By bearing in mind these remarkable facts, we shall be assisted in accounting for some peculiarities of opinions in this remarkable man. There was a manifold character in his theology corresponding with the manifold influences which moulded his religion, and we may trace the effects of his education in both the excellencies and defects of his numerous writings. In a literary point of view, they are strikingly different from those of Thomas Goodwin and John Owen. He is, in his doctrinal discussions, often as tedious as they, and sometimes more provoking with his endless distinctions, but, in the practical application of his theological principles, he exerts a charm which neither of those contemporaries could ever rival. His masculine style, just the outgrowth of his thought, just the natural skin, pure and transparent, which covers it, has been the admiration of popular readers and practised critics. It has been praised by Addison and Johnson; it has been felt and appreciated by thousands of unlettered people. We detect in Baxter, no rhetorical tricks, no striving to shine for the sake of shining, no waving of the scarlet flag, no “taking out his vocabulary for an airing:” and yet for fullness of expression, for a rich flow of words, for occasional felicity of diction, for poetry in prose, he surpasses all his compeers, except Jeremy Taylor: and in directness, force, and genuine fervour, as to a glowing heat of the affections, which is more intense than the eloquence of the imagination, as to words which come rolling out like balls of white fire, the great Church orator must give place to the Nonconformist Divine. If immense popularity, if the possession of a spell which can hold fast minds of all orders, be a test of genius, then Baxter must be allowed to have possessed it in a high degree. In activity of thought and in keenness of perception, in the grasp of his knowledge and in the retentiveness of his memory, in dialectic skill and in logical fencing, Baxter is acknowledged to have had no superior, if any equal, in his own day, and he would have been worthy of a lot amongst the mediæval schoolmen, to whose list of doctors his might have added another characteristic name. But such qualities have their disadvantages. In this instance, they led their possessor to travel over such an immense field of inquiry, to meddle with so many topics, to dispute with so many men, to make so many distinctions without any difference, at least such as less acute minds can discern, that it is difficult to gather together and harmonize his opinions, and to say on certain points what he believed, and what he did not. It is easy for a man of one-sided views to be consistent; but who that loves truth for the truth’s sake, and wishes to see as much of it as is possible in this world of imperfect knowledge, will value consistency of that kind? Baxter was not one-sided, but strove to look at every subject