gave the church no less than four sons to be worthy ministers of the gospel. Such was the felicity of our Mather. Many years before he died, he had the comfort of seeing four sons that were preachers of no mean consideration among the people of God; it was counted the singular happiness of the great Roman Metellus, that he expired in the arms of his four sons, who were all of them eminent persons; as happy was our Mather; and, in a Christian account, much more happy. And since his death, our common Lord has been served by Mr. Samuel Mather, pastor of a church in Dublin; Mr. Nathanael Mather, pastor after him of the same church, but, before that, of Barnstable, and then of Rotterdam, and since that of a church in London; Mr. Eleazer Mather, pastor of a church at our Northampton; and Mr. Increase Mather, teacher of a church in Boston, and president of Harvard Colledge. Now, because this mighty man, and the youngest but one of these "arrows in his hand," were not only "lovely and useful in their lives," but also "in their deaths not divided," (for he died about three months after his father,) it will be pity to divide them, in the history of their lives; and therefore of this Mr. Eleazer Mather we will here subjoin some small account. § 19. Mr. Eleazer Mather, (born May 13, 1637,) having passed through his education in Harvard-Colledge, and having by the living and lively proofs of a renewed heart, as well as a well-instructed head, recommended himself unto the service of the churches, the church of Northampton became the happy owner of his talents. Here he laboured for eleven years in the vineyard of our Lord; and then the twelve hours of his day's labour did expire, not without the deepest lamentations of all the churches, as well as his own; then sitting along the river of Connecticut. As he was a very zealous preacher, and accordingly saw many seals of his ministry, so he was a very pious walker; and as he drew towards the end of his days, he grew so remarkably ripe for heaven, in an holy, watchful, fruitful disposition, that many observing persons did prognosticate his being not far from his end. He kept a diary of his experiences; wherein the last words that ever he wrote were these: “JULY 10, 1669.—THIS evening, if my heart deceive me not, I had some sweet workings of soul after God in Christ, according to the terms of the covenant of grace. The general and indefinite expression of the promise, was an encouragement unto me to look unto Christ, that he would do that for me which he has promised to do for some, nor dare I exclude my self; but if the Lord will help me, I desire to lie at his feet, and accept of grace in his own way, and with his own time, through his power enabling of me. Though I am dead, without strength, help or hope in my self, yet the Lord requireth nothing at my hands in my own strength; but that by his power I should look to him, 'to work all his works in me and for me.' When I find a dead heart, the thoughts of this are exceeding sweet and reviving, being full of grace, and discovering the very heart and love of Jesus." He died July 24, 1669, aged years about thirty-two. Sic Rosa, sic Viola, prima Moriuntur in Herba, § 20. The dying words of his father unto his brother, about the rising generation, caused him, in the few Sabbaths now left before his own death, to preach several sermons upon the methods that should be taken for the conveying and securing of religion, with the good presence of God unto that generation [on 1 Kings viii. 57]. The notes which he left written. of those pungent sermons were afterwards printed, and reprinted, with a preface of his brother's: and when unto the other signs of churches left by God, therein mentioned-namely, the people's being abandoned unto a flighty spirit; and an ill use made of temporal prosperity; a spirit of division and contention, turning religion it self into faction; the efficacious and victorious operations of the Holy Spirit, withdrawn from ordinances -he added, the death of such men as are chief means of continuing the presence of God unto a people, he therein gave unto us too true an interpretation of the sad providence which was just going by death to remove him from this people unto a better world. RICHARDUS hic dormit MATHERUS Lætatus Genuisse Pares. EPITAPHIUM. Incertum est, Utrum Doctior, an Melior. But that nothing may be wanting to his epitaph, I will transcribe the epitaph which the Reverend old Mr. John Bishop, the pastor of Stamford, provided for him: In Pium, Doctum, et Præclarum, Dorcestrensem Matherum.‡ Sincerus Terris, noster jacet ecce MATHERUS; Nam Doctus, Prudens, Pius, Impiger, atque peritus, So dies the early violet and the rose; So lilies wither ere the evening's close. + Here sleeps Richard Mather, whose fortune it was to have children equal to their sire. It is questionable in which he was superior-learning or virtue. His genius and his fame cannot be buried. To the Pious, Learned and Renowned MATHER, of Dorchester. Here lies great MATHER, who so nobly wore Prudent, efficient, bent on human weal, In thoughts like these my spirit seeks relief, CHAPTER XXI. THE LIFE OF MR. ZACHARIAH SYMMES. § 1. THE Emperour Probus having an honour for the memory of his friend Aradion, honoured him with a tomb two hundred foot broad. But our value for the memory of the divines that formerly served our churches, must not be measured by the breadth of our history concerning them. We cannot give much breadth to the room which we dedicate in this our history unto the memory of our Symmes, because we have not received very large informations concerning him. Nevertheless, according to the French proverb, Un ministre ne doit Scavoir que sa Bible—“ A minister should know nothing but his Bible"-here was one worthy the name of a minister; for he knew his Bible well, and he was a preacher of what he knew, and a sufferer for what he preached. § 2. Reader, we shall not confound ourselves with fables and endless. genealogies, but we shall truly edify our selves, if we enquire so far into the genealogy of Mr. Zachariah Symmes, as to recite a passage written by Mr. William Symmes, the father of our Zachariah, in a book which was made by a godly preacher, that was hid in the house of Mr. William Symmes, the father of William, from the rage of the Marian persecution: "I note it as a special mercy of God, (writes he, in a leaf of that book) that both my father and mother were favourers of the Gospel, and hated idolatry, under Queen Mary's persecution. I came to this book by this means: going to Sandwich in Kent to preach, the first or second year after I was ordained minister, Anno 1587 or 88, and preaching in Saint Mary's, where Mr. Pawson, an ancient godly preacher, was minister, who knew my parents well, and me too at school; he, after I had finished my sermons, came and brought me this book for a present, acquainting me with the above-mentioned circumstances. And then he adds, I charge my sons Zachariah and William, before Him that shall judge the quick and the dead, that you never defile your selves with any idolatry or superstition whatsoever, but learn your religion out of God's holy word, and worship God as he him self hath prescribed, and not after the devices and traditions of men.-SCRIPSI, Dec. 6, 1602." §3. Descended from such ancestors, our Zachariah was born April 5, 1599, at Canterbury, and the savoury expressions in the letters yet extant, which he wrote while he was a youth in the university of Cambridge, intimate that he was new-born while yet a child. After his leaving the university, he was employed for a while in the houses of several persons of quality as a tutor to their children, but not without molestation from the Prelates for his conscientious non-conformity to certain rites in the worship of God, then imposed on the consciences of the faithful. When he had passed through these changes, he was chosen in the year 1621, to be a lecturer at Atholines, in the city of London: and after many troubles from the Bishops-Courts, for his dissent from things, whereto his consent had never been required by the great "Shepherd and Bishop of our souls," he removed from thence in the year 1625 to Dunstable, where his troubles from the Bishops-Courts continuing, he at length transported himself with his family into an American wilderness. NewEngland, and Charles-town in New-England, enjoyed him all the rest of his days, even until February 4, 1670; when he retired into a better world. § 4. His epitaph at Charles-town, where he was honourably interred, mentions his having lived forty-nine years and seven months with his vertuous consort, by whom he had thirteen children, five sons and eight daughters, and annexes this distich: A prophet lies under this stone: His words shall live, though he be gone. But as that eminent person ordered this clause for his own epitaph, instead of other glories and memoirs which used to adorn a monument, "Here lies the friend of Sir Philip Sidney," thus the epitaph of this eminent person might have mentioned one thing more, which might have gone in the room of many other testimonies to the ability, and integrity, and zeal, that signalized him: "Here lies the friend of Mr. Jeremiah Burroughs.' For we have still to show the letters which that great man sent unto our Symmes, after his coming to New-England; letters wherein he compares the love between them, unto that between David and Jonathan: as having been a sort of sworn brothers to each other ever since their living together at the University. CHAPTER XXII. THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN ALLIN. -Sequitur quem Vita perennis; Vivus enim Semper, qui bene vixit, erit.* § 1. WHY is the dead relation of father Abraham called "his dead," no less than eight several times in one short chapter? It seems, though death has dissolved our old relation to our dead friends, yet it has not released us from all our duty to them; they are still so far ours, that we owe something unto their memory. Reader, we are entertaining ourselves with our dead; but if we do nothing to keep alive their memory with us, we may blush to call them ours. Among these, one is Mr. John Allin. But if there were such an officer in use among us, as once was among the Greeks, to measure the monuments of dead persons according to their vertues, he would greatly com • God for his portion endless life shall give, | For he who hath lived well, shall always live. plain of it, that I have been able to recover no more memoirs of a person whose vertues and merits were far from the smallest size among those who "did worthily in Israel." § 2. He was born in the year 1596. Having passed his cursus, in the tongues and arts, until he was, as Theodorit says of Innocent, Αγχίνοια και συνέσει κοσμημένος-Ingenii et prudentia ornamentis egregiè Instructus:* he became a faithful preacher of Christ, choosing rather to dig in that rock of Zion than in a rock of diamonds. It is an ancient observation, that there were three things done by the Holy Spirit of God on and for the prophets which were employed in publick service for him: one was to give them courage against the rage of adversaries. Another was, to give them wisdom for to regulate their conduct. A third was, to give them vertue and holiness, that their own consciences might not sting them, when they were to bestow aculeate rebukes upon the vices of other men. This observation, which is as useful as ancient, was made by them that considered those words of the prophet Micah: "I am full of (1) power, by the Spirit of the Lord. And of (2) judgment. And of (3) vertue." With all of these excellencies did the Holy Spirit of God, in a gracious measure, adorn our Allin. But when the evil Spirit raised a storm of persecution upon the Puritans, in the English nation, these excellencies could not shelter this worthy man from the injuries of it; but rather exposed him thereunto. Leaving of England, whereof he might have taken that farewel, Non careo Patrià, me caret illa magis,† he chose an American wilderness for his country: and cheerfully conformed his genteel spirit unto the difficulties of such a wilderness: being only of Austin's mind about the banished Christians, Miserrimum esset, si alicubi duci poterant, ubi Deum suum non invenissent.‡ 83. He was a sufficient scholar, and (which is the way to become so) a diligent student; but yet his experimental acquaintance with Christianity taught him to be of the mind which the learned Suarez expressed, when he did use to say, "That he esteemed more that little pittance of time which he constantly set apart every day for the private examination of his own heart, than all the other part of the day which he spent in voluminous controversies." His accomplishments were considerable; and being a very humble man, he found that sanctified knowledge grows most luxuriant in the fat valleys of humility: being a very patient man, he found the dew of Heaven, which falls not in a stormy or cloudy night, was always falling on a soul ever serene, with the meekest patience. He was none of those low-built thatched cottages, that are apt to catch fire: • Fully equipped in the graces of genius and understanding. + I love, but need thee not, sweet native shore; | Thou needest me, and yet shalt need me more. It would be the depth of wretchedness if they could be banished to a place where they could not find their God. |