with flesh, to assume the form of a servant; for his good to undertake and undergo the greatest inconveniences, infirmities, wants, and disgraces, the most grievous troubles and most sharp pains incident to mortal nature. God hath adopted him to be his child; the Son of God hath deigned to call him brother: he is a member of Christ, a temple of the Holy Ghost, a free denizen of the heavenly city, an heir of salvation, and candidate of eternal glory. The greatest and richest personage is not capable of better privileges than God hath granted him, or of higher preferments than God hath designed him to. He equally with the mightiest prince is the object of God's especial providence and grace, of his continual regard and care, of his fatherly love and affection; who, as good Elihu saith, accepteth not the persons of princes, nor regardeth the rich more than the poor; for they are all the work of his hands. In fine, this poor creature whom thou seest is a man, and a christian, thine equal, whoever thou art, in nature, and thy peer in condition: I say not, in the uncertain and unstable gifts of fortune, not in this worldly state, which is very inconsiderable; but in gifts vastly more precious, in title to an estate infinitely more rich and excellent. Yea, if thou art vain and proud, be sober and humble; he is thy better, in true dig nity much to be preferred before thee, far in

real wealth surpassing thee: for, better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness, than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich*.”

To this extract I shall beg leave to adjoin another, which will afford the reader an admirable instance of energy and strength combined with great harmony of period. It is taken from a sermon on A peaceable Temper and Carriage.

"We are obliged to these duties of humanity, upon account of common interest, benefit, and advantage. The welfare and safety, the honour and reputation, the pleasure and quiet of our lives are concerned in our maintaining a loving correspondence with all men. For so uncertain is our condition, so obnoxious are we to manifold necessities, that there is no man, whose good will we may not need, whose good word may not stand us in stead, whose helpful indeavour may not sometime oblige us. The great Pompey, the glorious triumpher over nations, and admired darling of fortune, was beholden at last to a slave for the composing his ashes and celebrating his funeral obsequies. The honour of the greatest men depends on the estimation of the least, and the good-will of the meanest peasant is a brighter ornament to the fortune, a greater accession to the grandeur of a prince, than the most radiant gemme in his royal diadem.——It is but reason* Tillotson's Edition of Barrow, 1683, vol. i. p. 442, 443.

able, therefore, if we desire to live securely, comfortably, and quietly, that by all honest means we should endeavour to purchase the good-will of all men, and provoke no man's enmity needlesly; since any man's love may be usefull, and every man's hatred is dangerous*."

If we compare this energetic style with that of the friend and editor of Barrow, ARCHBISHOP TILLOTSON, we shall be immediately struck with the contrast. Whilst richness, vehemence, and strength, characterize the productions of Barrow, simplicity, languor, and enervation, form the chief features in the diction of Tillotson. To the former belong a fervid fancy and a poetic ear, glowing figures and harmonious cadences; to the latter, perspicuity and smoothness, verbal purity and unaffected ease. If Barrow be occasionally involved, harsh, or redundant, Tillotson is too generally loose and feeble, and he seldom displays much, either of beauty or melody, in the arrangement or construction of his periods.

To Tillotson, however, the nation was indebted for the first extensive specimen of simplicity of style. Yet Cowley, it should be remarked, had already furnished one on a small scale, finished, perhaps, with greater sweetness and amenity, but not so uniformly pure and perspicuous.

A single passage from writings so equable in * Barrow's Works, vol. i. p. 406.

their composition as the sermons of Tillotson, will be fully adequate to convey an accurate conception of their style:

Nothing is more certain in reason and experience," remarks the Archbishop, "than that every inordinate appetite and affection is a punishment to itself; and is perpetually crossing its own pleasure, and defeating its own satisfaction, by overshooting the mark it aims at. For instance, intemperance in eating and drinking, instead of delighting and satisfying nature, doth but load and clog it; and instead of quenching a natural thirst, which it is extremely pleasant to do, creates an unnatural one, which is troublesome and endless. The pleasure of revenge, as soon as it is executed, turns into grief and pity, guilt and remorse, and a thousand melancholy wishes that we had restrained ourselves from so unreasonable an act. And the same is as evident in other sensual excesses, not so fit to be described. We may trust Epicurus for this, that there can be no true pleasure without temperance in the use of pleasure. And God and reason hath set us no other bounds concerning the use of sensual pleasures, but that we take care not to be injurious to ourselves, or others, in the kind or degree of them. And it is very visible, that all sensual excess is naturally attended with a double inconvenience: as it goes beyond the

limits of nature, it begets bodily pains and diseases: as it transgresseth the rules of reason and religion, it breeds guilt and remorse in the mind. And these are, beyond comparison, the two greatest evils in this world; a diseased body, and a discontented mind; and in this I am sure I speak to the inward feeling and experience of men; and say nothing but what every vicious man finds, and hath a more lively sense of, than is to be expressed by words.

"When all is done, there is no pleasure comparable to that of innocency, and freedom from the stings of a guilty conscience; this is a pure and spiritual pleasure, much above any sensual delight. And yet among all the delights of sense, that of health (which is the natural consequent of a sober, and chaste, and regular life) is a sensual pleasure far beyond that of any vice. For it is the life of life, and that which gives a grateful relish to all our other enjoyments. It is not indeed so violent and transporting a pleasure, but it is pure, and even, and lasting, and hath no guilt or regret, no sorrow and trouble in it, or after it which is a worm that infallibly breeds in all vicious and unlawful pleasures, and makes them to be bitterness in the end *."

Our series will now conduct us to a writer more

* Tillotson's Works, vol. i. p. 334 and 335, folio edition of 1699.