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THE TRUE NOTION OF SAINTS
THE true notion of saints is expressed by Moses, both as to the subject, and the affection or qualification of it; for they are called by him men of holiness; such are the persons understood in this article, which is the communion of men of holiness. Now holiness in the first acceptation of it signifieth separation, and that with the relation of a double term, of one from which the separation is made, of the other to which that which is separated is applied. Those things which were counted holy under the law were separated from common use, and applied to the service of God; and their sanctity was nothing else but that separation from and to those terms, from an use and exercise profane and common, to an use and exercise peculiar and divine. Thus all such persons as are called from the vulgar and common condition of the world unto any particular service or relation unto God, are hereby denominated holy, and in some sense receive the name of saints. The penmen of the Old Testament do often speak of the people of Israel as of an holy nation, and God doth speak unto them as to a people holy unto himself; because he had chosen them out of all the nations of the world, and appropriated them to himself. Although therefore most of that nation were rebellious to him which called them, and void of all true inherent and actual sanctity; yet, because they were all in that manner separated, they were all, as to that separation, called holy. In the like manner those of the New Testament writing to such as were called, and had received, and were baptised in, the faith, give unto them all the name of saints, as being in some manner such, by being called and baptised. For being baptism is a washing away of sin, and the purification from sin is a proper sanctification ; being every one who is so called and baptised is thereby separated from the rest of the world which are not so, and all such separation is some kind of sanctification ; being, though the work of grace be not perfectly wrought, yet when the means are used, without something appearing to the contrary, we ought to presume of the good effect ; therefore all such as have been received into the Church, may be in some sense called holy.
But because there is more than an outward vocation, and a charitable presumption, necessary to make a man holy; therefore we must find some other qualification which must make him really and truly such, not only by an extrinsical denomination, but by a real and internal affection. What this sanctity is, and who are capable of this title properly, we must learn out of the Gospel of Christ; by which alone, ever since the Church of Christ was founded, any man can become a saint. Now by the tenure of the Gospel we shall find that those are truly and properly saints which are sanctified in Christ Jesus : first, in respect of their holy faith, by which they are regenerated ; for whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God; by which they are purged, God himself purifying their hearts by faith, whereby they are washed, sanctified, and justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, in whom also after that they believe, they are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Secondly, in respect of their conversation : For as he which hath called them is holy, so are they holy in all manner of conversation : adding to their faith virtue, and to virtue knowledge, and to knowledge temperance, and to temperance patience, and to patience godliness, and to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness charity, that they may neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. Such persons then as are called by a holy calling, and not disobedient unto it, such as are endued with a holy faith, and purified thereby ; such as are sanctified by the Holy Spirit of God, and by virtue thereof do lead a holy life, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, such persons, I say, are really and truly saints; and being of the Church of Christ (as all such now must of necessity be) are the proper subject of this part of the article, the communion of saints, as it is added to the former, the holy Catholic Church.
(From the Exposition of the Creed.)
(John Evelyn (1620-1706), was born at Wotton, in Surrey, the seat of his family for some generations, to the possession of which he afterwards succeeded on the death of his brother. He was educated at the school of Lewes, and afterwards at Balliol College, Oxford, whence he proceeded to the study of the Law at the Middle Temple. Upon the breaking out of the Civil War, his sympathies were entirely on the Royalist side, but he saw little of the actual progress of the war, having received the Royal license to travel abroad in 1643.
It was in making the tour of Europe that he first developed those artistic and scientific tastes, which he ardently cultivated during a long life spent in researches more diffuse than arduous. His knowledge of Italian art was probably beyond that of any other Englishman of his age ; and to appreciation of art, he added considerable technical skill. His first works were a translation from La Motte le Vayer, entitled Liberty and Servitude (1649), A Character of England (1651), and The State of France (1652). During the Commonwealth he withdrew altogether from public life, and spent his time chiefly in forestry and gardening, and, in 1659, published a translation of the Golden Book of Chrysostom, on education. On the eve of the Restoration he came forward as the vindicator of the Royalists and of the king, in An Apology for the Royal Party (1659), and A Panegyric at the Coronation (1661). An ardent member of the Royal Society, he published his best known book, Silva, under its auspices, in 1664. He wrote also upon architecture and gardening; and a rather characteristic tract is that on Public Employment preferred to Solitude, which was a reply (1667), to Sir George Mackenzie's Panegyric on Solitude. In 1675, he published Terra, a Philosophical Discourse of Earth ; and until his death in 1706, at the age of 87, he was constantly writing on some of the many subjects which claimed his attention as connoisseur and virtuoso. He filled some public offices after the Restoration ; but they interfered but little with his learned and cultured leisure, Evelyn's Diary was first published from his MSS. at Wotton, in 1819. ]
EVELYN is one of those for the dignity of whose character it is impossible not to have respect, and whose wide culture, and graceful treatment of a subject it is equally impossible to deny ; but he is also one of those whose reputation in his own day was far higher than his fame or influence have since proved to be. His treatises are models of elegant, dignified,--sometimes even eloquent-prose ; but none the less they are cumbrous, artificial and vastly more wordy than their matter requires. He never drops the somewhat artificial manner of the cultured, dignified gentleman--with a mind open to appreciate all the best which his age
had to give him on the side of science, miscellaneous information, artistic taste ; but never harassing his mind with any imaginative or speculative effort of his own. In some respects he offers a curious parallel and yet contrast to Clarendon. Their political standpoint towards the struggles of the time was almost identical. They viewed the earlier part of the reign of Charles I. with the same affection, the Commonwealth with the same detestation, the corroding profligacy of the later Stuarts with the same bitterness of regret. They had the same love of cultured society; the same acquaintance with men, at home and abroad ; the same faculty of discerning motives. But Evelyn was essentially the student, calm and equable in temper, carried away by none of the fiery heat of the contest ; as much despising as unfitted for the active part of the strife. Such a man may have a high place in the esteem of his contemporaries—especially of his learned contemporaries ; but his weight is apt to be small with posterity. He may equip himself, quietly and leisurely, with much varied learning ; but it is apt to be learning which is not reckoned very valuable by later ages. He may polish his style, and even set a model of which later writers may feel the influence ; but his prose can never reach the pregnant force, or tragic dignity, which we find in Clarendon-speaking, as Clarendon does, from the thick of the struggle, with the burden of the nation's fate heavy upon him, with the bitterness of disappointment gnawing at his heart. Hence it is that with all his elegance, Evelyn is apt to pall upon us, and the works that his own ageespecially its scholars and virtuosos— rated so highly, remain unread. He tells his own scheme in the advertisement to the Silva : “As I have frequently inserted diverse historical and other passages, apposite and agreeable to the subject, abstaining from a number more which I might have added, let it be remembered that I did not altogether compile this work for the sake of our ordinary rustics, mere foresters and woodmen, but for the benefit and diversion of gentlemen and persons of quality, who often refresh themselves in these agreeable toils of planting and gardening." We all know that literary men, from Virgil downwards, have not written their georgics for “ordinary rustics”; but when they know their business a little better than Evelyn, they refrain from telling us so. They doubtless are prone to introduce illustrations, “apposite and agreeable”; only, unlike Evelyn, they make us believe that the illustrations are absolutely essential to the work. Evelyn hangs his tags of whimsical and far-fetched illustration upon every bough. Their quaintness and oddity at first perhaps charm us; but the weariness inevitably comes. We need not forget to thank Evelyn, however, for his adding some new graces to our prose, and for the service he has done in perpetuating the tradition of ornament and elegance, without which our prose, as it lost the spring of its old lightness and simplicity, would have been poor indeed.
In his early work (of which the first extract here given is a specimen) we see a lightness and sprightliness of touch which certainly do not reach to true humour, but yet preserve him from dullness. The Silva was really a labour of love, and although it is prolix, it is saved from being fantastic by its steadiness of purpose, which is evident even behind its long words, its artificiality, its over-methodical construction. The answer to Sir George Mackenzie on Public Employment (of which also a specimen is given) is purely a piece of word fencing, with no real purpose or meaning at the root of it. It is just such a treatise as a well-trained schoolboy might write upon a given theme.
The Diary has an interest and value of its own. It rarely gives the writer's own thoughts. It is minute, careful, and methodical in the description of places and buildings and works of art ; but it is carefully restrained, for the most part, in regard to all that touches on the burning questions of the day. It might serve as a model for the simple and succinct recounting of facts ; and where it does betray some feeling, the effect is all the more striking from the consistency with which the ordinary narrative is toned down to the barest simplicity of narration.
One subject could stir Evelyn, as it stirred Clarendon, to eloquence—an intense and whole-hearted faith in the Church of England. The historian has yet to appear who will draw in its true colours the picture of what was noblest in the Royalist party of that day, which stirred alike Laud and Clarendon, and Evelyn -the intense devotion to the Church of England, with all the beneficent influence which they believed it might exert. It was this that gave force to the easy humour which, in the succeeding age, the writers for the Church and against the Dissenters, found