trinal Calvinism of the Church of England" is a treatise that displays a prodigious amount of research and reading. It is a book that no one could have written who had not studied much, thought much, and thoroughly investigated an enormous mass of theological literature. You see at once that the author has thoroughly digested what he has read, and is able to concentrate all his reading on every point which he handles. The best proof of the book's ability is the simple fact that down to the present day it has never been thoroughly answered. It has been reviled, sneered at, abused, and held up to scorn. But abuse is not argument. The book remains to this hour unanswered, and that for the simplest of all reasons, that it is unanswerable. It proves irrefragably, whether men like it or not, that Calvinism is the doctrine of the Church of England, and that all her leading divines, until Laud's time, were Calvinists. All this is done logically, clearly, and powerfully. No one, I venture to think, could read the book through, and not feel obliged to admit that the author was an able man.

While, however, I claim for Toplady's controversial writings the merit of soundness and ability, I must with sorrow admit that I cannot praise his spirit and language when speaking of his opponents. I am obliged to confess that he often uses expressions about them so violent and so bitter, that one feels perfectly ashamed. Never, I regret to say, did an advocate of truth appear to me so entirely to forget the text, "In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves," as the vicar of Broad Hembury. Arminianism seems to have precisely the same effect on him that a scarlet cloak has on a bull. He appears to think it impossible that an Arminian can be saved, and never shrinks from classing Arminians with Pelagians, Socinians, Papists, and heretics. He says things about Wesley and Sellon which never ought to have been said. All this is melancholy work indeed! But those who are familiar with Toplady's controversial writings know well that I am stating simple truths.

I will not stain my paper nor waste my readers' time by supplying proofs of Toplady's controversial bitterness. It would be very unprofitable to do so. The epithets he applies to his adversaries are perfectly amazing and astonishing. It must in fairness be remembered that the language of his opponents was exceedingly violent, and was enough to provoke any man. It must not be forgotten, moreover, that a hundred years ago men said things in controversy that were not considered so bad as they are now, from the different standard of taste that prevailed. Men were perhaps more honest and outspoken than they are now, and their bark was worse than their bite. But all these considerations only palliate the case. The fact remains, that as a controversialist Toplady was extremely bitter and intemperate, and caused his good to be evil spoken of. He carried the principle, "Rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith," to an absurd extreme. He forgot the example of his Master, who "when he was reviled

reviled not again;” and he entirely marred the value of his arguments by the violence and uncharitableness with which he maintained them. Thousands who neither cared nor understood anything about his favourite cause, could understand that no cause ought to be defended in such a spirit and temper.

I leave this painful subject with the general remark, that Toplady is a standing beacon to the Church, to show us the evils of controversy. "The beginning of strife is like letting out water." "In the multitude of words there wanteth not sin." We must never shrink from controversy, if need be, in defence of Christ's gospel, but we must never take it up without jealous watchfulness over our own hearts, and over the manner in which we carry it on. Above all, we must strive to think as charitably as possible of our opponent. It was Calvin himself who said of Luther, "He may call me a devil if he will; but I shall always call him a good servant of Jesus Christ." Well would it have been for Toplady's reputation, if he had been more like Calvin! Perhaps when we open our eyes in heaven we shall be amazed to find how many things there were which both Calvinists and Arminians did not thoroughly understand.

4. There is only one more point about Toplady on which I wish to say something, and that is his character as a hymn-writer. This is a point, I am thankful to say, on which I find no difficulty at all. I give it as my decided opinion that he was one of the best hymnwriters in the English language. I am quite aware that this may seem extravagant praise; but I speak deliberately. I hold that there are no hymns better than his.

Good hymns are an immense blessing to the Church of Christ. I believe the last day alone will show the world the real amount of good they have done. They suit all, both rich and poor. There is an elevating, stirring, soothing, spiritualizing effect about a thoroughly good hymn, which nothing else can produce. It sticks in men's memories when texts are forgotten. It trains men for heaven, where praise is one of the principal occupations. Preaching and praying shall one day cease for ever; but praise shall never die. The makers of good ballads are said to sway national opinion. The writers of good hymns, in like manner, are those who leave the deepest marks on the face of the Church. Thousands of Christians rejoice in the "Te Deum," and "Just as I am," who neither prize the Thirty-nine Articles, nor know anything about the first four councils, nor understand the Athanasian Creed.

But really good hymns are exceedingly rare. There are only a few men in any age who can write them. You may name hundreds of first-rate preachers for one first-rate writer of hymns. Hundreds of so-called hymns fill up our collections of congregational psalmody, which are really not hymns at all. They are very sound, very scriptural, very proper, very correct, very tolerably rhymed; but they are not real, live, genuine hymns.

There is no life about them. At best they are tame, pointless, weak, and milk-and-watery. In many cases, if written out straight, without respect of lines, they would make excellent prose. But poetry they are not. It may be a startling assertion to some ears to say that there are not more than two hundred first-rate hymns in the English language; but startling as it may sound, I believe it is true.

Of all English hymn-writers, none, perhaps, have succeeded so thoroughly in combining truth, poetry, life, warmth, fire, depth, solemnity, and unction, as Toplady has. I pity the man who does not know, or, knowing, does not admire those glorious hymns of his beginning, "Rock of Ages, cleft for me;" or, "Holy Ghost, dispel our sadness;" or, "A debtor to mercy alone;" or, "Your harps, ye trembling saints;" or, "Christ, whose glory fills the skies;" or, "When languor and disease invade;" or, "Deathless principle, arise." The writer of these seven hymns alone has laid the Church under perpetual obligations to him. Heretics have been heard in absent moments whispering over "Rock of Ages," as if they clung to it when they had let slip all things beside. Great statesmen have been known to turn it into Latin, as if to perpetuate its fame. The only matter of regret is, that the writer of such excellent hymns should have written so few. If he had lived longer, written more hymns, and handled fewer controversies, men would have been better pleased.

That hymns of such singular beauty and pathos should have come from the same pen which indited such bitter controversial writings, is certainly a strange anomaly. I do not pretend to explain it, or to offer any solution. I only lay it before my readers as a naked fact. To say the least, it should teach us not to be hasty in censuring a man before we know all sides of his character. The best saints of God are neither so very good, nor the faultiest so very faulty, as they appear. He that only reads Toplady's hymns will find it hard to believe that he could compose his controversial writings. He that only reads his controversial writings will hardly believe that he composed his hymns. Yet the fact remains, that the same man composed both. Alas! the holiest among us all is a very poor mixed creature!

I now leave the subject of this paper here. I ask my readers to put a favourable construction on Toplady's life, and to judge him with righteous judgment. I fear he is a man who has never been fairly estimated, and has never had many friends. Ministers of his decided, sharplycut, doctrinal opinions are never very popular. But I plead strongly that Toplady's undeniable faults should never make us forget his equally undeniable excellencies. With all his infirmities, I firmly believe that he was a good man and a great man, and did a work for Christ a hundred years ago, which will never be overthrown. He will stand in his lot at the last day in a high place, when many, perhaps, whom the world liked better shall be put to shame.

HAVE chosen this text because there is a beautiful picture in it. But this picture, intended to explain the prophet's meaning, must first itself be explained; for it is not one whose beauty and suitableness you can see by a single glance. You are all familiar with the common heather, that covers with its homely russet mantle the breezy hills and lonely moorlands, where there is no trace of man and his works, and the only sounds heard from break of day to eventide are the shrill wail of the plover and the dreamy murmur of the mountain stream. You have wandered over its elastic carpet in the sweet autumn holidays, and pulled its crimson bells, and drank in health and pleasure from the romantic sights and sounds connected with it. You have tried to pull up a plant of it by the root, to bring home with you as a memorial of your ramble on the hills; but after blistering your hands, you were obliged to desist, and content yourselves with merely breaking off a few sprigs covered with flowers. There is, indeed, no plant that has a stronger, tougher root, than the heather. And

| this is a wise provision of nature for enabling it to keep its place, and grow on the bare, bleak, stormy places which it adorns with the only beauty and brightness they possess. If it had a lighter hold of the ground, the wild winds that sweep over it would speedily tear it away, and the soil on the mountain-sides, left without a covering, would come down in terrible landslips and destroy the houses in the valleys, and cover the fertile fields with desolation.

Surely, then, the language of the prophet, when he speaks of the heather fleeing, as though it were a dead leaf or a handful of chaff carried away by the wind, is not true to nature. The figure, however, strange as it may seem, is perfectly correct. The heather does flee! But then the heath of which Jeremiah was thinking when he wrote the words of the text, is not the same kind of heather as grows on our hills. In fact, there is no heather at all on the mountains of Palestine. The ground is too dry and rocky, and there are no mists to nourish any vegetation except a kind that can do without water. But there is a species of plant growing in

lonely desert places in the south of Palestine, which bears some kind of resemblance to our common heather, especially to those dry stumps over which fire has passed, and which have been bleached by exposure to the weather. This plant is called by a long name-Anastatica; but it is more familiarly known as the Rose of Jericho. It is evidently the plant to which the translators of the Bible have given the name of heath, and which the prophet speaks of as fleeing and saving its life. The Crusaders used to bring it home from the Holy Land, and some superstitious tales are told of it; as, for example, that it first burst into blossom on Christmas eve, to welcome the birth of the Heavenly Babe, and paid its tribute of honour to the resurrection of the Redeemer, by continuing in flower till Easter morn. But its own true history is stranger even than these fables. The spots where it is found are moistened with water during the rainy season; but in the hot summer they are dried up, and become baked by the heat almost as hard as a brick. Rain seldom falls in the south of Palestine; months frequently pass away without a shower, or a cloud as big as a man's hand; the sky above is like brass, and the earth beneath as iron; and all the channels of the streams and rills are dry and white as the roads. Now, what becomes of the Rose of Jericho when all the moisture in the spot where it grows is dried up, and the soil becomes loose and dusty about its roots, and the sun shines down upon it with scorching intensity? Most plants in these circumstances would perish utterly, and become bleached skeletons. But the Rose of Jericho does not perish with the drying up of the water on which it lives. God, whose tender mercies are over all his works-over the lilies of the field as over the fowls of heaven-has furnished it with a remarkable provision by which it escapes from the dreadful consequences of drought. Whenever all the water within reach of its roots is exhausted, and it can get no more, it sheds its leaves, gathers all its branches together, and rolls itself up into an irregular elastic ball. And thus packed up in a travelling-bag composed of its own framework, like the fairies of old that were said to go from place to place in chariots of nut-shells, it awaits patiently till the wind of the desert begins to blow. It is then speedily uprooted, rolls easily over the surface, and is driven to and fro through the desert. For days, and sometimes even weeks, it is whirled about from place to place; but it suffers no injury. The life is still strong in it, and all its tender and vital parts are gathered safely into the middle, pretected by the branches, that close over them like a network. It looks a dry, unsightly, faded thing in this state. But at last it is carried to the brink of a stream, to some little oasis or spot of moisture; and no sooner does it feel the scent of water than it begins slowly to unfold its branches, to stretch down its roots into the moist soil, and to expand its tiny flowers in the genial atmosphere. It grows in that spot until it, too, becomes a dry and parched land; and then it rolls itself

up in a ball, is again uprooted by the winds, and carried to a moist place, where it again unfolds itself and grows. It repeats this strange process of migration until its seeds are perfected, and ready to be shed in a suitable place for their growth, when it finally dies. And though its withered branches continue for many years to curl and expand, according to the state of the atmosphere, this is no longer a vital, but a mechanical process.

Such is the wonderful history of this tiny, insignificant plant; and the use which the prophet Jeremiah makes of it will now be easily understood by you. If the Rose of Jericho, or the heath, as it is called in our Bible, had remained in the spot when the sun had dried up all the moisture so necessary to its well-being, it would inevitably have withered and died; but it flees on the wings of the wind to some place where it can get water, and by this means saves its life. Now, the prophet tells us to do likewise. He told the children of Moab to flee from the destruction that was threatening them. He tells us to flee from the wrath to come that is threatening us; and he wishes us in this to follow the example of the heath, or the Rose of Jericho: "Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness." This is not the only instance in which the Bible tells us to take a lesson from the inferior creation-from the plants and the animals around us. Where does the wise man send the sluggard to receive instruction, and to be made ashamed of his laziness? Not to the busy city, where the hand of the diligent maketh rich in the warehouse or the market-place. No; it is to the little, insignificant ant, that stores up her food in time for winter's scarcity: "Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." Where does Solomon send the man who feels himself to be weak and helpless, for an example of wisdom and foresight in such circumstances? Not to the walled cities and fortresses of men, but to the feeble conies, which seem to be the prey of every creature: "The conies are a feeble folk, but they make their holes in the rocks." And how does God seek to show the baseness and shameful ingratitude of his people Israel for all the benefits he had bestowed upon them? Is it not by the flight of the storks and the swallows, that know their appointed time? is it not by the tameness of the ox and the ass? "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib: but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider." Alas! God has abundant reason to turn to the things of nature, that so perfectly perform the purpose for which they were created, and that do in all things the will of God, as witnesses against us, who have been made wiser than the fowls of the air, and received more knowledge than the beasts of the field, and to whom God has been uniformly most good and gracious; and who yet, in spite of all these things, have requited our Benefactor with the basest ingratitude and sin: "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me."

God wishes us, then, to learn a lesson from the lilies

of the field, from this humble heath-wishes us to flee and save our lives as it does. In applying this beautiful image to your state, I propose to consider five things, which you may count on your five fingers: 1st, Whence you are to flee; 2nd, Where you are to flee; 3rd, How you are to flee; 4th, When you are to flee; and 5th, Why you are to flee. A few plain simple words upon each of these five divisions will, I trust, interest and profit you, under the blessing of God's good Spirit.

1. The first thing, then, we have to ask is, " Whence you are to flee." The heath, or the Rose of Jericho, as we have seen, flees from drought and death. It leaves the spot where it can get no water to nourish it, and where its seed would be sure to perish. Now, you are like this heath. You live in a world that was once pronounced by God to be very good, but which sin has blighted and ruined. You dwell in a dry and parched land, wherein no waters be, where nothing can satisfy your heart, where you can find no nourishment for your soul. The curse of sin is upon everything; and like the dove which Noah sent out from the ark, you can find no rest for the sole of your foot. You cannot remain in this state. You will perish of spiritual thirst and lean-❘ ness of soul. You will wither under the blight of sin. The wrath of God will consume you. You cannot be happy where you are and as you are, for "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." You must flee, therefore, from this state of sin and misery, as the heath flees from the dry and parched wilderness. You must flee from the wrath of God, which, we are told, resteth upon the children of disobedience. You must flee from the world lying in wickedness, that would destroy you with its false joys and vain pleasures. You must flee from your ungodly companions, and the temptations which they put in your way to do evil. You must flee from the sin of your own soul-your own evil heart of unbelief-which is turning you away from holiness and happiness. You must flee from the scene of your guilt as the man-slayer, pursued by the avenger of blood, fled to the city of refuge; for the law which you have broken is pursuing you with the flaming sword of vengeance in its hand. You must flee as Lot fled from the burning cities of the plain; for you are living in the city of Destruction, and the fires of heaven will soon descend and consume it. You have heard of the terrible fires that sometimes sweep over the prairies of America, burning forests, and homesteads, and corn-fields, and vast tracts of dry grass. How would you feel if you saw one of these awful fires advancing rapidly upon you? Yonder it comes, a huge wall of flame a mile wide, roaring like the waves of the sea in a storm, and darkening the sky with volumes of black smoke! Would not fear give wings to your feet? Would you not flee for your life with all your might, and not draw breath until you had reached a spot of safety? We read that when the eruption of Mount Vesuvius poured its burning lava down into the streets of Pompeii-a town that was destroyed and buried many hundreds of years ago-some

of the inhabitants, who were not instantly overwhelmed, tried to flee from the fiery river of death that was pursuing them. But they could not run fast enough to escape. They were overtaken and consumed. And those who are now engaged in digging down into the ruins of that town not unfrequently come upon the hollow casts of those poor unfortunates in the act of flight, their forms moulded in the hardened lava that had encrusted them. Now, so long as you remain in sin and unbelief, so long are you exposed to the fire of God's wrath; for God is a consuming fire to those who do not love him, and those who do not believe are condemned already. So long as you are unconverted and in a state of nature, you are standing, as it were, at the foot of a volcano-Mount Sinai-that burns as with fire, and which at any moment may pour forth its lava floods to destroy you. And you can get no satisfaction to your heart, no peace to your conscience, no rest to your soul, if you remain in the dry and parched desert of sin. Say, then, to yourselves as the lepers, perishing outside the walls of Samaria when besieged by the enemy, said: "Why sit we here until we die?" Say to yourselves as the prodigal, dying of hunger amid the husks which the swine did eat, said: "I will arise and go to my father." Flee from the wrath to come. "Flee, save your lives, and be like the heath in the wilderness."

2. But we have now to consider, in the second place, Where you are to flee. Here, too, the heath in the wilderness will give a lesson of instruction. It leaves the dried-up spot, where it cannot get the means of life, and goes on the wings of the wind to a place where there is water. Now, you remember who it was that stood up in the temple on the last day of a great feast at Jerusalem, and cried aloud in the hearing of the multitude, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." All you have to do is to go to him who said this, and you will find in him all that you need. David said of him, "All my well-springs are in thee;" "With thee is the fountain of life." And he himself said, "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up unto everlasting life." You cannot do without this living water. Your souls need it as much as your bodies need common water. Your soul would wither and pine without the blessings of salvation, as the heath would wither and die without the dews and the rains of heaven. You can have no beauty of character, no goodness of conduct; you cannot live holy or useful lives, without the quickening influences of grace. You have seen a flower long exposed to the scorching sun without rain or dew. What a miserable object it is, with its leaves hanging limp about it, or dry and crackling, and covered with white dust, and its fair head bowing down helplessly on its stalk. Well, that sun-scorched flower is just a picture of the state of every soul in sin-of every soul that is seeking its happiness in the things of

this world. If you are to be quickened into a new life, and grow up strong in faith, and be what God intended you to be--a blessing to yourselves and others- you must go where you can find salvation. You will find all the means of life, all the blessings of which you stand in need, in Christ, and you will find them nowhere else; for there is salvation in none other. This wide wilderness world has only one well in it, and if you miss it you will go about all your days, driven by the winds of circumstance, parched and thirsty, crying out, “Who | will show us any good:" you will lead an aimless, useless life, walking through dry places seeking rest and finding none; spending your money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not. But if you set yourselves diligently to seek this one well, you cannot miss it. As truly as the wise men from the East were guided to the manger at Bethlehem, where the infant Jesus lay, so truly will you be led to this well of living water. The path to it is distinct, and beaten hard by the footsteps of the flock-by the feet of those who, in every age and from every country, have come there to drink; so that the wayfaring man, though a fool, cannot err therein. Thousands upon thousands have gone there with their empty pitchers, with their weary, careworn, sinful hearts, and have come away filled, refreshed, and rejoicing. And Jesus is now inviting you to come and get your dry and parched souls refreshed by his love and grace. You will get pardon for your sins in him, peace to your troubled conscience in him, joy to your restless and dissatisfied hearts in him. You will find in him all that you require: wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. You can say, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want; he leadeth me in green pastures, and beside still waters." Flee then to Christ, the fountain of living water, as the heath in the wilderness flees to the brink of the desert stream.

3. But we have now to consider, in the third place, How you are to flee. Take a lesson in this too from the heath in the wilderness. I showed you that, when the moisture of the place where it grows is dried up, it rolls itself up into a ball, gathers all its branches and flowers into the inside, and then trusts itself to the wind to take it where it will find what it wants. Now, this is exactly what you are to do. The Spirit has convinced you that the place where you are living is exposed to God's wrath and curse, and will soon be destroyed; that you cannot be happy where you are and as you are ; that you must flee to Christ, or perish. And being thus convinced of your sin and misery, you are not to rest satisfied with merely wishing to go to Christ, resolving to do so at a more convenient season. You must give yourselves up to the task of actually going to Christ. You must make it your sole business, your one great aim and object in life. You are to gather the multitude of thoughts and desires within you, and bend them all to this one great act, this one great purpose of fleeing to Christ. One thing is needful: therefore,

like David, you are to desire one thing of the Lord, and seek to obtain it. You are to cry out, not as a mere church expression, but in solemn earnest, "What must I do to be saved?" A good wish or a good feeling now and then will not do. You must resolve, like Paul, to count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. Nothing great was ever done in this world without a struggle. Nothing good was ever got in this world without an effort. You cannot get salvation in your sleep or in your sloth. The reason why so many people are not saved is, because they are not earnest and diligent enough about their salvation. They set about it in fits and starts. "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling," says God's Word. "Be diligent in making your calling and election sure." It is a matter of life and death, and therefore cannot be done in an easy, thoughtless, half-spirited way. You must face it as you would the most solemn and important thing in your life. The Spirit is now striving with you; suffer him to uproot you from the soil of sin in which you have hitherto been content to grow; to tear you from your ungodly companions and youthful lusts, to take you away from your guilt and danger and misery. Commit yourselves to his guidance, and he will bring you to Christ. Flee on the wings of faith and love. You will be led to the Saviour, if you are willing to go. Let your prayer therefore be, “Turn me, and I shall be turned;" "Draw me, and I will run after thee." Faith is all that is required of you; only believe, and you will see the glory of God. Believe and live. Flee, then, earnestly, resolutely, on the wings of faith, to Christ, as the heath flees to the water on the wind of the wilderness.

4. But you ask me, in the fourth place, When you are to flee. Whenever the heath in the wilderness feels the soil getting dry about its roots, and its sap circulating very languidly in its cells and fibres, then it immediately begins to shed its leaves, to gather up its branches into a ball, and prepare for flight. It does not wait till the sun withers and burns it into a cinder. Now, you may learn a lesson from the heath in this too. You have not a moment to lose. The sun of God's fierce wrath is beating down upon you, sin is drying up and withering your soul; and if you remain much longer as you are, you will perish in your sins. You are apt to think, and Satan tries to cherish the idea in your mind, that religion is only for old people and for a dying bed. You think that in the gay season of youth you have no present concern in the things of religion, that you have time enough to think seriously of them when you have tasted a little more deeply of life's sweet cup. This idea is very wrong and dangerous. The time of youth is in reality the best time for religion. When the world has not deceived or hardened the heart, when the mind is teachable and pliable, when the feelings are fresh and ardent, when ungodliness has not yet become a habit, and the attention is not engrossed by the cares and anxieties of life- this surely is the best time to give the