support in the most unknown retreats which misery could find. But then," a childless widower, groaning under the agonies of bodily pain, and reduced to the greatest penury," did he, like his blind contemporary, who,

Far above the Aonian mount, pursued

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme,

possess his soul in patience, tranquil in the review of a laborious life, during which he had executed more than Herculean tasks, and happy in the prospect of that mansion of peace where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.

But Baxter suffered scarcely less than thousands of others. who, with him, had remained steadfast to principle and patient under affliction. The day was hastening when violent persecution for religion was to end, and the people to be unbound,— when the mocking Philistines, who filled the hierarchal livings of the establishment, and surrounded the court, should no longer despise the captive Samson, and make sport of his blinded eyes. Alas! alas! they little dreamed of his renovated strength-that his locks had again grown long, and that he stood between the mighty pillars which sustained the throne. The spirit of liberty was not yet extinguished. The blood of Sydney and Russell was not shed in vain. The scaffold with which it was dyed, became only a sacred emblem of freedom, and rallied around it new avengers of crime. And, indeed, the spirit of religious independence never will die. "Human agency is insufficient to extinguish it. Oceans may overwhelm it. Mountains may press it down. But, like the earth's central fires, its own violent and unconquerable force will heave both ocean and land; and, some time or other, and in some place or other, the volcano will burst forth and blaze to heaven.”

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Even the church of England at length opened her lethargic eyes, and saw that she herself had been laboring for her own destruction. She found that she had been paving the way for undisguised Romanism, by encouraging the doctrine of passive obedience. Churchmen retracted their errors, and united with dissenters in calling over to England the Protestant Prince of Orange, who easily effected the bloodless revolution of 1688.

The toleration act of William and Mary gave to the dissenters the privilege for which they had long contended, of worshipping God according to the dictates of their consciences, and was, moreover, the first great step which the nation made toward liberty since the declaration of Magna Charta. It not only exempted from pun

ishment, but rendered the dissenting worship innocent and lawful. It closed the long struggles of one hundred and fifty years for religious toleration. "With the accession of William III. despotism drew its last breath, royal prerogative bowed before the voice of the people, and religious liberty commenced its reign."

And yet there still remained some claims of power over conscience, which were not entirely removed, and religious toleration was granted as a favor, rather than bestowed as a right. But, inasmuch as this favor was all that was insisted on, we should not complain that no more was conceded. The dissenters obtained what they fought for. They had their requests. Will their descendants be contented with the boon which was granted one hundred and fifty years ago? Are there no more victories to be gained over despotism? Is the old Saxon earnestness of the people extinct? Is it in accordance with progress or providence that old lies shall last forever? How long shall church and state be united in such a country as England? Will such a nation as the English be much longer submissive to the old invention of Constantine and Paganism?

In tracing the gradual steps by which the English arrived to an imperfect toleration, many allusions have been made to the Puritans. No wonder if, amid that school of sorrow through which they passed, they should have evinced traits with which we have no sympathy. Their faults and peculiarities are too well known to be enlarged on in an essay like this. They were not perfect. But it is something that they, of all their countrymen, in an age of despotism and darkness, should have caught glimpses of truth, and still more, should have been faithful to it. All admit, even Hume, that they were the most consistent friends of liberty, and religion, and learning, in the nation. They had faith, which their antagonists had not, in their principles and in themselves. Nor could disappointment weaken this faith, nor sorrow destroy it. The principles which they valued they were anxious to transmit to their children. Nor did they rest until they had secured what they prized above country, and comfort, and friends. 66 Vestigia nulla retrorsum," was the motto of their first and noblest leader, and ought to be of their latest posterity, and of all men contending for such noble principles as liberty of conscience, and the rights of private judgment. These principles may be a mockery in the mouths of those who sympathize with Romanism and the dark ages,—of men who think that liberty and equality are nothing but vulgar Protestant evils,

and that those old times of superstition and ignorance, when every thing the lords temporal commanded was obeyed, and every thing the lords spiritual said was believed, were really "ages of faith and of highest grace to man!" But these principles, for which the Puritans contended, have, thus far, proved the soul of progress, and of every thing which gives grandeur to the individual man. It was the defence of these which chiefly made the Puritans illustrious, and which we are never to lose sight of in the estimation of their character. They had faith in progress, and faith in the gospel. Their humanity, their popular sympathies, were equal to their piety and learning. They never sneered at the people. Without such enlarged ideas, as they enforced, man can never rise, and freedom can never be perpetuated. It is taking a narrow view of these reformers,—it is doing them great injustice to overlook their loyalty to conscience, and their love of freedom, and their faith in progress, to dwell on their vices or follies. He who cannot see these things, in their struggles and character, has, we are persuaded, no appreciation of what is most exalted in human nature, and most sublime in the history of the human race.

ARTICLE IV.

THE RELIGION OF EXPERIENCE, AND THAT OF IMITATION.

By Rev. George B. Cheever, of the Allen-Street Presbyterian Church, N. Y.

WE have happened upon an age, in which there is a great resurrection and life of old, dead, exploded errors. These errors, in this new life, are beginning to stalk about so proud and populous, that in some quarters truth retires and is hidden, or is even stricken down in the streets and churches. Error puts on the semblance of truth, and religion itself, in a form of mere earthly aggrandizement, becomes one enormous, despotic, consolidated lie.

The difference between the religion of experience and that of imitation, is a theme which at this crisis is occupying many minds; nor is this wonderful, for it is all the difference between a missionary piety, and a piety of pride, intolerance, and self-indulgence. In the introduction of our subject, we shall, in few words, designate the two.

The world is to be saved, if saved at all, by the religion of Experience, and not that of Imitation. The religion of imitatation is that of forms; the religion of experience is that of realities. The religion of imitation is Churchianity; the religion of experience is Christianity. The religion of imitation, except when it oppresses, is that of profound quiet and weakness; the religion of experience is that of conflict and power.

Imitation will do for calm times, and gorgeous forms and rites, and magnificent cathedrals; but experience is needed in the midst of danger, in dens and caves of the earth, or to support the bare simplicity of the gospel. Imitation may be a persecuting religion, experience alone can be a suffering one. Imitation goes to books, schools, forms, names, institutes; experience to God. Imitation takes Anselm, Bernard, Calvin, Edwards, Brainard, Emmons, any thing, every thing, but God's word. Experience goes to the living truth, and drinks into it. Imitation has the semblance of experience, but not its essence or its power. Imitation takes at second-hand what experience originates. Imitation studies systems, and reads the Bible to prove them. Experience studies the Bible, and reads human systems for illustration. Imitation is not a missionary spirit; experience is. Imitation may fill the world with the forms of piety, and with most of its refining influences. You may bring men away, in great measure, from their vices, and you may refine their manners, and yet bring them no nearer to Christ. And here I am constrained to remark, that one of our greatest dangers in the Missionary enterprise lies in the fact, that so much, in reality, may be done without the religion of experience, the co-operation of the Holy Spirit. The world might be filled with a nominal Christianity, yea, an evangelical Christianity, and the Spirit of God have very little to do with it. There might be all the ameliorating influences of Christianity, except that of real conversion, following in the train of our efforts in every part of the world, and even the instrumentality of a prayerless church might be sufficient for such an evangelization. The dome of some gorgeous and heartless establishment, with

all its decency and refinement, might be let down to cover every form of idolatry and heathenism, and to bring all tribes and communities of the gentile world in obedience to its rubrics and beneath its power. But what then would be gained? Why, this spiritual quackery on a vast scale, this healing of the world's hurts slightly, would only put off to a more distant period the real prevalence of Christ's kingdom, and render a thousand times more difficult the real redemption of mankind from sin.

Now, it is to be feared that the religious characteristic of this age, compared with some other ages, is that of imitation rather than experience. This, in some respects, is the natural course of things. It is so, intellectually. An age of eminently original genius is ordinarily succeeded by an imitative age; or, if not imitative, the contrast between the splendor of genius, and the poverty of mere talent, makes it appear such. For example, the Elizabethian age in England, the age of Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon, was an age of originality and power; the age of Queen Anne afterwards was an age of comparative imitation and weakness. These two ages, or something near them, may also be taken as corresponding examples of the religion of experience and that of imitation. The presence and agency of God's spirit, and the power of God's word, marked the one; that of human morality, speculation, and understanding, the other. Bunyan and Baxter, and we may add Leighton, may stand to personify the one; Tillotson and Locke may be the interpreters of the other. The seventeenth century, both in literature and religion, may, in a general comparison with our century, be said to stand in the contrast of an age of experience with an age of imitation.

For this inferiority of one age to another, there may be natural inevitable causes in respect to the development of mind and genius, but in religious things we are sure it ought not to be so. An age of religious imitation marks a period of departure from God; this is undeniable. An age cannot be destitute of deep and original religious experience, if it enjoy the word of God, and the ordinances of religion, without a great falling off from duty, and a great betrayal of its own interests. Yet it is to be feared, all things taken together, that the religion of this age is a religion of imitation, rather than experience; a religion, the character of which, on the whole, is superficiality rather than profound originality and power. Into this prevailing habitude every individual new-comer is baptized; every religionist grows