study preach over the whole body of divinity methodically, (even in the Amesian method,) which would acquaint them with all the more intelligible and agreeable texts of Scripture, and prepare them for a further acquaintance with the more difficult, and furnish them with abilities to preach on whole chapters, and all occasional subjects, which by the providence of God they might be directed unto.

Many volumes of the sermons preached by him were since printed; and this account is to be given of them:

While he was fellow of Emanuel-College, he entertained a special inclination to those principles of divinity which concerned the application of redemption; and that which eminently fitted him for the handling of those principles was, that he had been from his youth trained up in the experience of those humiliations and consolations, and sacred communions, which belong to the new creature, and he had most critically compared his own experience with the accounts which the quick and powerful word of God gives of those glorious things. Accordingly, he preached first more briefly on these points, while he was a catechist in Emanuel-College, in a more scholastick way; which was most agreeable to his present station; and the notes of what he then delivered were so esteemed, that many copies thereof were transcribed and preserved. Afterwards he preached more largely on those points, in a more popular way, at Chelmsford, the product of which were those books of preparation for Christ, contrition, humiliation, vocation, union with Christ, and communion, and the rest, which go under his name; for many wrote after him in short-hand; and some were so bold as to publish many of them without his consent or knowledge; whereby his notions came to be deformedly misrepresented in multitudes of passages; among which I will suppose that crude passage which Mr. Giles Firmin, in his "Real Christian," so well confutes, "That if the soul be rightly humbled, it is content to bear the state of damnation." But when he came to New-England, many of his church, which had been his old Essex hearers, desired him once more to go over the points of God's regenerating works upon the soul of his elect; until, at last, their desires prevailed with him to resume that pleasant subject. The subject hereby came to have a third concoction in the head and heart of one as able to digest it as most men living in the world; and it was his design to perfect with his own hand his composures for the press, and thereby vindicate both author and matter from the wrongs done to both, by surreptitious editions heretofore. He did not live to finish what he intended; yet a worthy minister, namely, Mr. John Higginson, one richly able himself to have been an author of a not unlike matter, transcribed from his manuscripts near two hundred of these excellent sermons, which were sent over into England, that they might be published; but, by what means I know not, scarce half of them have seen the light unto this day. However, 'tis possible the valuableness of those that are published, may at some

time or other awaken some enquiries after the unknown hands wherein the rest are as yet concealed.

§ 24. But this was not all the service which the pen of Mr. Hooker did for the church of God! It was his opinion that there were two great reserves of enquiry for this age of the world; the first, wherein the spiritual rule of our Lord's kingdom does consist, and after what manner it is internally revealed, managed and maintained in the souls of his people? The second, after what order the government of our Lord's kingdom is to be externally managed and maintained in his churches? Accordingly, having done his part for delivering the former subject from pharisaical for mality, on the one hand, and from familistical enthusiasm on the other, he was, by the solicitous importunity of his friends, prevailed withal to compose a treatise on the other subject also. Upon this occasion, he wrote his excellent book, which is entituled, "A Survey of Church Discipline;" wherein having, in the name of the other ministers in the country, as well as his own, professed his concurrence with holy and learned Mr. Ruther ford, as to the number and nature of church-officers; the right of people to call their own officers; the unfitness of scandalous persons to be members of a visible church; the unwarrantableness of separation from churches for certain defective circumstances; the lawfulness, yea, needfulness of a consociation among churches; and calling in the help of such consociations, upon emerging difficulties; and the power of such consociations to proceed against a particular church, pertinaciously offending with a sentence of non-communion; he then proceeds to consider, a church congregational compleatly constituted with all its officers, having full power in its self to exercise all church discipline, in all the censures thereof; and the interest which the consent of the people is to have in the exercise of this discipline. The first fair and full copy of this book was drowned in its passage to England, with many serious and eminent Christians, which were then buried by shipwrack in the ocean: for which cause there was another copy sent afterwards, which, through the pre-mature death of the author, was not so perfect as the former; but it was a reflection which Dr. Goodwin made upon it, "The destiny which hath attended this book, hath visited my thoughts with an apprehension of something like omen to the cause it self: that after the overwhelming of it with a flood of obloquies, and disadvan tages and misrepresentations, and injurious oppressions cast out after it, it might in the time, which God alone hath put in his own power, be again emergent." He adds, "I have looked for this; that this truth, and all that should be said of it, was ordained as Christ, of whom every truth is a ray, to be as a seed corn, which, unless it fall to the ground and die, and this perhaps together with some of the persons that profess it, it brings yet forth much fruit." However, the ingenious Mr. Stone, who was col league to Mr. Hooker, accompanied this book with a little epigram, whereof these were the concluding disticks:

If any to this platform can reply
With better reason, let this volume die;

But better arguments, if none can give,
Then THOMAS HOOKER's policy shall live.

§ 25. In his administration of church discipline there were several things as imitable as observable. As he was an hearty friend unto the consociation of churches-and hence all the time that he lived, the pastors of the neighbouring churches held their frequent meetings for mutual consultation in things of common concernment—so, in his own particular church, he was very careful to have every thing done with a Christian moderation and unanimity. Wherefore he would have nothing publickly propounded unto the brethren of the church, but what had been first privately prepared by the elders; and if he feared the happening of any debate, his way aforehand was, to visit some of the more noted and leading brethren, and having engaged them to second what he should move. unto the church, he rarely missed of a full concurrence: to which purpose he would say, "The elders must have a church in a church, if they would preserve the peace of the church:" and he would say, "The debating matters of difference, first before the whole body of the church, will doubtless break any church in pieces, and deliver it up unto loathsome contempt." But if any difficult or divided agitation was raised in the church, about any matter offered, he would ever put a stop to that publick agitation, by delaying the vote until another meeting; before which time, he would ordinarily, by private conferences, gain over such as were unsatisfied. As for the admission of communicants unto the Lord's table, he kept the examination of them unto the elders of the church, as properly belonging unto their work and charge; and with his elders he would order them. to make before the whole church a profession of a repenting faith, as they were able or willing to do it. Some, that could unto edification do it, he put upon thus relating the manner of their conversion to God; but usually they only answered unto certain probatory questions which were tendered them; and so after their names had been for a few weeks before signified unto the congregation, to learn whether any objection or exception could be made against them, of any thing scandalous in their conversations, now consenting unto the covenant, they were admitted into the church communion. As for ecclesiastical censures, he was very watchful to prevent all procedures unto them, as far as was consistent with the rules of our Lord; for which cause (except in grosser abominations) when offences happened, he did his utmost that the notice thereof might be extended no further than it was when they first were laid before him; and having reconciled the offenders with sensible and convenient acknowledgements of their miscarriages, he would let the notice thereof be confined unto such as were aforehand therewith acquainted; and hence there was but one person admonished in, and but one person excommunicated from, the church of Hartford, in all the fourteen years that Mr. Hooker lived there. He was much troubled at the too frequent censures in some

other churches; and he would say, "Church censures are things wherewith neither we nor our fathers have been acquainted in the practice of them; and therefore the utmost circumspection is needful, that we do not spoil the ordinances of God by our management thereof." In this point he was like Beza, who defended the ordinance of excommunication against Erastus; and yet he, with his colleagues, were so cautelous in the use of it, that in eleven years there was but one excommunication passed in all Geneva. § 26. He would say, "that he should esteem it a favour from God, if he might live no longer than he should be able to hold up lively in the work of his place; and that when the time of his departure should come, God would shorten the time;" and he had his desire. Some of his most observant hearers observed an astonishing sort of a cloud in his congregation, the last Lord's day of his publick ministry, when he also administred the Lord's supper among them; and a most unaccountable heaviness and sleepiness, even in the most watchful Christians of the place, not unlike the drowsiness of the disciples when our Lord was going to die; for which one of the elders publickly rebuked them. When those devout people afterwards perceived that this was the last sermon and sacrament wherein they were to have the presence of the pastor with them, 'tis inexpressible how much they bewailed their unattentiveness unto his farewel dispensations; and some of them could enjoy no peace in their own souls until they had obtained leave of the elders to confess before the whole congre gation with many tears, that inadvertency. But as for Mr. Hooker himself, an epidemical sickness, which had proved mortal to many, though at first small or no danger appeared in it, arrested him. In the time of his sickness he did not say much to the standers-by; but being asked that he would utter his apprehensions about some important things, especially about the state of New-England, he answered, "I have not that work now to do; I have already declared the counsel of the Lord:" and when one that stood weeping by the bed-side said unto him, "Sir, you are going to receive the reward of all your labours," he replied, "Brother, I am going to receive mercy!" At last he closed his own eyes with his own hands, and gently stroaking his own forehead, with a smile in his countenance, he gave a little groan, and so expired his blessed soul into the arms of his fellow-servants, the holy angels, on July 7, 1647. In which last hours, the glorious peace of soul, which he had enjoyed without any interruption for near thirty years together, so gloriously accompanied him, that a worthy spectator, then writing to Mr. Cotton a relation thereof, made this reflection, "Truly, sir, the sight of his death will make me have more pleasant thoughts of death, than ever I yet had in my life!"

§ 27. Thus lived and thus died one of the first three. He, of whom the great Mr. Cotton gave this character, that he did, Agmen ducere et domi nari in Concionibus, gratia Spiritus Sancti et virtute plenis:* and that he

Led the Christian band and ruled in the assembly, by the grace of the Holy Spirit and the abundance of his virtues.

was, Vir Solertis et Acerrimi judicii;* and at length he uttered his lamentations in a funeral elegy, whereof some lines were these:

'Twas of Geneva's heroes said with wonder,
(Those worthies three) FAREL was wont to thunder,
VIRET like rain on tender grass to show'r,
But CALVIN lively oracles to pour.

All these in HOOKER's spirit did remain,
A son of Thunder and a show'r of rain;
A pourer forth of lively oracles,
In saving soul, the sum of miracles.

This was he of whom his pupil, Mr. Ash, gives this testimony: "For his great abilities and glorious services, both in this and in the other England, he deserves a place in the first rank of them whose lives are of late recorded." And this was he of whom his reverend contemporary, Mr. Ezekiel Rogers, tendered this for an epitaph; in every line whereof methinks the writer deserves a reward equal to what Virgil had, when for every line, referring to Marcellus in the end of his sixth Eneid, he received a sum not much less than eighty pounds in money, or as ample a requital as Cardinal Richlieu gave to a poet, when he bestowed upon him two thousand sequins for a witty conceit in one verse of but seven words, upon his coat of arms:

America, although she do not boast

Of all the gold and silver from that coast,
Lent to her sister Europe's need or pride;
(For that repaid her, with much gain beside,

In one rich pearl, which Heaven did thence afford,
As pious Herbert gave his honest word ;)
Yet thinks, she in the catalogue may come
With Europe, Africk, Asia, for one tomb.

But as Ambrose could say concerning Theodosius, Non Totus recessit; reliquit nobis Liberos, in quibus eum debemus agnoscere, et in quibus eum Cernimus et Tenemus; thus we have to this day among us, our dead Hooker yet living in his worthy son, Mr. Samuel Hooker, an able, faithful, useful minister, at Farmington, in the colony of Connecticut.

EPITAPHIUM.

THOMAS HOOKER.

Heu! Pietas; Heu! prisca Fides.

Or, for a more extended epitaph, we may take the abridgement of his Life, as offered in some lines of Mr. Elijah Corlet that memorable old school-master in Cambridge, from whose education our colledge and country has received so many of its worthy men, that he is himself worthy to have his name celebrated in no less a paragraph of our church history, than that wherein I may introduce him, endeavouring to celebrate the name of our great Hooker, unto this purpose:

Si mea cum vestris valuissent vota, Nov-Angli,
Hookerus Tardo viserat Astra Gradu.
Te, Reverende Senez, Sic to dileximus omnes,
Ipsa Invisa forent ut tibi Jura poli.
Morte Tua Infandum Cogor Renovare dolorem,
Quippe Tua videat Terra Nov-Angla suam.

⚫ A man of profound and acute judgment.

Dignus eras, Aquilæ similis, Renordsse Juventam,
Et Fato in Terris Condidiore frui.

Tu Domus Emanuel, Soror Augustissima, Mater
Mille Prophetarum, Tu mihi Testis eris.
Te Testem appello, quondam Chelmsfordia Calis
Proxima; Te præco Sustulit ille Tuus,

He has not altogether departed: he has left us his children, in whom we ought to recognise him, and in whose persons we seem both to see and to possess him.

"Alas! for piety and well-tried faith

Departed."