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 practised 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 all 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.

XII. 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, ". 'we have told you OFTEN, and Now tell you 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 herds man in the poet :

"Heu mihi, quam pingui macer est mihi taurus in arvo ["

"My starveling bull,

Ah woe is me!

In pasture full,

How lean is he!"

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 parishioners' 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 inconcerning 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 ad

vance them. But what saith the apostle "If in this life only we have hope, 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 neighbour-ministers. 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

A 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.

de IT has been objected to Milton that in his "Lycidas" he enumerates among "vernal flowers" many of those which are the offspring of Midsummer, and of a still more advanced season. The passage to which the objection applies is the following:

Ye valleys low, where the mild whispers use

Of shades and wanton winds, and gushing brooks
On whose fresh lap the swart star sparely looks,
Throw hither all your quaint enamell'd eyes,
That on the green turf suck the honied showers,
And purple all the ground with vernal flowers.
Bring the rathe primrose that forsaken dies,
The tufted crowtoe and pale jessamine,

The white pink, and the pansy freak'd with jet,
The glowing violet,

The musk-rose, and the well-attired woodbine,
With cowslips wan that hang the pensive head,
And every flower that sad embroidery wears:
Bid amaranthus all his beauty shed,
And daffodillies fill their cups with tears,
To strew the laureat hearse where Lycid lies.