"of any trials, to extol humility in the midst of honours, "to begin a fast after dinner a "

In the close of the said sermon, after having applied himself to the judges with proper exhortations, that bespoke his intrepidity of soul, he addressed himself to the audience in these words; " If ever it was seasonable to preach courage "in the despised, abused cause of Christ, it is now, when "his truths are reformed into nothing, when the hands "and hearts of his faithful ministers are weakened, and even broke, and his worship extirpated in a mockery, "that his honour may be advanced. Well, to establish our "hearts in duty, let us beforehand propose to ourselves the "worst that can happen. Should God in his judgment suf"fer England to be transformed into a Munster; should the "faithful be everywhere massacred; should the places of learning be demolished, and our colleges reduced not only "(as one in his zeal would have it b) to three, but to none; yet, assuredly, hell is worse than all this, and is the portion "of such as deny Christ: therefore let our discourage"ments be what they will, loss of places, loss of estates, ❝ loss of life and relations, yet still this sentence stands rati"fied in the decrees of Heaven, Cursed be that man that for "any of these shall desert the truth, and deny his Lord."

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To return to Mr. South: He was not made university orator till the tenth of August 1660, after he had preached a most excellent sermon to the king's commissioners, on the 29th of July in the same year, called, The Scribe instructed, from Matth. xiii. ver. 52. Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is an householder, which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old: for which he was highly applauded for many excellent and sarcastical expressions against the sectarists, late in power. Among other expressions, nothing can be more beautiful and to the purpose,

Very credibly reported to have been done in an independent congregation at Oxon.

b Unton Croke, a colonel in the

army, the perfidious cause of Penruddock's death, and some time after high sheriff of Oxfordshire.

than when he speaks of the qualification of a scribe in these words:

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Qualification," says he, "which is an habitual prepa"ration by study, exercise, and due improvement of the "same. Powers act but weakly and irregularly, till they are heightened and perfected by their habits. A well radi❝cated habit, in a lively, vegete faculty, is like an apple of gold in a picture of silver; it is perfection upon perfec❝tion; it is a coat of mail upon our armour; and, in a word, "it is the raising of the soul at least one story higher; for take "off but the wheels, and the powers in all their operations "will drive but heavily. Now it is not enough to have "books, or for a man to have his divinity in his pocket, or upon the shelf, but he must have mastered his notions, "till they even incorporate into his mind, so as to be able "to produce and wield them upon all occasions; and not, "when a difficulty is proposed, and a performance enjoined, "to say, that he will consult such and such authors. For "this is not to be a divine, who is rather to be a walking library than a walking index. As, to go no farther than "the similitude in the text, we should not account him a good and generous housekeeper, who should not have al"ways something of standing provision by him, so as never "to be surprised, but that he should still be found able to "treat his friend at least, though perhaps not always pre

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sently to feast him. So the scribe here spoken of should "have an inward, lasting fulness and sufficiency, to sup"port and bear him up, especially when present per"formance urges, and actual preparation can be but short. "Thus it is not the oil in the wick, but in the vessel, which "must feed the lamp. The former indeed may cause a

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present blaze, but it is the latter which must give a lasting light. It is not the spending-money a man has in his 66 pocket, but his hoards in the chest or in the bank, which "must make him rich. A dying man has his breath in his "nostrils, but to have it in the lungs is that which must preserve life. Nor will it suffice to have raked up a few "notions here and there, or to rally all one's little utmost

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"into one discourse, which can constitute a divine, or give

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a man stock enough to set up with; any more than a sol"dier who had filled his snapsack should thereupon set up "for keeping house. No, a man would then quickly be "drained, his short stock would serve but for one meeting "in ordinary converse, and he would be in danger of meet“ing with the same company twice. And therefore there "must be store, plenty, and a treasure, lest he turn broker "in divinity, and having run the round of a beaten, ex"hausted common-place, be forced to stand still, or go "the same round over again; pretending to his auditors, "that it is profitable for them to hear the same truths often "inculcated to them; though I humbly conceive, that to "inculcate the same truths is not of necessity to repeat the same words. And therefore, to avoid such beggarly pre"tences, there must be habitual preparation to the work we -66 are now speaking of.”

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Again, speaking of the malignants in the times of the same unnatural rebellion, he says, "There was no saving of "life with those men, without purging away the estate."

Then, describing the teachers of those days, he declares, that "first of all they seize upon some text; from whence "they draw something, (which they call doctrine;) and well "may it be said to be drawn from the words, forasmuch as "it seldom naturally flows or results from them. In the "next place, being thus provided, they branch it into se"veral heads, perhaps twenty, or thirty, or upwards. "Whereupon, for the prosecution of these, they repair to "some trusty concordance, which never fails them, and, by "the help of that, they range six or seven scriptures under "each head: which scriptures they prosecute one by one; "first amplifying and enlarging upon one for some con"siderable time, till they have spoiled it; and then, that

being done, they pass to another, which in its turn suf"fers accordingly. And these impertinent and unpremedi"tated enlargements they look upon as the motions, effects, "and breathings of the Spirit, and therefore much beyond "those carnal ordinances of sense and reason, supported

"by industry and study; and this they call a saving way of preaching, as it must be confessed to be a way to save "much labour, and nothing else, that I know of." Ibid.

Some time after this, Edward earl of Clarendon, lord high chancellor of England, and chancellor of the university of Oxford, in consideration of a speech spoken by him, which you will find in the posthumous works hereunto annexed, at his investiture into the last high dignity, did him the honour of taking him for his domestic chaplain, whereby he was in the road to church preferments, and was installed prebendary of St. Peter's, Westminster, March 30, 1663, He likewise, by virtue of a letter from, and the desire of the said earl, his patron, stood candidate for the degree of doctor in divinity, on the first of October in the same year; and obtained it by a majority of the convocation house, though strenuous opposition was made against the grant of that favour by the bachelors of divinity and masters of arts, who were against such a concession, by reason that he was a master of arts but of six years standing; after a scrutiny, it being accordingly pronounced granted by the senior proctor, Nathaniel Crew, M. A. fellow of Lincoln college, and now lord bishop of Durham: in consequence of which, by the double presentation of Dr. John Wallis, Savilian professor of geometry, he was instantly first admitted bachelor, then doctor in divinity.

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Much about the same time, the doctor was made choice of to preach a sermon at the consecration of a chapel; in the preface to which are these remarkable expressions: "After the happy expiration of those times which had reformed so many churches to the ground, and in which men used to express their honour to God and their allegiance to their prince the same way, demolishing the palaces of the one, and the temples of the other; it is now our glory and felicity, that God has changed men's tempers with the times, and made a spirit of building succeed a spirit of pulling down, by a miraculous revolution ; re"ducing many from the head of a triumphant rebellion to "their old condition of masons, smiths, and carpenters, that

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"in this capacity they might repair what, as colonels and captains, they had ruined and defaced.

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age

"But still it is strange to see any ecclesiastical pile, not "by ecclesiastical cost and influence rising above ground, especially in an age in which men's mouths are open 66 against the church, but their hands are shut towards it; an in which, respecting the generality of men, we might as soon expect stones to be made bread, as to be made "churches. But the more epidemical and prevailing this "evil is, the more honourable are those who stand and "shine as exceptions from the common practice: and may "such places, built for the divine worship, derive an honour " and a blessing upon the head of the builders, as great and "lasting as the curse and infamy that never fails to rest upon the sacrilegious violators of them; and a greater, I am sure, I need not, I cannot wish."

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On the 29th of the month of December, 1670, the doctor was installed a canon of Christ Church in Oxford, being the fifth rightful incumbent of the third stall ever since the foundation in 1549, vacant by the death of Dr. Richard Gardiner, at the request of whose executors he wrote the following epitaph, which is to be seen in the dormitory on the north side of that cathedral church.