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cal character. His greatest work, perhaps, is his "Liberty of Prophesying."
By prophesying, he means preaching or expounding. The object of this is to
show the unreasonableness of prescribing to other men's faith, and the ini-
quity of persecuting for difference of opinion. It has been justly described
as, perhaps of all Taylor's writings, that which shows him farthest in ad-
vance of the age in which he lived, and of the ecclesiastical system in which
he had been reared; as the first distinct and avowed defence of toleration
which had been ventured on in England, perhaps in Christendom." The most
popular, however, of his works is his "Rule and Exercise of Holy Living
and Dying," which contains numerous passages of singular beauty and truth.
A writer in the Edinburgh Review remarks, that in one of Taylor's "prose
folios, there is more fine fancy and original imagery-more brilliant concep-
tions and glowing expressions--more new figures and new application of old
figures-more, in short, of the body and soul of poetry, than in all the odes
and epics that have since been produced in Europe. This is rather extrava-
gant; but the encomium passed upon his writings by Dr. Rust, in his funeral
sermon, is most richly deserved: "They will," says he, "be famous to all suc-
ceeding generations for their greatness of wit, and profoundness of judgment
and richness of fancy, and clearness of expression, and copiousness of inven-
tion, and general usefulness to all the purposes of a Christian."1

ON PRAYER.

Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of gentleness and dove-like simplicity; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose spirit is meek, up to the greatness of the biggest example; and a conformity to God, whose anger is always just, and marches slowly, and is without transportation, and often hindered, and never hasty, and is full of mercy. Prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest; prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts, it is the daughter of charity, and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontier garrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and therefore is contrary to that attention, which presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregu lar and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings; till the little creature was forced to sit down and

1 The best edition of his works is that by Bishop Heber, "with a Life of the Author, and a erition) Examination of his Works."

pant, and stay till the storm was over; and then it made a pros perous flight, and did rise and sing as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below: so is the prayer of a good man: when his affairs have required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with the infirmi ties of a man, and anger was its instrument, and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the man; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud, and his thoughts pulled them back again, and made them without intention, and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be content to lose the prayer, and he must recover it when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, loaden with a blessing and the dew of heaven.

ON TOLERATION.

Any zeal is proper for religion but the zeal of the sword and the zeal of anger: this is the bitterness of zeal, and it is a certain temptation to every man against his duty; for if the sword turns preacher, and dictates propositions by empire instead of arguments, and engraves them in men's hearts with a poniard, that it shall be death to believe what I innocently and ignorantly am persuaded of, it must needs be unsafe to try the spirits, to try all things, to make inquiry; and, yet, without this liberty, no man can justify himself before God or man, nor confidently say that his religion is best. This is inordination of zeal; for Christ, by reproving St. Peter drawing his word even in the cause of Christ, for his sacred and yet injured person, teaches us not to use the sword, though in the cause of God, or for God himself.

When Abraham sat at his tent door, according to his custom, waiting to entertain strangers, he espied an old man, stooping and leaning on his staff, weary with age and travail, coming towards him, who was a hundred years of age. He received him kindly, washed his feet, provided supper, caused him to sit down; but observing that the old man eat, and prayed not, nor begged for a blessing on his meat, he asked him why he did not worship the God of heaven. The old man told him that he worshipped the fire only, and acknowledged no other God. At which answer Abraham grew so zealously angry, that he thrust the old man out of his tent, and exposed him to all the evils of the night, and an unguarded conditiou. When the old man was gone, God called

He re

to Abraham, and asked him where the stranger was.
plied, I thrust him away because he did not worship thee. God
answered him, I have suffered him these hundred years, although
he dishonored me; and couldst not thou endure him one night?

ON CONTENT.

Since all the evil in the world consists in the disagreeing between the object and the appetite, as when a man hath what he desires not, or desires what he hath not, or desires amiss, he that composes his spirit to the present accident hath variety of instances for his virtue, but none to trouble him, because his desires enlarge not beyond his present fortune: and a wise man is placed in the variety of chances, like the nave or centre of a wheel in the midst of all the circumvolutions and changes of posture, without violence or change, save that it turns gently in compliance with its changed parts, and is indifferent which part is up, and which is down; for there is some virtue or other to be exercised whatever happenseither patience or thanksgiving, love or fear, moderation or humility, charity or contentedness.

It conduces much to our content, if we pass by those things which happen to our trouble, and consider that which is pleasing and prosperous; that, by the representation of the better, the worse may be blotted out.

It may be thou art entered into the cloud which will bring a gentle shower to refresh thy sorrows.

I am fallen into the hands of publicans and sequestrators, and they have taken all from me: what now? let me look about me. They have left me the sun and moon, fire and water, a loving wife, and many friends to pity me, and some to relieve me, and I can still discourse; and, unless I list, they have not taken away my merry countenance, and my cheerful spirit, and a good conscience; they still have left me the providence of God, and all the promises of the Gospel, and my religion, and my hopes of heaven, and my charity to them too: and still I sleep and digest, I eat and drink, I read and meditate, I can walk in my neighbor's pleasant fields,1

1 Yet nature's charms, the hills and woods,
The sweeping vales, and foaming floods,
Are free alike to all.-BURNS.

I care not Fortune, what you me deny,

You cannot rob me of free nature's grace,

You cannot shut the windows of the sky,

Through which Aurora shows her brightening face.

You cannot bar my constant feet to trace

The woods and lawns by living stream at eve;

Let health my nerves and finer fibres brace,

And I their toys to the great children leave;

of fancy, reason, virtue, naught can me bereave.-THOMSON.

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and see the varieties of natural beauties, and delight in all that in which God delights, that is, in virtue and wisdom, in the whole creation, and in God himself.

ON COVETOUSNESS.

Covetousness swells the principal to no purpose, and lessens the use to all purposes; disturbing the order of nature, and the designs of God; making money not to be the instrument of exchange or charity, nor corn to feed himself or the poor, nor wool to clothe himself or his brother, nor wine to refresh the sadness of the afflicted, nor oil to make his own countenance cheerful; but all these to look upon, and to tell over, and to take accounts by, and make himself considerable, and wondered at by fools, that while he lives he may be called rich, and when he dies may be accounted miserable. It teaches men to be cruel and crafty; industrious and evil; full of care and malice; and, after all this, it is for no good to itself, for it dares not spend those heaps of treasure which it snatched.

ADVERSITY.1

All is well as long as the sun shines, and the fair breath of heaven gently wafts us to our own purposes. But if you will try the excellency, and feel the work of faith, place the man in a persecution; let him ride in a storm, let his bones be broken with sorrow, and his eyes loosened with sickness, let his bread be dipped with tears, and all the daughters of music be brought low; let us come to sit upon the margin of our grave, and let a tyrant lean hard upon our fortunes, and dwell upon our wrong; let the storm arise, and the keels toss till the cordage crack, or that all our hopes bulge under us, and descend into the hollowness of sad misfortunes.

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Lies the true proof of men. The sea being smooth,

How many shallow bauble boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way

With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas once enrage

The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold,

The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuta,

Bounding between the two moist elements,

Like Perseus' horse: where's then the saucy boat,
Whose weak-untimber'd sides but even now
Co-rivall'd greatness ?-TROILUS AND CRESSIDA.

See Bacon's beautiful "Essay on Adversity," where he says-

"But to speak in a mean, the virtue of prosperity is temperance, the virtue of adversity is forth tude, which in morals is the more heroical virtue. Prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, Adversity is the blessing of the New, which carrieth the greater benediction, and the clearer revela tion of God's favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols."

ON THE MISERIES OF A MAN'S LIFE.

How few men in the world are prosperous! What an infinite number of slaves and beggars, of persecuted and oppressed people, fill all corners of the earth with groans, and heaven itself with weeping, prayers and sad remembrances! If we could, from one of the battlements of heaven, espy how many men and women at this time lie fainting and dying for want of bread; how many young men are hewn down by the sword of war; how many poor orphans are now weeping over the graves of their father, by whose life they were enabled to eat; if we could but hear how mariners and passengers are at this present in a storm, and shriek out because their keel dashes against a rock or bulges under them; how many people there are that weep with want, and are mad with oppression, or are desperate by too quick a sense of constant infelicity; in all reason we should be glad to be out of the noise and participation of so many evils. This is a place of sorrows and tears, of so great evils and a constant calamity: let us remove from hence, at least, in affections and preparation of mind.

THE DAWN AND PROGRESS OF REASON.

Some are called at age at fourteen, some at one-and-twenty, some never; but all men late enough; for the life of a man comes upon him slowly and insensibly. But as when the sun approaches towards the gates of the morning, he first opens a little eye of heaven, and sends away the spirits of darkness, and gives light to a cock, and calls up the lark to matins, and by-and-by gilds the fringes of a cloud, and peeps over the eastern hills, thrusting out his golden horns, like those which decked the brows of Moses when he was forced to wear a veil, because himself had seen the face of God; and still, while a man tells the story, the sun gets up higher, till he shows a fair face and a full light, and then he shines one whole day, under a cloud often, and sometimes weeping great and little showers, and sets quickly; so is a man's reason and his life.

WHAT IS LIFE?

It is a mighty change that is made by the death of every person, and it is visible to us who are alive. Reckon but from the sprightfulness of youth and the fair cheeks and full eyes of childhood, from the vigorousness and strong flexure of the joints of five-and-twenty, to the hollowness and dead paleness, to the loathsomeness and horror of a three days' burial, and we shall perceive the distance to be very great and very strange. But so have 1 seen a rose newly springing from the clefts of its hood, and at first it was fair as the morning, and full with the dew of heaven, as the

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