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But here her father's precepts gave her skill,
Which with incessant business filled the hours;
In Spring, she gathered blossoms for the still;
In Autumn, berries; and in Summer, flowers.

And as kind nature with calm diligence
Her own free virtue silently employs,

Whilst she, unheard, does ripening growth dispers.
So were her virtues busy without noise.

Whilst her great mistress, Nature, thus she tends,
The busy household waits no less on her;
By secret law, each to her beauty bends;
Though all her lowly mind to that prefer.

109. SIR JOHN DENHAM. 1615-1668. (Manua', p. 173.)

From "Cooper's Hill."

THE THAMES.

My eye, descending from the Hill, surveys
Where Thames among the wanton valleys strays.
Thames! the most loved of all the Ocean's sons,

By his old sire, to his embraces runs,

Hasting to pay his tribute to the sea,
Like mortal life to meet eternity;

Though with those streams he no resemblance hold,
Whose foam is amber, and their gravel gold:
His genuine and less guilty wealth t' explore,
Search not his bottom, but survey his shore,
O'er which he kindly spreads his spacious wing
And hatches plenty for th' ensuing spring;
Nor then destroys it with too fond a stay,
Like mothers which their infants overlay;
Nor with a sudden and impetuous wave,

Like profuse kings, resumes the wealth he gave.
No unexpected inundations spoil

The mower's hopes, nor mock the ploughman's toil,
But godlike his unwearied bounty flows;

First loves to do, then loves the good he does.
Nor are his blessings to his banks confined,

But free and common as the sea or wind;
When he, to boast or to disperse his stores,
Full of the tributes of his grateful shores,
Visits the world, and in his flying tours

Brings home to us, and makes both Indies ours;
Finds wealth where 'tis, bestows it where it wants,

Cities in deserts, woods in cities, plants.

So that to us no thing, no place, is strange,
While his fair bosom is the world's exchange.
O, could I flow like thee, and make thy stream
My great example, as it is my theme!

Though deep yet clear, though gentle yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

ABRAHAM COWLEY. 1618-1667. (Manual, p. 174.)
110. HYMN TO LIGHT.

Hail! active Nature's watchful life and health!

Her joy, her ornament, and wealth!

Hail to thy husband, Heat, and thee!

'Thou the world's beauteous bride, the lusty bridegroom he!

Say, from what golden quivers of the sky

Do all thy wingéd arrows fly?

Swiftness and Power by birth are thine;

From thy great Sire they come, thy Sire, the Word Diving

Thou in the moon's bright chariot, proud and gay,

Dost thy bright wood of stars survey,

And all the year dost with thee bring

Of thousand flowery lights thine own nocturnal spring

Thou, Scythian-like, dost round thy lands above

The Sun's gilt tent forever move,

And still, as thou in pomp dost go,

The shining pageants of the world attend thy show.

111. CHARACTER OF CROMWELL.

What can be more extraordinary than that a person of mean birth, no fortune, no eminent qualities of body, which have sometimes, or of mind, which have often, raised men to the highest dignities, should have the curage to attempt, and the happiness to succeed in, so im probable a design as the destruction of one of the most ancient and most solidly-founded monarchies upon the earth? That he should have the power or boldness to put his prince and master to an open and infamous death; to banish that numerous and strongly-allied family; to do all this under the name and wages of a parliament; t trample upon them too as he pleased, and spurn them out of doors when he grew weary of them; to raise up a new and unheard-of monater out of their ashes; to stifle that in the very infancy, and set up

nimself above all things that ever were called sovereign in England; to oppress all his enemies by arms, and all his friends afterwards by artifice; to serve all parties patiently for a while, and to command them victoriously at last; to overrun each corner of the three nations, and overcome with equal facility both the riches of the south and the poverty of the north; to be feared and courted by all foreign princes, and adopted a brother to the gods of the earth; to call together par liaments with a word of his pen, and scatter them again with the breath of his mouth; to be humbly and daily petitioned that he would please to be hired, at the rate of two millions a year, to be the master of those who had hired him before to be their servant; to have the estates and lives of three kingdoms as much at his disposal as was the little inheritance of his father, and to be as noble and liberal in the spending of them; and lastly (for there is no end of all the particulars of his glory), to bequeath all this with one word to his pos terity; to die with peace at home, and triumph abroad; to be buried among kings, and with more than regal solemnity; and to leave a name behind him, not to be extinguished, but with the whole world; which, as it is now too little for his praises, so might have been too for his conquests, if the short line of his human life could have been stretched out to the extent of his immortal designs?

CHAPTER X.

'THEOLOGICAL WRITERS OF THE CIVIL WAR AND THE COMMONWEALTH.

112. JOHN HALES. 1584-1656. (Manual, p. 177.)

PEACE IN THE CHURCH.

He that shall look into the acts of Christians as they are recorde by more indifferent writers, shall easily perceive that all that were Christians were not saints. But this is the testimony of an enemy. Yea, but have not our friends taken up the same complaint? Doubt. less, if it had been the voice ard approbation of the bridegroom, that secular state and authority had belonged to the church, either of due or of necessity, the friends of the bridegroom hearing it would have rejoiced at it but it is found they have much sorrowed at it. St. Hilary, much offended with the opinion, that even orthodox bishops of his time had taken up that it was a thing very necessary for the church to lay hold on the temporal sword, in a tract of his against Auxentius, the Arian bishop of Milan, thus plainly bespeaks them :"And first of all, I must needs pity the labor of our age, and be. wail the fond opinions of the present times, by which men suppose the arm of flesh can much advantage God, and strive to defend by secular ambition the church of Christ. I beseech you, bishops, you that take yourselves so to be, whose authority in preaching of the Gospel did the apostles use? By the help of what powers preached they Christ, and turned almost all nations from idols to God? Took they unto themselves any honor out of princes' palaces, who, after their stripes, amidst their chains in prison, sung praises unto God! Did St. Paul, when he was made a spectacle in the theatre, suminot together the churches of Christ by the edicts and writs of kings? It is likely he had the safe conduct of Nero, or Vespasian, or Decius, through whose hate unto us the confession of the faith grew famous. Those men who maintained themselves with their own hands and industry, whose solemn meetings were in parlors and secret closets, who travelled through villages and towns, and whole countries by sea and land, in spite of the prohibition of kings and councils."

113. WILLIAM CHILLINGWORTH. 1602-1644. (Manual, p. 178.)

THE RELIGION OF PROTESTANTS.

When I say the religion of Pro.estants is, in prudence, to be pre ferred before yours,' I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, of Calvin, or Melancthon; nor the Confession of Augusta or Geneva; nor the Catechism of Heidelberg; nor the Articles of the Church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that wherein they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as the perfect rule of their faith and actions, — that is, THE BIBLE. THE BIBLE-I say the BIBLE only—is the religion of Protestants! Whatsoever else they believe besides it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion: but, as matter of faith and religion, neither can they, with coherence to their own grounds, believe it themselves, nor require the belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I, for my part, after a long and (as I verily believe and hope) impartial search of "the true way to eternal happiness," do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest to the sole of my foot but upon this Rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes; councils against councils; some fathers against others; the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age; the Church of one age against the Church of another age. Traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found. No tradition, but only of Scripture, can derive itself from the Fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in, in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty, but of Scripture only, for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe: this I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me anything out of this Book, and require whether I believe it or no, and seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this:God hath said so; therefore it is true. In other things I will take no man's liberty of judgment from him, neither shall any man take mine from me. I will think no man the worse man, nor the worse Christian; I will love no man the less for differing in opinion from me. And what measure 1 mete to others, I expect from them again. I am fully assured that God does not, and therefore that man ought not, to require any more of any man than this, to believe the Scripture to ba

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