Jesuite in his politicks, "That were all England brought once to approve of bishops, it were easie to reduce it unto the Church of Rome,") he was worsted by such a way of maintaining the argument, as was thought agreeable; that is, by a wound in the side from his furious antagonist; of which wound at last he died. The wife of that gentleman was daughter to the Lord Darcy, who was Earl of Rivers; a person of a Protestant and Puritan religion, though of a Popish family, and one that, after the murder of her former husband, Mr. Launce, had for her second husband the famous Mr. Sympson. But by the daughter of that Mr. Launce, who is yet living among us, Mr. Sherman had no less than twenty children added unto the number of six, which he had before. I remember John Helwigius of late, besides what has been related formerly by other authors, brings undeniable attestations of a married couple, who in one wedlock were parents to fifty-three children, at thirty-five births brought into the world: somewhat short of that, but not short of wonder, is a late instance of one mother that has brought forth no less than thirtynine children, the thirty-fifth of whom was lately discoursed by persons of honour and credit, from whom I had it. Although New-England has no instances of such a Polytokie, yet it has had instances of what has been remarkable: one woman has had not less than twenty-two children: whereof she buried fourteen sons and six daughters. Another woman has had no less than twenty-three children by one husband; whereof nineteen lived unto men's and women's estate. A third was mother to seven-and-twenty children: and she that was mother to Sir William Phips, the late governour of New-England, had no less than twenty-five children besides him; she had one-and-twenty sons and five daughters. Now, into the catalogue of such "fruitful vines by the sides of the house" is this gentlewoman, Mrs. Sherman, to be enumerated. Behold, thus was our Sherman, that eminent fearer of the Lord, blessed of him. § 12. He had the rare felicity to "grow like the lilly," as long as he lived; and enjoy a flourishing and perhaps increasing liveliness of his faculties, until he died. Such keenness of wit, such soundness of judgment, such fulness of matter, and such vigour of language, is rarely seen in old age, as was to be seen in him when he was old. The last sermon which he ever preached was at Sudbury, from Eph. ii. 8, "By grace ye are saved:" wherein he so displayed the riches of the free grace expressed in our salvation, as to fill his hearers with admiration. Being thus at Sudbury, he was taken sick of an intermitting but malignant fever; which yet abated, that he found opportunity to return unto his own house at Water-Town. But his fever then renewing upon him, it prevailed so far that he soon expired his holy soul; which he did with expressions of abundant faith, joy, and resignation, on a Saturday evening, entring on his eternal Sabbath, August 8, 1685, aged seventy-two. EPITAPHIUM. For an epitaph upon this worthy man, I'll presume a little to alter the epitaph by Stenius, bestowed upon Pitiscus Ut Pauli Pietas, sic Euclidea Mathesis, Uno, Shermanni, conditur in Tumulo.* And annex that of Altenburg upon Casius. Qui cursum Astrorum vivens Indagine multâ CHAPTER XXX. EUSEBIUS: THE LIFE OF MR. THOMAS COBBET. Et Eruditis Pietate, et Piis Eruditione antecellens, ità Laudes Secundas Doctrinæ ferens, ut Pietatis primas obtineret.‡- -NAZIANZ. DE BASILIO. § 1. IN the old church of Israel we find a considerable sort and sett of men, that were called, "The scribes of the people:" whose office it was, not only to copy out the Bible, for such as desired a copy thereof, with such exactness that the mysteries occurring, even in the least vowels and accents of it, might not be lost, but also to be the more publick "preachers of the law," and common and constant pulpit-men; taking upon them to be the expounders, as well as the preservers of the Scripture. But one of the principal scribes enjoyed by the people of New-England was Mr. Thomas Cobbet, who wrote more books than the most of the divines, which did their parts to make a Kirjath-Sepher of this wilderness; in every one of which he approved himself one of the scribes mentioned by our Saviour, from his rich treasure bringing forth instructions, both out of the New Testament and out of the Old. § 2. Our Mr. Thomas Cobbet was born at Newbury, long enough before our New-England had a town of that name, or indeed had any such thing as a town at all; namely, in the year 1608. And although his parents, who afterwards came also to New-England, were so destitute of worldly grandure that he might say, as divers of the Jewish Rabbis tell us the words of Gideon may be read, "Behold, my father is poor," yet this their son was greatness enough to render one family memorable. Reader, we are to describe, Ingenua de plebe Virum, sed Vita Fidesque In Sherman's lowly tomb are lain He who, by mortal eyes, afar Traced the bright course of every star, The heart of Paul, and Euclid's brain. He excelled the learned in piety, the pious in learning-accepting the secondary honours of learning to obtain the first in piety. Of humble parents, but in inward faith And remember the words of Seneca, Ex casa etiam Virum magnum prodire posse. When Cicero was jeered for the mean signification of his name, he said, "However, he would not change it, but by his actions render the name of Cicero more illustrious than that of Cato:" and our Cobbet has done enough to make the name of Cobbet venerable in these American parts of the world, whether there were the actions of any ancestors or no to signalize it. A good education having prepared him for it, he became an Oxford scholar, and removing from Oxford in the time of a plague raging there, he did, with other young men, become a pupil to famous Dr. Twiss at Newbury. He was, after this, a preacher at a small place in Lincolnshire; from whence being driven by a storm of persecution upon the reforming and Puritan part of the nation, he came over unto New-England in the same vessel with Mr. Davenport; coming to New-England, his old friend, Mr. Whiting of Lyn, expressed his friendship with endeavours to obtain and to enjoy his assistance, as a collegue in the pastoral charge of the church there; where they continued, Fratrum Dulce Par,t until, upon the removal of Mr. Norton to Boston, and of Mr. Rogers to Heaven, he was translated unto the church of Ipswich; with which he continued in the faithful discharge of his ministry until his reception of the crown of life, at his death, about the beginning of the year 1686. Then 'twas that he was (to speak Jewishly) treasured up. § 3. The witty epigrammatist hath told us, Qui dignos Ipsi Vita scripsere Libellos, Illorum Vitam scribere non Opus est. And we might therefore make the story of this worthy man's life to be but an account of the immortal books wherein he lives after he is dead. What Mr. Cobbet was, the reader may gather by reading a very savoury treatise of his upon the fifth commandment. But that he might serve both tables of the law, he was willing to write something upon the first commandment as well as the fifth; and this he did in a large, nervous, golden discourse of prayer. But that the second commandment, as well as the first, might not be unserved by him, there were divers disciplinary tracts, · which he publickly offered unto the Church of God. He printed upon the duty of the civil magistrate, in the point of Toleration; a point then much debated, and not yet every where decided; whereto he annexed a vindication of the government of New-England from the aspersions of some who thought themselves persecuted under it. He was likewise a learned and a lively defender of infant-baptism, and he gave the world an elaborate composure on that subject, on the occasion • Within a hut a hero may be born. + A charming pair of brothers. When men write living books, my friend and brother, Their life is written, and they need no other. whereof Mr. Cotton, in his incomparable preface to a book of Mr. Norton's, has these passages: "COVETUS cum persentisceret aliquot ex Ovibus Christi sibi commissis, Antipadobaptismi Laqueis atque Dumetis irretitas, Zelo Dei accensus (et Zelo quidem secundum Scientiam) imo, et Miserecordia etiam Christi Commotus, erga Errantes Oviculas; Libros quos potuit, ex Anabaptistarum penu, congessit; Rationum Momenta (Qualia fuerant) in Lance Sanctuarii trutinavit; Testimoniorum Plaustra, quæ ab aliis congesta fuerant, sedulo perquisivit; et pro eo, quo floret, Dispu tandi Acumine, Dijudicandi solertia, solida multa paucis Complectendi Dexteritate atque Indefesso Labore, nihil pæne Intentatum reliquit, quod vel ad Veritatem, in hac Causa Illustrandam, vel ad Errorum Nebulas Discutiendas, atque Dispellendas, conduceret." ** Reader, to receive so much commemoration from so reverend and renowned a pen, is to have one's life sufficiently written: it is needless for me to proceed any further in serving the memory of Mr. Cobbet. § 4. And yet there is one thing which my poor pen may not leave unmentioned. Of all the books written by Mr. Cobbet, none deserves more to be read by the world, or to live till the general burning of the world, than that of prayer: and indeed prayer, the subject so experimentally, and therefore judiciously, therefore profitably, therein handled, was not the least of those things for which Mr. Cobbet was remarkable. He was a very praying man, and his prayers were not more observable throughout NewEngland for the argumentative, the importunate, and, I had almost said, filially familiar strains of them, than for the wonderful successes that attended them. It was a good saying of the ancient, Homine probo Orante nihil potentius, and it was a great saying of the reformer, Est quædam Precum Omnipotentiat. Our Cobbet might certainly make a considerable figure in the catalogue of those eminent saints whose experiences have notably exemplified the power of prayer unto the world. That golden chain, one end whereof is tied unto the tongue of man, the other end unto the ear of God (which is as just, as old, a resembling of prayer) our Cobbet was always pulling at, and he often pulled unto such marvellous purpose, that the neighbours were almost ready to sing of him, as Claudian did upon the prosperous prayers of Theodosius O Nimium Dilecte Deo. § • When COBBET saw that some of his flock, over whom Christ had made him shepherd, caught in the snares and brambles of Anti-pædobaptism, burning with zeal for God (a zeal, too, according to knowledge,) yes, and also with such compassion as Christ felt towards his wandering sheep, collected all the books he could of the Anabaptists-weighed their arguments (such as they were) in the scales of the sanctuary-laboriously groped through the waggon-loads of proof-texts, which they had got together from the writings of others--and, exercising that keenness in debate for which he is distinguished, his profound discrimination, his tact for condensing many weighty thoughts in few words, and unwearied perseverance, left nothing untried, which could conduce either to development of the truth concerning that important theme, or tend to dissipate the mists of error. + Nothing exceeds in power a holy man at prayer. O thou, too much beloved of God. There is a kind of omnipotence in prayer. A son of this "man of prayer" was taken into captivity by the barbarous, treacherous Indian salvages, and a captivity from whence there could be little expectation of redemption: whereupon Mr. Cobbet called about thirty, as many as could suddenly convene, of the Christians in the neighbourhood unto his house; and there they together prayed for the young man's deliverance. The old man's heart was now no more sad; he believed that the God of heaven had accepted of their supplications, and because "he believed, therefore he spake" as much to those that were about him, who, when they heard him speak, did believe so too. Now, within a few days after this the prayers were all answered, in the return of the young man unto his father, with circumstances little short of miracle! But, indeed, the instances of surprising effects following upon the prayers of this gracious man were so many, that I must supersede all relation of them with only noting thus much, that it was generally supposed among the pious people in the land that the enemies of New-England owed the wondrous disasters and confusions that still followed them, as much to the prayers of this true Israelite, as to perhaps any one occasion. Mr. Knox's prayers were sometimes more feared "than an army of ten thousand men;" and Mr. Cobbet's prayers were esteemed of no little significancy to the welfare of the country, which is now therefore bereaved of its chariots and its horsemen. If New-England had its Noah, Daniel, and Job, to pray wonderfully for it, Cobbet was one of them! EPITAPHIUM. STA VIATOR; Thesaurus hic Jacet, CUJUS, Nosti Preces Potentissimas, ac Mores Probatissimos, Mirare, Si Pietatem Colas; Sequere, Si Felicitatem Optes.* CHAPTER XXXI. THE LIFE OF MR. JOHN WARD. § 1. SOME famous persons of old thought it a greater glory to have it enquired, "why such a one had not a statue erected for him?" than to have it enquired, "why he had?" Mr. Nathanael Ward, born at Haverhil, in Essex, about 1570, was bred a scholar, and was first intended and employed for the study of the law. But afterwards travelling with certain merchants into Prussia and Denmark, and having discourse with • Stop, traveller! a treasure lies here, THOMAS COBBET: whose effectual prayers and most exemplary life thou, if thou art a New-Englander, must have known. Admire, if you revere piety: follow, if you long for happiness! |