sum, but was so free and forward in his expressions, as that I could not find in my heart to tell him much (somewhat I did), of my purpose of selling, lest it might sound as a farther pressing upon him, of whom I had already received so much. Neither, indeed, will I now sell so much as I intended; for I did not think (besides what I have in the country), to keep any at all that would yield any money. Now I shall, and among them, those manuscripts I spoke of to your Grace, and Jerome's Epistles particularly; the rather, because I make use of it in my De Cultu Dei, (the first part, whereof, your Grace hath seen,) which I think will shortly be printed. As for my father's papers, I do seriously desire to dispose of them some way, if I can, to my best advantage, but with a respect to their preservation and safety, which I think would be, if some library, either here or beyond the seas, had them. I pray, good my Lord, help me in it if you can: and, when you have an opportunity, confer with Mr. Selden about it. I will shortly (within these few weeks, God willing), send a note to your Grace of what I have that is considerable, and will part with. Not but what I had much rather keep them, had I any hopes at all ever to be accommodated with books and leisure to fit them for public use myself. But that I have no hopes of, and certainly, so disposed of as I would have them in my lifetime, they will be safer than in my keeping in that condition I am. It would be a great ease to my mind to see that well done; for I have always reckoned of them as of my life; and if any mischance should come to them whilst they are in my keeping, (and indeed they have been in danger more than once, since this my tumbling condition,) I should never have any comfort of my life.

"I have sent your Grace the Jerome, that you may

see it; and if you desire to keep it by you, I shall humbly crave a note of it under your Grace's hand.

"So I humbly take my leave,

"Your Grace's in all humble duty,
"MER. CASAUBON."

His admiration of the church to which he belonged was great to the last. And this attachment must be the more satisfactory to all who are members of her communion, because he was a man of learning, discernment, and piety, and singularly free from prejudice or passion. This opinion he was always glad to express to others, and he would state his reasons in forcible terms, with a view to bring them to the same way of thinking. But he was not less remarkable for his feelings of charity and regard for those who differed from him, if they deserved his esteem. He lived on terms of friendship with many persons of other communions, and considered that it would be wrong to suffer that harmony to be interrupted by contentions about doubtful questions and matters of small moment. Amongst others, he approved highly of the talents and the religious views of Baxter; and it was at the archbishop's suggestion that the latter wrote and published his powerful Call to the Unconverted.

At the house of the countess of Peterborough the archbishop was careful to be always present at the family devotions. He was not less earnest and persevering in the religious exercises of his closet; for being conscious of his weaknesses and wants, he did not fail to lay them before Him who could give strength and all things needful. He considered that "no honey is sweeter to the palate than spiritual prayer to God." "God's children,"

he would say, "let Him deny them ever so long, yet they will never leave knocking and begging; they will pray and they will wait still, till they receive an answer. Many will pray to God, as prayer is a duty, but few use it as a means to obtain a blessing. Those who come to God in the use of it as a means to obtain what they would have, will pray and not give over; they will expect an answer, and never give over petitioning till they receive it." Such views of prayer would naturally make him fervent and frequent in pouring out his heart before God.

He also expected great results from religious reflection. He conceived that some of the most precious fruits in God's vineyard were the growth of that hallowed season, when the soul contemplates itself as in God's more immediate presence; and he believed that the common unwillingness to engage in that employment was a principal cause why the comforts of God's word were not so much experienced as they might be. "There is a thing," he says, "wondrously wanting amongst us, and that is meditation. If we would give ourselves to it, and go up with Moses to the mount to confer with God, and seriously think of the price of Christ's death, and of the joys of heaven, and the privileges of a christian; if we would frequently meditate on these, we should have these sealing days every day, at least oftener. This hath need to be much pressed upon us; the neglect of this makes lean souls. He who is frequent in that, hath these sealing days often. Couldst thou have a parley with God in private, and have thy heart rejoice with the comforts of another day, even whilst thou art thinking of these things Christ would be in the midst. of thee. Many of the saints of God have but little of this, because they spend but few hours in meditation."

When from these sacred and pleasurable occupations the archbishop looked into the world, the state of things which he beheld presented but a gloomy appearance. He mourned over the visionary doctrines of those strange times; he mourned over the fanciful interpretations of prophecy, which were then promulgated as truths of the Bible, the preaching of a dawning millennium, and of miracles that marked its appearing, the universal diffusion of the religion of the tongue, accompanied, as it was too sadly evidenced, with the general absence of the meekness of wisdom and the spirit of love. He deplored "the decay of sound religion and christian piety, which too much prevailed in those days, together with the mighty increase of both spiritual and fleshly wickedness; as heresies and schisms, and unchristian animosities; with debauchery and profaneness, which had so overrun and infected this nation during those times of licentiousness and confusion." For these things he would frequently express his grief, saying, "These are the sad presages of greater miseries that will befal this church and kingdom, and make way for popery, to which our own divisions and wicked lives give the greatest advantage; and at length they will prove a scourge to the nation, if not cause the greatest blow that has been ever given to the reformed churches!"

These forebodings seem to have been strongly im. pressed upon his mind; and were perhaps not a little confirmed by the assurances sent to him by some friends abroad, with whom he corresponded, that certain English, Scotch, and Irish papists were trained up abroad with a knowledge of the chief points of difference between the Church of England and the multitudinous sects which united for her subversion, that so on their return to this country they might take part against her, by

advocating any cause which might seem most likely to do her injury.

And if his fears of a wide diffusion of popery were not afterwards realized by facts, yet too surely had he foreseen that the seeds of some grievous spiritual distemper were being sown in the land; since the wild denunciations and wayward fancies so freely diffused in public and in private, were, as it has been well observed, "making religion, lovely as she is, appear to the vulgar eye absurd and insane, and preparing the way for that fearful reaction which ensued in the days of the second Charles, when men took credit to themselves that they were only profligates and blasphemers, and not enthusiasts and fanatics."

Often, too, in writing to his correspondents, did the archbishop lament the evils of the times. A few months after the execution of the king, he says in his letter to Voss, "I am still alive, if any one can be said to live who, having been spared till times of calamity and wickedness, is daily compelled to be a witness of transactions which his mind dreads to contemplate, and from which it sorrowfully recoils."

His extensive correspondence was one of his greatest pleasures. The topics discussed were deeply interesting to him, and the letters which he received were the continual channels of kindly feelings and sympathies from his learned and pious friends. But as these letters relate principally to subjects which could throw little light upon his character, except as a man of learning and diligent research, we shall confine ourselves to the notice of a very few particulars.

In 1649 and 1650 we find him in correspondence with Dr. Hammond, whose Life is contained in the subsequent pages of this little volume. The subject is principally episcopacy; and the letters betoken a general agreement