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

COLONEL HUTCHINSON.

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wilderness of nature, and dipped in this living spring, they are planted and flourish in the paradise of God.

"By Christianity I intend that universal habit of grace which is wrought in a soul by the regenerating Spirit of God, whereby the whole creature is resigned up into the Divine will and love, and all its actions directed to the obedience and glory of its Maker. As soon as he had improved his natural understanding with the acquisition of learning, the first studies in which he exercised himself were the principles of religion, and the first knowledge he laboured for was a knowledge of God, which by a diligent examination, of the Scripture, and the several doctrines of great men pretending that ground, he at length obtained. Afterwards, when he had laid a sure and orthodox foundation in the doctrine of the free grace of God given us by Jesus Christ, he began to survey the superstructures, and to discover much of the hay and stubble of men's inventions in God's worship, which his spirit burned up in the day of their trial. His faith being established in the truth, he was full of love to God and all His saints. He hated persecution for religion, and was always a champion for all religious people against all their great oppressors. He detested all scoffs at any practice of worship, though such a one as he was not persuaded of it. Whatever he practised in religion was neither for faction nor advantage, but contrary to it, and purely for conscience' sake. As he hated outsides in religion, so could he worse endure those apostasies and those denials of the Lord and base compliances of His adversaries, which timorous men practise under the name of prudent and just condescensions to avoid persecution. Christianity being in him as the fountain of all his virtues, and diffusing itself in every stream, that of his prudence falls into the next mention. He from a child was wise, and sought to by many that might have been his fathers for counsel, which he could excellently give to him

man.

self and others; and whatever cross event in any of his affairs may give occasion to fools to overlook the wisdom of the design, yet he had as great a foresight, as strong a judg ment, as clear an apprehension of men and things as any He had rather a firm impression than a great memory, yet he was forgetful of nothing but injuries. His own integrity made him credulous of other men's, till reason and experience convinced him; and he was as unapt to believe cautions which could not be received without entertaining ill opinions of men; yet he had wisdom enough never to commit himself to a traitor, though he was once wickedly betrayed by friends whom necessity and not mistake forced him to trust. He was as ready to hear as to give counsel, and never pertinacious in his will when his reason was convinced. There was no opinion which he was most settled in, either concerning divine or human things, but he would patiently and impartially hear it debated. In matters of faith his reason always submitted to the Word of God, and what he could not comprehend, he would believe because it was written; but in all other things, the greatest names in the world could never lead him without reason: he would deliberate when there was time, but never, by tedious dispute, lost an opportunity of anything that was to be done. He would hear as well as speak, and yet never spoke impertinently or unseasonably. He very well understood his own advantages, natural parts, gifts, and acquirements, yet so as neither to glory of them to others, nor overvalue himself for them; for he had an excellent virtuous modesty, which shut out all vanity of mind, and yet admitted that true understanding of himself which was requisite for the best improvement of all his talents. He no less understood and was more heedful to remark his defects, imperfections, and disadvantages, but that too only to excite his circumspection concerning them, not to damp his spirit in any noble enterprise. He had a