sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound up with the images of death and the colder breath of the north; and then the waters break from their enclosures, and melt with joy, and run in useful channels; and the flies do rise again from their graves in walls, and dance a while in the air, to tell that there is joy within, and that the great mother of creatures (ie. Nature) will open the stock of her new refreshment, become useful to mankind, and sing praises to her redeemer : so is the

heart of a sorrowful man under the discourses of a wise comforter. He breaks from the despairs of the grave and the fetters and chains of sorrow; he blesses God, and he blesses thee, and he feels his life returning; for to be miserable is death, but nothing is life but to be comforted; and God is pleased with no music from below (i.e. from earth) so much as in the thanksgiving songs of relieved widows, of supported orphans, of rejoicing and comforted and thankful persons.

3. THE GOOD MAN.

(FROM "HOLY DYING," PUBLISHED IN 1650.)

IF I shall describe a living man, a man that hath that life (spirit) that distinguishes him from a "fool" or a bird, that which gives him a capacity next to "angels" (angels'), we shall find that even a good man lives not long, because it is long before he is born to this life, and longer yet before he hath a man's growth. "He that can look upon death, and see its face with the same countenance with which he hears its story; that can endure all the labours of his life with his soul

(1) Fool. The common editions have "fowl," but a "fowl or a bird" is not a clear distinction. Fool is the reading of the 1st edition, and probably means "an idiot," one who has lost the "capacity next to angels'," spoken of in the text.

(2) Countenance, fr. Fr. contenance (literally holding together), the settled or composed expression of the features of the face; hence the distinction between "countenance" and "face," as between Lat. vultus and facies. The former is the seat of expression, the latter merely an unexpressive surface. Countenance is employed with singular beauty by Wordsworth ("She was a phantom of delight"):"A countenance, in which did meet

Sweet records, promises as sweet;"

where "face" would have been tame and cold. Taylor speaks of the good man's "countenance," and the "face" of death; to interchange these words would greatly damage the effect of the passage.

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supporting his body; that can equally despise riches when he hath them, and when he hath them not; that is not sadder if they lie in his neighbour's trunks, nor more brag (proud) if they shine round about his own walls; he that is neither moved with good fortune coming to him, nor going from him; that can look upon another man's lands evenly and pleasedly1 (with as much pleasure) as if they were his own, and yet look upon his own, and use them, too, just as if they were another man's; that neither spends his goods prodigally and like a fool, nor yet keeps them avariciously and like a wretch; that weighs not benefits by weight and number, but by the mind and circumstances of him that gives them; that never thinks his charity expensive (i.e. never thinks he can give too much) if a worthy person be the receiver; he that does nothing for 'opinion' sake, but everything for 'conscience," being as curious (scrupulous) of his thoughts as of his actings in markets and theatres, and is as much in awe of himself as of a whole assembly; " he that knows God looks on, and contrives his secret affairs as in the presence of God and his holy angels; that eats and drinks because he needs it, not that he may serve a lust or load his belly; he that is bountiful and cheerful to his friends, and charitable and apt to forgive his enemies; that loves his "countrey" and obeys his prince, and desires and endeavours (aims at) nothing more "then" that he may do honour to God;-this person may reckon his life to be the life of a man, and compute his moneths," not by the course of the sun, but [by] the zodiac and circle of his virtues; because these are such things which (as) fools and children, and birds and beasts, cannot have.

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(1) Evenly and pleasedly, i.e. evenly or equally pleasedly; another instance of Taylor's disposition to speak of one thing or notion as if it were two (See note 3, p. 156). Even in O.E. meant equal; so Wiclif, "he sayde that God was his fadir, and made him (himself) evene (equal) to God," John iv.

(2) Opinion sake, conscience (sake). Both opinion and conscience are possessive cases. This was the usage in our early literature before the word sake. Cowper even has it in his poem entitled "Truth," written in 1780:

"And like an infant, troublesome awake,

Is left to sleep for peace and quiet sake."

(3) Assembly. The passage marked with inverted commas, appears, by a marginal note of Taylor's, to be translated from Seneca, "De Vita Beata," c. 20. (4) Endeavours, connected, apparently, with Fr. devoir, to owe a duty. We have now lost the idiom by which endeavour governed a noun, as above. Johnson ("Rambler ") speaks of "endeavouring the entertainment of his countrymen."

(5) Zodiac and circle, the circle of the zodiac, or simply by the zodiac or sun-path of his virtues. The word circle seems to be redundant.

These are, therefore, the actions of life, because they are the seeds of immortality. That day in which we have done some excellent thing, we may as truly reckon to be added to our life, as were the fifteen years to the days of Hezekiah.

4. THE MIRACLES OF THE DIVINE MERCY. (FROM "SERMONS PREACHED at Golden GROVE," PUBLISHED IN 1651.)

GOD hath given his laws to rule us, his word to instruct us, his Spirit to guide us, his angels to protect us, his ministers to exhort us. He revealed all our duty, and he hath concealed whatsoever can hinder us; he hath affrighted our follies with fear of death, and engaged our watchfulness by its secret coming. He hath exercised our faith by keeping private the state of souls departed, and yet hath confirmed our faith by a promise of a resurrection, and entertained our hope by some general significations of the state of interval. His mercies make contemptible means instrumental to great purposes, and a small herb the remedy of the greatest diseases. He impedes the devil's rage, and infatuates his counsels; he diverts his malice, and defeats his purposes; he binds him in the chain of darkness, and gives him no power over the children of light; he suffers him to walk in solitary places, and yet fetters him that he cannot disturb the sleep of a child. He hath given him mighty power, and yet a young maiden that resists him shall make him flee away; he hath given him a vast knowledge, and yet an ignorant man can confute him with the twelve articles of his creed; he gave him power over the winds, and made him prince of the air, and yet the breath of a holy prayer can drive him as far as the utmost sea. This is that great principle of all the felicity we hope for, and of all the means thither (thereto), and of all the skill and all the strength we have to use those means. He hath made great variety of conditions, and yet hath made all necessary, and all mutual1 helpers; and by some instruments, and in some respects, they are all equal

(1) Mutual, common. These words are often confounded, though representing perfectly distinct notions. Mutual is fr. Lat. mutuum, a loan procured by exchange, also a reciprocity or exchange of good offices; so mutua vulnera are wounds which each inflicts on the other. A. and B. are mutual friends, if they love one another; A., B., and C. may also be mutual friends if each loves both the others; but if A. and C. both love B., but not each other, then B. is not the mutual friend of A. and C., but their common friend. "Mutual helpers" above seems perfectly correct.

in order to felicity, to content, and final and intermedial (intermediate) satisfactions. He gave us part of our reward in hand, that he might enable us to work for more; he taught the world arts for use, arts for entertainment of all our faculties and all our dispositions; he gives eternal gifts for temporal services, and gives us whatsoever we want for asking, and commands us to ask, and threatens us if we will not ask, and punishes us for refusing to be happy.

5. THE DISCIPLINE OF ADVERSITY.

(FROM THE SAME WORK.)

No man is more miserable1 (more to be pitied) than he that hath no adversity. That man is not tried whether he be good or bad, and God never crowns those "vertues" which are only faculties and dispositions; but every act of virtue is an ingredient into (an element of) reward. And we see many children fairly planted (settled in their habits), whose parts of nature (natural faculties) were never dressed by art, nor called from the furrows of their first possibilities by discipline and institution (instruction), and they dwell for ever in ignorance, and converse with beasts; and yet, if they had been dressed (trained, set right) by discipline, [they] might have stood at the chairs of princes, or spoken parables amongst the rulers of cities. Our " vertues are but in the seed, when the grace of God comes upon us first; but this grace must be thrown into broken furrows, and must "twice feel the cold and twice feel the heat," and be "softned" with storms and showers, and then it will arise into fruitfulness and harvests (the fruitfulness of the harvest). And what is there in the world to distinguish "vertues" from dishonours_(disgraces), or the valour of Cæsar from the softness of the Egyptian eunuchs; or that can make anything remarkable (meritorious), but the labour and the danger, the

(1) Miserable, fr. Lat. miserabilis, to be pitied, and therefore in a wretched condition. We use the word both subjectively, as it is called, that is, from the individual's own point of view, or objectively, from the opinions of others respecting him. It is used above evidently in the second sense. The man is to be pitied by others, as lacking the advantages arising from discipline, but he is not consciously miserable, inasmuch as he has had no adversity.

(2) Heat:

"Illa seges votis respondet avari

Agricolæ, bis quæ solem, bis frigora sensit."-Virgil, Georg. i.

pain and the difficulty? "Vertue" could not be anything but sensuality if it were the entertainment of our senses and fond (foolish) desires; and Apicius' had been (would have been) the noblest of all the Romans if feeding a great appetite and despising the severities of temperance had been the work and proper employment of a wise man. But otherwise (than by God's plan) do fathers, and otherwise do mothers handle their children. These (the mothers) soften them with kisses and imperfect noises (cooings), with the pap and breast-milk of soft endearments; they rescue them from tutors, and snatch them from discipline; they desire to keep them fat and warm, and their feet dry and their bellies full; and then the children govern, and cry, and prove fools, and troublesome, so long as the feminine republic does endure. But fathers, because they design to have their children wise and valiant, apt for counsel or for arms (for political or military life), send them to severe governments (put them under strict regimen), and tie them to study, to hard labour, and afflictive contingencies. They rejoice when the bold boy strikes a lion with his hunting-spear, and shrinks not when the beast comes to affright his early (youthful) courage. Softness is for slaves and beasts, for minstrels and useless persons, for such who (as) cannot ascend higher than the state of a fair ox, or a servant entertained (kept) for vainer offices. But the man that designs his son for nobler employments-to honours and to triumphs, to consular dignities and presidencies of "councels "-loves to see him pale with study or panting with labour, hardened with sufferings or eminent by dangers; and so God dresses (prepares) us for heaven. He loves to see us struggling with a disease, and resisting the devil and contesting against the weaknesses of nature, and against hope to believe in hope, resigning our selves" to "Gods" will, praying him to choose for us, and dying in all things but faith and its blessed consequents (consequences, reward), and the danger and the resistance shall endear the office (shall give value to the duty). For so have I known the boisterous north wind pass "thorow" the yielding air, which opened its bosom and appeased its violence by entertaining it with easy compliance in all the regions of its reception. But when the same breath of heaven hath been checked with the stiffness of a tower or the united strength of a wood, it grew mighty and dwelt there (accumulated its force there), and made the highest branches stoop, and make a smooth path for

(1) Apicius, a noted Roman epicure.

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