His defects of style have robbed him of that meed of honour to which as a theologian he is entitled. He exhibits an utter neglect of the art of composition, like a man of great wealth, thoroughly careless about his attire, and falls into a habit of writing most inharmonious periods, perhaps for want of a musical ear. His frequent poverty of expression, and his numerous and intricate subdivisions, are failings in their effect vastly heightened by the unaccountably strange method of punctuation which he adopted himself, or left his printer to adopt for him.[544] Yet his works present, in numerous instances, the most felicitous phrases and the choicest epithets, and only less frequently does he, under the inspiration of his genius, pour forth sonorous sentences, with an organ-like swell, in keeping with the magnificent ideas which they were employed to convey. After all Howe’s drawbacks, I have often risen from the perusal of his works with feelings similar to those of a traveller, who, at the end of his journey, charmed with the remembrance of the scenes he has visited, forgets the ruggedness of the road, and the inconvenience of his conveyance, however unpleasant they might have been at the moment they were experienced. The originality and compass of Howe’s mind, and the calmness and moderation of his temper, must ever inspire sympathy, and awaken admiration in reflective readers: his Platonic and Alexandrian culture commends him to the philosophical student, and the practical tendency of his religious thinking endears him to all Christians. His works contain no treatises on Faith, on Justification, on Election, or Particular Redemption. Though essentially evangelical, Howe’s writings are pervaded by a tone of thought which varies from that which is predominant in Puritan literature: and I may add that, as in Baxter, so in Howe, yet not from exactly the same cause, or in the same measure, heresy hunters, if their scent be keen, may discover passages open to exception. [Sidenote: HOWE.]