of all hierarchical corruption. Besides these, his "Defence of the People of England" in reply to Salmasius, his "Second Defence" in reply to Peter du Moulin, and his "Eikonoklastes" in refutation of the "Eikon Basiliké," attributed to Charles I., but written by Dr. Gauden, and others of his prose works, are written in a somewhat stiff, but lofty and massive style. They foreshow the great national poet of "Paradise Lost;" and cannot be read without a deep veneration for the great puritan champion of the liberties and fame of England.
Next to these we should name the great advocates of protestantism. Hales and Chillingworth. The "Discourse on Schism" is the writing of Hales which brought him into notice, and led to the most important consequences. It struck at the very root of tradition and submission to the authority of the fathers, which Laud and his party in the church had exerted themselves to establish; and this was followed out by Chillingworth in his great work, "The Religion of Protestants a Safe Way to Salvation." In this work, which has since been styled the bulwark of protestantism, Chillingworth endeavoured to prove the divine authority of the Bible on the basis of historic evidence, and having done that to his entire satisfaction, he declared that the religion of protestants was the Bible, and nothing but the Bible. By this rule alone they are, in his opinion, to be judged; the Scriptures alone are to be the standard of their doctrines. He thus cut off all the claims of popery built on tradition, and established the right of private judgment. In this he served not only the established church, to which he belonged, but every body of christians whatever; for they had, according to his reasoning, the same right to interpret the Bible for themselves. This gave great scandal to the bigoted party in the church. They declared that he had destroyed faith, by reducing it to simple reason. He was violently attacked by both catholics and puritans. Knott, a Jesuit, and Dr. Cheynell, one of the assembly of divines, were his most determined opponents. Cheynell wrote against him, "Chillingworthi Novissima; or, the Sickness, Heresy, Death, and Burial of W. C, with a Profane Catechism selected out of his Works." Not satisfied with this, he attended his funeral, made a violent harangue against him, and flung the "Religion of Protestants" into his grave, crying, "Get thee gone, thou cursed book, which has seduced so many precious souls—get thee gone thou corrupt, rotten book, earth to earth, dust to dust, go and rot with thy author." The protestant church has fully acknowledged the signal services of Chillingworth. Even those who deem that there are other evidences of Christianity than the historic evidences, or even the deductions of criticism, admit that his arguments alone are sufficient to demonstrate the genuineness of the Bible records, and therefore of the christian religion. The highest encomiums have been paid to the masterly reasoning and convincing eloquence of Chillingworth, by Locke, Clarendon, Gibbon, Dugald Stewart, and all our great theological writers.
What Chillingworth did for protestantism, Cudworth, in his great work, "The True Intellectual System of the Universe," did for religion in general, demolishing most completely the philosophy of atheism and infidelity. Barrow, Henry More, and Jeremy Taylor added much wealth to the theological literature of the age. More and Barrow belong, however, more properly to the next period. Bishop Taylor, who was the son of a barber, became one of the most celebrated preachers of that period, and both his sermons and his other works have received from many of our chief critics and historians the most encomiastic praises. He has been represented as a modern Chrysostom. Much of this praise he undoubtedly deserves, but modern readers coming to him after such extravagant laudation, experience a sensible disappointment. His "Holy Living and Dying" may be taken as the most favourable specimen of his writings; and though grave, pleasing, and consolatory, it does not strike us by any means as highly or brilliantly eloquent. His sermons, especially on the "Marriage Ring" and on the "House of Feasting," are of the same character; they are full of piety, sweetness, and grace, but they are not eloquence of the highest class. His sentences are often wearyingly long, his illustrations do not always appear very pertinent, and his manner is too much that of the father of the fourth century, whom he appears to have greatly formed himself upon. On the whole, however, he is a great ornament to our religious literature, and will be more enjoyed by those who have not expected to be astonished and dazzled.
The writings of archbishop Usher, and the sermons of bishop Andrews deserve mention; but the works of Fuller, the author of the "Worthies of England," "The Church History of Great Britain," and various other histories, "Holy and Prophane States," &c., are undoubtedly the most witty and amusing of the whole period; and, next to Burton's "Anatomie of Melancholie," a work, too, of this time, has furnished to modern authors more original ideas, more frequent and pregnant sentiments and allusions than any others in the language. They have been rivers of thought to men who had very little of their own. Harrington's "Oceana," a political romance, written to illustrate the opinion that the great power of nations consists in its property, has been variously estimated, but has ideas to repay a reader who has leisure and patience. A writer who has always taken a high rank for originality, is Sir Thomas Browne, the author of "Religio Medici," "Urn Burial,"
"The Garden of Cyrus," &c. Browne ranges freely from the quincunx of the gardens of the ancients, to the highest flights of metaphysical speculation. He is quaint, abrupt, and singular, but at the same time he is extremely suggestive of thought, and extends the sphere of human inquiry and sympathy far beyond the physical limits of most writers of his class. There is also a school of historians of this age of eminent merit, at the head of which stands Sir Walter Raleigh with his "History of the World;" Knowles with his able "History of the Turks;" Daniel with his "History of England" to the reign of Edward III.; and Thomas May, with the "History of the Long Parliament," and his "Breviary of the History of Parliament," two invaluable works. Camden's "Britannia" and "Annals" appeared at this epoch. Various chronicles were also issued at this period—Hall's "Union of the Families of York and Lancaster," Grafton's "Chronicle," Holinshed's, and Baker's. The works of Stow and Speed appeared in the early part of it. Stow's "Summary of the English Chronicles," 1565; his "Annals," 1573; his "Flores Historiaruni," an enlarged edition of his chronicle, 1600; his
