a gate on the wrong side, may, by the virtue of their office, open heaven for others and shut themselves out.

III. His behaviour towards his people is grave and courteous.— Not too austere and retired; which is laid to the charge of good Mr. Hooper the martyr, that his rigidness frighted the people from consulting with him. Let your light,' saith Christ,' shine before men;' whereas over-reservedness makes the brightest virtue burn dim. Especially he detesteth affected gravity, (which is rather on men than in them,) whereby some belie their register-book, antedate their age to seem far older than they are, and plait and set their brows in an affected sadness. Whereas St. Anthony the monk might have been known among hundreds of his order by his cheerful face, he having ever (though a most mortified man) a merry countenance.

IV. He doth not clash God's ordinances together about precedency.-Not making odious comparisons betwixt prayer and preaching, preaching and catechising, public prayer and private, premeditate prayer and ex tempore. When, at the taking of New Carthage in Spain, two soldiers contended about the mural crown, due to him who first climbed the walls, so that the whole army was thereupon in danger of division; Scipio, the general, said he knew that they both got up the wall together, and so gave the scaling crown to them both. Thus our minister compounds all controversies betwixt God's ordinances, by praising them all, practising them all, and thanking God for them all. He counts the reading of Common Prayers to prepare him the better for preaching; and, as one said, if he did first toll the bell on one side, it made it afterwards ring out the better in his sermons.

▼. He carefully catechiseth his people in the elements of religion.-Except he hath (a rare thing!) a flock without lambs, of all old sheep; and yet even Luther did not scorn to profess himBelf discipulum Catechismi, a scholar of the catechism.' By this catechising, the Gospel first got ground of Popery and let not our religion, now grown rich, be ashamed of that which first gave it credit and set it up, lest the Jesuits beat us at our own weapons. Through the want of this catechising, many who are well skilled in some dark out corners of divinity, have lost themselves in the beaten road thereof.

VI. He will not offer to God of that which costs him nothing.-But takes pains aforehand for his sermons. Demosthenes never

made any oration on the sudden; yea, being called upon, he never rose up to speak except he had well studied the matter: and he was wont to say, 'that he showed how he honoured and reverenced the people of Athens, because he was careful what he spake unto them.' Indeed, if our minister be surprised with a sudden occasion, he counts himself rather to be excused than commended, if, premeditating only the bones of his sermon, he clothes it with flesh ex tempore. As for those whose long custom hath made preaching their nature, [so] that they can discourse sermons without study, he accounts their examples rather to be admired than imitated.

VII. Having brought his sermon into his head, he labours to bring it into his heart, before he preaches it to his people.-Surely, that preaching which comes from the soul most works on the soul. Some have questioned ventriloquy, (when men strangely speak out of their bellies,) whether it can be done lawfully or no: might I coin the word cordiloquy, when men draw the doctrines out of their hearts, sure, all would count this lawful and commendable.

VIII. He chiefly reproves the reigning sins of the time and place he lives in.-We may observe that our Saviour never inveighed against idolatry, usury, sabbath-breaking, amongst the Jews. Not that these were not sins, but they were not prac tised so much in that age, wherein wickedness was spun with a finer thread; and therefore Christ principally bent the drift of his preaching against spiritual pride, hypocrisy, and traditions, then predominant amongst the people. Also our minister confuteth no old heresies which time hath confuted, nor troubles his auditory with such strange hideous cases of conscience, that it is more hard to find the case than the resolution. In public reproving of sin, he ever whips the vice and spares the person.

IX. He doth not only move the bread of life, and toss it up and down in generalities, but also breaks it into particular directions. -Drawing it down to cases of conscience, that a man may be warranted in his particular actions, whether they be lawful or not. And he teacheth people their lawful liberty as well as their restraints and prohibitions; for, amongst men, it is as ill taken to turn back favours as to disobey commands.

x. The places of Scripture he quotes are pregnant and pertinent.-As for heaping up of many quotations, it smacks of a vain

ostentation of memory. Besides, it is as impossible that the hearer should profitably retain them all, as that the preacher hath seriously perused them all; yea, whilst the auditors stop their attention, and stoop down to gather an impertinent quotation, the sermon runs on, and they lose more substantial

matter.

XI. His similes and illustrations are always familiar, never contemptible.-Indeed, reasons are the pillars of the fabric of a sermon; but similitudes are the windows which give the best lights. He avoids such stories whose mention may suggest bad thoughts to the auditors, and will not use a light comparison to make thereof a grave application, for fear lest his poison go farther than his antidote.

XI. He provideth not only wholesome but plentiful food for his people.—Almost incredible was the painfulness of Baronius, the compiler of the voluminous Annals of the Church, who, for thirty years together, preached three or four times a week to the people. As for our minister, he preferreth rather to entertain his people with wholesome cold meat which was on the table before than with that which is hot from the spit, raw, and half-roasted. Yet, in repetition of the same sermon, every edition hath a new addition, if not of new matter, of new affections. 'Of whom, saith St. Paul, 'I have told you OFTEN, and Now tell you even weeping.' (Phil. iii. 18.)

XIII. He makes not that wearisome which should ever be welcome.-Wherefore his sermons are of an ordinary length, except on an extraordinary occasion. What a gift had John Halsebach, Professor at Vienna, in tediousness! who, being to expound the Prophet Isaiah to his auditors, read twenty-one years on the first chapter and yet finished it not.

XIV. He counts the success of his ministry the greatest preferment.-Yet herein God hath humbled many painful pastors, in making them to be clouds, to rain, not over Arabia the Happy, but over the Stony or Desert, so that they may complain with the herdsman in the poet :

:

Heu mihi, quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo!

Yet such pastors may comfort themselves, that great is their reward with God in heaven, who measures it, not by their

success but endeavours. Besides, though they see not, their people may feel benefit by their ministry. Yea, the preaching of the word in some places is like the planting of woods, where, though no profit is received for twenty years together, it comes afterwards. And grant, that God honours thee not to build his temple in thy parish, yet thou mayest, with David, provide metal and materials for Solomon thy successor to build it with.

xv. To sick folks he comes sometimes before he is sent for.— As counting his vocation a sufficient calling. None of his flock shall want the extreme unction of prayer and counsel. Against the communion, especially, he endeavours that Janus's temple be shut in the whole parish, and that all be made friends.

XVI. He is never plaintiff in any suit but to be right's defendant. If his dues be detained from him, he grieves more for his parishioner's bad conscience than his own damage. He had rather suffer ten times in his profit than once in his title, where not only his person, but posterity is wronged; and then he proceeds fairly and speedily to a trial, that he may not vex and weary others, but right himself. During his suit he neither breaks off nor slacks offices of courtesy to his adversary; yea, though he loseth his suit, he will not also lose his charity. Chiefly he is respectful to his patron; that as he presented him freely to his living, so he constantly presents his patron in his prayers to God.

XVII. He is moderate in his tenets and opinions.-Not that he gilds over lukewarmness in matters of moment with the title of discretion;' but, withal, he is careful not to entitle violence in indifferent and unconcerning matters, to be zeal. Indeed, men of extraordinary tallness, though otherwise little deserving, are made porters to lords; and those of unusual littleness are made ladies' dwarfs: whilst men of moderate stature may want masters. Thus many, notorious for extremities, may find favourers to prefer them; whilst moderate men in the middle truth may want any to advance them. But what saith the apostle ?-If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.' (1 Cor. xv. 19.)

XVIII. He is sociable and willing to do any courtesy for his neighbour-ministers.—He willingly communicates his knowledge unto them. Surely, the gifts and graces of Christians lay in common, till base envy made the first enclosure. He neither slighteth his inferiors nor repineth at those who in parts and

credit are above him. He loveth the company of his neighbourministers. Sure, as ambergris is nothing so sweet in itself as when it is compounded with other things, so both godly and learned men are gainers by communicating themselves to their neighbours.

XIX. He is careful in the discreet ordering of his own family. -A good minister and a good father may well agree together. When a certain Frenchman came to visit Melancthon, he found him in his stove with one hand dandling his child in the swaddling clouts, and in the other hand holding a book and reading it. Our minister also is as hospitable as his estate will permit, and makes every alms two, by his cheerful giving it. He loveth also to live in a well repaired house, that he may serve God therein more cheerfully. A clergyman who built his house from the ground wrote in it this counsel to his successor :

If thou dost find

An house built to thy mind
Without thy cost,

Serve thou the more
God and the poor:
My labour is not lost.'

XX. Lying on his death-bed, he bequeaths to each of his parishioners his precepts and example for a legacy.—And they in requital erect every one a monument for him in their hearts. He is so far from that base jealousy that his memory should be outshined by a brighter successor, and from that wicked desire that his people may find his worth by the worthlessness of him that succeeds, that he doth heartily pray to God to provide them a better pastor after his decease. As for outward estate, he commonly lives in too bare pasture to die fat. It is well if he hath gathered any flesh, being more in blessing than bulk.

Holy State.

99. John Milton, 1608-1674. (Handbook, pars. 98, 164, 269.) The sublimest poet of the English language, and one of the most vigorous prose-writers. As in Shakespeare's case, it has been deemed better to give very brief extracts, but in great numbers. Every beautiful passage will be found the more beautiful if read in its connexion.

The Value of a Book.

I deny not but that it is of greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth to have a vigilant eye how books demean themselves, as well as men, and thereafter to confine, imprison,