LIFE OF ISAAC BARROW, D. D.

(With a Portrait.)

DR. ISAAC BARROW, one of the greatest Divines and most eloquent writers of the Church of England, was born in London, in the month of October, 1630; and had the misfortune to lose his mother when he was about four years old. His education was commenced at the Charter-house, where he continued two or three years; and his greatest recreation was in such sports as involved him in quarrels among the boys. He was also very negligent in regard to his dress. Through the whole of his life he retained great personal courage; but he laid aside his propensity to fighting; although his slovenliness remained to the last. At the Charter-house he was very indifferent to his book; and his father had little hope that he would ever excel as a scholar. Indeed his general conduct was so very unpromising, that his father often solemnly wished, if it should please God to take away any of his children, that it might be Isaac.

These gloomy thoughts of the anxious parent were only of short continuance. Isaac removed to Felstead, in Essex, where he made such rapid progress in learning, and in everything praiseworthy, that his master appointed him tutor to Lord Viscount Fairfax, of Emely, in Ireland. While he remained here he was admitted in the College of Peter-house, in the University of Cambridge; but when he actually removed to the University, in Feb., 1645, he was

placed in Trinity College. His father, having adhered to the King in the civil wars by which the nation was then afflicted, had lost a considerable part of his property; so that the pecuniary resources of Isaac were very limited. The father being at Oxford, with the royal party, Isaac had little or no intercourse with him; yet he abused not the opportunity to negligence in his studies, or licentiousness in his manners; but seasoned his tender years with diligence, learning, and piety, the best preparatives for the succeeding varieties of life. At the University he continued, like his father, a stanch royalist; yet, conducting himself with decorum, he gained the good-will of the chief men in the University. One day, the Master of the College, who was a partisan of the parliamentary cause, laying his hand upon Isaac's head, said, "Thou art a good lad. It is a pity that thou art a Cavalier." In an oration upon the Gunpowder Treason, he so extolled the former times as to reflect upon those which were then present; and thus gave great offence to some of the Fellows of the College, who moved for his expulsion. The Master, however, interposed, and silenced them by saying, " Barrow is a better man than any of us." Such was his generosity, that he often assisted the junior scholars in their exercises, both in prose and verse; and yet, poor as he was, he never received for these acts of kindness any reward, except one solitary pair of gloves.

When he was only a young scholar he was not satisfied with the philosophy then generally taught, and in which men of inferior minds contentedly rested; but applied himself to the study of such writers as Lord Bacon, Descartes, Galileo, and other great geniuses of a former age, who seemed to offer something more solid and substantial.

When the time came that he should be chosen Fellow of his College, he obtained that distinction by merit; for nothing else could recommend him to men who were generally opposed to him in their views of civil and ecclesiastical affairs. After his election, which took place in the year 1649, thinking the times not favourable to men of his opinions in the affairs of Church and State, he selected the pro

L

anatomy, botany, and chemistry. But afterwards, upon deliberation, and conversation with his uncle, the Bishop of St. Asaph, he quitted medicine, and made divinity the subject of his studies.

Upon all opportunities he was open and communicative to his College friends; for out of College he had few acquaintance. His temper was calm, even in a factious time; considering the smallness of his income, his charity was large; his industry was indefatigable; his conversation facetious upon suitable occasions; in argument his judgment was clear; and his virtue was steady in all difficulties and temptations. He engaged in the close study of astronomy and chronology; and with these sciences he joined poetry, to which he was always addicted, especially descriptive poetry. To plays he was decidedly opposed; regarding them as a fruitful source of immorality. He wrote no satires; for his wit was pure and peaceable.

Having resolved to travel, in the year 1654 he sold his books, and went to France. At Paris he found his father attending the English court, then in exile; and out of his small property made him a seasonable present. After some months he went to Italy, and made a stay at Florence, where he availed himself of the favour granted him, of reading many books in the Great Duke's library. His desire next was to visit Rome; but the plague then raging there, he took ship for Smyrna; and from thence he proceeded to Constantinople. In this city, the See of the great St. Chrysostom, he read over all the works of that Father, whom he much preferred to any other, and remained in Turkey above a year. Returning thence to Venice, as soon as he was landed the ship took fire, and all the goods that were on board perished; but none of the people suffered any harm. He returned home through Germany and Holland; and on his arrival in England entered into holy orders. In the year 1660 he was chosen Greek Professor in Cambridge; and two years afterwards was chosen to the Geometry lecture at Gresham College. He at length resigned the mathematical chair to his friend Mr. Newton, afterwards the great Sir Isaac, resolvin to

apply himself entirely to divinity. Those subjects which he thought most important to be considered for his own use, he cast into the form of sermons for the benefit of others; and in this he was so exact, that he wrote some of them four or five times over. At this time he had only the Fellowship of his College, when the Bishop of St. Asaph gave him a small sinecure in Wales, and the Bishop of Salisbury, who greatly admired his conversation, a prebend in his church. The income of both these emoluments he gave away in charity; and he resigned them in the year 1672, when he was made Master of his College: he and his family at that time being no longer in a necessitous condition. Hitherto he had possessed only a scanty estate; but it was made easy to him by a contented mind; and not a trouble, by envy at more plentiful fortunes. He could in patience possess his soul when he had little else; and now, with the same decency and moderation, he could maintain his character under the temptations of prosperity. When the King advanced him to this dignity, he was pleased to say, "I have given it to the best scholar in England." His Majesty had several times conversed with him; and this preferment was not at all obtained by faction or flattery: it was the King's own act, though the great desert of the Doctor made those of the greatest power forward to contribute to it, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the Duke of Buckingham, then Chancellor of the University. The senior Fellows were so well acquainted with him, and esteemed him so highly, that they received him with joy, though he was much younger than any of themselves.

In this situation, which he meant not to make use of as a step to ascend higher, he abated nothing of his studies: he yielded the day to public business, and took from his morning sleep many hours, to increase his stock of sermons, and write his treatise on the Pope's supremacy. He understood Popery both at home and abroad: he had narrowly observed it, militant in England, triumphant in Italy, disguised in France; and had earlier apprehensions than

appeared with the most forward in the needful time, had he lived to the reign of the second James, when an attempt was made to restore its dominion in England.

Being invited to preach the passion-sermon at Guild-Hall chapel, he never preached but once more, falling sick of a fever. Such a distemper he had once or twice before, otherwise he generally enjoyed good health. Many Physicians attended him; but their efforts to check the disorder were unavailing. He died on the 4th of May, 1674; and his death was worthy of his admirable, divine, and heroic life. Had it not been greatly inconvenient, his remains would have been carried to Cambridge: they were deposited in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was afterwards erected to his memory.

(To be concluded in our next. )

LETTERS TO A YOUNG CHRISTIAN.

LETTER VI.

SINCERITY, my dear young friend, is an essential ingredient in prayer. Without it, no prayer can be acceptable. Indeed, if we are insincere, we cannot be said to pray. A mere form of words is not prayer.

Prayer is the desire of the heart for something which we judge to be necessary or beneficial. It implies a knowledge of our wants, and an urgent wish to have them supplied. If, therefore, the heart be roving after one object, while the lips are employed in asking for another, we are insincere and unacceptable worshippers. Such conduct is an insult to our Creator; a deception on ourselves. Such were the petitions at which God, in old times, declared himself indignant; when his professing people drew "nigh unto him with their mouth, and honoured him with their lips, while their heart was far from him." Such was the religion of the Scribes and Pharisees; fair and beautiful without, but within, all rottenness and corruption.

Reflect a moment ere you bend the knee at the throne of