THE PREFACE OF THE EDITOR.

DURING the latter half of the sixteenth century, under the wise but arbitrary civil sway of the Maiden Queen, and the not less arbitrary, but much less wise ecclesiastical rule of Parker, and Grindal, and Whitgift, metropolitans of England, there lived in London a wealthy merchant citizen, Nicolas Culverwel, or, as it is sometimes written, Culverel, who, if we may judge from the history of his family, was, like many of his compeers, a devoted adherent to Puritanism; a circumstance which, when we consider how much that form of religion was discountenanced both by royal and episcopal authority, and how serious were the dangers and sacrifices to which its rich professors were especially exposed, must be allowed to be a presumption, at least, that Nicolas was a sincere, earnest man.1

Two of his daughters were married to distinguished Puritan ministers; one to Dr. Lawrence Chadderton, who was chosen by Sir Walter Mildmay, the founder of Emanuel College, Cambridge, to be the first master of that 1 Clark's Lives at the end of his Martyrology.

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institution, which, under his care, soon took so high a place among its academical sisters. From his modesty, which equalled his learning, Dr. Chadderton was extremely reluctant to accept a situation so high and responsible, and complied only on Sir Walter saying, 'If you will not be the master, sir, I will not be the founder of the college.'1

Another daughter became the wife of a still more celebrated man, Dr. William Whitaker, the nephew of Nowel, Dean of St. Paul's, and, in succession, Regius Professor of Divinity in the University of Cambridge, and Master of St. John's College, in that University, whom Cardinal Bellarmine is said to have pronounced 'the most learned heretic he had ever read;' and of whom Bishop Hall says, 'Who ever saw him without reverence, or heard him without wonder ?'2

A third daughter, the spouse of Mr. Thomas Gouge, a pious gentleman,' was the mother of Dr. William Gouge, for nearly half a century the venerated minister of Blackfriars, in London, author of a Commentary on the Epistle to the Hebrews, in a folio volume of immense size, a member of the Westminster Assembly, and the father of Thomas Gouge, the nonconformist and philanthropist, the memory of whose rare excellence Archbishop Tillotson, so much to his own honour, has embalmed in a funeral sermon, describing him as 'having left far behind him all he ever knew in cheerful, unwearied diligence in acts of pious charity;

Brook's Lives of the Puritans, ii. 446 ; Fuller's Hist. of Cambridge, 147. 2 Churton's Life of Nowel, p. 64; Clark's Ecc. Hist., p. 816, and pp. 15-17; Wood's Ath. Ox., vol. i. p. 303; Leigh on Religion and Learning, p. 363.

having a singular sagacity and prudence in devising the most effectual ways of doing good, and in managing his charity to the best purposes, and to the greatest extent.'1

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Two of his sons, Ezekiel and Samuel, devoted themselves to the Christian ministry. Of Samuel we know nothing, but what Clark tells us, that he was a famous preacher.' Of Ezekiel we know a little more, but still we have but scanty information respecting him. He was educated under the care of his brother-in-law, Dr. Chadderton, at Emanuel's, Cambridge. That College was then commonly called the Puritan College.' It owed its name, it is said, to a remarkable conversation between Queen Elizabeth and its founder. Sir Walter,' said the Queen, with characteristic haughtiness, 'I hear you have erected a Puritan foundation at Cambridge.' 'Madam,' said Sir Walter, 'far be it from me to countenance anything contrary to your Majesty's established laws; but I have set an acorn, which, when it becomes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof.' Its growth was rapid, and its produce rich; for the quaint Fuller says, 'Sure I am, it has overshadowed all the University; more than a moiety of the present masters of colleges having been bred therein.'

After finishing his university studies, Ezekiel became in succession Rector of Stambridge and Vicar of Felsted, in the hundreds of Essex, of which Sympson says, ' In regard of air unhealthful; yet that air was so sweetened with the savoury breath of the Gospel, that they were termed "the holy land."' During his last incumbency, we learn that

1 Middleton's Biog. Evang. iii. 267; Clark's Lives; Tillotson's Sermons, Ser. xxiii.

he was honoured to be the instrument of the conversion of his nephew William Gouge, then at the free school of Felsted; and that, in 1583, he was prosecuted for nonconformity, and suspended for some time, by Bishop Aylmer, for not wearing the surplice.2

Dr. William Gouge, in an address to the Christian reader, prefixed to the seventh edition of the Treatise on Faith, says of his uncle, that 'God sent Ezekiel Culverwel, as of old he sent Ezekiel Buzi, to set forth the promises of God more plentifully and pertinently than ever before; and that to breed faith where it is not, to strengthen it where it is weak, to settle it where it wavereth, to repair it where it decayeth, to apply it aright to every need, to extend it to sanctification as well as to justification, and to point out the singular use of it in matters temporal, spiritual, and eternal.' 'What I say of him, I know of him; for from mine infancy have I known him, and under his ministry was I trained up in my younger years, he being at least two-and-twenty years older than myself.' 'Among other evidences of the power of God's word among them (Mr. Culverwel's people), I will record one, a very remarkable one, and worthy to be had in more frequent use. It was this: In time of great dearth of corn and other food, there was order taken by public authority, that every family should forbear one meal in the week, and upon the Lord's day bring the value of it to the collectors for the poor. This being faithfully performed by them all, therewith they did provide good corn, which cost eighty-nine shillings the bushel, and sold it to the poor at twelvepence the peck, 2 Brook, ut sup.

1 Clark; Middleton, ut sup.

and yet reserved a good stock to set the poor on with.' 'He was many years,' says Dr. Sibbs, 'God's prisoner under the gout and stone; such diseases as will allow but little. liberty to them that are arrested and tortured by them. So fruitful an expense of time in so weak and worn-out a body, is seldom seen. Scarce any one came to him but went away better than they came. God gave him much strength of spirit to uphold his spirit from sinking under the strength of such diseases.'1

The time of his death is not exactly known. His book, entitled A Treatise on Faith, was printed 1623; and he lived to publish a defence of it against the charge of Arminianism, in a small pamphlet, 1626. He was certainly dead when Dr. Sibbs published his Time well spent in Sacred Meditations; Divine Observations and Heavenly Exhortations, 1635; and he must have been an old man when he died, as Dr. Sibbs says of that little book, that it was begun about forty years ago.' His only other writings are entitled, A Ready Way to remember the Scriptures, said by Brook to have been printed 1637; and a small tract of twenty pages, entitled, The Way to a Blessed State in this Life. His Treatise on Faith seems to have been popular, for it reached a seventh edition in 1633. It was highly esteemed by Mr. Robert Blair, who in his memoirs2 says, that 'he was thereby much confirmed,' and is still worthy of perusal. Dr. Sibbs describes him as a man very well experienced in all the ways of God;' and Fuller classes him among the learned writers of Emanuel College,' but 'no fellow.'

1 Dedication of Time Well Spent.

2 Life of Robert Blair. Wodrow Soc., Edinburgh, p. 32.