mind, might easily be constructed; each link, perhaps, collected from different portions of his works, and only dangerous when woven into a chain.

But

He has been accused of avowing and defending the employment of weak arguments for laudable purposes; the charge being founded on certain passages in the Liberty of Prophesying. It seems to me that his observations have been misunderstood. In stating the case of his adversaries, he put "wooden daggers" into their hands, and then attacked them with his own deadlier weapons. he never said that the daggers were not of wood. Mr. Hallam must have calculated largely on scholarly ignorance of Taylor's Rule of Conscience, when he referred to it for evidence that its author maintained the right of using arguments and authorities in controversy, which he did not believe to be valid: the writer affirming the contrary proposition.2 He lays down with solemn emphasis the unlawfulness of telling a lie for God and truth, and thereby disordering the glorious economy of faith. The critic did not notice Taylor's distinction between ascertained fact and personal conviction. He suffers us to introduce an argument which we do not know, if we conscientiously believe it to be true: the measure of an argument not being its demonstration, but its probability; and a real and a supposed truth bearing the same relation to our moral innocency of purpose. And the interpretation, as

1 By Mr. Hallam, Introduction to Literature of Europe,

iv. 137.

2 See chapter ii., rule 6, of the Ductor Dubitantium.

well as the reason of the rule, are to be found in the character of the human mind; variable in each individual, as the features to which it gives expression. In this and many other instances, his vindication is easy; but his most zealous admirers are willing to admit, with Heber, that his reasoning is sometimes inconclusive, and that his positions are neither impregnable, nor always defended. The effect of his occasional variations of sentiment and argument has been very happily compared to the sensation of a person who comes on deck at sea, and finds the ship put about, and the whole line of coast reversed to the eye. But he soon recovers the lost way; and the voyage is continually cheered by the fragrance wafted out from those fertile and spicy shores, in which he always found a tranquil haven.

One feature of his character-conspicuous by its clear reflection in his works-is the stately freedom of his own mind, and the toleration he was willing to concede to others. If religion, in a great measure, stand or fall according to the abilities of those who proclaim the truth, it would be difficult to exaggerate the importance of his services in the cause. He taught men that the Gospel has no alliance with tyranny; that it searches consciences, without an inquisition, and supplies martyrs, without a wheel; that bigotry is not essential to faith; nor the perdition of our neighbour to the salvation of ourselves. Convinced that no party possessed a mo

1 By Mr. Hallam, Literature of Europe, iii. 114.

nopoly of truth, he weighed the reasons of men rather than their names, and concluded his noble Apology for Christian Toleration with an oriental Apologue, of which the aptness is at least equal to the beauty. He tells us, that when Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, "he espied an old man stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming towards him, who was a hundred years of age; he received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down, but observing that the old man eat and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer, Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he threw the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night, and an unguarded condition. When the old man was gone, God called to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was. He replied, I thrust him away, because he did not worship thee. God answered him, I have suffered him these hundred years, though he dishonoured me; and wouldest thou not endure him one night, when he gave thee no trouble? Upon which, saith the story, Abraham fetched him back again, and gave him hospitable entertainment and wise instruction." "Go, thou," is Taylor's commentary, "and do likewise, and thy charity will be rewarded by the God of Abraham.'

So attractively did he teach the virtues he prac

tised; and to him belonged the precious privilege of making the man the commentator on the author. From his boyhood at Cambridge, to his youth in London, and the rich maturity of his manhood, he planted his feet in the steps of the King, who had beaten down the snow before him. His sojourn among men was a journey to angels; heaven was round him, not only when he entered the world, but when he left it. Always, and everywhere-as student, priest, and bishop-persecuted or triumphant-joyful or weary-he beheld lights and faces which dwell not in the common day, but shine down upon the traveller, who in the wilderness feels that he is in God's work and in God's house. So he went forward,

"By that vision splendid

On darkest way attended."

Some frailties, indeed, hung about him, for his nature had not yet been transfigured into that of the guardian-spirit who accompanied him, and in whose shadow he walked. This need not make any heart heavy. If we observe the moon on the side not illuminated by the sun, the reflection of the earth causes her to give a fainter light. The luminaries of piety are subject to similar obscurations, even when the Sun of Righteousness sheds over them His divinest splendour. On one side, the world comes between;-temper, pride, ambition,-each casts its little shade, and dims the clear circumference of beauty.

CHAPTER XVIII.

I. The eloquence of the church at the close of the 17th and during the 18th century; Tillotson.-II. Chillingworth and Cudworth.-III. Sancroft and the Nonjurors; Jeremy Collier.-IV. Beveridge and Sherlock.-V. Burnet.— VI. Character of Atterbury.—VII. Changes of public taste and opinion. - VIII. Warburton, Clarke, Seed, Blair, Paley.-IX. Conclusion.

A

NEW style of pulpit eloquence began in Tillotson. Warburton-with a daring obliviousness of Pearson-called him the first city divine who talked rationally and wrote purely. Surviving Taylor twenty-seven years, and beholding all his descending lustre, he made no effort to catch any of his lights. He found more available materials in Barrow. Burnet ascribed to him the art of preserving the majesty of things under the simplicity of words. And it is not only curious, but instructive, to observe the rapidity and extent of his success. His most illustrious predecessors were lost in his shade. Addison used his name to give emphasis to a panegyric of style; and Dryden attributed his own vigour to the study of his works; a confession that excited the wonder of Gray, who admired the