say of him, that he had the greatest share of learning in ready cash, of any man with whom he was ever acquainted. The principles of these men were rational and moderate in most instances. They were equally inimical to irreligion and enthusiasm. They loved the church and approved the liturgy; but they did not consider it as unlawful to live and preach under another form of ecclesiastical government, They maintained a friendly intercourse and correspondence with those who differed from them in, sentiment, and admitted of great freedom of opinion respecting speculative topics, both in philosophy and theology. From this liberality of sentiment, the more bigotted party in the church branded them with the name of Latitudinarians; and some of their more inveterate enemies unjustly charged them with favouring the doctrines of the Socinian sect.

From the same school proceeded Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Patrick. The first of these was a man of great learning, but somewhat of a reserved and haughty disposition.Before the Restoration he had published his "Irenicum, or a Weapon Salve for the Church's Wounds," a quaint title, which sounds but awkwardly to a modern ear; but the work contains a considerable fund of sound erudition, "His notion (says Burnet) was, that the apostles had settled the church in a constitution of bishops, priests, and deacons, but had made no perpetual law about it, having only taken it in, as they did many other things, from the customs and practice of the synagogue; from which he inferred, that certainly the constitution was lawful, since authorized by them, but not necessary, since they had made no law concerning it." In maturer age he retracted much of these opinions, and declared," that there were many things in the Irenicum, which, if he were to write again, he would not say; Some which shew his youth, and want of due consideration; others which he yielded to too far, in hopes of gaining the dissenting parties to the church of England."

He had not completed his twenty-seventh year, when, in

1662, he published his " Origines Sacre, or a rational account of the Grounds of Natural and Revealed Religion;" a work which abounds in curious information, and from which an industrious man, who was possessed of a good style, might extract an adinirable defence of revelation against the ignorant and shallow attacks of modern infidels. The learning and industry of Stillingfleet, at this early period, was so considerable, that bishop Sanderson, who had only known him by his works, when introduced to him at his primary visitation, was astonished to find him so young a man, and could hardly believe him to be the same. "I expected," said he, " to find one as considerable for his years as for his learning." After the Revolution, when every man in the church, who was eminent for his learning, and irreproachable in his moral conduct, was preferred, Stillingfleet was made bishop of Worcester. He added, however, no new laurels to those he had reaped in his youth, by a metaphysical controversy into which he entered with Mr. Locke, of which we shall have hereafter to treat. The literary labours of Patrick and Tillotson will also come more properly under review in one of the succeeding reigns.

It was this society of divines who first reformed the English style of preaching." Before them (bishop Burnet informs us) it was overrun with pedantry. The sermon contained a great mixture of quotations from fathers and ancient writers, a long opening of a text, with the concordance of every word in it, and all the different expositions with the grounds of them, and the entering into some parts of controversy, and all concluding in some, but very short, practical applications, according to the subject or the occasion. This (he adds) was both long and heavy, when all was pye-balled, full of many sayings of different languages. In short, the common style of sermons was either very flat and low, or swelled up with rhetoric to a false pitch of a wrong sublime."

The witty and eccentric South will scarcely be ranked among the improvers of pulpit eloquence in this country;

yet

yet his sermons will be read, and on some accounts admired, while English literature shall hold its place in the commonwealth of learning. If we may credit Anthony Wood, who, though a dull man, was apparently honest, this extraordinary genius was, in the early part of his life, more directed by self-interest than became either a Christian or a scholar. While the independents were predominant during the usurpation of Cromwell, he sedulously paid his court to the ruling party, and was in favour with their leaders; when the presbyterians rose again into popularity and respect, South broke off all connexion with his former patrons, and on the Restoration, the rapid effusions of his eloquence were directed with equal violence against the independents and the presbytery. His ungovernable temper, notwithstanding the flexibility of his principles, appears to have formed a bar to his promotion; and a prebend of Westminster, which he obtained through the patronage of the lord chancellor Clarendon, appears to have been his highest preferment. In his sermons there is more wit than eloquence; more imagination than learning. His reasoning, however, is often close, and his style is bold and fluent. Like Swift, who appears to have both admired and imitated him, he always chooses the most appropriate expression, however debased by its commonness or vulgarity. He possessed excellent talents, but in the pulpit they appear to have been misplaced. He was probably of too lively and versatile a disposition to engage in any work of labour and of erudition. The principal of his literary productions are his serinons, though towards the close of life he engaged in a controversy with Dr. Sherlock, concerning the Trinity, in which it is generally agreed, by at least the orthodox party, that South had the better of the argument.

The amiable and accomplished Barrow was of a character very different from his contemporary South. It is some credit to the heads of the university of Cambridge, that he obtained a fellowship and university honours under the republican government, notwithstanding his well known attachment to royalty. On the Restoration, like most men of character and merit, he remained unnoticed; but was at

length

length made master of Trinity college. His mind was most comprehensive; his industry indefatigable; and no stronger proof can be adduced of his various powers, than the fact of his having filled with reputation the mathematical chairs both at Gresham college and Cambridge, and also the Greek professorship at the latter place. Before the end of his life he resigned the mathematical chair at Cambridge to the justly celebrated Newton, and there is a tradition in the university, that he did it on conscientious motives; and that he was no sooner acquainted with Newton's merits (who was then a very young man) than, with a modesty which is rarely to be found, he pronounced himself unworthy any longer to preside in that department of science. This excellent and extraordinary man died at the early age of forty-seven.

Though he excelled in so many branches of learning, yet theology and ethics were the favourite sciences with Barrow. Yet, he has left but few entire treatises on these subjects, unless we consider his treatise on the pope's su premacy, an unanswerable work, as belonging to this department, though it is rather to be classed under that of ecclesiastical history. His sermons on the articles of the Christian faith may however be considered as a complete treatise, or rather a body of divinity; and, indeed, according to the remark of Le Clerc, every sermon is a treatise or dissertation, complete in all its parts, rather than an oration, Charles II. who was more deficient in principle than in talents, remarked of Barrow, "that he was an unfair preacher, because he exhausted every subject, and left no room for others to come after him." His sermons were in fact not less remarkable for their length than for their excellence. He was once requested by the dean of Westminster to preach at the abbey. He divided his sermon into two parts, and at the intreaty of the dean consented to preach only half of it; but after having proceeded a full hour, the populace, who waited without to see the tombs, became impatient, and struck up the full organ to silence him. He preached once for three hours and a half before the lord-mayor and aldermen, and when asked if he was not tired, he replied, "I began to be a little weary with standing."

The

The style of Barrow is clear, uniform, and chaste. He never rises to what may be termed the sublime, and his productions are not orations, but essays or dissertations, as has been already remarked. They are a treasure of religious and moral learning, nor are there any productions in the language, which may be read with more profit by students in theology.

The pious and excellent bishop Fell is better known as the publisher of the Whole Duty of Man, and some other short and practical treatises by the same author, than by any works which bear his own name. There are perhaps few phenomena in our literary annals more extraordinary than the mystery in which the name of the author of these treatises is involved; the style is not that of bishop Fell, nor is there any good reason to be assigned why he should be studious of concealment. The most probable conjecture is, that these works were the production of some pious and modest lay man, perhaps of superior rank, who might conceive that if he were known as the writer, his own life and conduct might be drawn into comparison with his precepts, or that their utility might be lessened by some circumstance connected with the author. Ken, bishop of Bath and Wells, was more of a poet than a divine, though most of his compositions were in a religious strain, some of which are still popular. This prelate attended assiduously the dying moments of Charles II.; but his exhortations had but little effect on the dying profligate, who ordered the room to be cleared of the protestant prelates, and took refuge finally in the delusions of the church of Rome.

"It was in the licentious reign of Charles II. (says Mrs. Macaulay) that writings were first publicly broached, which called in question the divine authority of Christ's mission, and all those glorious promises of the gospel, which, if firmly believed, must in a great measure prevail over human vice and infirmity. It was in this licentious age that those baneful systems of philosophy were revived, which, by calling in question the future existence of man, strip the Deity of the

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