§ 10. After ten or twelve years most prosperous attendance on his ministry in Rowly, some unhappy griefs befel him, which were thus occa sioned. It was thought pity, that so great an ability as that wherewith Mr. Rogers was talented, should be confined unto so small an auditory as that whereto his Lord's day labours were confined; and he was perswaded therefore to set up a lecture, once in a fortnight, whereto the inhabitants of other towns resorted with no small satisfaction. A most excellent young man was, upon this increase of his labours, obtained for his assistant: but through the devices of Satan there was raised a jealousy in the hearts of many among the people, that their old pastor was not real and forward enough in prosecuting the settlement of that assistant; and this jealousy broke forth into almost unaccountable dissatisfactions between him and them; which, though they were afterwards cured, yet the cure was in some regards too palliative. § 11. The rest of this good man's time in the world was winter; he saw more nights than days, and in vicissitudes of affliction, "the clouds returning after the rain." He buried his first wife, and all the children he had by that wife. He then married a virgin daughter of the wellknown Mr. John Wilson, in hopes of issue by her; but God also took her away, with the child she had conceived by him. After this, he married once more a person in years agreeable to him; but that very night a fire burnt his dwelling-house to the ground, with all the goods that he had under his roof. Having rebuilt his house, he received a fall from his horse, which gave to his right arm such a bruise, as made it ever after useless unto him; upon which account he was now put upon learning to write with his left hand. -Pollebat mira Dexteritate tamen.+— Thus having done the will of God, he was put upon further trial of his patience! But there was this comfortable in his trial, that the good spirit of God enabled him to bear his crosses cheerfully, and rejoice in his tribulations. § 12. The natural constitution of his body was but feeble and crazy: nevertheless, by a prudent attendance to the rules of health, his life was lengthened out considerably: but at last a lingring sickness ended his days, January 23, 1660, in the seventieth year of his age. His books wherewith he had recruited his library, after the fire, which consumed the good library that he had brought out of England, he bestowed upon Harvard College. His lands, the greatest part of them, with his house, he gave to the town and church of Rowly. § 13. Because it will give some illustration unto our church-history, as well as notably describe the excellent and exemplary spirit of this good * Nevertheless, he used his fingers with marvellous dexterity. 413 man, and it hath been sometimes noted, Optima Historia, est Historia Epistolaris,* I will here insert one of his letters, written (with his left hand) unto a worthy minister in Charlestown, the 6th of the 12th month, 1657: DEAR BROTHER: Though I have now done my errand in the other paper, yet methinks I am not satisfied to leave you so suddenly, so barely. Let us hear from you, I pray you; how you do. Doth your ministry go on comfortably? find you fruit of your labours? are new converts brought in? Do your children and family grow more godly? I find greatest trouble and grief about the rising generation. Young people are little stirred here; but they strengthen one another in evil, by example, by counsel. Much ado I have with my own family; hard to get a servant that is glad of catechising, or family-duties: I had a rare blessing of servants in Yorkshire; and those that I brought over were a blessing: but the young brood doth much afflict me. Even the children of the godly here, and elsewhere, make a woful proof. So that, I tremble to think, what will become of this glorious work that we have begun, when the ancient shall be gathered unto their fathers. I fear grace and blessing will die with them, if the Lord do not also show more signs of displeasure, even in our days. We grow worldly every where; methinks I see little godliness, but all in a hurry about the world; every one for himself, little care of public or common good. "It hath been God's way, not to send sweeping judgments, when the chief magistrates are godly and grow more so. I beseech all the Bay-ministers to call earnestly upon magistrates (that are often among them) tell them that their godliness will be our protection: if they fail, I shall fear some sweeping judgment shortly. The clouds seem to be gathering. "I am hastning home, and grow very asthmatical, and short-breathed. Oh! that I might see some signs of good to the generations following, to send me away rejoicing! Thus I could weary you and my self, and my left hand; but I break off suddenly. O, good brother, I thank God, I am near home; and you too are not far. Oh, the weight of glory that is ready waiting for us, God's poor exiles! We shall sit next to the martyrs and confessors. O, the embraces wherewith Christ will embrace us! Cheer up your spirits in the thoughts thereof; and let us be zealous for our God and Christ, and make a conclusion. Now the Lord bring us well through our poor pilgrimage. "Your affectionate brother, EPITAPH. A resurrection to Immortality is here expected, EZEKIEL ROGERS, Put off, January 23, 1660. When preachers die, what rules the pulpit gave "Ez. ROGERS." The faith and life, which your dead pastor taught Abi, Viator. A Mortuo disce Vivere ut Moriturus; CHAPTER XIV. EULOGIUS:* THE LIFE OF MR. NATHANAEL ROGERS. In JESU mea Vita meo, mea Clausula Vite Est, et in hoc JESU Vita perennis erit.† § 1. It is a reflection, carrying in it somewhat of curiosity, that as in the Old Testament, God saw the first sinners under a tree, so in the New Testament, Christ saw one of the first believers under a tree, with a particular observation. The sinner hid himself among the trees of the garden, assisted with fig-leaves, but it was a false covert and shelter whereto he trusted; the Most High discovered him. The believer also hid himself under a fig-tree, where, nevertheless, the shady leaves hindred not our Lord from seeing of him. The sinner, when he was discovered, expressed his fear, saying, "I heard thy voice, and I was afraid." The believer seen by our Lord, expressed his faith, saying, "Master, thou art the Son of God." The name of this believer was Nathanael. At the beginning of the law under the Old Testament, you have nature in an Adam under a tree; at the beginning of the gospel, under the New Testament, you have grace under a tree in a Nathanael. Truly, at the beginning of New-England, also, among the first believers that formed a church for our God in the country, there was a famous Nathanael, who retired into these American woods, that he might serve the King of Israel: this was our Nathanael Rogers. One of the first English arch-bishops assumed the name of Deus dedit, and the historian says, he answered the name that he assumed. Our Nathanael was not in the rank of arch-bishops; but as was his name, A Gift of God, so was he! § 2. Cornelius Tacitus, who is by the great Budæus called, "the wickedest of all writers," reports of the Jews, that they adored an ass's head; because by a direction from a company of asses, errorem sitimque depulerant; and this report, received by him from a railing Egyptian, became so received, that no defence against it would be allowed. That excellent company of divines which led the people of God unto the sweet waters of his institutions, in the wilderness of New-England, whereinto they were driven, have been esteemed no better than a company of asses, by the Romishly affected writers of this age. But those heads which are justly admired (though not adored) among that people, had more of angels than of asses in them: the English nation had few better Christians than most, and it had not many better scholars than some who then retired into these ends of the earth. Now, among all those great men who submitted themselves unto all the littleness of a wilderness, there is a very high rank to be assigned unto one, who is now to be described. The Panegyrist. + God's light. + In Christ my life and end of life shall be, They had ended their wanderings, and quenched their thirst. He was the second son of that famous man, Mr. John Rogers of Dedham; and born while his father was minister of Haveril, about the year 1598. He was educated at the grammar school in Dedham, till he was near fourteen years old, and then he was admitted into Emanuel College in Cambridge. There he became a remarkable and incomparable proficient in all academick learning; but some circumstances of his father would not permit him to wait for preferments, after he was become capable of employments in other places. His usual manner there, was to be an early and exact student; by which means he was quickly laid in with a good stock of learning; but unto all his other learning, there was that glory added, the fear of God, for the crown of all; the principles whereof were instilled into his young soul with the counsels of his pious mother, while he yet sat on her knees, as well as his holy father, when he came to riper years. From his very childhood he was exemplary for the success which God gave unto the cares of his parents, to principle him with such things, as rendred him. "wise unto salvation." § 3. Having from his youth been used unto the most religious exercises, not only social, but also secret, nevertheless the hurries of avocation carried him abroad one morning before he had attended his usual devotions in his retirements; but his horse happening to stumble in a plain road, it gave him a bruising, bloody, dangerous fall; which awakened him so to consider of his omission in the morning, that for the rest of his life, he was wondrous careful to omit nothing of his daily duties: wherein at length he so abounded, that as Carthusian speaks, Dulcissimo Deo totus immergi cupis et inviscerari.* § 4. Though he were of a pleasant and cheerful behaviour, yet he was therewithal sometimes inclined unto melancholy; which was attended with, and perhaps productive of, some dejections in his own mind, about his interest in the favour of God. Whence, even after he had been a preacher of some standing, he had sometimes very sore despondencies and objections in his own soul, about the evidences of his own regeneration; he would conclude that no grace of God had ever been wrought in him. Whereupon a minister, that was his near friend, gave him once that advice, "To let all go for lost, and begin again upon a new foundation;" but upon his recollecting himself, he found that he could not forego, he might not renounce all his former blessed experience. And so his doubts expired. 5. The first specimen that he gave of his ministerial abilities, was as a chaplain in the house of a person of quality; whence, after a year or two thus fledged, he adventured a flight unto a great congregation at Bocking, in Essex, under Dr. Barkham; not without the wonder of many, how the son of the most noted Puritan in England should come to be employed under an Episcopal Doctor, so gracious with Bishop Laud; but this Dr. Barkham was a good preacher himself, and he was also willing to • Thou desirest to be wholly bathed and incorporated in thy beloved Lord. gratifie his parishioners, who were many of them religiously disposed: hence, though the Doctor would not spare a tenth-part of his revenues, which, from his divers livings, amounted unto near a thousand a year, to one who did above three-quarters of his work, yet he was otherwise very courteous and civil to our Mr. Rogers, whom his parishioners handsomely maintained out of their own purses, and shewed what a room he had in their hearts by their doing so. § 6. All this while, Mr. Rogers had, like his father, applied his thoughts only to the main points of "repentance from dead works," and "faith towards God;" and he had never yet looked into the controverted points of discipline. Indeed, the disposition of his famous father towards those things, I am willing to relate on this occasion; and I will relate it in his own words, which I will faithfully transcribe, from a MS. of his now in my hands: "If ever I come into trouble [he writes] for want of conformity, I resolve with my self, by God's assistance, to come away with a clear conscience, and yield to nothing in present until I have prayed and fasted, and conferred: and though the liberty of my ministry be precious, yet buy it not with a guilty conscience. I am somewhat troubled sometimes at my subscription, but I saw sundry men of good gifts, and good hearts, as I thought, that did so. And I could not prove that there was any thing contrary to the word of God; though I misliked them much, and I knew them 'unprofitable burthens to the Church of God.' But if I be urged unto the use of them, I am rather resolved never to yield thereto. They are to me very irksome things; yet seeing I was not able to prove them flatly unlawful, or contrary to God's word, I therefore thought better to save my liberty with subscribing, (seeing I did it not against my conscience,) than to lose it, for not yielding so far. Yet this was some small trouble to me, that I did it, when I was in,no special peril of any present trouble; which yet I thought I were as good do of my self, as when I should be urged to it. But, it may be, I might not have been urged of a long time, or not at all; but might have escaped by friends and money, as before; which yet I feared; but it was my weakness, as I now conceive it; which I beseech God to pardon unto me. Written 1627. This I smarted for 1631. If I had read this, it may be, I had not done what I did." Reader, in this one passage thou hast a large history of the thoughts, and fears, and cares, with which the Puritans of those times were exercised. But Mr. Hooker, now lecturer at Chelmsford, understanding that this young preacher was the son of a father whom he most highly respected, he communicated unto him the grounds of his own dissatisfaction at the ceremonies then imposed. Quickly after this, the Doctor of Bocking being present at the funeral of some eminent person there, he observed that Mr. Rogers forbore to put on the surplice, in the exercise of his ministry on that occasion; which inspired him with as much disgust against his curate, as his curate had against the surplice it self. Whereupon, though the Doctor were so much a gentleman as to put no publick affront upon Mr. Rogers, yet he gave him his private advice to provide for himself in some other place. § 7. See the providence of our Lord! about that very time, Assington, in Suffolk, being void by the death of the former incumbent, the patron |