hearers take notice of it: and yet, God wot, it is but poor stuff that they set out with so much ostentation. I do not hear any of the rich merchants talk of what bags he hath in his chests, or what treasures of rich wares in his storehouse; every man rather desires to hide his wealth, and, when he is urged, is ready to dissemble his ability.

No otherwise is it in the true spiritual riches. He that is full of grace and good works affects not to make show of it to the world, but rests sweetly in the secret testimony of a good conscience, and the silent applause of God's Spirit witnessing with his own; while, contrarily, the venditation of our own worth, or parts, or merits, argues a miserable indigence in them all.

O God, if the confessing of Thine own gifts may glorify Thee, my modesty shall not be guilty of a niggardly unthankfulness, but, for ought that concerns myself, I cannot be too secret. Let me so hide myself that I may not wrong Thee, and wisely distinguish betwixt Thy praise and my own.

On the Sight of a Dark Lantern.

There is light indeed, but so shut up as if it were not; and when the side is most open, there is light enough to give direction to him that bears it, none to others; he can discern another man by that light which is cast before him, but another man cannot discern him.

Right such is reserved knowledge; no man is the better for it but the owner. There is no outward difference betwixt concealed skill and ignorance, and when such hidden knowledge will look forth, it casts so sparing a light as may only argue it to have an unprofitable being, to have ability without will to good, power to censure, none to benefit. The suppression or engrossing of those helps which God would have us to impart, is but a thief's lantern in a true man's hand.

A FLY IN THE CANDLE.

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O God, as all our light is from Thee, the Father of lights, so make me no niggard, of that poor rush-candle Thou hast lighted in my soul; make me more happy in giving light to others than in receiving it into myself.

On the Hearing of a Swallow in the Chimney.

Here is music, such as it is, but how long will it hold? When but a cold morning comes in, my guest is gone, without either warning or thanks. This pleasant season hath the least need of cheerful notes; the dead of winter shall want, and wish them in vain.

Thus doth an ungrateful parasite; no man is more ready to applaud and enjoy our prosperity, but when with the times. our condition begins to alter, he is a stranger at least. Give me that bird which will sing in winter, and seek to my window in the hardest frost. There is no trial of friendship but adversity. He that is not ashamed of my bonds, not daunted with my checks, not aliened with my disgrace, is a friend for me; one dram of that man's love is worth a world of false and inconstant formality.

On the Sight of a Fly burning itself in the Candle.

Wise Solomon says, "The light is a pleasant thing;" and so certainly it is; but there is no true outward light which proceeds not from fire. The light of that fire, then, is not more pleasing than the fire of that light is dangerous; and that pleasure doth not more draw on our sight, than that danger forbids our approach. How foolish is this fly, that, in a love and admiration of this light, will know no distance, but puts itself heedlessly into that flame wherein it perishes! How many bouts it fetched, every one nearer than other, ere it made this last venture! and now that merciless fire, taking

no notice of the affection of an over-fond client, hath suddenly consumed it.

Thus do those bold and busy spirits who will needs draw too near unto that inaccessible light, and look into things too wonderful for them; so long do they hover about the secret counsels of the Almighty, till the wings of their presumptuous conceits be scorched, and their daring curiosity hath paid them with everlasting destruction.

O Lord, let me be blessed with the knowledge of what Thou hast revealed; let me content myself to adore Thy Divine wisdom in what Thou hast not revealed. So let me enjoy Thy light, that I may avoid Thy fire.

On the Singing of the Birds in a Spring Morning.

How cheerfully do these little birds chirp and sing, out of the natural joy they conceive, at the approach of the sun and entrance of the spring, as if their life had departed, and returned with those glorious and comfortable beams!

No otherwise is the penitent and faithful soul affected to the true Sun of righteousness, the Father of lights. When He hides His face, it is troubled, and silently mourns away that sad winter of affliction; when He returns, in His presence is the fulness of joy; no song is cheerful enough to welcome Him.

O Thou who art the God of all consolation, make my heart sensible of the sweet comforts of Thy gracious presence, and let my mouth ever shew forth Thy praise.

THE CIVIL WAR AND THE PROTECTORATE.

If not the happiest time in English history, the middle of the seventeenth century may be deemed the golden age of English theology. It is true that it was a time of many sects and much fanaticism. It was then that the Fifth Monarchy, and many wild illusions, found adherents amidst the excited but ill-instructed multitude; and it was then that the absurdities and impieties were vented which Thomas Edwards has preserved in his unpleasant catalogue of the "Errors of the Sectaries." But it was then, also, that men like Hall and Ussher, Lightfoot and Pocock, Owen and Baxter, Manton and Goodwin, Bryan Walton and Patrick Young, were laying on the altar those gifts of erudition and consecrated genius which are still preserved among the most precious things in the Church's treasury. It was then that those most systematic and most carefully considered of Protestant symbols, the Westminster Confession and Catechisms, were compiled. It was then that gigantic undertakings like the "Critici Sacri," Pool's "Synopsis," and Walton's "Polyglott," were projected, and found a patronage which probably no other period before or since would have yielded. And it was then that such immortal contributions were made to our sacred literature as "The Art of Holy Living," and "The Saints' Everlasting Rest," "The Pilgrim's Progress," and the "Paradise Lost."

Nor was it a mere passion for theological science. There were circumstances in the time which helped to make men serious. Before the Civil War broke out, and during the dismal years when it raged, there was much to make thoughtful Englishmen desire "a better country;" and whatever hypocrisy might mingle with the enforced gravity of the Pro

tectorate, our land, probably, never contained so many citizens who made it the business of their lives to prepare for eternity. Even those whose names have come down to us chiefly in connexion with law, arms, merchandise, medicine, were sometimes best known to their contemporaries as the distinguished adherents of the various religious communions; and sufficient memorials of the age have been preserved to shew us that its Christian professors were no strangers to the life and power of godliness. As the best introduction to the theology of the period, we shall begin with a few examples of its piety; and our first illustration shall be an English gentleman, whom the exigencies of the times constrained to be a soldier, and whose portrait is thus sketched by his devoted wife and gifted biographer, the noble-minded Lucy Apsley:—

The Good Soldier: Colonel Hutchinson.

"To number his virtues is to give the epitome of his life, which was nothing else but a progress from one degree of virtue to another, till in a short time he arrived to that height which many longer lives could never reach; and had I but the power of rightly disposing and relating them, his single example would be more instructive than all the rules of the best moralists, for his practice was of a more Divine extraction, drawn from the Word of God, and wrought up by the assistance of His Spirit; therefore in the head of all his virtues I shall set that which was the head and spring of them all, his Christianity-for this alone is the true royal blood that runs through the whole body of virtue, and every pretender to that glorious family who hath no tincture of it is an impostor and a spurious brat. This is that sacred fountain which baptizeth all the gentle virtues that so immortalise the names of Cicero, Plutarch, Seneca, and all the old philosophers; herein they are regenerated, and take a new name and nature.

Dug up in the