and much of his vacant hours he employed in history: history, which made good unto him her ancient character:

Omnis nunc nostrà pendet Prudentia Sensu,

Riteque nil, nostra qui caret Arte, sapit.*

History, whose great votary, Polybius, truly asserts, Nulla hominibus facilior ad Vitæ institutionem via est, quam Rerum ante gestarum Cognitio.† And he was no less a man of temper than of learning: the peculiar sweetness and goodness of his temper must be an essential stroke in his character; he was wonderfully happy in his meek, his composed, his peaceable disposi tion: and his meekness of wisdom out-shone all his other attainments in learning; for there is no humane literature so hardly attained, as the discretion of a man to regulate his anger. His very countenance had an amiable smile continually sweetning of it: and his face herein was but the true image of his mind, which, like the upper regions, was marvellously free from the storms of passions.

In prosperity he was not much elated, in adversity he was not much dejected; under provocations he would scorn to be provoked. When the Lord would not express himself unto Elijah in the wind, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire, but in the still voice, I suspect, lest one thing intended among others, might be an admonition unto the prophet himself, to beware of the boisterous, uneven, inflamed efforts, whereto his natural constitution might be ready to betray him.

This worthy man, as taking that admonition, was for doing every thing with a still voice. He knew himself to be born, as all men are, with at least a dozen passions; but being also new born, he did not allow himself to be hagridden with the enchantments thereof. The philosopher of old called our passions by the just name of unnurtured dogs; but these dogs do often worry the children of God themselves; even a great Luther, who removed the foulest abominations out of the house of God, could not hinder these dogs from infecting of his own heart: however, this excellent (because cool, therefore excellent) spirited person, kept these dogs with a strong chain upon them; and since man was created with a dominion over the beasts of the field, he would not let the Onpia rs Luxs ‡ hold him in any slavery. He lived as under the eye and awe of the great God; and, as Basil noted, Potest Miles coram Rege suo non irasci, ob solum Regiæ majes tatis Eminentiam:§ thus the fear of God still restrained him from those ebullitions of wrath which other men are too fearless of. As virulent a pen as ever blotted paper in the English nation, pretends to observe—

"That some men will pray with the ardours of an angel, love God with raptures of joy and delight, be transported with deep and pathetick devotions, talk of nothing but the unspeakable pleasures of communion with the Lord Jesus, be ravished with devout and ⚫ He nothing knows who hath not learned my art, | And he knows all who knows what I impart. + Nothing more facilitates the right ordering of our lives than a knowledge of former events. The wild beasts of the temper.

The soldier must not dare to be angry in presence of his sovereign, out of respect to the royal majesty.

seraphick meditations of heaven, and like the blessed spirits there, seem to relish nothing but spiritual delights and entertainments: who, when they return from their transfiguration to their ordinary converse with men, are churlish as a cynick, passionate as an angry wasp, envious as a studious dunce, and insolent as a female tyrant; proud and haughty in their deportment; peevish, petulant, and self-willed, impatient of contradiction, implacable in their anger, rude and imperious in all their conversation, and made up of nothing but pride, malice, and peevishness."

But if any have ever given occasion for this observation, there was none given by our Whiting, who would have thought himself a fish out of his element, if he had ever been at any time any where but in the Pacifick Sea. And from this account of his temper, I may now venture to proceed unto his vertue; by which I intend the holiness of his renewed heart and life, and the change made by the supernatural grace of Christ upon him, without which all vertue is but a name, a sham, a fiction. He was a very holy man; as the ancients hath assured us, Ama Scientiam Scripturarum et Vitia Carnis non Amabis:* thus by reading daily several chapters in both Testaments of the Scriptures, with serious and gracious reflections thereupon, which he still followed with secret prayers, he grew more holy continually, until, in a flourishing old age, he was found fit for transplantation. His worship in his family was that which argued him a true child of Abraham; and his counsel to his children was grave, watchful, useful, savoury, and very memorable. And if meditation (which was one of Luther's great things to make a divine) be a thing of no little consequence to make a Christian, this must be numbered among the exercises whereby our Whiting became very much improved in Christianity. Meditation (which is Mentis-Ditatio)† daily enriched his mind with the dispositions of Heaven; and having a walk for that purpose in his orchard, some of his flock that saw him constantly taking his turns in that walk, with hand, and eye, and soul, often directed heavenward, would say, "There does our dear pastor walk with God every day."

In fine, as the Apostle Peter says, "They that obey not the word, yet with fear behold the chaste conversation of them who do." And as Ignatius describes the pastor of the Trallians for one "of such a sanctity of life, that the greatest Atheist would have been afraid to have looked upon him:" even so the natural conscience in the worst of men paid an homage of reverence to this holy man where ever he came.

§ 8. Though he spent his time chiefly in his beloved study, yet he would sometimes visit his flock; but in his visit, he made conscience of entertaining his neighbours with no discourse but what should be grave, and wise, and profitable; as knowing that, Quae sunt in Ore Populi Nugice, sunt in Ore Pastoris Blasphemiæ. And sometimes an occasional word let fall by him, hath had a notable effect: once particularly, in a journey, being at an inn upon the road, he over-heard certain people in the next room so merry as

* Love the study of the Scriptures, and you will spurn the lusts of the flesh. + The enriching of the mind. What are mere idle words in the mouths of common people, become blasphemies when uttered by a minister.

to be too loud and rude in their mirth; wherefore, as he passed by the door, he looked in upon them, and with a sweet majesty, only dropt those words: "Friends, if you are sure that your sins are pardoned, you may be wisely merry." And these words not only stilled all their noise for the present, but also had a great effect afterwards upon some of the company. Indeed, his conversation preached where-ever he was; as being sensible of the Jewish proverb, Propheta qui transgreditur Prophetiam suam propriam Mors ejus est in Manibus Dei:* but in the pulpit he laboured especially to approve himself a preacher. In his preaching, his design was Prodesse magis quam placeret and his practice was, Non alta sed apta proferre.‡ But what a proper and useful speaker he was, we may gather from what we find him when a writer.

There are especially two books wherein we have him yet living among In the fate and fire of Sodom, there was a notable type of the conflagration that will arrest this polluted world at the day of judgment: and the famous prayer of Abraham (who, as R. Bechai imagines, had some hope when he deprecated that ruine for the sake of ten righteous ones, that Lot and his wife, and the four daughters which tradition hath assigned him, and his four sons-in-law, would have made up the number) on that occasion, is indeed a very rich portion of Scripture. Now, our Whiting published a volume of sermons upon that prayer of Abraham; wherein he does raise, confirm, and apply thirty-two doctrines, which he offered unto the publick (as he says in his preface) "as the words of a dying man;" hoping that, as Constantine the Great would stoop so low as to kiss Paphnutius' maimed eye, so the Lord Jesus Christ would condescend to put marks of his favour on (that which he humbly calls) "a maimed work." But that which encouraged him unto this publication, was the acceptance which had, before this, been found by another treatise of hist upon the day of judgment it self. In the fifty-eight chapter of Isaiah, the Lord promises a time of wondrous light and joy unto his restored people, and the consolations of a lasting sabbatism: things to be accomplished at the second coming of our Lord. Now, to prepare for that blessedness, those very things be required which our Lord Jesus Christ afterwards mentioned, in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew, as the qualifications of those whom he will admit into his blessed kingdom. There seems, at least, a little reason for it, that at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the first things will be a glorious translation, wherein the members of Christian churches will be called before him, and be examined, in order to the determination of their state under the New Jerusalem that is to follow: either to take their part in the glories of that city and kingdom for the thousand years to come, and by consequence what ensues thereupon, or to be exiled into the confusions of them that

* The doom of the prophet who is false to his own prophecy is in the hands of God. + Rather to profit than to please.

To promulgate, not high things, but fit things.

are to be without. Now, though 'tis possible that whole discourse of our Lord may nextly refer to no more than this transaction, yet inasmuch as the generality of interpreters have carried it unto the more general and ultimate proceedings of the last judgment, our Whiting did so too; and he has given us forty-two doctrines thereupon, so handled as to suit the edification of all readers. The notes are short, and but the concise heads of what the author prepared for his weekly exercises; nevertheless, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Mitchel observe in their preface thereunto: That the reader, by having "much in a little room," is the better furnished with variety of matter, worthy of meditation, for want of which many a man does digest little of what he reads. They say, "It is a good saying of one, 'that the reading of many diverse heads, without some interlaced meditation, is like eating of marrow without bread.' But he that shall take time to pause upon what he reads (where great truths are but in few words hinted at) with intermixed meditations and ejaculations, suitable to the matter in hand, will find such truths concisely delivered, to be like marrow and fatness, whereof a little does go far, and feed much." But a little poetry must now wait upon the memory of this worthy man:

UPON THE VERY REVEREND SAMUEL WHITING.

MOUNT, Fame, the glorious chariot of the sun;
Through the world's cirque, all you, her heralds, run:
And let this great saint's merits be reveal'd,
Which, during life, he studiously concealed.
Cite all the Levites, fetch the sons of art,
In these our dolours to sustain a part.
Warn all that value worth, and every one
Within their eyes to bring an Helicon.
For in this single person we have lost
More riches, than an India has engrost.

When Wilson, that plerophory of love,
Did from our banks, up to his center move,
Rare Whiting quotes Columbus on this coast,
Producing gems, of which a King might boast.
More splendid far than ever Aaron wore,
Within his breast, this sacred Father bore.
Sound doctrine Urim, in his holy cell,
And all perfections Thummim there did dwell,
His holy vesture was his innocence,
His speech, embroideries of curious sence.
Such awful gravity this doctor us'd,

As if an angel every word infus'd.
No turgent stile, but Asiatic store;
Conduits were almost full, seldom run o'er
The banks of Time: come visit when you will,
The streams of nectar were descending still:
Much like Septemfluous Nilus, rising so,

He watered Christians round, and made them grow.
His modest whispers could the conscience reach,
As well as whirlwinds, which some others preach;
No Boanerges, yet could touch the heart,
And clench his doctrine by the meekest art.

His learning and his language, might become

A province not inferiour to Rome.

Glorious was Europe's heaven when such as these,
Stars of his size, shone in each diocess.

Who writ'st the fathers' lives, either make room,

Or with his name begin your second tome.
Ag'd Polycarp, deep Origen, and such

Whose worth your quills—your wits not them, enrich;
Lactantius, Cyprian, Basil too the great,

Quaint Jerom, Austin of the foremost seat,
With Ambrose, and more of the highest class,

In CHRIST's great school, with honour, I let pass;
And humbly pay my debt to Whiting's ghost,
Of whom both Englands, may with reason boast.
Nations for men of lesser worth have strove,
To have the fame, and, in transports of love,
Built temples, or fix'd statues of pure gold,
And their vast worth to after-ages told.
His modesty forbad so fair a tomb,
Who in ten thousand hearts obtain'd a room.

Much more their presence, and heaven-piercing prayers,
Thus many years to mind our soul-affairs.

A poorest soil oft has the richest mine;

This weighty oar, poor Lyn, was lately thine.

O wondrous mercy! but this glorious light

Hath left thee in the terrours of the night.
New-England, didst thou know this mighty one,
His weight and worth, thou’dst think thyself undone:
One of thy golden chariots, which, among
The clergy, rendered thee a thousand strong:
One who, for learning, wisdom, grace, and years,
Among the Levites hath not many peers:

One, yet with God a kind of heavenly band,
Who did whole regiments of woes withstand:
One that prevailed with Heaven; one greatly mist
On earth; he gain'd of Christ whate'er he list:
One of a world; who was both born and bred
At Wisdom's feet, hard by the Fountain's head.
The loss of such an one, would fetch a tear
From Niobe her self, if she were here.

What qualifies our grief, centers in this,
Be our loss near so great, the gain is his.
B. THOMPSON.

We will now leave him, with such a distich as Wigandus provided for his own

EPITAPH.

In Christo Vixi, Morior, Vivoque WHITINGUS;

Do Sordes Morti, cætera, Christe, Tibi.*

CHAPTER XXIX.

THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN SHERMAN.

Vetustas judicavit Honestum, ut Mortui Laudarentur.-THUCID.†

§ 1. THAT great Athanasius, whom some of the ancients justly called Propugnaculum Veritatis‡ others Lumen Ecclesiæ,§ others, Orbis Oraculum,|| is in the funeral oration of Gregory Nazianzen on him so set forth: "To commend Athanasius, is to praise vertue it self." My pen is now falling upon the memory of a person whom, if I should not commend unto the church of God, I should refuse to praise vertue it self, with learning, wisdom, and all the qualities that would render any person amiable. I shall proceed then with the endeavour of my pen, to immortalize his memory, that the signification of the name Athanasius may belong unto him, as much as the grace for which that great man was exemplary.

§ 2. Mr. John Sherman was born of godly and worthy parents, December 26, 1613, in the town of Dedham, in the county of Essex. While he was yet a child, the instruction of his parents, joined with the ministry of the famous Rogers, produced in him that "early remembrance of his Creator," which more than a little encouraged them to pursue and expect the good effects of the dedication which they had made of him unto the service of the Lord Jesus Christ in the work of the gospel. His education at school was under a learned master, who so much admired his youthful piety, industry, and ingenuity, that he never bestowed any chastisement upon him; except once for his giving the heads of sermons to his

* In Christ I lived and died, and yet do live: To earth my dust, to Christ the rest I give.
The ancients esteemed it to be an honourable duty to praise the dead.
The Light of the Church.

The bulwark of truth.

| The World's Oracle.