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For several years he had the greatest cure in England, St. Martin's, which he took care of with an application and diligence beyond any about him; to whom he was an example, or rather a reproach, so few following his example. He was a holy, humble, and patient man, ever ready to do good, when he saw a proper opportu nity even his love of study did not divert him from that. He did, upon his promotion, find a very worthy successor in his cure, Tennison, who carried on and advanced all those good methods that he had begun in the management of that great cure. He endowed schools, set up a public library, and kept many curates to assist him in his indefatigable labours among them. He was a very learned man, and took much pains to state the notions and practices of heathenish idolatry, and so to fasten that charge on the Church of Rome. And, Whitehall lying within that parish, he stood as in the front of the battle all King James's reign; and maintained, as well as managed, that dangerous post with great courage and much judgment, and was held in very high esteem for his whole deportment, which was ever grave and moderate.

These have been the greatest divines we have had these forty years: and may we ever have a succession of such men to fill the room of those who have already gone off the stage; and of those who, being now very old, cannot hold their posts long. Of these I have writ the more fully, because I knew them well, and have lived long in great friendship with them; but most particu larly with Tillotson and Lloyd. And, as I am sensible I owe a great deal of the consideration that has been had for me, to my being known to be their friend, so I have really learned the best part of what I know from them. But I owed

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them much more on the account of those excellent principles and notions, of which they were in a particular manner communicative to me. This set of men contributed, more than can be well imagined, to reform the way of preaching; which, among the divines of England before them, was over-run with pedantry, a great mixture of quotations from fathers and ancient writers, a long opening of a text with a concordance of every word in it, and a giving all the different expositions with the grounds of them, and the entering into some parts of controversy, and all concluding in some, but very short, practical applications, according to the subject or the occasion. This was both long and heavy, when all was piebald, full of many sayings of different languages. The common style of sermons was either very flat and low, or swelled up with rhetoric to a false pitch of a wrong sublime. The King had little or no literature, but true and good sense; and had got a right notion of style; for he was in France at a time when they were much set on reforming their language. It soon appeared that he had a true taste. So this helped to raise the value of these men, when the King approved of the style their discourses generally ran in; which was clear, plain, and short. They gave a short paraphrase of their text, unless where great difficulties required a more copious enlargement. But, even then, they cut off unnecessary shews of learning, and applied themselves to the matter, in which they opened the nature and reasons of things so fully, and with that simplicity, that their hearers felt an instruction of another sort than had been observed commonly before. So they became very much followed and a set of these men brought off the city, in a great measure, from the prejudices they had formerly to the Church

CHARACTER

OF

QUEEN MARY II.

THE Queen continued still to set a great example to the whole nation, which shined in all the parts of it. She used all possible methods. for reforming whatever was amiss: she took laties off from that idleness, which not only wasted their time, but exposed them to many temptations; she engaged many both to read and to work; she wrought many hours a day herself, with her ladies and her maids of honour working about her, while one read to them all: the female part of the court had been, in the former reigns, subject to much censure, and there was great cause for it; but she freed her court so entirely from all suspicion, that there was not so much as a colour for discourses of that sort; she did divide her time so regularly between her closet and business, her work and diversion, that every minute seemed to have its proper employment: she expressed so deep a sense of religion, with so true a regard to it; she had such right principles and just notions; and her deportment was so exact in every part of it, all being natural and unconstrained, and animated with due life and cheerfulness; she considered every thing that was laid before her so carefully, and gave such due encouragement to a freedom of speech; she remembered every thing so exactly, observing at. the same time the closest reservedness, yet with

an open air and frankness; she was so candid in all she said, and cautious in every promise she made; and, notwithstanding her own great capacity, she expressed such a distrust of her own thoughts, and was so entirely resigned to the King's judgment, and so constantly determined by it, that when I laid all these things together, which I had large opportunities to observe, it gave a very pleasant prospect, to balance the melancho ly view, that rose from the ill posture of our affairs, in all other respects. It gave us a very particular joy, when we saw, that the person, whose condition seemed to mark her out as the defender and perfecter of our reformation, was such in all respects in her public administration, as well as in her private deportment, that she seemed well fitted for accomplishing that work, for which we thought she was born; but we soon saw this hopeful view blasted, and our expectations disappointed in the loss of her.

When, in her last illness, the Archbishop was preparing to apprize her of her danger, with some address, not to surprise her too much with Such tidings, she presently apprehended his drift, but shewed no fear nor disorder upon it. She said, she thanked God she had always carried this in her mind, that nothing was to be left to the last hour; she had nothing then to do, but to look up to God, and submit to his will; it went further, indeed, than submission; for she seemed to desire death rather than life; and she continued to the last moment of her life in that calm and resigned state. She had formerly wrote her mind, in many particulars, to the King: and she gave orders to look carefully for a small scrutoire that she made use of, and to deliver it to the King: and having dispatched that, she avoided the 'giving him or herself the tenderness

which a final parting might have raised in them both. She was almost perpetually in prayer: the day before she died, she received the sacrament, all the Bishops who were attending being admitted to receive it with her: we were, God knows, a sorrowful company; for we were losing her who was our chief hope and glory on earth. She followed the whole office, repeating it after the Archbishop: she apprehended, not without some concern, that she should not be able to swallow the bread, yet it went down easily. When this was over, she composed herself solemnly to die; she slumbered sometimes, but said she was not refreshed by it; and said often, that nothing did her good but prayer: she tried once or twice to have said somewhat to the King, but was not able to go through with it. She ordered the Archbishop to be reading to her such passages of scripture, as might fix her attention, and raise her devotion: several cordials were given, but all was ineffectual; she lay silent for some hours; and some words that came from her, shewed her thoughts began to break: In conclusion, she died on the 28th of December, about one in the morning, in the thirty-third year of her age, and in the sixth of her reign.

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