If it be true that the history of the Christian Church is the history of a dispensation in which a communion between God and man is carried on, and man is exalted from his low and melancholy condition, by aids and influences, which from his own grovelling heart and earthly frame he could never guard-if it is the history of high thinking, high acting, high suffering, for the sake of an unseen and spiritual principle, how can he write it, who believes in nothing which he cannot handle, deems all that cannot be seen an idle fancy, and would laugh to scorn the resigning such advantages as present expediency offers, for the distant good to be attained by struggling and suffering for great principles? If it be true that Christianity was sent by One who knows what is in man, can he write its history, who is not as fully acquainted with the human heart, as the largest grasp of philosophical inquiry, thought, and experience, can make him, and is thus duly qualified for apprehending how those marvellous hints as to the constitution of our moral and intellectual nature, which (carelessly, as it may seem to the careless eye) are scattered on the pages of the Gospel, are adapted to the nature of man, and

will operate upon him surely and powerfully from age to age?

Perhaps I may best, in fine, show how Church history should be written, by pointing out how it should not, and by directing your attention to a remarkable example.

Jortin was one of the class called liberal and candid divines. There was a considerable class of these persons in the course of the last century -to the singular injury of the Church and the country. But they were the natural growth of the times. Perhaps a few words on this subject will not be thought out of place here. After our separation from the Church of Rome, a long period of controversy ensued, not only with those from whom we had separated, but (what is the natural result-I must say, the natural evil of even necessary repudiation of long established authority) controversies to a yet more fearful extent among ourselves. Yet from this evil, as in truth, by the gracious interposition of God, from all evils, there arose no small portion of good. As the Reformation had been brought on in effect by the irrepressible longing of the human heart for a spiritual nourishment denied to it at that time, so for a long period it seemed,

so to speak, to luxuriate in the free air and heavenly country into which it had struggled. The series of brilliant controversies which took place among the most gifted men, tended to rivet attention to the all-important subject to which they were directed, while this very attention animated and excited the combatants to the exertion of their best and brightest gifts. But such men could not turn their whole thoughts and powers to the consideration of religious subjects, and reap only the baneful and bitter fruits of controversial triumph. They drank of the pure stream, of the living waters of comfort, and fed on the green pastures, and they were brought forth on the paths of righteous

ness.

The living water became a living fountain in them, "whose only business," in the poet's words, "was to flow;" and flow it did, not taking heed, "of its own bounty or our need." In Jewell and Hooker, and countless others

we possess a treasure, not only of learning, and thought, and wisdom, but of overflowing piety pouring itself forth in a copiousness and richness of eloquence, such as no Church can

surpass. But these men were wholly possessed by their subject, and they consequently so entirely devoted themselves to its consideration that the great principles of religion and divinity were worked into their most inmost hearts, and became a part of their nature. They would no more have departed from them, or built their preaching, their practice, and their arguments, on any other foundation than the highest, than they would have assumed another nature. Indeed they had no temptation to do so, because from their intimate knowledge of the matter, they knew that the highest principles were the safest, nay, the only really safe, way, and they knew where the strength of those principles lay and how it could be shown. But the happy time in which these great and admirable men lived, past away but too soon. They were in possession of the Church-in one respect unfortunately. For the Puritan party which differed from them in opinion, hated them because they were in power, and it was consequently the object of that fearful party to destroy their principles and their power together. They effected their purpose, and thereby struck a blow to religious learning and piety, which though not fatal, still shows its effects down to

this very hour. No one can trace our Church history without seeing that the character of our writers is changed from the hour that the dreadful plans of the Puritans were accomplished. It is true, indeed, that some of our greatest writers became eminent after the Restoration, but they had been brought up in other days, at the feet of those Gamaliels of whom I have spoken; and with such principles to guide them, they had now the advantage (to such men it was an advantage) of being hardened in the school of adversity. But with Bull, and Taylor, and Jackson, and a few other such men, the elder school expired.

Though the ancient stock retained enough of its vigour to send forth for a short time such men as a Stillingfleet and a Bentley, this vigour soon died away. Once or twice, indeed, as in the case of Waterland, an offset sprung up, which almost recalled the memory of the ancient days. Yet even in him, while there was the same vast store of learning, the same sound judgment, or even greater, to guide it, the same reverence for Catholic antiquity, the same devotion to the subject, there wanted yet the exuberance, the warmth, the flow of eloquence, the tenderness, which fix the memory and the words of Hooker,