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and contention, turning religion it self into faction; the efficacious and victorious operations of the Holy Spirit, withdrawn from ordinances —he added, the death of such men as are chief means of continuing the presence of God unto a people, he therein gave unto us too true an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; J. EPISCOPICS. + Here sleeps RICHard Mather, whose fortune it was to have children equal to their sire. It is questionabie 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 prudentic 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.‡ §3. 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. but, like an high-built castle or palace, free from the combustions of pas. sion. He was indeed one of so sweet a temper, that his friends anagrammatised JOHN ALLIN into this: IN HONI ALL. § 4. His polemical abilities were discovered in a treatise called, “A Defence of the Nine Positions," wherein (being of Calvin's mind, “ink is too dear and costly with us, if we doubt to spend ink in writing, to testifie those things which martyrs of old sealed with their blood:") he, with Mr. Shepard of Cambridge, handle the points of church-reformation; at what rate, not my pen, but our famous old Mr. Cotton's in his preface to a book of Mr. Norton's may describe unto us: 66 'Shepardus, una cum Allinio Fratre, (Fratrum dulce par,) uti eximiâ pietate florent ambo, et Eruditione non mediocri, atque etiam Mysteriorum Pietatis pradi. catione (per Christi Gratiam) efficaci admodum, ita egregiam novarunt Operam in abstrusissimis Disciplinæ nodis fœliciter enodandis. Verba horum Fratrum, uti suaviter spirant Pietatem, Veritatem, Charitatem Christi; ita speramus fore (per Christi Gratiam) ut multi, qui a Disciplinâ Christi alienores erant, odore horum unguentorum Christi effusorum delibati atque delincti, ad amorem ejus et pellecti et pertracti, eam avidius arripiunt atque amplexentur."* Moreover, another judicious discourse of his, in defence of the Synod held at Boston, in the year 1662, has declared his principles about churchdiscipline, as well as his abilities to maintain his principles. The person against whom he wrote this defence, was that very person whose life shall be the very next in our history; for, Hi Motus Animorum atque hæc certamina tanta, 5. When the holy church of Dedham was gathered, in the year 1638, he became their pastor; and in the pastoral care of that church he con tinued until August 26, 1671; when, after ten days of easie sickness, he died, as Myconius well expresses it, Vitaliter mori; in the seventy-fifth year of his age. Now, according to that of Jerom, Lacrymæ Auditorum Tuæ sint Laudes; behold, reader, the praises of this excellent man. His flock published the two last sermons that ever he preached; one whereof was on Cant. viii. 5: "Who is this that comes up from the wilderness, leaning on her * SHEPARD, together with his brother ALLIN, (a charming brotherhood,) not only exhibit extraordinary piety and learning, and even efficiency (through the grace of Christ) in preaching the mysteries of godliness, but also have succeeded most happily in elucidating, with true originality, some of the most abstruse questions of Church Government. To such an extent doth the language of these brethren breathe the spirit of piety, truth, and Chris tian charity, that we hope that (through the same grace of Christ) many who are now averse to His discipline, may, when touched and anointed with the true Christian perfumes diffused through these pages, and so allured to the love of Christ, embrace him with the greater eagerness. These heated conflicts, which so fiercely rage, A handful of light dust shall soon assuage.-VIRGIL. Geor. iv. A death most like to life. The tears of thy hearers should be thy praises. |