cause,' said he, 'I am neither the founder of it, nor have I been a benefactor to it.'' Hales died on the nineteenth of May, 1656, and the day following he was buried, in accordance with his own desire, in Eton College churchyard. He is reported to have said in his former days, that he thought he should never die a martyr;' but he suffered more than many martyrs have suffered, and certainly died little less than a martyr to unwavering integrity and principle.

Besides sermons and miscellanies, the former of which compose the chief portion of his works, Hales wrote a famous Tract concerning Schism and Schismatics, in which the causes of religious disunion, and, in particular, the bad effects of Episcopal ambition, are freely discussed. The style of his sermons is clear, simple, and correct; and the subjects are frequently illustrated with quotations from the ancient philosophers and Christian fathers. The following extract is from a sermon, Of Inquiry and Private Judgment in Religion:

PRIVATE JUDGMENT IN RELIGION.

It were a thing worth looking into, to know the reason why men are so generally willing, in point of religion, to cast themselves into other men's arms, and, leaving their own reason, rely so much upon another man's. Is it because it is modesty and humility to think another man's reason better than our own? Indeed, I know not how it comes to pass, we account it a vice, a part of envy, to think another man's goods, or another man's fortunes, to be better than our own, and yet we account it a singular virtue to esteem our reason and wit meaner than other men's. Let us not mistake ourselves; to contemn the advice and help of others, in love and admiration to our own conceits, to depress and disgrace other men's, this is the foul vice of pride: on the contrary, thankfully to entertain the advice of others, to give it its due, and ingenuously to prefer it before our own if it deserve it, this is that gracious virtue of modesty: but altogether to mistrust and relinquish our own faculties, and commend ourselves to others, this is nothing but poverty of spirit and indiscretion. I will not forbear to open unto you what I conceive to be the causes of this so general an error amongst men. First peradventure the dregs of the church of Rome are not yet sufficiently washed from the hearts of many men. We know it is the principal stay and supporter of that church, to suffer nothing to be inquired into which is once concluded by them. Look through Spain and Italy; they are not men, but beasts, and Issachar-like, patiently couch down under every burden their superiors lay upon them.

Secondly, a fault or two may be in our own ministry; thus, to advise men, (as I have done,) to search into the reasons and grounds of religion, opens a way to dispute and quarrel, and this might breed us some trouble and disquiet in our cures, more than we are willing to undergo; therefore, to purchase our own quiet, and to banish all contention, we are content to nourish this still humour in our hearers; as the Sibarites, to procure their ease, banished the smiths, because their trade was full of noise. In the mean time we do not see that peace, which ariseth out of ignorance, is but a kind of sloth, or moral lethargy, seeming quiet because it hath no power to move. Again, maybe the portion of knowledge in the minister himself is not over great; it may be, therefore, good policy for him to suppress all busy inquiry in his auditory, that so increase of knowledge in them might not at length discover some ignorance in him. Last of all, the fault may be in the people themselves, who, because they are loath to take pains (and search into the grounds of knowledge is evermore painful), are well content to take their

ease, to gild their vices with goodly names, and to call their sloth modesty, and their neglect of inquiry filial obedience. These reasons, beloved, or some of kin to these, may be the motives unto this easiness of the people, of entertaining their religion upon trust, and of the neglect of the inquiry into the grounds of it.

To return, therefore, and proceed in the refutation of this gross neglect in men of their own reason, and casting themselves upon their wits. Hath God given you eyes to see, and legs to support you, that so yourselves might lie still, or sleep, and require the use of other men's eyes and legs? That faculty of reason which is in every one of you, even in the meanest that hears me this day, next to the help of God, is your eyes to direct you, and your legs to support you, in your course of integrity and sanctity; you may no more refuse or neglect the use of it, and rest yourselves upon the use of other men's reason, than neglect your own and call for the use of other men's eyes and legs. The man in the gospel, who had bought a farm, excuses himself from going to the marriage supper, because himself would go and see it but we have taken an easier course; we can buy our farm, and go to supper too, and that only by saving our pains to see it; we profess ourselves to have made a great purchase of heavenly doctrine, yet we refuse to see it and survey it ourselves, but trust to other men's eyes, and our surveyors and wot you to what end? I know not, except it be, that so we may with the better leisure go to the marriage supper; that, with Haman, we may the more merrily go in to the banquet provided for us; that so we may the more freely betake ourselves to our pleasures, to our profits, to our trades, to our preferments and ambition.

Would you see how ridiculously we abuse ourselves when we thus neglect our own knowledge, and securely hazard ourselves upon other's skill? Give me leave, then, to show you a perfect pattern of it, and to report to you what I find in Seneca the philosopher, recorded of a gentleman in Rome, who, being purely ignorant, yet greatly desirous to seem learned, procured himself many servants, of which some he caused to study the poets, some the orators, some the historians, some the philosophers, and, in a strange kind of fancy, all their learning he verily thought to be his own, and persuaded himself that he verily knew all that his servants understood; yea, he grew to that height of madness in this kind, that, being weak in body and diseased in his feet, he provided himself of wrestlers and runners, and proclaimed games and races, and performed them by his servants; still applauding himself, as if himself had done them. Beloved, you are this man: when you neglect to try the spirits, to study the means of salvation yourselves, but content yourselves to take them upon trust, and repose yourselves altogether on the wit and knowledge of us that are your teachers, what is this in a manner but to account with yourselves, that our knowledge is yours, that you know all we know, who are but your servants in Jesus Christ?

OWEN FELLTHAM, another deeply interesting writer of this period, was a native of Suffolk, where his family had resided for several generations; but of his own personal history little farther is known. His learning and virtues appear to have recommended him to the notice of the earl of Themond, in whose family he, for some years, lived in easy and honorable dependence. During his residence in the family of the earl, Felltham produced a work of very great merit, under the title of Resolves; Divine, Moral, and Political. The date of the first publication of this interesting production is uncertain, but the second edition appeared in 1628, and so popular did the book continue during the seventeenth century, that in 1709, it had reached the twelfth edition.

The 'Resolves' consists of essays on religious and moral subjects, and seems to derive its name from the circumstance, that the author, who evidently wrote for his own improvement, generally forms resolutions at the end of each essay. Both in substance and in manner, the work, in many places, bears a considerable resemblance to the essays of Bacon. Felltham's style is, for the most part, vigorous, harmonious, and well adapted to the subjects; sometimes imaginative and eloquent, but occasionally chargeable with prolixity, superabundance of illustration, and too great familiarity of expression. His sentiments are distinguished by good sense, and great purity of religious and moral principle. The following passages will illustrate these remarks:

LIMITATION OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

Learning is like a river, whose head being far in the land, is, at first rising, little, and easily viewed; but, still as you go, it gapeth with a wider bank; not without pleasure and delightful winding, while it is on both sides set with trees, and the beauties of various flowers. But still the further you follow it the deeper and the broader 'tis; till at last, it inwaves itself in the unfathomed ocean; there you see more water, but no shore-no end of that liquid fluid vastness. In many things we may sound Nature, in the shallows of her revelations. We may trace her to her second causes; but, beyond them, we meet with nothing but the puzzle of the soul, and the dazzle of the mind's dim eyes. While we speak of things that are, that we may dissect, and have power and means to find the causes, there is some pleasure, some certainty. But when we come to metaphysics, to long-buried antiquity, and unto unrevealed divinity, we are in a sea, which is deeper than the short reach of the line of man. Much may be gained by studious inquisition; but more will ever rest, which man can not discover.

OF NEGLECT.

There is the same difference between diligence and neglect, that there is between a garden properly cultivated and the sluggard's field which fell under Solomon's view, when overgrown with nettles and thorns. The one is clothed with beauty, the other is unpleasant and disgusting to the sight. Negligence is the rust of the soul, that corrodes through all her best resolutions. What nature made for use, for strength, and ornament, neglect alone converts to trouble, weakness, and deformity. We need only sit still, and diseases will arise from the mere want of exercise.

How fair soever the soul may be, yet while connected with our fleshy nature, it requires continual care and vigilance to prevent its being soiled and discoloured. Take the weeders from the Floralium1 and a very little time will change it to a wilderness, and turn that which was before recreation for men into a habitation for vermin. Our life is a warfare; and we ought not, while passing through it, to sleep without a sentinel, or march without a scout. He who neglects either of these precautions, exposes himself to surprise, and to becoming a prey to the diligence and perseverance of his adversary. The mounds of life and virtue, as well as those of pastures, will decay; and if we do not repair them, all the beasts of the field will enter, and tear up every thing good which grows within them. With the religious and well-disposed, a slight deviation from wisdom's laws will disturb the mind's fair peace.

Macarius did penance for only killing a gnat in anger. Like the Jewish touch of

Flower-garden.

things unclean, the least miscarriage requires purification. Man is like a watch; if evening and morning he be not wound up with prayer and circumspection, he is unprofitable and false, or serves to mislead. If the instrument be not truly set, it will be harsh and out of tune; the diapason dies, when every string does not perform his part. Surely, without a union to God, we can not be secure or well. Can he be happy who from happiness is divided? To be united to God, we must be influenced by his goodness, and strive to imitate his perfections. Diligence alone is a good patrimony; but neglect will waste the fairest fortune. One perseveres and gathers; the other, like death, is the dissolution of all. The industrious bee, by her sedulity in summer, lives on honey all the winter. But the drone is not only cast out from the hive, but beaten and punished.

MEDITATION.

Meditation is the soul's perspective glass; whereby, in her long remove, she discerneth God, as if he were nearer hand. I persuade no man to make it his whole life's business. We have bodies as well as souls; and even this world, while we are in it, ought somewhat to be cared for. As those states are likely to flourish where execution follows sound advisements; so is man, when contemplation is seconded by action. Contemplation generates; action propagates. Without the first, the latter is defective; without the last the first is abortive, and embryous. Saint Bernard compares contemplation to Rachel, which was the more fair; but action to Leah, which was the more fruitful. I will neither always be busy, and doing; nor ever shut up in nothing but thought. Yet that which some would call idleness, I will call the sweetest part of my life, and that is, my thinking.