control: "If it be the cause of God which we handle in our writings, then let us handle it like the prophets of God, with quietness and moderation, and not in the violence of passion, as if we were possessed rather than inspired." It was characteristic of the man to begin his sermon on "Christian Omnipotency," a subject suggesting vigorous action, with a preface on that "omnipotent patience" which "beareth all things." Hales advocates in golden words gentleness of reproof: "The wisdom and gentleness of a Christian is never better seen than in reproving. The young and tender branches of a vine are not to be pruned with a knife, but gently pulled away by hand." It is in this connection that he introduces the striking figure of the knife and the sponge, long remembered:

As a skilful physician of whom we read, finding the sick person to be afraid of lancing, privily wrapped up his knife in a sponge, with which, whilst he gently smoothed the place, he lanced it: so, beloved, when we encounter our offending brother, we must wrap our knife in our sponge, and lance him whilst we smooth him, and with all sweetness and gentleness of behavior cure him, as Isaiah cured Hezekiah by laying upon him a plaster of figs.

To Hales' mind gentleness is due even to souls in torment, and dwelling upon Abraham's manner of addressing Dives, "Son, remember," he exclaims; "Son! a word of mercy and gentleness, used to teach us that in all cases, how desperate soever, unto all persons, though never so forlorn, unto the greatest delinquent, how sinful soever, yet still we must open some window, at least some small

crevice, to let our goodness shine through." In similar vein he notices that "the master of the feast, when he came in to his guests and saw one there without a wedding garment, though he saw he was constrained to pronounce a sharp and severe doom, yet he useth Abraham's method, 'Friend,' saith he, 'how comest thou hither?' Son! Friend! here is the true art of chiding, this is the proper style wherein we ought to reprove.'

It hath been observed of the ancient Cornish language, that it afforded no forms of oaths, no phrases to swear in. I should never think our language the poorer, if it were utterly destitute of all forms and phrases of reviling and opprobrious speech.

How

"Gracious language is so cheap a virtue good words are afforded at the same price that evil are." far such a spirit as this rises above the partisan and controversial atmosphere of the times, in which Protestant and Romanist, Anglican and Puritan, Calvinist and Arminian were vilifying each other, it is needless to remark. Bishop Pearson in the introduction to "The Golden Remains," after alluding to Hales' intellectual attainments speaks of his gentleness thus quaintly and sweetly:

Had he never understood a letter, he had other ornaments sufficient to endear him. For he was of a nature so kind, so sweet, so courting all mankind, of an affability so prompt, so ready to receive all conditions of men, that I conceive it near as easy a task for any one to become so knowing as so obliging.

Hales was a true Protestant, not hesitating to assume

the personal responsibility incurred by abandoning the Church's infallibility. He saw clearly that Protestantism must be self-reliant, that every man must use his own reason, "working out his own salvation with fear and trembling." These are his brave words on personal infallibility:

We see many times a kind of ridiculous forgetfulness of many men, seeking for that which they have in their hands; so fares it with men who seek for infallibility in others, which either is or ought to be in themselves. . . . For, beloved, infallibility is not a favor impropriated to any one man, it is a duty alike expected at the hands of all, all must have it. . . There is no other means not to be deceived, but to know things yourselves. Wherefore hath God given me the light of reason and conscience, if I must suffer myself to be led and governed by the reason and conscience of another man?

Hales did not quail before the unrest and dispute which might result from freedom of religious inquiry, feeling that peace purchased at the price of intellectual stagnation was too dear. He charges the clergy with cowardice in discouraging inquiry, as "the Sybarites to procure their ease banished the smiths, because their trade was full of noise." Religion by proxy he compares, with keen wit, to the methods of the Roman gentleman, who being ignorant himself, yet desirous of seeming learned, procured educated servants, with the fancy that all their learning thus became his own. Being weak in body, he procured wrestlers and runners, and exulted in their exploits as his own.

Beloved, you are this man, when you neglect to try the spirits,

to study the means of salvation yourselves, but content yourselves to take them upon trust, and repose yourselves altogether on the wit and knowledge of us that are your teachers.

The Christian must cease to lean upon others, and must be content to rely upon God and his own reason. Antiquity is not reliable, for "what is it else but man's authority born some ages before us?" In regard to antiquity Hales speaks with delicious incisiveness:

Those things which we reverence for antiquity, what were they at their first birth? Were they false? Time cannot make them true. Were they true? Time cannot make them more true.

Universality is as unreliable as antiquity, for universality is only an appeal to the multitude, and the multitude is usually wrong. "It will never go so well with mankind that the most shall be the best." Truth is not established by synods, but is often endangered, for as the special garments of the Roman slaves called attention to their number, and thus became a menace to their masters, so councils endanger the truth by revealing the numerical strength of those in error, for “there are more which run against the truth than with it." His opinion of synods evidently had not improved since the days at Dort. Such is Hales' brave Protestantism, "Neither to adore all things for Gospel which our betters tell us, but to bring all things to the true test; to know the reasons, try the authorities, and never rest ourselves, till we can take up that conclusion of the Psalmist, 'As we have heard, so have we seen in the city of our God.””

With this thorough-going Protestantism Hales mingled a wholesome respect for authority. He deplored the indiscriminate discussion of profound questions by the unskilled, and the great breed of writers, which if they sowed not tares, yet filled the Lord's floor with chaff. Maturity of judgment was all-important in his eyes, and "greenness of scholarship" is roundly censured. Protestant that he was, he was far from indulging in Puritan vituperation of the Roman Church, from which he acknowledges the ceremonies and ritual of the English Church to have been derived, and with which there is a common ground of faith when superstitions are pruned away.

The perfect balance of Hales' mind and taste prevented him from finding rest in any of the extremes of his day. A true Protestant, he was at home neither among the rampant Puritans nor the pompous Anglicans. He was in favor of the simplest form of worship, and opposed, as we have seen in the Tract on Schism, all that pomp which, under the plea of “decency and order", Laud and his followers were bent on introducing. He deplored the exaltation of the bishopric, as making Christianity "lackey to ambition." Worship must not be identified with ceremonies, the danger of which is illustrated in the following characteristic way, with another quotation from classic lore:

Our books tell us of a poor Spartan that travelling in another country and seeing the beams and posts of the houses squared and carved, asked if the trees grew so in those countries. Beloved, many men that have been long acquainted with a form of worship