"to minister comfort to a weary soul. And "what greater measure can we have, than "that we should bring joy to our brother, "who with his dreary eyes looks to heaven "and round about, and cannot find so much "rest as to lay his eye-lids close together, "than that thy tongue should be tuned with "heavenly accents, and make the weary soul "to listen for light and ease, and when he "perceives that there is such a thing in the "world, and in the order of things, as com "fort and joy, to begin to break out from the prison of his sorrows at the door of sighs "and tears, and by little and little melt into "showers and refreshment? This is glory to thy voice, and employment fit for the brightest angel. But so have I seen the "sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound

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up with the images of death, and the colder "breath of the north; and then the waters "break from their inclosures, and melt with

joy, and run in useful channels; and the "flies do rise again from their little graves in

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walls, and dance awhile in the air, to tell "that their joy is within, and that the great "mother of creatures 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 com"forted; and God is pleased with no musick "from below so much as in the thanksgiving

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songs of relieved widows, of supported

orphans, of rejoicing, and comforted, and "thankful persons.

4

L

"It is a fearful thing to see a man despairing. No one knows the sorrow and the in" tolerable anguish but themselves, and they "that are damned; and so are all the loads "of a wounded spirit, when the staff of a "man's broken fortune bows his head to the "ground, and sinks like an ozier under the

violence of a mighty tempest."

Such is the fluency, feeling, and eloquence,' which distinguish the style of Taylor in his sermóns, a style for which he merits the Serm. 25. p. 185.

higher honour when contrasted with the pedantic degeneracy of the pulpit in the preceding age.

Still engaged in the cause of truth, he published in the year 1654-"The Real Presence "and Spiritual of Christ in the blessed sacra"ment proved against the doctrine of Transub"stantiation." This treatise he dedicated to a benevolent prelate, Dr. Warner, Bishop of Rochester; with whom, it will be found, he afterwards engaged in controversy.

From the prefatory address it appears that it had its origin in a dispute in which he was accidentally engaged, against his resolution and real disposition, with a person of the Romish party; who appeared to rejoice that the church of England, as he thought, was destroyed.

a

2 Lond. 1654.

* John Warner, Bishop of Rochester, was chaplain to king Charles the First, and raised to the mitre in 1637. He was educated at Magdalen Coll. Oxon. of which he was a Fellow. His knowledge of school divinity and of the fathers of the church was extensive. He died 14th October 1666, aged 86. See Athen. Oxon. p. 250. vol. 2. There is a copy of "The Real Presence, &c." in the Brit. Mus.

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"Though this question," he says, "hath so "often been disputed, and some things so "often said, yet I was willing to bring it "once more upon the stage, hoping to add "some clearness to it, by fitting it with a good instrument, and clear conveyance and "representment, by saying some things new, "and very many which are not generally "known, and less generally noted; and I "thought there was a present necessity of it, "because the emissaries of the church of "Rome are busy now to disturb the peace of "consciences by troubling the persecuted, "and ejecting scruples into the unfortunate, "who suspect every thing, and being weary "of all, are most ready to change for the "present. They have got a trick to ask, "where is our church now? what is be

"come of your articles of your religion? We "cannot answer them, as they can be an"swered; for nothing satisfies them, but

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being prosperous, and that we cannot pre"tend to, but upon the accounts of the "cross; and so we may indeed rejoice "and be exceeding glad,' because we hope "that great is our reward in heaven.' But "although they are pleased to use an argu"ment that like Jonas' gourd or sparagus is

"in season only at some times, yet we, "according to the nature of truth, inquire "after the truth of religion upon the account "of proper and theological objections. Our "church may be a beloved church and dear "to God though she be persecuted, when “theirs is in an evil condition, by obtruding upon the Christian world articles of

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religion, against all that which ought to be "the instruments of credibility and persua"sion, by distorting and abusing the Sacra"ments, by making error to be an art, and "that a man must be witty to make him"self capable of being abused, by out-facing

all sense and reason, by condemning their "brethren for not making their understand66 ing servile and sottish, by burning them

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they can get, and cursing them that they "cannot get, by doing so much violence to "their own reasons, and forcing themselves "to believe that no man ever spake against "their new device, by making a prodigious "error to be necessary to salvation, as if they

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were lords of the faith of Christendom.

"But these men are grown to that strange "triumphal gaiety, upon their joy that the