others, of the Parliament's friends, were preferred | putations every day, in Term-time; themes and

to their places. His thoughts of this in the reflection long after, was, that milder methods might have done better, and would have been a firmer establishment to the new interest; but, considering that many of those who were put out (being in expectation of a sudden change, which came not of many years after) were exasperating in their carriage towards the visitors; and that the Parliament, who at this time rode masters, had many of their own friends ready for University-preferments, (which, Oxford having been from the beginning a garrison for the King, they had been long kept out of,) and these they were concerned to oblige, it was not strange if they took such strict methods. And yet nothing being required but a bare submission, which might be interpreted but as crying quarter, he thought withal, that it could not be said the terms were hard, especially, saith he, if compared with those of another nature imposed since.

Among other student-masters removed, his tutor, Mr. Underwood, was one, which he often bewailed as ill for him, for he was a good scholar, and one that made it his business to look after his pupils, who were very likely, by the blessing of God, to have profited under his conduct. But, upon the removal of Mr. Underwood, he, with some others, was turned over to Mr. Finmore, who was then in with that interest which was uppermost, and was afterwards Prebendary of Chester; a person, as he notes, able enough, but not willing to employ his abilities for the good of those that were committed to his charge; towards whom he had little more than the name of a tutor. This he lamented as his infelicity at his first setting out. But it pleased God to give him an interest in the affections of a young man, an under-graduate then, but two or three years his senior from Westminster, one Mr. Richard Bryan, who took him to be his chamber-fellow, while he continued at Oxford, read to him, overlooked his studies, and directed him in them. Of this gentleman he makes a very honourable mention, as one who was, through God's blessing, an instrument of much good to him. Mr. John Fell, also, the Dean's son, (afterwards himself Dean of Christ-church, and Bishop of Oxford,) taking pity on him, and some others that were neglected, voluntarily read to them for some time; a kindness which he retained a very grateful sense of, and for which he much honoured that learned and worthy person.

verses once a week, and declamations when it came to his turn; in which performances he frequently came off with very great applause. And many of his manuscripts which remain, show how well he improved his time there, [though most of his philosophy collections were casually lost together in a trunk in some remove, which he oft lamented. ']

And yet, in some reflections I find under his hand, written long after, wherein he looks back upon his early days, he chargeth it upon himself, that for a good while after he came to the University, though he was known not to be inferior to any of his standing in public exercises," yet he was too much a stranger to that hard study which afterwards he became acquainted with, and that he lost a deal of time which might have been better improved. Thus he is pleased to accuse himself of that, which, for ought I ever heard, no one else did, or could, accuse him of. But the truth is, in all the secret accounts he kept of himself, he appears to have had a very quick and deep sense of his own failings and infirmities, in the most minute instances; the loss of time, weakness and distractions in holy duties, not improving opportunities of doing good to others, and the like; lamentably bewailing these imperfections, and charging them upon himself, with as great expressions of shame, and sorrow, and self-abhorrence, and crying out as earnestly for pardon and forgiveness in the blood of Jesus, as if he had been the greatest of sinners. ["I was," he writes, " too much in love with recreation; a bowling-green, I remember, out of town, and a metheglin-house, which I often went to in winter for my morning draught, and it was such a draught as disfitted me for study after, though I cannot say I was ever drunk. These things are now bitter to me, and have been formerly, many a time, in the reflection, and here I record them against myself.""] For, though he was a man that walked very closely, yet withal he walked very humbly, with God, and lived a life of repentance and self-denial. This minds me of a sermon of his, which one might discern came from the heart, on that scripture, Rom. vii. 24. O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death! A strange complaint, saith he, to come from the mouth of one who had learned in every state to be content. Had I been to have given my thoughts, said he, concerning Paul, I should have said, O blessed man that thou art, that hast been in the third

Here he duly performed the college-exercises, dis- heaven, a great apostle, a spiritual father to thou

i Mr. Cornish, Mr. Langley, Mr. Rogers, Mr. Button, and Dr. Mills. Also great alterations among the students, and the like, in other colleges. P. Henry. Orig MS.

k See Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy, Part II. p. 110. 1 Life. Orig. MS. ut supra.

m What must needes bee done in colledge-exercise, for disputations every day, in Term-time, for theames and verses once a week, and for declamations, when it came to my turn, I did as

others of my standing, and sometimes had prayse for it. But as for that which wee call hard study, giving myself to reading, late and early, and digesting what I read by daily serious review, I was too much a stranger to it. P. Henry. Orig. MS. See some Remarkable Passages in the Life of the Rev. Mr. Edmund Trench, p. 20. duod. 1693.

n P. Henry. Orig. MS.

sands, &c. and yet a wretched man all this while, | time, as the expression is, Isa. xi. 11. to snatch me in his own account and esteem. He never complains thus of the bonds and afflictions that did abide him, the prisons that were frequent, the stripes above measure; but the body of death; that is, the body of sin, that was it he groaned under. How feelingly did he observe from thence,-That the remainders of indwelling corruption are a very grievous burthen to a gracious soul."

as a brand out of the fire." His recovery from this snare he would call a kind of second conversion; so much was he affected with the preventing grace of God in it, and sensible of a double bond to be for ever thankful, as well as of an engagement to be watchful and humble. It was a saying of his,— He that stumbleth and doth not fall, gets ground by his stumble.P

[Hence he writes, "Forasmuch as I have by often experience found the treachery and deceitfulness of my own heart, and being taught that it is my duty to engage my heart to approach unto God, and that one way of doing it is by subscribing with my hand unto the Lord; therefore let this paper be witness, that I do deliberately, of choice, and unre

myself to him, to be his, to love him, to fear him, to serve and obey him; and, renouncing all my sins with hearty sorrow and detestation, I do cast myself only upon free grace, through the merits of Christ, for pardon and forgiveness; and do propose, God enabling me, from this day forward, more than ever, to exercise myself unto godliness, and to walk in all the ways of religion as much as ever I can with delight and cheerfulness, as knowing that my labour shall not be in vain in the Lord." ]

But to return. It may not be amiss to set down the causes to which he ascribes his loss of time when he came first to the University. One was, that he was young, too young, and understood not the day of his opportunities, which made him afterwards advise his friends not to thrust their children forth too soon from school to the university, though they may seem ripe, in respect of learning, till they have dis-servedly, take God in Christ to be mine; and give cretion to manage themselves. While they are children, what can be expected but that they should mind childish things? Another was, that, coming from Westminster School, his attainments in schoollearning were beyond what generally others had that came from other schools; so that he was tempted to think there was no need for him to study much, because it was so easy to him to keep pace with others; which, he said, was the thing Dr. Caldecott, Chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke, and his great friend, warned him of at his coming to Oxford. Another was, that there were two sorts of persons, his contemporaries; some of the new stamp, that came in by the visitation, and were divers of them serious, pious young men, but of small ability, comparatively, for learning, and those for that reason he desired not to have much fellowship with. But there were others that were of the old spirit and way, enemies to the Parliament, and the reformation they made; and these were the better scholars, but generally not the better men. With them, for a while, he struck in because of their learning, and conversed most with them; but he soon found it a snare to him, and that it took him off from the life of religion and communion with God. Elanguescere mox cepit, saith he, in a Latin narrative of his younger years, pristine pietatis arder, &c. But, “for ever praised be the riches of God's free grace," saith he, in another account, "that he was pleased still to keep his hold of me; and not to let me alone when I was running from him, but set his hand again the second

o See the Works of Bishop Reynolds, fol. 1658. p. 624. and Dr. John Owen's Treatise on In-dwelling Sin, 1668. oct.

p A similar phrase occurs in the writings of Mr. Paul Rayne;"He that stumbles, and comes not down, gets ground: the trippings of God's children, in which they recover themselves, bring them on with greater advantage." Christian Letters, p. 173. duod. 1637. Mr. Bayne died in 1617. See Clark's Lives, annexed to the Martyrologie, p. 22. fol. 1677. Mr. Baxter thought him "one of the holiest, choicest men, that ever England bred." Saints' Everlasting Rest, p. 416. 4to. 1662.

q Palmer's Noncon. Mem, v. 3. p. 490; said to be printed from Mr. Henry's Diary.

C

At the latter end of the year 1648, he had leave given him to make a visit to his father at Whitehall, with whom he staid some time; there he was, January 30, when the King was beheaded, and with a very sad heart saw that tragical blow given. Two things he used to speak of, that he took notice of himself that day, which I know not whether any of the historians mention. One was, that at the instant when the blow was given, there was such a dismal universal groan among the thousands of people that were within sight of it, as it were with one consent, as he never heard before, and desired he might never hear the like again, nor see such a cause for it. The other was, that immediately after the stroke was struck, there was, according to order, one troop marching from Charing-cross towards King-street, and another from King-street towards Charing-cross, purposely to disperse and scatter the people, and to divert the dismal thoughts which they could not but be filled with, by driving them to shift every one for his own safety. He did upon all occasions testify

r At the latter end of the year 1648 I had leave given me to goe to London to see my father; and during my stay there, at that time, at Whitehall, it was, that I saw the beheading of King Charles the First. Hee went by water to Westminster, for hee took barge at Garden-stayres, where wee lived, and once he spake to my father, and sayd,—Art thou alive yet!

On the day of his execution, which was Tuesday, Jan. 30, I stood amongst the crowd in the street, before Whitehall gate, where the scaffold was erected, and saw what was done, but was not so near as to hear any thing. The blow I saw given, and can truly say, with a sad heart. P. Henry. Orig. MS.

See the Bishop of Chichester's Ser. mon before the King, Jan. 30th, 1897, page 25, 29, where he saith could be called a na

he did not see how it

tional sin.

his abhorrence of this unparalleled action, which he | God, what great helps and advantages he had then always said was a thing that could not be justified, in the University, not only for learning, but for and yet he said he saw not how it could be called a religion and piety. Serious godliness was in repunational sin; for, as the King urged upon his trial, it tation, and besides the public opportunities they had, was certain that not one man of ten in the kingdom there were many of the scholars that used to meet did consent to it; nor could it be together for prayer, and Christian conference, to the called the sin of the long Parlia- great confirming of one another's hearts in the fear ment, for far the greatest part of and love of God, and the preparing of them for the them were all that time, while the service of the church in their generation. I have thing was in agitation, imprisoned heard him speak of the prudent method they took and kept under a force, and scarce then about the University sermons on the Lord's day twenty-seven of the forty that were left to carry the in the afternoon; which used to be preached by the name of a Parliament, did give their vote for it; fellows of colleges in their course; but, that being which the Commissioners for the trying of the King's found not so much for edification, Dr. Owen" and Judges, in the year 1660, (some of whom had been | Dr. Goodwin' performed that service alternately, and themselves members of the Long Parliament,) urged the young masters that were wont to preach it, had a again and again, in answer to that plea which the lecture on Tuesday appointed them. The sermons he prisoners stood so much upon, that what they did heard at Oxford he commonly wrote, not in the time was by authority of the Parliament. But it is mani- of hearing, but afterwards, when he came home, in fest it was done by a prevailing party in the army, his reflection upon them, which he found a good help who, as he used to express it, having beaten their to his memory. plowshares into swords, could not so easily beat their swords into plowshares again, as having fought more for victory and dominion than for peace and truth; but how far these men were acted and influenced by another sort of people behind the curtain, the world is not altogether ignorant. For some years after King Charles II. came in, he observed the yearly day of humiliation for this sin, desiring that God would not lay the guilt of blood to the charge of the nation. But, afterwards, finding to what purposes it was generally observed, and improved even to the reproach and condemning not only the innocent, but of some of the excellent ones of the land, and noting that there is no precedent in Scripture of keeping annual days of humiliation for particular sins; especially after the immediate judgment is at an end, Zech. viii. 19. Heb. x. 2, 3. he took no further notice of it. But in his diary he adds this tender remark, according to the spirit he was of, "Yet good men, no doubt, may observe it to the Lord." Rom. xiv. 6. Thus he judged not, and why then should he be judged?

In the year 1650-1 he took his Bachelor of Arts degree, and he hath recorded the goodness of God in raising him up friends, who helped him out in the expenses. Such kindnesses have a peculiar sweetness in them to a good man, who sces and receives them as the kindness of God, and the tokens of his love.

In December, 1652, he proceeded Master of Arts, and in January following preached his first sermon at South Hinksey in Oxfordshire, on John viii. 34. Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin. On this occasion he writes in his diary what was the breathing of his heart towards God,-The Lord make use of me as an instrument of his glory, and his church's good, in this high and holy calling.

His great parts and improvement, notwithstanding his extraordinary modesty and humility, had made him so well known in the University, that in the following act, in July, 1653, he was chosen out of all the masters of that year, to be junior of the act, that is, to answer the philosophy questions in Vesperiis, which he did with very great applause; especially for the very witty and ingenious orations which he made to the University upon that occasion. His questions were,—1. An licitum sit carnibus vesci? Aff. 2. An institutio academiarum sit utilis in republicâ? Aff. 3. An ingenium pendeat ab humoribus corporis? Aff. At the act in 1654, he was chosen Magister Replicans, and answered the philosophy questions in comitiis, with a like applause. His questions then were,-1. An melius sit sperare quam frui? Neg. 2. An maxima animi delectatio sit a sensibus? Neg. 3. An utile sit peregrinari? Aff.

Dr. Owen, who was then Vice-Chancellor, hath spoken with great commendation of thesc performances of Mr. Henry's to some in the University

He would often mention it with thankfulness to afterwards, who never knew him otherwise than by

8 See Dr. Parr's Life of Archbishop Usher, ut supra. Letters at the end, No. 293; and the Abr. of Baxter's Life and Times, v. 1. p. 57, &c. oct. 1713.

1671. Jan. 30. Brings to remembrance the horrid murder of the late King. Deliver the nation from blood-guiltiness, O God! P. Henry. Diary, Orig. MS.

1673. Jan. 30. We remembered this day the death of Charles L

with grief, and prayer,-that God would please to forgive it,-
Exod. xx. 5.-visiting the iniquity. P. Henry. Diary, Orig. MS.
See the life of the Rev. Thomas Cawton, p. 25. duod. 1662; and
Clark's Lives of Eminent Persons, p. 19. fol. 1683.

u Nat. 1616. Ob. Aug. 24, 1683. See his Life by Mr. Orme, ut supra. ▾ Nat. Oct. 5, 1600. Ob. Feb. 23, 1679. Life prefixed to his works, vol. v. fol. 1704.

report; and I have heard a worthy divine who was year of the reign of King William and Queen Mary, somewhat his junior in the University, and there a it was again by act of Parliament separated, and perfect stranger to him, say, how much he admired made independent upon Bangor. That was the only these exercises of his, and loved him for them; and act that passed the royal assent with the act of reyet how much more he admired, when he afterwards cognition, at the beginning of the second parliament became acquainted with him in the country, that so of this reign. The principal family in Worthencurious and polite an orator should become so profit-bury parish, is that of the Pulestons of Emeral. The able and powerful a preacher, and so readily lay aside the enticing words of man's wisdom, which were so easy to him.

There is a copy of Latin verses of his in print, among the poems which the University of Oxford published upon the peace concluded with Holland," in the year 1654, which show him to be no less a poet than an orator.

He hath noted it of some pious young men, that before they removed from the University into the country, they kept a day of fasting and humiliation for the sins they had been guilty of in that place and state. And in the visits he made afterwards to the University, he inserts into his book, as no doubt God did into His,-a tear dropt over my Universitysins. [He would sometimes say, "When we mourn for sin because God is offended by it, and abstain from sin because of his honour, that we may not wrong him, or grieve him, this is more pleasing to him than burnt-offerings and sacrifices."]

CHAPTER III.

HIS REMOVAL TO WORTHENBURY, IN FLINTSHIRE, HIS ORDINA-
TION TO THE MINISTRY, AND HIS EXERCISE OF IT THERE.

WORTHENBURY is a little town by Dee side, in that
Hundred of Flintshire which is separated some
miles from the rest of the county, and known by the
name of English Mailors," because though it is re-
puted in Wales, as pertaining to Flintshire, yet in
language and customs it is wholly English, and lies
mostly between Cheshire and Shropshire. Worth-
enbury was of old a parochial chapel, belonging to
the rectory of Bangor, but was separated from it in
the year 1658, by the trustees for uniting and dividing
of parishes, and was made a parish of itself. But
what was then done being vacated by the King's
coming in, it then came to be in statu quo, and con-
tinued an appurtenant to Bangor, till, in the second

Appendix, No. III.

* May not Sterne have had in view this sentence when he pen. ned the well-known passage,-" The accusing spirit which flew up to heaven's chancery with the oath, blushed as he gave it in; --and the Recording Angel, as he wrote it down, dropped a lear upon the word, and blotted it out for ever." Works, vol. vi. p. 42 duod. 1762.

7 P. Henry. Orig. MS.

a Beneth Bangor, stil on the south side of Dee ryver, is a paroche caullid Worthembre; in Walch, Guothumbre; having a faire chirch, but as a membre to Bangor. Leland's Itinerary, vol. v. p. 30. oct. 1744.

b See Leland, ut supra, v. 5. p. 30.

head of the family was then John Puleston, Serjcant at Law, one of the Judges of the Common Pleas.

This was the family to which Mr. Henry came from Christ-church, presently after he had completed his Master's degree, in 1653. Ordered into that remote, and unto him unknown, corner of the country, by that overruling Providence which determineth the times before appointed, and the bounds of our habitation.

The Judge's lady was a person of more than ordinary parts and wisdom, in piety inferior to few, but in learning superior to most of her sex, which I could give instances of from what I find among Mr. Henry's papers, particularly an elegy she made upon the death of the famous Mr. John Selden, who was her great friend.

e

This was the lady whose agency first brought Mr. Henry into this country. She wrote to a friend of hers, Mr. Francis Palmer, student of Christ-church, to desire him to recommend to her a young man to be in her family, and to take the oversight of her sons, some of whom were now ready for the University, and to preach at Worthenbury on the Lord's days, for which a very honourable encouragement" was promised. Mr. Palmer proposed it to his friend Mr. Henry, who was willing for one half-year to undertake it, provided it might be required of him to preach but once on the Lord's day, and that some other supply might be got for the other part of the day, he being now but twenty-two years of age, and newly entered upon that great work. Provided also, that he should be engaged but for half a year, as little intending to break off so soon from an academical life, which he delighted in so much. But preferring usefulness before his own private satisfaction, he was willing to make trial for a while in the country, as one that sought not his own things, but the things of Jesus Christ, to whose service in the work of the ministry he had entirely devoted himself, bending his studies wholly that way. [One

e See Leland, ut supra, v. 5. p. 30.

d Sir John Trevor, the Speaker, being father-in-law to Sir Roger Puleston, the Patron. Life. Orig. MS. ut supra.

e See Mr. Orme's Life of Dr. Owen. App. p. 511.

f John Selden, Esq. was born Dec. 16, 1584. He died Nov. 30, 1654. Mr. Chalmer's Biog. Dict. v. 27, p. 317.

Probably the same person who contributed a copy of verses when the poems of William Cartwright, "the most noted poet, orator, and philosopher, of his time," were "usher'd into the world," A. D. 1651, oct. See Wood's Ath. Oxon. v. 3. p. 70. ut supra.

h My diet, and sixty pounds per annum salary. P. Henry. Orig. MS.

of the letters which passed on the occasion just referred to, has been preserved. It is introduced from the hand-writing of Lady Puleston, and the orthography correctly transcribed. It illustrates in some measure the nature of Mr. Henry's inquiries, and furnishes a pleasing corroboration of the character | rest. already given of its excellent writer.