but that they are under a very particular obligation to communicate of our spiritual things unto those heathens by whose carnal things they are enriched; and may they therefore make it their study to employ some able and pious ministers, for the instruction of those infidels with whom they have to deal, and honourably support such ministers in that employment! May the poor Greeks, Armenians, Muscovites, and others, in the eastern countries, wearing the name of Christians, that have little preaching and no printing, and few Bibles or good books, now at last be furnished with Bibles, orthodox catechisms, and practical treatises by the charity of England; and may our presses provide good store of good books for them, in their own tongues, to be scattered among them. Who knows what convulsions might be hastened upon the whole Mahometan world by such an extensive charity!

May sufficient numbers of great, wise, rich, learned, and godly men in the three kingdoms, procure well-composed societies, by whose united counsels, the noble design of evangelizing the world may be more effectually carried on: and if some generous persons will of their own accord combine for such consultations, who can tell but, like some other celebrated societies heretofore formed from such small beginnings, they may soon have that countenance of authority which may produce very glorious effects, and give opportunity to gather vast contributions from all well-disposed people, to assist and advance this progress of Christianity. God forbid that Popery should expend upon cheating, more than ten times what we do upon saving the immortal souls of men!

Lastly, may many worthy men, who find their circumstances will allow of it, get the language of some nations that are not yet brought home to God; and wait upon the divine providence for God's leading them to and owning them in their apostolical undertakings. When they remember what Ruffinus relates concerning the conversion of the Iberians, and what Socrates, with other authors, relates concerning the conversion wrought by occasion of Frumentius and Ædesius, in the Inner India, all as it were by accident, surely it will make them try what may be done by design for such things now in our day! Thus, let them see whether while we at home, in the midst of wearisome temptations, are angling with rods, which now and then catch one soul for our Lord, they shall not be fishing with nets, which will bring in many thousands of those, concerning whom with unspeakable joy in the day of the Lord they may say, "Behold, I and the children which God has given me!" Let them see whether, supposing they should prosper no farther than to "preach the gospel of the kingdom in all the world for a witness unto all nations," yet the end which is then to come, will not bring to them the more happy lot wherein they shall stand that are found so doing.

Let no man be discouraged by the difficulties which the devil will be ready to clog such attempts against his kingdom with; for I will take

leave so to translate the words of the wise man, Prov. xxvii. 4: "What is able to stand before zeal?" I am well satisfyed that if men had the wisdom "to discern the signs of the times," they would be all hands at work to spread the name of our Jesus into all the corners of the earth. "Grant it, O my God; and Lord Jesus, come quickly!"

A COPY OF A LETTER FROM THE VERY REVEREND MR. RICHARD BAXTER,

то MR. INCREASE MATHER, THEN IN LONDON.

WRITTEN UPON THE SIGHT OF MR. ELIOT'S LIFE IN A FORMER EDITION.

DEAR BROTHER: I thought I had been near dying at twelve o'clock in bed; but your book revived me: I lay reading it until between one and two. I knew much of Mr. Eliot's opinions, by many letters which I had from him. There was no man on earth whom I honoured above him. It is his evangelical work that is the apostolical succession that I plead for. I am now dying, I hope, as he did. It pleased me to read from him my case, ["my understanding faileth, my memory faileth, my tongue faileth, (and my hand and pen fail) but my charity faileth not."] That word much comforted me. I am as zealous a lover of the NewEngland churches as any man, according to Mr. Noyes', Mr. Norton's, Mr. Mitchel's, and the Synod's model.

"I loved your father, upon the letters I received from him. I love you better for your learning, labours, and peaceable moderation I love your son better than either of you, for the excellent temper that appeareth in his writings. O that godliness and wisdom thus increase in all families! He hath honoured himself half as much as Mr. Eliot: say, but half as much; for deeds excel words. God preserve you and New-England! Pray for

"Your fainting, languishing Friend,

RI. BAXTER."

August 3, 1691,

REMAINS;

OR,

SHORTER ACCOUNTS OF SUNDRY DIVINES,

USEFUL IN THE CHURCHES OF NEW-ENGLAND.

GATHERED BY COTTON MATHER.

THE FOURTH PART.

WHERETO IS MORE LARGELY ADDED,

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF THE REV. MR. JOHN BAILY.

INTRODUCTION.

READER: Peruse, I pray, and ponder these words of the incomparable Turretine: Singularem Dei Gratiam, non possumus, quin Eternis Laudibus, Celebremus, quod Novissimis hisce sæculis, restitutâ Evangelii Luce, tot tantosque Viros, Doc trinâ et Insigni Pietate Præditos, ad Opus Reformationis Inchoandum et Promovendum Vocaverit; qui uberrimâ Rerum Sacrarum Scientiâ imbuli, et Heroico Spiritu donati, tanquam [ ] Viri Prodigi, Tuba Evangelica Sonitu, et Veritatis Divina Fulgore, Tenebras Erroris Crassissimas felicisssime fugarunt, Antichristi Regnum Concusserunt, et Ecclesiam a Multis sæculis misere Captivam, et Tyrannidis Jugo plusquam ferreo tantum non oppressam, è Babylone Mysticâ gloriose Evocarunt.*

Thou art prepared then to proceed in what remains of our History.

Reader, thou knowest the way for a man to become wise, was thus declared by an oracle, Si concolor fieret Mortuis.†

And thou wilt not forget that lesson sometimes given-Since we have lived here, and since we are to die and yet live after death, and others will succeed us when we are dead, we are greatly concerned to send before us a very good treasure, to carry with us a very good conscience, and to leave behind us a very good example."

Behold some of them who did so!

It hath been remarked that when Sarah called her husband Lord, her speech was all an heap of sinful infidelity; there was but one good word in it: yet the spirit of God, long after takes notice of that word. And why should not we then take notice of many a good work, occurring in the lives of those, concerning whom yet we do not pretend or suppose that they lived altogether free from infirmities?—their infirmities were but humanities.

* We cannnot but render tributes of everlasting praises to the special grace of God, in that he has in these last times restored the lights of the gospel, and raised up so many great men, gifted with learning and exalted piety, to commence and carry forward the work of Reformation: men possessed of the richest fund of sacred science, and endued with a heroic spirit-prodigies, as it were, of human greatness-who by sounding the gospel trumpet, and lighting up flashes of divine truth, have successfully dispersed the thickest clouds of error, shaken the kingdom of Anti-Christ, and gloriously led forth the Church, held for many centuries in wretched captivity, and barely saved from being utterly crushed by a more than iron yoke of tyranny, from the mystic Babylon.

To become of one complexion with the dead.

CHAPTER I.

REMAINS OF THE FIRST CLASSIS.

THE surviving friends of the rest, mentioned in the "first catalogue of confessors," by whom the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ was brought into this wilderness, having supplied me with so few and small informations concerning them, that I am of the opinion, Præstat nulla quam Pauca dicere.* Let all their vertues then be galaxied into this one indistinct lustre, they were faithful servants of Christ, and sufferers for their being so.

Nor is it unlikely that there might be some among those good men who yet might be in so little extraordinary, that there might be the same account given of them that there was of a certain Bishop of Rome, in the second century, Nihil præclari de Gubernatione et factis ejus commemorari potest;† and although we New-Englanders do dwell in so cold and so clear an air, that more of the smaller stars may be seen by our considerers than in many other places-yea, and not only the Nebulosat of Cancer it self, but even the lesser stars which compose that cloud, are considered among us—nevertheless, for us to attempt the writing of their lives, would carry too much fondness in it: nor do we forget, that Suum est cuique ordi in vulgus.§

Moreover, there were divers of these worthy men, who, by removing back to England upon the "turn of the times," have almost released us from such a large account of them, as otherwise might have been expected from us; and yet some good account of not a few among them is to be reported. I remember Dr. Patin, in his travels, tells us that in a certain Museum at Vienna, he saw a cherry-stone, on which were engraved above an hundred portraitures, with different ornaments of the head upon them. I must now endeavour a tenth part of an hundred portraitures, with dif ferent ornaments of the mind upon each of them; nevertheless, I am to take up almost as little room as a cherry-stone for them all. Particularly

Mr. RICHARD BLINMAN.-After a faithful discharge of his ministry at Glocester and at New-London, he returned into England; and living to a good old age, he who wherever he came did set himself to do good, concluded his life at the city of Bristol, where one of the last things he did was to defend in print the cause of infant-baptism.

Mr. SAMUEL EATON.-He was the son of Mr. Richard Eaton, the vicar of Great Burdworth in Cheshire, and the brother of Mr. Theophilus Eaton, the renowned Governour of New-Haven. His education was at the University of Oxford; and because it will doubtless recommend him to find

• Nothing remarkable can be related of his administration or life.

+ Nothing worthy of renown can be mentioned concerning his government or conduct. + Cloud.

Every rank has its rabble.

such a pen as that which wrote the Athena Oxonienses* thus characterising of him, reader, thou shalt have the very words of that writer concerning him:

"After he had left the university, he entred into the sacred function, took orders according to the Church of England, and was beneficed in his country: but having been puritanically educated, he did dissent in some particulars thereof. Whereupon, finding his place too warm for him, he revolted, and went into New-England, and preached among the brethren there."

But let us have no more of this Wood! Mr. Eaton was a very holy man, and a person of great learning and judgment, and a most incompar able preacher. But upon his dissent from Mr. Davenport, about the narrow terms and forms of civil government by Mr. Davenport then forced upon that infant-colony, his brother advised him to a removal: and calling at Boston by the way, when he was on his removal, the church there were so highly affected with his labours, thus occasionally enjoyed among them, that they would fain have engaged him unto a settlement in that place. But the Lord Jesus Christ had more service for him in Old-England than he could have done in New; and therefore arriving in England, he became the pastor of a church at Duckenfield, in the parish of Stockfort in Cheshire, and afterwards at Stockport; and a person of eminent note and use, not only in that, but also in the neighbour-county.

After the restoration of K. Charles II., he underwent first silencing, and then much other suffering from the persecution which yet calls for a national repentance. He was the author of many books, and especially some in defence of the Christian faith, about the God-head of Christ against the Socinian blasphemies: and his help was joined unto Mr. Timothy Tailor's, in writing some treatises entituled, "The Congregational Way Justified.” By these he out-lives his death, which fell out at Denton, in the parish of Manchester in Lancashire, (where, says our friend Rabshakeh Wood, "he had sheltered himself among the brethren after his ejection,") on the ninth day of January, 1664, and he was buried in the chapel there.

Mr. WILLIAM HOOK.-This learned, holy, and humble man, was born about 1600, and was for some time a collegue with Mr. Davenport in the pastoral charge of the church at our New-Haven; on the day of his ordination whereto, he humbly chose for his text those words in Judg. vii. 10: "Go thou, with Pharaoh thy servant;" and as humbly raised his doctrine, "That in great services, a little help is better than none," which he gave, as the reason of his own being joined with so considerable a Gideon as Mr. Davenport. After this, returning into England, he was for some while minister at Axmouth in Devonshire, and then master of the Savoy on the Strand, near London, and so chaplain to the greatest man then in the nation. He was the author of divers composures that saw the light: whereof perhaps one of the most memorable is that about "The Priveleges

The Athens of Oxford.