opularity, though their great length would make them
impossible sermons to-day. Cromwell evidently appreciated his preaching
very highly and felt no objection to the mystical strain that runs
through all his sermons. He had many points of contact with Milton, and
may have been for a period his assistant as Latin Secretary.[39] He was
devotedly fond of music, art, and poetry, and he held similar views to
Milton regarding the Presbyterian system. He naturally fell out of
public notice after the Restoration, and quietly occupied himself with
literary work, until his death in 1672. The main material for a study of
his "message" will be found in his three posthumous Books: _A Discourse
of the Freedom of the Will_ (1675); _Rise, Race and Royalty of the
Kingdom of God in the Soul of Man_ (1683), and _Appearance of God to Man
in the Gospel_ (1710).[40] His prose style is lofty and often marked
with singular beauty, though he is almost always too prolix for our
generation, and too prone to divide his discourse into heads and
sub-heads, and sub-divisions of sub-heads. Here is a specimen passage of
his dealing with a topic which Plato and the great poets have often
handled: "Imagine this Life as an Island, surrounded by a Sea of
Darkness, beyond which lies the main Land of Eternity. Blessed is he who
can raise himself to such a Pitch as to look off this Island, beyond that
Darkness to the utmost bound of things. He thus sees his way before and
behind him. What shall trouble him on his Twig of Life, on which he is
like a bird but now alighted, from a far Region, from whence again he
shall immediately take his flight. Thou cam'st through a Darkness hither
but yesterday when thou wert born. Why then shouldst thou not readily
and cheerfully return through the same Darkness back again to those
everlasting Hills?"[41] I will give one more {282} specimen passage
touching the divine origin and return of the soul: "At our Birth, which
is the morning of life, our Soul and Body are joined to this fleshly
Image as Horses are put into a Waggon, to which they are fastened by
their Harnes and Traces.[42] The Body is as the forehorse, but the Soul
is the filly which draws most and bears the chief weight. All the day
long of this life we draw this Waggon heavy laden with all sorts of
temptations and troubles thorow deep ways of mire and sand. This only is
our comfort that the Divine Will, which is Love itself in its perfection,
as a