than upon my own heart. At home, I can find distempers to trouble me, and some evidences of my peace; but it is above that I must find matter of delight, and joy, and love, and peace itself. I would therefore have one thought at home, on inyself and sins, and many thoughts above, on the amiable and beatifying objects."1

But the thing which distressed him most, and from which he found it most difficult to obtain deliverance, was the conviction that, after his change, he had sinned knowingly and deliberately. Every wilful transgression into which he fell, renewed and perpetuated his distress on this account. He was led, however, to understand that though divine grace implants in the soul enmity to every known sin, which appears in general in the superiority which it maintains over evil, yet it is not always in such a degree as to resist strong temptation. That will sometimes. prevail against the Spirit and the love of God; not, however, to the extinction of love, or the destruction of the habit of holiness, There is but a temporary victory: the bent and ardor of the soul are still most towards God; the return to him after transgression, when the mind has been humbled and renewed to repentance, shows more evidently than ever the fixed character of the Christian: as the needle in the compass always returns to the proper point, when the force that turned it aside is withdrawn; and as the running stream appears to flow clearer than before, when that which polluted it is removed. The continual enjoyment of divine strength, and the actual presence of spiritual motives in the mind, can alone preserve it from the evil to which it is here exposed. Sin will always generate fears, which will increase in proportion as it has been wilful or persevered in; so that the best way to keep off doubts and alarms, and to maintain comfort, is to keep up obedience and dependence on God, or quickly and penitently to return when we have sinned. But "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou us from secret faults: keep back thy servants from presumptuous sins, that they may not have dominion over them."

Other perplexities, and the means of their removal, are stated at great length, and with great minuteness, by him, in his own life. A specimen of them has been given above; and if these are understood, all the rest, which are only varieties of the same disease and subject to the application of the same remedy, will be sufficiently comprehended. As it is dangerous for persons afflicted with nervous disorders to read medical books, so those who are much troubled with perplexity about their spiritual state, are liable to be injured, rather than benefited, by descriptions of mental disease. The disquisitions of such a spiritual metaphy

(1) Life, parti 129.

sician as Baxter are more likely, if deeply pondered, to perplex the generality of Christians, than to enlighten and comfort them.

Notice has already been taken of Baxter's consumptive complaints: it may be proper, once for all, to give some particulars respecting his state of health, which will save the trouble of subsequent repetitions, throw light on his state of mind and peculiarities of temper, and enable us more correctly to appreciate, and more strongly to admire, the unconquerable ardor and devotedness of soul which could accomplish such peculiar labors with so feeble and diseased a body.

His constitution was naturally sound, but he was always very thin and weak, and early affected with nervous debility. At fourteen years of age, he was seized with the small pox, and soon after, by improper exposure to the cold, he was affected with a violent catarrh and cough. This continued for about two years, and was followed by spitting of blood, and other phthisical symptoms. He became, from that time, the sport of medical treatment and experiment. One physician prescribed one mode of cure, and another a different one; till, from first to last, he had the advice of no less than thirty-six professors of the healing art. By their orders he took drugs without number, till, from experiencing how little they could do for him, he forsook them entirely, except some particular symptom urged him to seek present relief. He was diseased literally from head to foot; his stomach flatulent and acidulous; violent rheumatic headachs; prodigious bleedings at the nose; his blood so thin and acrid that it oozed out from the points of his fingers, and kept them often raw and bloody; his legs swelled and dropsical, &c. His physicians called it hypocondria, he himself considered it præmatura senectus-premature old age; so that, at twenty he had the symptoms, in addition to disease, of fourscore! To be more particular would be disagreeable; and to detail the innumerable remedies to which he was directed, or which he employed himself, would add little to the stock of medical knowledge. He was certainly one of the most diseased and afflicted men that ever reached the full ordinary limits of human life. How, in such circumstances, he was capable of the exertions he almost incessantly made, appears not a little mysterious. His behavior under them is a poignant reproof to many, who either sink entirely under common afflictions, or give way to indolence and trifling. For the acerbity of his temper we are now prepared with an ample apology. That he should have been occasionally fretful, and impatient of contradiction, is not surprising, considering the state of the earthen vessel in which his noble and active spirit was deposited. No man was more sensible of his obliquities of disposition than himself; and no man,

perhaps, ever did more to maintain the ascendency of Christian principle over the strength and waywardness of passion.

T

We return to the regular narrative of his life. In 1633, when was his eighteenth year, he was persuaded by Mr. Wickstead, to give up his design and preparation for the ministry, and to go to London and try his fortune at court. His parents, having no great desire that he should be a minister, advised him to follow the recommendation of his former tutor; who, in consequence, introduced him to Sir Henry Newport, then master of the revels. With him he lived about a month at Whitehall, but soon got enough of a court life, being entertained with a play instead of a sermon, on the Lord's Day afternoon, and hearing little preaching, except what was against the Puritans. These were the religious practices of the court, in the sober times of king Charles the martyr, and furnish us with a practical commentary on the book of sports. Tired and disgusted with the situation in which he was now placed, and his mother being ill, and desiring his return, he left court and bade farewell to all its employments and promises.

While in London at this time, he formed an acquaintance with Humphrey Blunden, afterwards noted as a chemist, and for procuring to be translated and published the writings of Jacob Behmen. Blunden was then apprentice to a bookseller, and possessed of considerable knowledge and piety; to his letters, conversation respecting books, and christian consolation, Baxter was much indebted. On his way home, about Christmas, he met with a remarkable deliverance. There was a violent storm of snow succeeding a severe frost; on the road he met a loaded waggon, which he could pass only by riding on the side of a bank; his horse slipped, the girths broke, and he was thrown immediately before the wheel. Without any discernible cause, the horses stopped when he was on the verge of destruction, and thus his life was marvellously preserved! How inexplicable to us are the ways and arrangements of Providence! In some cases, the snapping of a hair occasions death; in other, life ist preserved by an almost miraculous interference.

On reaching home, he found his mother in the greatest extremity of pain, and after uttering heart-piercing groans the whole winter and spring, she took her departure on the 10th of May, 1634. Of her religious character he says nothing, except when noticing the religion of the family; from which we have reason to believe that there was hope in her end. His father, about a year afterwards, married Mary, the daughter of Sir Thomas Hunks, a woman who proved an eminent blessing to the family. She reached the advanced age of ninety-six; and her holiness, mortification, contempt of the world, and fervency of prayer, rendered her an honor to religion, and a pattern to all who knew her.

Baxter's mind was now more than ever impressed with the importance of the christian ministry. He did not expect to live long, and having the eternal world, as it were, immediately before him, he was exceedingly desirous of communicating to the careless and ignorant the things which so deeply impressed himself. He was very conscious of his own insufficiency for the work, arising from defective learning and experience; and he knew that his want of academical honors and degrees would affect his estimation and usefulness with many. Believing, however, that he would soon be in another world; that he possessed a measure of aptness to teach and persuade men; and satisfied that, if only a few souls should be converted by his instrumentality, he would be abundantly rewarded; he got the better of all his fears and discouragements, and resolved to devote himself to the work of Christ. So powerful, indeed, were his own convictions of the madness and wretchedness of presumptuous sinners, and of the clearness and force of those reasons which ought to persuade men to embrace a godly life, that he thought the man who was properly dealt with, and yet capable of resisting them, and persevering in wickedness, fitter for Bedlam than entitled to the character of sober rationality. He was simple enough to think, he had so much to say on these subjects, that men would not be able to withstand him; forgetting the experience of the celebrated reformer, who found "that old Adam was too strong for young Melancthon."

His ac

Till this time, he was a Conformist in principle and practice. His family, though serious, had always conformed. quaintances were almost all of the same description; and, as Nonconformist books were not easily procured, his reading was mostly on the other side. Mr. Garbet, his chief tutor, of whose learning and piety he had a high opinion, was a strict churchman; he supplied him with the works of Downham, Sprint, Burgess, Hooker, and others, who had written strongly against the Nonconformists. One of that party also, Mr. Barnel, of Uppington, though a worthy, blameless man, was but an inferior scholar, while the Conformists around him were men of learning. These things increased his prejudices at the cause which he afterwards embraced. By such means he was led to think the principles of churchmen strong, and the reasonings of the Nonconformists weak.

With the exception of Hooker, the other episcopal writers here mentioned are now little known or attended to. The 'Ecclesiastical Polity' of that distinguished man both superseded and anticipated all other defences of the church of England. In it the strength of the Episcopal cause is to be found,

(m) Apology for Nonconformists, p. 59.

and, from the almost superstitious veneration with which his
name is invariably mentioned, by the highest, as well as the more
ordinary, members of the church, it is evident how much im-
portance they attach to his labors.
Of the man whom popes;
have praised, and kings commended, and bishops, without num-
ber, extolled, it may appear presumptuous in me to express a
qualified opinion. But truth ought to be spoken. The praise
of profound erudition, laborious research, and gigantic powers
of eloquence, no man will deny to be due to Hooker. But,
had his celebrated work been written in defence of the Popish
hierarchy, and Popish ceremonies, the greater part of it would
have required little alteration. Hence we need not wonder at
the praise bestowed on it by Clement VIII, or that James II,
should have referred to it as one of two books which promoted
his conversion to the church of Rome. His views of the au-
thority of the church, and the insufficiency of Scripture, are
much more Popish than Protestant; and the greatest trial to
which the judiciousness of Hooker could have been subjected,
would have been to attempt a defence of the Reformation on
his own principles. His work abounds with sophisms, with as-
sumptions, and with a show of proof when the true state of the
case has not been given, and the strength of the argument never
met. The quantity of learned and ingenious reasoning which
it contains, and the seeming candor and mildness which it
displays, have imposed upon many, and procured for Hooker
the name of "judicious," to which the solidity of his reasonings,
and the services he has rendered to Christianity, by no means
entitle him."

About his twentieth year, he became acquainted with Mr.
Symonds," Mr. Cradock, and some other zealous Nonconfor-

(m) A very important and curious note respecting the Ecclesiastical Polity the reader will find in M'Crie's Life of Melville,' . . p. 461. The edition of Hooker's vol. I, Works, which has lately issued from the press of Holdsworth and Ball, is the only correct edition which has appeared for many years; while the curious notes of the editor furnish much important illustration of Hooker's meaning, as well as supply some of the arguments of his adversaries, to which he often replies very unfairly.

(n) There were several Nonconformist ministers of the name of Symonds; so that it is difficult to determine to which of them Baxter refers. One of them was originally beneficed at Sandwich, in Kent, and went to London during the civil wars, where he became an Independent and a Baptist, if we may believe Edwards. According to that abusive writer, he preached strange things "for toleration and liberty for all men to worship God according to their consciences!" He appears, also, to have been one of Sir Thomas Fairfax's chaplains; and was afterwards appointed one of the itinerant ministers of Wales, by the House of Commons.-Edward's Gangrena, part iii. passim. Another Mr. Joseph Symonds was some time assistant to Mr. Thomas Gataker, at Rotherhithe, near London, and Rector of St. Martyn's, Ironmonger-lane. He afterwards became an Independent, and went to Holland, where he was chosen pastor of the church at Rotterdam, in the place of Mr. Sydrach Symp son. He preached before Parliament in 1641.-Brook's Puritans, vol. iii. pp. 39, 40. It is probable that one of these two respectable men was Baxter's acquaintance at Shrewsbury.

(0) Mr. Walter Cradock, a Welchman, on account of his Puritanical sentiments, was driven from the church in 1634, shortly before Baxter became acquainted with