prudentia senex sanctitate Angelus As a child for harmlesness as a young-man for vigor as a son in his obedience to superiors as a Brother in his charity as a Father for his gravity as aged for his wisdom and as an Angel for his sanctity § His 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 great renown and publique fame But the evidence pregnancy and general renown of his great endowments and worth for learning and prudence for gifts and graces save me a great part of my labor for these were so well known to all the English world in Vniversities in Cities in Countries that in speaking of Bishop Brounrig I may fear to be as tedious and superfluous to you of this present age as if I should hold a candle to shew you the Sun which is sufficiently known by its own light if therefore I may seem to offend any of you by my prolixity be pleased to impute it to the charity and zeal I have for posterity that they may not be ignorant of what many are loth to know and own in this age the great worth of our late English Prelates and Reformed Bishops nor of the injustice of that late Sarcasm which joyns Prelacy and Popery together § He was for prelacy but for from Popery Here was much of a Primitive Prelate nothing of some modern Popes here was the learned industry and humble piety of antient Christan Bishops nothing of that Antichristian pride empty formality and impious hypocrisie which in the black and blind centuries many Popes who were but diseased hydropick over-grown and unsound Bishops have been guilty of by the confession of Baronius Platina and others of the Romish adhesion from which also I am far remote though a great vindicator of good Bishops § As Nazianzen speaks of his commending Hieron the Philosopher He was willing to appear so much a Philosopher as to commend and admire such a Philosopher So I cannot but appear so much Episcopal as to commend the excellencies of an excellent Bishop which some were as loth to see as willing to smother § Bishop Brounrig was a person of that soundness of judgement of that conspicuity for an unspotted life of that unsuspected integrity that his life was virtutum norma as St. Jerom of Nepotian It a in singulis virtutibus eminebat quasi coeteras non habuisset so eminent in every good and perfect gift as if he had had but one only This made him loved and admired most by those who had most experience of him He was not like those rough pictures and unpolished Statues which at a distance make a pretty shew Near hand minuit praesentia famam their commendation and comliness shrinks almost to nothing but either courtship and formality or the meer noise and vapor of vulgar credulity which is as prone to worship a gay Idol as a true Diety yea people are more taken with complemental froth than with the most accomplished worth § His openness and sincerity of life In this Coloss or Heroe of learned and real worth there was nothing dubious or dark nothing various or inconstant nothing formal or affected nothing that needs palliation or apology He lived always as at noon day never using or wanting any twilight or shadow I never heard of any thing said or done by him which a wise and good man would have wished unsaid or undone yet I had the happiness to know him above thirty years He always appeared as Isidor Pelus speaks of Timotheus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a sanctuary of sobriety a magazein of humanity a treasury of all vertue and a superlative object of just commendations no less than imitation § He was indeed an Evangelical Eliah potent and fervent in spirit yet not with a heat predatorious but propitious He was apt and able to every good word and work having great parts but little passions As little subject to the usual infirmities and transports incident to men of high and rare abilities as could be few cedars of so noble a procerity ever suffered less tempests or enjoyed more tranquillity within themselves The reason was this he had no leaven of pride at least not so turgent and predominant as either to sowre or swell his passions above his gracious perfections he had the gentleness of a Father the potency of a Prophet the wisdom of a Counsellor the gravity of a Bishop the majesty of a Prince the courage of a Champion he was like Sampson an Army in himself he was as a Troop of Chariots and horsemen strong and resolute for the defence of the true Christian and Reformed Religion with which this Church of England was once blessed both against the great Baals of Popery and the less Baalims of Popularity § So that if I had chosen this Text possibly you would have commended my discretion but as Jacobs venison it offered it self unhunted no other was thought on by me as I told you at first nor could any Jewel in the cabinet of Scripture have better born the characters or gravings of this excellent person and the occasion than this Text which I have wrought off before your eyes my work now is to set the signet of the Text thus graven not upon that dead wax or cold clay which is in that coffin but on that great spirit and that gracious soul whose goodly shrine and temple that body lately was I presume Iust and general Elogies of him I may without the envy or frown of any worthy person here present to honor this solemnity use the words of David at Abners funeral 2 Sam. 3.38 Know you not that this day there is a Prince so St. Jerom and others interpret that Psa 45.16 whom thou mayst make Princes in all lands of Bishops in all Churches I am sure a great man is faln this day in our Israel a Prophet yea more than an ordinary Prophet for as Christ said of John Baptist Among those that were born of women few have in all points equalled this worthy Bishop this reverend Father this gracious Lord who in that true Nobility of wisdom vertue grace and goodness had not many his Peers even among those who were so impatient to have such venerable persons full of prudence learning and piety sit with them or have any influence in the great Councils of Church and State whose presence one would think by the way of former ages was esteemed not only comely but necessary in a Christian Commonwealth to see as Representatives of the Church and Fathers of the Clergy Ne quid detrimenti patiantur aut Ecclesia aut Ecclesiastici for if Religion and Church-interests be left to Laymen only if they do not make a prey of it while it is worth a groat yet they are prone to finde other business and pursue designs of more pleasure profit or honor than Religion seems to most of them and many times as St. Ambrose observed to make mad work of Religion as the Arrians did when they appealed from
1 Pet. 5.9 their stratagems and devices their fiery darts and engines these they were to resist stedfast in the faith 4 The execution or slaughter they must make The strages execution or slaughter they must make is not of mens bodies lives and estates honors good names or liberties but of their inordinate lusts and vile affections their rude and unruly passions their damnable opinions and dangerous practices The Captives they are to take 5 The Captives they take are the Reason the Will the Mind the Souls and Spirits the high thoughts and proud imaginations of men who are detained in ignorance or error led captive by their own lusts and others temptations men or devils this captivity they are to lead captive Gal. 5.3 1 Cor. 7.22 Ioh. 8.36 Zach 9.12 that is to make them the redeemed of the Lord and Christ's freemen who were slaves to sin and Satan these are the Prisoners of hope whom they are in Christs name to set free this is all the hurt they may do or intend as Prophets and Ministers to mankinde Lastly 6 Their Triumph They have their triumphs in Christ and rejoycings in the Lord in doing their duty 2 Cor. 2.14 and discharging their consciences by which they may be means to save souls Isa 49.5 which will be their crown and rejoycing at the last day 2 Tim. 4. ◠and if Israel be not gathered yet they shall not lose the reward and crown which is prepared for these spiritual Soldiers Rev. 3.11 who aim only to save not to destroy their Sons Rev. 2.10 fellow-Citizens and brethren in this world and in the Church as men and Christians Nor shall they want their triumphs in Christ 2 Cor. 2.14 nor a triumphant song even the song of Moses at last Rev. 15.3 when Pharoah and all his host the Devil and his iustruments being quite overthrown the Israel of God shall have its full and free deliverance § Thus Christ hath had and ever will have his chariots and horsemen venerable Fathers Bishops and Presbyters under the Gospel as well as these Eliahs and Elishas under the Law Religion now is carried on with less terror and fire indeed than of old but with greater efficacy to save souls As the Sun in one day thaws more ice than thousands of hammars could break in a year the Church is compared to an Army with banners Cant. 6.4 12 and her companies like the chariots of a willing people easie to be Marshalled ordered and disciplined as becometh the people of Christ which will not mutiny against their spiritual guides rulers leaders because this is to rebel against the chief Commander Jesus Christ who like the Sun of righteousness is set upon the Evangelical chariot and drawn by the Quadrigae quaternion of Evangelists as fiery horses all over the world he makes his daily and orderly Ministers as his chariots and horses too sets them on the axis of the Law and Gospel which support the true faith and their authority he adds to them the four wheels of good Learning sober Judgement honest Zeal and potent eloquence into their hearts and hands he puts the reins or bridles of charity and discretion Zack 14.18 upon which is written holiness to the Lord Glory to God on high and good will towards men Thus becoming all things honest and comely to all men speaking a word in due season Ise 5.4 2 Tim. 6.15 and rightly dividing the word of Truth taking care above all that they overthrow not all the honor and credit of their preaching and ministery by evil conversation Ne factis deficientibus verba erubescant lest the solecisme of of their lives make their Doctrine seem but a riddle or an incredible Fable Secondly In the second place 2 The entertainment due to those spiritual Chariots and horsemen If the Prophets of the Lord both legal and Evangelical the Pastors and Teachers the Bishops and Presbyters of the Church are of this use and importance for their ability sufficiency and dexterity and efficacy to the Church of God and specially to the Christian World as the charets and horsmen are in an army being Christs Militia not fleshly and corporeal but spiritual and intellectual an earthly sort of Angels which help the Lord against the mighty and assist men to conquer themselves first who are their own and Gods greatest enemies and then the world and Devil Sure then this holy Army these chariots and horsmen deserve to be esteemed entertained and treated not as the lixae calones the filth and off-scouring of the world and forced to lie among the pots and kitchin-stuff of contemp and poverty but as Mahanaim the host of God and Christ Psal 68.13 Gen. 32.2 listed and employed in his holy war and service and so to be used with love and respect as men worthy of double honor Men will feed their horses grease their chariot wheels and pay their Horsmen well to be sure § I know the Pannick blind and preposterous terrors of vulgar and Plebean minds are prone now to regard one Captain or Colonel yea or one sorry Trooper beyond the best Bishop or ablest Preacher in England Luke 2.4 because as beasts they regard more those that can kill their bodies than such as are means to save their souls This mistake of poor parasticik people is not for want of ignorance and meanness of spirit Whether the spiritual or temporal Militia deserve best of the publique but for want of judgement and conscience gratitude and common civility not considering that both as to private and publick interest of any Church and State as well as of every good Christian that of Tostatus is most true on this place Fides preces Eliae fortiores omnibus curribus toto equitatu Israelis The Israel of God owed more to Eliah's prayers and faith and exemplary zeal than to all the chariots and horses in the Land § Not that I odiously compare or disparage the honest way of a Souldiers employment First in a just and lawfull cause Secondly under a just and lawful command Thirdly when content with their wages and doing violence to none Fourthly when they are modest men not ambitious to turn all right into might and set jus gladii above jus gentis lex terrae Fifthly When in other things they are men that fear God love true Religion encourage Learning and reverence the worthy Ministers Bishops and Pastors of the Church of Christ but when Soldiers grudge at Ministers maintenance and gape to get it when they will needs turn Preachers to put scorns and affronts on Ministers when they think themselves necessary and Ministers superfluous when they urge to have Commanders Councils of War Discipline pay and honor for their Militia and either deny or envy or destroy all these as to the Ministry They must give me leave to magnifie my Office and to tell those of them who understand
there are pious perturbations which are as it were the ecchos of devout souls to the louder sound of Gods voyce vehement yet sanctified passions as of Love Joy Desire and Hope so of Fear and Terror of Admiration and Dejection of Horror and Consternation yea and self-despair as St. 2 Cor. 1.8 Paul says of himself are in some occasions and instances of Providence not only comely but commendable especially in the extraordinary appearances of Gods glory or dispensations of his providence and power So there fell upon Abraham an horror of great darkness at one time in his converse with God Gen. 15.12 So upon Job to the abhorring himself in dust and ashes Iob 42.6 thus Moses exceedingly feared and trembled Heb. 12.21 no less than the whole Congregation of Israel when God gave the Law from Mount Sina thus he broke the Tables which God had given him when he was transported with just indignation against the calvish Idolaters Phineas by a commendable zeal brake the usual bounds of native modesty Numb 25.8 slaying Zimri and Cosbi 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 David greatly feared when God smote Vzzah for his rash touching of the Ark 2 Sam. 6.8 other times he forgot the gravity of Kingly Majesty in an high zeal and holy frolick of dancing before the Ark and the same David more than once roared for the disquietness of his soul Psalm 38.8 We read Ezra tore his own hair as a distracted man Ezra 9.3 and Nehemiah the hair of others Neh. 13.12 out of a pious impatience to see the deformity of Religion unreformed Gen. 27.38 yea Esau himself though a man of a curst and fierce spirit yet cried out with a very loud and bitter cry when he was supplanted of his Fathers primogenite blessing A Stoical restiveness doth not become the Saints and Servants of God Iob 4.14 Eliphaz expresseth well the terror he had when a spirit from God passed before his face Fear came upon me and trembling which made all my bones to shake Steteruntque comae vox faucibus haesit the hair of his flesh stood up Iudg. 13.20 22. Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground and cryed they should surely dye because they had seen the Angel of God doing wonderfully by fire Holy men highly beloved of God Dan. 8.17 27. Dan. 10.8 17 as Daniel grew pale dispirited and half dead in some of their visions Good Josiah rent his cloaths when he heard the book of the Law written 2 Kings 22.11 and the terrors of God there set forth against a sinful people § Of holy Quakers God calls sometimes not only to fasting and mourning but to fear and trembling There are some holy Quakers not such as affect to act a part like the old Sybils in their frantick correptions and Diabolical possessions to amuse the vulgar to no purpose as to any holy motions or improvements of their own or others souls and lives but humbly to conform themselves to that posture gesture passion and perturbation which the hand of God upon them doth really rationally and religiously require § Christs holy passions and extasies Yea we finde the Son of God our Saviour Jesus Christ who enjoyed the greatest serenity and exactest harmony of body and minde did not carry on an Apathy but answered in his temper the stroke and tune of the occasion sometimes he rejoyced in spirit otherwhile he grieved sighed weeped Ioh. 11.38 groaned yea he expressed his just anger and indignation Sometime he was in such holy extasies Mark 3.21 that those about him thought him beside himself Mat. 26.36 In his Agony also he began to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 surrounded with sorrow Mark 14.33 nay 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to be amazed and perplexed with the horror of that cup he was to drink mixed with mans sins and Gods wrath § When God smites it becomes us to feel his strokes and express our sence sullen and stupid souls argue a senseless temper an hard heart and a seared conscience God that hath planted all affections and passions in us knows how to use and improve them as a skilful Lutenist strikes on all strings and at every stop Though our passions are indeed grown wilde and sowr naturally like crab-stocks yet grace can graft fit cyons on every one The holy improvement of our constitutions yea and make use of mens complexions and constitutions to the advantages of his glory So Solomon an amorous Prince when penitent for his extravagancies or possibly before in his best estate is the penman of that holy Song which is a cypher and signifies nothing in the Bible unless we understand the mystical sense of it which is to present Christ the most lovely object and to engage the soul to be passionately enamored of him Cant. 5.8 even to be sick of love impatient of his absence that the froth and folly of our love which perisheth upon perishable objects as fire on straw or stubble may be fixed on that excellency which is eternal and worthy of that affection which is the gold and jewel of our souls most precious and most durable whose satisfactions are our Heaven and happiness Ier. 9.1 as its defeats our hell and misery In like sort Jeremy a man of sorrows naturally sad weeping and melancholy fits the sad times he lived to see with a most pathetick Lamentation Psal 88 so Hemans Psalmody is still to a doleful ditty and tune as sorting with the sense and experiments of his dark spirit and sad constitution § Gods choice of fit instruments God not only useth but chuseth instruments fit for his work especially when they are to work things out of the fire and are to contest with hard mettals Isai 48.4 he makes their foreheads brass and their hands steel he furnisheth them with such high and undaunted spirits as will do his work and sometimes as men they may a little over-do it as Moses did at his smiting the rock So the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Beza and others observe in Luther and Calvin both men of hot quick and cholerick complexions did so far adapt them for the rugged business they were to do as good and great men which was to help to cleanse an Augaean Stable to bring the Sun of Christianity back again the degrees by which it was gone down in these Western Churches to releive oppressed Truth and Religion against infinite prejudices and potent oppressions and although in some things they shewed themselves to be but men and needed grains of allowance as did Sampson yet their adversaries found them such Gyants as brake the gates and carried away the bars and posts of great Babylon beyond their recruiting or recovering to this day though all power and policy have been used The great impression then which Elisha found and expressed by this his crying out is not only justifiable
than others according as they were settled by civil compacts and politick agreements or constitutions of State where the Laws of the Land give any stop restraint or limit to Princes power and proceedings by putting some co-ordinate and cautionary power into some orderly way and legal procedure whereby to vindicate or assert the rights of Subjects there he judged the great Arbitrator of just and unjust lawful and unlawful was the Law of the Nation as Mans and Gods Ordinance which who so brake Prince or People was a transgressor against God and Man who so pursued was unblameable in which case the Lawyer was to go before and the Divine to follow as to resolution of conscience § But for Subjects who were once by publick consent of Laws and many oaths bound to the limits and inclosures of obedience and legal subjection for these to affect a liberty under pretence of Religion as Christians or of any common priciples and natural freedoms as men beyond the established rules and boundaries of the Laws this he thought such a fanatick fetch as would undo and overthrow all Government for where is there any Christian State so setled in which some men will not quarrel with the Laws as too strait-laced for their either spiritual or natural liberties their consciences or conveniencies that is for their lusts and licenciousness their ambition or covetousness or their revenge and discontents § People ungoverned their own greatest oppressors He found by reading and experience that no Tyrannies and Oppressions of any lawful Prince were ever so heavy upon any Nation as when it turns its own Tyrant and fals under a popular self-oppression by inordinate and immoderate affectations of liberty and oppositions to legal and setled Soveraignty as was evident in the passionate Apostacy of the Ten Tribes from Davids house pretending Solomons exactions when it is better to be oppressed by one wise Prince than to be left to popular liberties which ruine Church and State § He judged as one true God is beyond ten thousand Idols so was one Lawful Soveraign with a wise Council and a settled Law beyond all the many headed and many handed Hydra's of any popular parity or other forms of Government whatsoever § For he had observed that warlike and populous Nations are much more crushed and bruised with their own weight like heavy bodies when they fall from an higher station or posture then when they are only bastonadoed with a cudgel or not mortally wounded with a sword which blows have as far less pain and expence of blood or spirits so greater possibility and speed of recovery § Though he was a very learned and well-read Schollar yet he had not studied Marianas or other Jesuitish Catechisms as to those reserves in point of civil subjection and obedience by which they allow either one great Pope or many little ones to dominier over Soveraign Princes or chief Magistrates upon any account of Christs Kingdom and spiritual power § He was more versed in the Bible of the Bishops translation than in any Papal glosses or others Annotations § However being a Father of the Church he thought it became him to be a very dutiful and obedient Son to the King as Father of his Country in England who was under God Grandfather of Church and State by a Law that invested him in a Soveraignty or Monarchy subject to no power on earth § This he judged the safest way as to inward and outward peace in conscience and prudence for men and Christians for Church and State Accordingly when O. P. with some shew of respect to him demanded his judgment in some publick affairs then at a nonplus his Lordship with his wonted gravity and freedom replied My Lord The best counsel I can give you is that of our Saviour Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesars and unto God the things that are Gods with which free answer O. P. rested rather silenced than satisfied When he had accepted to be a Bishop I think he had sinned if he refused Gods call to that Office and honor being so able so worthy What damps and distances he found from some Ministers after they saw he was an eclipsed Bishop and so willing to have done good as in all times so in such a time as that was the Amphibian Ministers who could live in Presbytery or Episcopacy as their interest led them when they saw the Northern tempest strong the tide to turn and this good Bishop with others not likely to enjoy the estates and honors of their Bishopricks Then O then began some of those Preachers whose Darling Crown and Triumph whose almost adoration and Idol Dr. Brounrig had sometimes been now they began to withdraw from him to keep a loof and at distance to look as strangers on him and to be either afraid or ashamed to appear before him such a reproach and maul his very presence constancy and gravity were to their popular and time-serving inconstancies that many became his enemies because he persevered in the truth they once asserted and had now deserted by the confutation and conversion which tumults and arms had made on their spirits more than any new reasons and arguments § Others were so peevish and spiteful against him not as Dr. Brounrig but as an unfortunate Bishops that to revenge their own sin and folly on their betters they after the Lystrian levity Act. 14.18 19. endeavored to stone him and other Bishops whom they once had reverenced as Gods consenting to and applauding his expulsion out of the House of Lords out of the Colledge and University yea and to his deposition as much as humane power and malice could from his Episcopal Office and Authority which yet he failed not while he lived as he had power and opportunity to discharge § If he had as a Bishop met with better times as to Christianity or worse as to Heathenish barbarity so as to have shined fully and steadily in one of those golden Candlesticks of the Church for which he was fitted I make no doubt but the most benign influence of so able so affable so amiable so consciencious so compleat a Bishop would have wrought as great effects in any Diocess where he lived as Gregorius Thaumaturgus is said to have done in his Scythian Bishoprick where when he came first to them he found but fifteen Christians when he left them he left but so many Heathens or Infidels amonst them Bishop Brounrig was as likely as any man to have been a Thaumaturgus to have wrought miracles in this age if they had been so just moderate and wise as to have made use of his oracular wisdom in grand and publick concerns or to have trusted to the counsels of such Schollars as much as of Soldiers § His publick prudential ability Possibly other men and Bishops might have as much learning but few that ever I knew had his incomparable clearness candor solidness sweetness dexterity eloquence and great
frowned on sin and smiled on goodness § This affliction only that noble Society had that having tasted a little of that Manna and honey 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 some seven or eight times they were not permitted longer to enjoy the full and durable blessings of so sweet so plenteous and so heavenly repast In which he so dispenced his divine store and provision as St. John wrote to youngmen and Fathers to children and old men in his first Epistle so this Apostolick Bishop and Preacher at one Sermon both pleased the young Gentlemen and profited the Antients teaching the first there to know their duty and the second to do it preparing the one to live holily the other to dye happily § But this rich banquet was not to last long a little of Bishop Brounrig was a great deal for any one congregation to have In Michaelmas Term next following his bodily infirmities began to prevail against the strength and willingness of his mind not permitting him to preach in publick save only on the fifth of November which was his last though he did preach in private almost to all that came to him and were capable of his converse even till he was much spent and weary as I have heard him complain God was pleased to exercise him with bodily pains His bodily paines and infirmities indispositions and distempers sometimes with sharp fits of the stone and hydropick inclinations which made the chariot of his body which was somewhat plethorick and corpulent drive heavily though those fiery horses his fervent spirits were still agile and able But under all these God supported him with his grace and a spirit as always humble devout and pious so for the most part sociable serene and chearful till he had lived to his Sixty seventh year Then with age sickness increased with great failings of spirit The Will he made which gave him the alarms of approaching death but before this while he was yet in competent health of body and serenity of mind he made his Will which bears date as Mr. Thomas Buck his Executor told me two years before his departure A Will much like that of St. Austin or other Primitive Bishops not loaden with great and pompous Legacies of money but rather with testimonies of a pious grateful and charitable soul That little he had of estate was distributed either as tokens of respect love and gratitude to his ancient friends or as agnitions of his nearest deserving kindred and relations or as requitals to a well-deserving Servant or as charitable reliefs to the poor he was pauperior opibus but opulentior moribus as Chysologus speaks of St. Lanrence § If any man quarrel that he gave away no more by Will The reason is he had no more He wanted not a large heart or liberal hand no man was further from covetousness which is never so unseasonable as when a man is dying Nor was he wanting to be his own Executor chusing rather in secret to give much while he lived than to leave more when he died If this be his defect that he gave not great sums as the renowned Bishop Andrews or other Bishops and Clergymen sometime did to pious and charitable uses to Colledges Libraries Hospitals when Bishops and other Churchmen injoyed those rewards and revenues which the piety and Laws of the Nation had proportioned to their places and merit truly it must be imputed to the injuries and privations of the times for no tree would have born more or fairer fruit as in other so in this kind than this fair and fruitful figtree if he had not been blasted not by Christs word as a Bishop or as barren but by the fatal curse of the times No Christian would have done more good works of this nature or more advisedly than this wise and venerable Bishop Si res ampla domi similisque affectibus esset if his estate had been answerable to his mind And yet he had discouragements enough as to such works and charitable donations wherein the Sacrilegious sauciness of some mens spirits who dare make bold to take from God and never ask his leave is such that liberal souls are even nonplust how to place any durable and great charity in so safe a way as the Cormorant and Vulture of avarice or publick necessity and State frugality will not in time seise on it as a prey sic rapitur fisco quod dabatur debetur Christo One would have thought that no times would have made a prey and spoil of those Ecclesiastial revenues which Henry the Eighth's luxury and avaricious prodigality had spared but we see Joel 1.4 the catterpillar will devour what the canker-worm and locust and palmer-worm have left The pious improvement of his interals of health In all his vacancies from pains and bodily infirmities he was frequent in preaching in celebrating and receiving the holy Sacrament of the Lords Supper in his private retirements much in reading cheifly the Scriptures of later years in meditating and in prayer besides his social joyning with others in family duties in which as he willingly and devoutly used the Liturgy of the Church so far as it was fitted to publick and private necessities so he either added of his own or admitted from others those pious and prudent prayers which more nearly suited with the private devotions and condition of those that were present § His willingness to dy in these distracted times He had more frequent infirmities as gentle Monitors a little before his death of which he would speak to my self and others in a kind of familiar sort as one that by dying daily was well acquainted with death He would say That it was a very cheap time now to die there being so little temptation to desire life and so many to welcome death since he had lived to see no King in the State no Bishop in the Church no Peer in Parliament no Judge in the Land yea and no Parliament in any freedom honor power or being worthy that name Omnia miles all power was contracted to the pummel of their sword or the barrel of their guns the Soldier was all in all in that black interregnum or horrid 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which had neither form nor power of any legal government in England in that dark day departed this great light All Church and State being reduced to military arbitration and presumption he saw nothing remained of order or honor love or Law Reason and Religion in any publick and social correspondency yea new feuds and quarrels like boils from unsound bodies were daily breaking out and continuing the fires of civil Wars like those of hell and Tophet to be everlasting and unquenchable There being no thought of the way of peace but to avoid it § This made him willingly gird as St. Peter did his coat to him that he might be ready to lanch into that dead sea when Christ should bid him come to him He only hoped