pressing, even by force, such religious opinions (if any such there were) as taught sedition or immorality, and to prove that the exclusion of the secular weapon from our Christian warfare was not inconsistent with the employment of all peaceable and charitable means of refuting error, and of bringing back, by fair argument and good example, to the sheepfold of our Divine Master, our deceived or deceiving brethren.

But, notwithstanding this eloquent apology, the Liberty of Prophesying inculcated a doctrine too entirely at variance with the practice and prejudices of Taylor's age, to escape the animadversions of his contemporaries. A copy of the first edition, which now lies before me, has its margin almost covered with manuscript notes expressive of doubt or disapprobation; and the commentator, whoever he was, has subjoined at the end of the volume" Taceo metu," and " Vobis dico non omnibus." His arguments, more particularly, in behalf of the Anabaptists, were regarded as too strenuous and unqualified; and the opinions of the author himself having consequently fallen into suspicion, he, in a subsequent edition, added a powerful and satisfactory explanation of his previous language, and an answer to the considerations which he had himself advanced in apology for the opinions of those sectaries.

That Taylor was most sincere in his belief of the propriety and efficacy of infant baptism, he has shown in the sixth and seventh discourses of his "Great Exemplar," which he, in the first instance, published separately, in the year 1655, as a corrective to the mischief which he was supposed to have done by his previous admissions; accompanied by a preface, in which he refers the reader, for fuller satisfaction, to the labours of his friend, Dr. Hammond, on the same subject.

Hammond, indeed, had himself, though with much courtesy and kindness of expression, undertaken to answer the precise arguments employed by Taylor, in his "Letter of Resolution to six Queres of present use with the Church of England." He there, under the head of the Baptizing of Infants, describes the collection of Presumptions against Pseudo-baptism contained in the Liberty of Prophesying, as "the most diligent he had met with," and as "so impar

tially enforcing the arguments of his adversaries, that he knew not where to furnish himself with so exact a scheme, and that therefore, on that one account, he should choose to follow the path which his friend had traced before him '."

Hammond and Taylor well knew each other's worth. They were, for a few years at least, fellow-students. They together, in the worst of times, obtained, by unshaken loyalty and piety unimpeached, the respect of their political and religious opponents; and they were so perfectly trusted by the loyalists, that they were made the joint channels for dispensing those contributions which were privately raised, to a large amount, for the persecuted clergy of the church of England".

How well Hammond, in his controversy with Tombes, as well as in the work already noticed, performed his part as advocate for Pædo-baptism, it is unnecessary here to notice. Of Taylor's exertions in the same good cause, I can give no better proof than the weight which is ascribed to his testimony by a writer who has discussed those unfortunate controversies which have recently arisen on baptismal regeneration, with a wisdom, a discrimination, and a conciliatory temper, which can hardly be surpassed, and which have been too little imitated".

Of those who, in Taylor's own day, attacked the leading principle on which the Liberty of Prophesying was founded, the most considerable, and the only one whose name has descended to the present times, though rather as the mark of one of Milton's satirical arrows, than for any of those particulars which excited the respect and deference of his Calvinistic contemporaries, was Samuel Rutherford, professor of divinity in the university of St. Andrews. He produced, in 1649, " A Free Disputation against pretended Liberty of Conscience," which Taylor never noticed so far as to answer, but which appears to have been one, at least, of the causes which led Milton, who is said to have always admired Taylor, and whose zeal for toleration was as unlimited and

Hammond's Works, vol. i. p. 451.

m Life of Hammond. Wordsworth's Eccles. Biography, vol. v. pp. 375, 376, and Note.

as consistent as Taylor's was, to insert the name of Ruther ford in the contemptuous diatribe to which I have alluded".

An attack of a different kind has, in later times, been made on the Liberty of Prophesying, arraigning not the principles of the work, but the motives and sincerity of the author in maintaining them. He has been represented as arguing, not from his own personal conviction, but as an advocate, and to serve the temporary ends of his party; since, though a churchman, he was a dissenter when the Liberty of Prophesying was written. "He was then," proceeds the writer from whose work this charge is taken, "pleading for toleration to episcopacy. He must either have written what he did not himself fully believe, or, in a few years, his opinion must have undergone a wonderful change. With the return of monarchy, Taylor emerged from obscurity; wrote no more on the Liberty of Prophesying;' and was a member of the privy council of Charles the Second, from which all the persecuting edicts against the poor non-conformists proceeded. It deserves to be viewed, therefore, as the special pleading of a party counsellor, or the production of Jeremy Taylor, deprived of his benefice and the privileges of his profession, imploring relief; of which bishop Taylor, enlightened by the elevation of his episcopate, and enjoying, with the party, security and abundance, became ashamed, and, in his own conduct, published the most effectual recantation of his former opinions or sincerity P." And, on this supposed tergiversation of Taylor, the writer proceeds to ground the sweeping censure, that it is vain to look for liberality or forbearance from the members of an establishment."

With the logical accuracy of the vulgar maxim, "ex uno disce omnes;" or with the degree of Christian candour which the above application of it exhibits, I have, at present, no concern; though it is possible that Mr. Orme would be displeased, and I am sure he would have sufficient right to be so, if I had reasoned, like him, from the faults or inconsistency of any single individual, to the prejudice of all the other members of the Independent persuasion. But I am

• Note (L.)

P Orme's Life of Owen, London, 1820. p. 102.

only concerned with his charges against Jeremy Taylor; and am anxious, therefore, to inform him-what he might have easily learned for himself, and what it was his duty to have inquired into, before he brought such a charge as persecution against the fair fame of any man,-that though bishop Taylor was a nominal member of the Irish privy council, there is no reason whatever to suppose that he took a part in the measures of any administration; that the administration of Ireland did not, in fact, during the reign of Charles the Second, persecute the dissenters; that Taylor had not even an opportunity of concurring in the severe measures of the English government; and that no action of his life is known which can justly expose him to the suspicion of having been a persecutor himself, or having approved of persecution in others. That he did not write any more about Liberty of Prophesying, while his former work was in every body's hands, and while its principles remained unanswered, is no very serious charge against a man whose time was, in many other ways, abundantly occupied. But, that he was not ashamed of his former treatise on this subject, is apparent from the fact, that it appears in a prominent situation in the successive editions of his controversial tracts, of which one, the second, was published when he was actually bishop, and amid the recent triumph of his party. Nor, though there are, unquestionably, some passages in the Liberty of Prophesying where Taylor speaks, rather as urging what may be said in behalf of the more obnoxious creeds, than as expressing his own opinion, can I conceive that an intelligent and candid reader will find any difficulty in distinguishing between such passages and those where he pleads (with every appearance of the deepest and most conscientious conviction) the common cause of all Christian sects under persecution. That, in so doing, he might be animated with the greater zeal by the circumstance that his own sect was thus unhappily situated, I am neither obliged nor inclined to deny. Nor do I conceive that this circumstance alone would lead a candid mind to suspect his sincere belief of those general principles on which he proceeds; or his anxiety, that not the church of England alone, but all other Christian communions, should be partakers in the benefit of his arguments. Had it been otherwise, indeed,

he would rather, as an artful advocate, have applied himself to the palliation of the particular differences existing between the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians, than have offended the prejudices of these last, in the pride of their new-blown success, by advancing principles which they were so little prepared to receive, and encumbering his cause with the patronage of those sects who were the objects of still greater abhorrence and alarm than his own persecuted communion.

The truth is, however, that, if we consider the moment at which the Liberty of Prophesying appeared, and consider also, not only the spirit of mutual concession which it breathes, but the principles on which it rests, and the natural consequences which flow from them, we shall perceive that the Presbyterians were not the only party for whose instruction it was designed, and that its object was to induce not only an abatement of the claims which they were then urging on the king, but a disposition on the king's part, and on the part of his advisers among the episcopal clergy, to concede somewhat more to those demands than their principles had as yet permitted them. The circumstances of the times, in 1647, were such, indeed, as to offer a greater probability than at any former period of the war, that moderate counsels would prevail, and that an arrangement of mutual toleration might be adopted, which would preserve the kingly government, and heal, in a certain degree, the religious feuds of the nation. King Charles was removed from the custody of the parliamentary commissioners to what were supposed the more indulgent hands of Cromwell and the army. His person was treated with far greater respect than formerly. His chaplains were allowed to officiate in his presence according to the English Service Book; and all parties were so situated, that it seemed the interest of all to court him. The parliament and the army were at open variance; and the two prevailing sects, the Presbyterians and Independents, were scarcely less incensed with each other than with the episcopal clergy. Even these last were not yet universally ejected from their benefices; and the force of private character, the fame of extensive learning, and, perhaps, the ties of blood and friendship, were of sufficient weight, till this year, to protect Hall in his episcopal palace at Norwich, and Sander