"the best prebends corps belonging to our church; and you know it was denied, for that our tenant, "being very rich, offered to fine at so low a rate as "held not proportion with his advantages; but I will "either raise him to an higher sum, or procure that "the other residentiaries shall join to accept of what was offered: one of these I can and will, by your fa

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vour, do without delay, and without any trouble "either to your body or mind: I beseech you to ac"cept of my offer, for I know it will be a consider"able addition to your present estate, which I know "' needs it."

To this, after a short pause, and raising himself upon his bed, he made this reply.

My most dear friend! I most humbly thank you **for your many favours, and this in particular; but in my present condition I shall not accept of your proposal, for, doubtless, there is such a sin as sacrilege; if there were not, it could not have a name "in Scripture; and the primitive clergy were watch"ful against all appearances of that evil; and, indeed, "then all Christians looked upon it with horror and "detestation, judging it to be even an open defiance " of the power and providence of almighty God, and "a sad presage of a declining religion. But instead of "such Christians, who had selected times set apart to **fast and pray to God for a pious clergy, which they ** then did obey, our times abound with men that are

busy and litigious about trifles and church ceremo"nies, and yet so far from scrupling sacrilege, that "they make not so much as a quere what it is; but I "thank God I have; and dare not now upon my sick "bed, when almighty God hath made me useless to "service of the church, make any advantages out of "it: but if he shall again restore me to such a degree "of health as again to serve at his altar, I shall then "gladly take the reward which the bountiful bene"factors of this church have designed me; for, God "" knows, my children and relations will need it; in "which number my mother (whose credulity and "charity has contracted a very plentiful to a very nar66 row estate) must not be forgotten. But, Dr. King, "if I recover not, that little worldly estate that I shall "leave behind me (that very little, when divided into "eight parts) must, if you deny me not so charitable 66 a favour, fall into your hands, as my most faithful "friend and executor, of whose care and justice I makę "no more doubt than of God's blessing on that which "I have conscientiously collected for them; but it "shall not be augmented on my sick bed; and this I "declare to be my unalterable resolution."

The reply to this was only a promise to observe his request.

Within a few days his distempers abated; and as his strength increased, so did his thankfulness to almighty God, testified in his most excellent book of Devotions,

which he published at his recovery; in which the reader may see the most secret thoughts that then possessed his soul paraphrased and made public; a book that may not unfitly be called a Sacred Picture of Spiritual Ecstacies, occasioned and applicable to the emergencies of that sickness: which book, being a composition of meditations, disquisitions, and prayers, he writ on his sick-bed, herein imitating the holy patriarchs, who were wont to build their altars in that place where they had received their blessings.

This sickness brought him so near to the gates of death, and he saw the grave so ready to devour him, that he would often say his recovery was supernatural; but that God that then restored his health continued it to him till the fifty-ninth year of his life; and then, in August, 1630, being with his eldest daughter, Mrs. Harvey, at Aburyhatch, in Essex, he there fell into a fever, which, with the help of his constant infirmity, (vapours from the spleen) hastened him into so visible a consumption, that his beholders might say, as St. Paul of himself, "He dies daily;" and he might say, with Job, "My welfare passeth away as a cloud; the "days of my affliction have taken hold of me, and "weary nights are appointed for me."

Reader, this sickness continued long, not only weakening but wearying him so much, that my desire is he may now take some rest; and that, before I speak of his death, thou wilt not think it an imperti

nent digression to look back with me upon some ob→, servations of his life, which, whilst a gentle slumber gives rest to his spirits, may, I hope, not unfitly exercise thy consideration.

His marriage was the remarkable error of his life, an error which, though he had a wit able and very; apt to maintain paradoxes, yet he was very far from justifying it; and though his wife's competent years, and other reasons, might be justly urged to moderate severe censures, yet he would occasionally condemn himself for it: and doubtless it had been attended with an heavy repentance, if God had not blessed them with so mutual and cordial affections as, in the midst of their sufferings, made their bread of sorrow taste more pleasantly than the banquets of dull and low-spirited people.

The recreations of his youth were poetry, in which he was so happy as if Nature, and all her varieties, had been made only to exercise his sharp wit and high fancy; and in those pieces, which were facetiously composed, and carelessly scattered (most of them being written before the twentieth year of his age) it may appear, by his choice metaphors, that both Nature and all the arts joined to assist him with their utmost skill.

It is a truth that, in his penitential years, viewing some of those pieces too loosely scattered in his youth, he wished they had been abortive, or so short lived

that his own eyes had witnessed their funerals; but though he was no friend to them, he was not so fallen out with heavenly poetry as to forsake that; no, not in his declining age, witnessed them by many Divine Sonnets, and other high, holy, and harmonious composures. Yea, even on his former sick-bed he wrote an Hymn to God the Father, expressing the great joy that then possessed his soul in the assurance of God's favour to him.

I have the rather mentioned this Hymn, for that he caused it to be set to a most grave and solemn tune, and to be often sung to the organ by the choristers of St. Paul's church, in his own hearing, especially at the evening service; and at his return from his customary devotions in that place did occasionally say to a friend, "The words of this Hymn have restored to "me the same thoughts of joy that possessed my soul "in my sickne:s when I composed it;" and "O the 66 power of church music! that harmony added to it "has raised the affections of my heart, and quickened

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my graces of zeal and gratitude; and I observe "that I always return from paying this public duty of 66 prayer and praise to God with an inexpressible tran "quillity of mind, and a willingness to leave the "world,"

After this manner did the disciples of our Saviour, aud the best of Christians in those ages of the church