hensions, be the evidence never so plain. And I have perceived that nothing so much hinders the reception of the truth as urging it on men with too harsh importunity, and falling too heavily on their errors; for hereby you engage their honour in the business, and they defend their errors as themselves, and stir up all their wit and ability to oppose you. In controversies, it is fierce opposition which is the bellows to kindle a resisting zeal; when, if they be neglected, and their opinions lie awhile despised, they usually cool, and come again to themselves. Men are so loath to be drenched with the truth, that I am no more for going that way to work; and, to confess the truth, I am lately much prone to the contrary extreme, to be too indifferent what men hold, and to keep my judgment to myself, and never to mention anything wherein I differ from another on anything which I think I know more than he; or, at least, if he receive it not presently, to silence it, and leave him to his own opinion; and I find this effect is mixed according to its causes, which are some good and some bad. The bad causes are, 1. An impatience of men's weakness, and mistaking forwardness, and self-conceitedness. 2. An abatement of my sensible esteem of truths, through the long abode of them on my mind. Though my judgment value them, yet it is hard to be equally affected with old and common things as with new and rare ones. The better causes are, 1. That I am much more sensible than ever of the necessity of living upon the principles of religion which we are all agreed in, and uniting in these; and how much mischief men that overvalue their own opinions have done by their controversies in the church; how some have destroyed charity, and some caused schisms by them, and most have hindered godliness in themselves and others, and used them to divert men from the serious prosecuting of a holy life; and, as Sir Francis Bacon saith in his Essay of Peace," that it is one great benefit of church peace and concord, that writing controversies is turned into books of practical devotion for increase of piety and virtue." 2. And I find that it is much more for most men's good and edification to converse with them only in that way of godliness which all are agreed in, and not by touching upon differences to stir up their corruptions, and to tell them of little more of your knowledge than what you find them willing to receive from you as mere learners; and therefore to stay till they crave information of you. We mistake men's diseases when we think there needeth nothing to cure their errors, but only to bring them the evidence of truth. Alas! there are many distempers of mind to be re

moved before men are apt to receive that evidence. And, therefore, that church is happy where order is kept up, and the abilities of the ministers command a reverend submission from the hearers, and where all are in Christ's school, in the distinct ranks of teachers and learners; for in a learning way men are ready to receive the truth, but in a disputing way, they come armed against it with prejudice and animosity. Reliquia Baxterianæ.

THE CREDIT DUE TO HISTORY.

I am much more cautelous in my belief of history than heretofore; not that I run into their extreme that will believe nothing because they cannot believe all things. But I am abundantly satisfied by the experience of this age that there is no believing two sorts of men,-ungodly men and partial men; though an honest heathen, of no religion, may be believed, where enmity against religion biasseth him not; yet a debauched Christian, besides his enmity to the power and practice of his own religion, is seldom without some further bias of interest or faction: especially when these concur, and a man is both ungodly and ambitious, espousing an interest contrary to a holy, heavenly life, and also factious, embodying himself with a sect or party suited to his spirit and designs, there is no believing his word or oath. If you read any man partially bitter against others, as differing from him in opinion, or as cross to his greatness, interest, or designs, take heed how you believe any more than the historical evidence, distinct from his word, compelleth you to believe. The prodigious lies which have been published in this age in matters of fact, with unblushing confidence, even where thousands or multitudes of eye and ear witnesses knew all to be false, doth call men to take heed what history they believe, especially where power and violence affordeth that privilege to the reporter that no man dare answer him, or detect his fraud; or if they do, their writings are all supprest. As long as men have liberty to examine and contradict one another one may partly conjecture, by comparing their words, on which side the truth is like to lie. But when great men write history, or flatterers by their appointment, which no man dare contradict, believe it but as you are constrained. Yet, in these cases I can freely believe history: 1. If the person show that he is acquainted with what he saith. 2. And if he show the evidences of honesty and conscience, and the fear of God (which may be much perceived in the spirit of a writing). 3. If he appear to be impartial and chari

table, and a lover of goodness and of mankind, and not possessed of malignity, or personal ill-will and malice, nor carried away by faction or personal interest. Conscionable men dare not lie: but faction and interest abate men's tenderness of conscience. And a charitable, impartial heathen may speak truth in a love to truth, and hatred of a lie; but ambitious malice and false religion will not stick to serve themselves on anything. . . . Sure I am, that as the lies of the Papists, of Luther, Zwinglius, Calvin, and Beza, are visibly malicious and impudent, by the common plenary contradicting evidence, and yet the multitude of their seduced ones believe them all, in despite of truth and charity; so in this age there have been such things written against parties and persons, whom the writers design to make odious, so notoriously false, as you would think that the sense of their honour, at least, should have made it impossible for such men to write. My own eyes have read such words and actions asserted with most vehement, iterated, unblushing confidence; which abundance of ear-witnesses, even of their own parties, must needs know to have been altogether false: and therefore having myself now written this history of myself, notwithstanding my protestations that I have not in anything wilfully gone against the truth, I expect no more credit from the reader than the self-evidencing light of the matter, with concurrent rational advantages from persons, and things, and other witnesses, shall constrain him to, if he be a person that is unacquainted with the author himself, and the other evidences of his veracity and credibility. Reliquiæ Baxterianæ.

JOHN OWEN, D.D.,

a famous Puritan divine, born 1616, died 1683, was the author of many learned theological works, of which the Exposition of the Epistle of St. Paul to the Hebrews, with Preliminary Exercitations, Lond., 1668-84, 4 vols. fol., is perhaps the best known.

"Let me again recommend your studious and sustained attention," remarks Dr. Chalmers to his students, "to the Epistle to the Hebrews. . . . I promise you a hundred-fold more advantage from the perusal of this greatest work of John Owen than from the perusal of all that has been written on the subject of the heathen sacrifices. It is a work of gigantic strength as well as gigantic size; and he who hath mastered it is very little short, both in respect to the doctrinal and practical of Christianity, of being an erudite and accomplished theologian."-Prelections on Hill's Lects.: Chalmers's Posth. Works, ix. 282.

THE MYSTERY OF THE INCARNATION. Let all vain imaginations cease: there is nothing left unto the sons of men but either to reject the divine person of Christ-as many do unto their own destruction-or humbly to adore the mystery of infinite wisdom and grace therein. And it will require a condescending charity to judge that those do really believe the incarnation of the Son of God who live not in the admiration of it, as the most adorable effect of divine wisdom.

The glory of the same mystery is elsewhere testified unto, Heb. i. 13: "God hath spoken unto us by his Son, by whom also he made the worlds; who, being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, upholding all things by the word of his power, by himself purged our sins." That he purged our sins by his death, and the oblation of himself therein unto God, is acknowledged. That this should be done by him by whom the worlds were made, who is the essential brightness of the divine glory, and the express image of the person of the Father therein, who upholds, rules, sustains all things by the word of his power, whereby God purchased his church with his own blood (Acts xx. 28), is that wherein he will be admired unto eternity. See Phil. ii. 6-9.

In Isaiah (chap. vi.) there is a represen tation made of him as on a throne, filling the temple with the train of his glory. The Son of God it was who was so represented, and that as he was to fill the temple of his human nature with divine glory, when the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in him bodily. And herein the seraphim, which administered unto him, had six wings, with two whereof they covered their faces, as not being able to behold or look into the glorious mystery of his incarnation: verse 2, 3: John xii. 39-41, ii. 19; Col. ii. 9. But when the same ministering spirits, under the name of cherubim, attended the throne of God, in the administration of his providence as unto the disposal and government of the world, they had four wings only, and covered not their faces, but steadily beheld the glory of it: Ezek. i. 6, x. 2, 3.

This is the glory of the Christian religion, -the basis and foundation that bears the whole superstructure,-the root whereon it grows. This is its life and soul, that wherein it differs from, and inconceivably excels, whatever was in true religion before, or whatever any false religion pretended unto. Religion, in its first constitution, in the state of pure, uncorrupted nature, was orderly, beautiful, and glorious. Man being made in the image of God, was fit and able

bility and cognoscibility; such a thing filling up the mind more, and acting more strongly upon it. Nevertheless, because our weak and imperfect minds are lost in the vast immensity and redundancy of the Deity, and overcome with its transcendent light and dazzling brightness, therefore hath it to us an appearance of darkness and incomprehensibility: as the unbounded expansion of light, in the clear transparent ether, hath to us the apparition of an azure obscurity: which yet is not an absolute thing in itself, but only relative to our sense, and a mere fancy in us.

The incomprehensibility of the Deity is so far from being an argument against the reality of its existence, as that it is most certain, on the contrary, that were there nothing incomprehensible to us, who are but contemptible pieces, and small atoms of the universe; were there no other being in the world but what our finite understandings could span or fathom, and encompass round about, look through and through, have a commanding view of, and perfectly conquer and subdue under them, then could there be nothing absolutely and infinitely perfect, that is, no God. . .

And nature itself plainly intimates to us that there is some such absolutely perfect Being, which, though not inconceivable, yet is incomprehensible to our finite understandings, by certain passions, which it hath implanted in us, that otherwise would want an object to display themselves upon; namely, those of devout veneration, adoration, and admiration, together with a kind of ecstasy and pleasing horror; which, in the silent language of nature, seem to speak thus much to us, that there is some object in the world so much bigger and vaster than our mind and thoughts, that it is the very same to them that the ocean is to narrow vessels; so that, when they have taken into themselves as much as they can thereof by contemplation, and filled up all their capacity, there is still an immensity of it left without, which cannot enter in for want of room to receive it, and therefore must be apprehended after some other strange and more mysterious manner, namely, by their being plunged into it, and swallowed up or lost in it. To conclude, the Deity is indeed incomprehensible to our finite and imperfect understandings, but not inconceivable; and therefore there is no ground at all for this atheistic pretence to make it a non-entity.

True Intellectual System of the Universe.

ABRAHAM COWLEY, M.D., born 1618, died 1667, once famous as a poet, was esteemed one of the best prose writers

of his time. His essays are dissertations on Liberty, Solitude, Obscurity, Agriculture, The Garden, Greatness, Avarice, The Dangers of an Honest Man in Much Company, The Shortness of Life and Uncertainty of Riches, The Danger of Procrastination, Of Myself. First edition of his Works, Lond., 1656, fol. Prose Works, including his Essays in Prose and Verse, Lond., 1826, er. 8vo, large paper 8vo.

"The Essays must not be forgotten. What is

said by Sprat of his conversation, that no man could draw from it any suspicion of his excellence in poetry, may be applied to these compositions. No author ever kept his verse and his prose at a greater distance from each other. His thoughts equability, which has never yet obtained its due are natural, and his style has a smooth and placid commendation. Nothing is far-sought, or hardlaboured; but all is easy without feebleness, and familiar without grossness.”—DR. JOHNSON: Lives of the English Poets.

OF OBSCURITY.

What a brave privilege it is to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving and from paying all kinds of ceremonies! It is, in my mind, a very delightful pastime for two good and agreeable friends to travel up and down together, in places where they are by nobody known, nor know anybody. It was the case of Eneas and his Achates, when they walked invisibly about the fields and streets of Carthage. Venus herself

A veil of thickened air around them cast, That none might know, or see them, as they pass'd.

The common story of Demosthenes' confession, that he had taken great pleasure in hearing of a tanker-woman say, as he passed, "This is that Demosthenes," is wonderfully ridiculous from so solid an orator. I myself have often met with that temptation to vanity (if it were any); but am so far from finding it any pleasure that it only makes me run faster from the place, till I get, as it were, out of sight-shot. Democritus relates, and in such a manner as if he gloried in the good fortune and commodity of it, that, when he came to Athens, nobody there did so much as take notice of him; and Epicurus lived there very well, that is, lay hid many years in his gardens, so famous since that time, with his friend, Metrodorus; after whose death, making, in one of his letters, a kind commemoration of the happiness which they two had enjoyed together, he adds at last, that he thought it no disparagement to those great felicities of their life, that in the midst of the most talked-of and talking country in the world, they had lived so long, not only without fame, but al

most without being heard of; and yet, within a very few years afterward, there were no two names of men more known or more generally celebrated. If we engage into a large acquaintance and various familiarities, we set open our gates to the invaders of most of our time; we expose our life to a quotidian ague of frigid impertinences, which would make a wise man tremble to think of. Now, as for being known much by sight, and pointed at, I cannot comprehend the honour that lies in that; whatsoever it be, every mountebank has it more than the best doctor, and the hangman more than the lordchief-justice of a city. Every creature has it, both of nature and art, if it be anyways extraordinary. It was as often said, "This is that Bucephalus," or "This is that Incitatus," when they were led prancing through the streets, as "This is that Alexander," or "This is that Domitian ;" and truly, for the latter, I take Incitatus to have been a much more honourable beast than his master, and more deserving the consulship than he the empire.

I love and commend a true good fame, because it is the shadow of virtue: not that it doth any good to the body which it accompanies, but it is an efficacious shadow, and like that of St. Peter, cures the diseases of others. The best kind of glory, no doubt, is that which is reflected from honesty, such as was the glory of Cato and Aristides; but it was harmful to them both, and is seldom beneficial to any man whilst he lives; what it is after his death I cannot say, because I love not philosophy merely notional and conjectural, and no man who has made the experiment has been so kind as to come back to inform us. Upon the whole matter. I account a person who has a moderate mind and fortune, and lives in the conversation of two or three agreeable friends, with little commerce in the world besides, who is esteemed well enough by his few neighbours that know him, and is truly irreproachable by anybody; and so, after a healthful quiet life, before the great inconveniences of old age, goes more silently out of it than he came in (for I would not have him so much as cry in the exit): this innocent deceiver of the world, as Horace calls him, this muta persona, I take him to have been more happy in his part than the greatest actors that fill the stage with show and noise; nay, even than Augustus himself, who asked, with his last breath, whether he had not played his part very well. Essays.

OF PROCRASTINATION.

I am glad that you approve and applaud my design of withdrawing myself from all

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tumult and business of the world, and consecrating the little rest of my time to those studies to which nature had so motherly inclined me, and from which fortune, like a stepmother, has so long detained me. But nevertheless (you say, which is but cerugo mera, a rust which spoils the good metal it grows upon. But you say) you would advise me not to precipitate that resolution, but to stay a while longer with patience and complaisance, till I had gotten such an estate as might afford me (according to the saying of that person whom you and I love very much, and would believe as soon as another man) cum dignitate otium. This were excellent advice to Joshua, who could bid the sun stay too. But there is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty: the seeking for a fortune then is but a desperate after-game; it is a hundred to one if a man fling two sixes, and recover all; especially if his hand be no luckier than mine.

There is some help for all the defects of fortune; for if a man cannot attain to the length of his wishes, he may have his remedy by cutting of them shorter. Epicurus writes a letter to Idomeneus (who was then a very powerful, wealthy, and, it seems, bountiful person), to recommend to him, who had inade so many men rich, one Pythocles, a friend of his, whom he desired might be made a rich man too: "but I intreat you that you would not do it just the same way as you have done to many less deserving persons; but in the most gentlemanly manner of obliging him, which is, not to add anything to his estate, but to take something from his desires."

The sum of this is, that for the uncertain hopes of some conveniences, we ought not to defer the execution of a work that is necessary; especially when the use of those things which we would stay for may otherwise be supplied, but the loss of time never recovered; nay, farther yet, though we were sure to obtain all that we had a mind to, though we were sure of getting never so much by continuing the game, yet, when the light of life is so near going out, and ought to be so precious, "le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle;" after having been long tossed in a tempest, if our masts be standing, and we have still sail and tackling enough to carry us to our port, it is no matter for the want of steamers and top-gallants: