonable present of Abigail though pressed with hunger and travel ; but her advice, which disarmed his rage, and calmed his revenge, draws forth those high and affectionate gratulations from him : Blessed be thy advice , and blessed be thou , who hast lcegt me this day from shedding blood , and avenging myself with mine own hand . These were his joyful and glorious trophies ; not that he triumphed over his enemy, but that he insulted over his revenge ; that he escaped from himself, and was deli- vered from his own fury. And whosoever has anything of David’s piety, will be perpetually plying the throne of grace with such like acknowledgments as, ‘ Blessed be that Providence, which delivered me from such a lewd company, and such a vicious acquaintance, which was the bane of such and such a person.’ And, ‘ Blessed be that God who cast rubs, and stops, and hinderances in my way, when I was attempting the commission of such or such a sin ; who took me out of such a course of life, such a place, or such an employment, which was a continual snare and temptation to me.’ And, ‘ Blessed be such a preacher, and such a friend, whom God made use of to speak a word in season to my wicked heart, and so turned me out of the paths of death and destruction, and saved me in spite of the world, the devil and myself.’ “ These are such things as a man shall remember with joy upon his deathbed ; such as shall cheer and warm his heart even in that last and bitter agony, when many, from the very bottom of their souls, shall wish that they had never been rich, or great, or powerful; and reflect with anguish and remorse upon those splendid occasions of sin, OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY. 43 which served them for little but to heighten their guilt, and at best to inflame their accounts, at that great tribunal which they are going to appear before.” The following, from a sermon entitled