CHAP. I. The Subject of the Narrative, his Birth, Parentage, Genius for Learning, early Piety, catholic Spirit, Desire to see England, and embarking for it.

DR. BENJAMIN COLMAN, was born in Boston New-England, October 19th 1673, of reputable Parents, being second Son of William and Elizabeth Colman, who came from London and settled there not long before ^†.

He was of a tender Constitution from his Birth, and very backward in his Speech and Reading 'till he arrived [Page 2]to the Age of five Years; when at once he grew for­ward in both, and entred young and small into the Grammar School under the Tuition of the venerable and learned Mr. Ezekiel Cheever. His sprightly Genius and Advances in Learning were soon (with Pleasure) observed by his Preceptor, insomuch that in his first and second Years he was several Times called upon by him to reprove and shame some dull Boys of upper Forms when they grosly failed in their Catechism, and some low Exercises. He was fired with a laudable Ambition of excelling at his Book, and a Fear of being out-done. By his Industry at Home, he always kept foremost, or equal to the best of the Form at School; and a great Advantage he had (which at that Time gave him no little Pain) in the Promptness, Diligence and Brightness of his intimate Companion Prout, who used to spend his Hours out of School generally in Studies with him, the two or three last Years of his Life; and their Preceptor used openly to compare their Exercises, and sometimes declare he knew not which were best, and bid Colman take heed, for the first Time he was out-done Prout should have his Place.—But alas! a violent Fever seiz­ed the lovely, shining, ambitious Boy, and suddenly car­ried him to an higher Form, to the great Grief as well as Hurt of Colman, who was now left without a Rival, and so without a Spur to daily Care and Labour. However, he followed his Studies so well that he was qualified for an Admission into Harvard College in the Year 1688.

His early Peity was equal to his Learning. His pious Mother (as he records it to her eternal Honour) like Lemuel,'s travailed in Pain through his Infancy and Childhood for the New-Birth, and to her Instructions and Corrections added her Commands and Admonitions re­specting every Thing that was religious and holy; and in a particular Manner about the Duty of praying to God in secret, and also caused him and her other Chil­dren to retire and pray together, and for one another on the Lord's Days at Noon.

While a School-Boy for a Course of Years he and some of his Companions, by their own Proposal to each other, under the Encouragement of their Parents, and with the Consent of their Preceptor used to spend a Part of Satur­days in the Afternoon, in Prayer together at the House of Mr. Colman, which continued until their leaving the School and going to College; Mather, Baker, Prout, Pool, Townsend were of this Number; and for the most part behaved decently and seriously in these early Exer­cises of Piety and Devotion.

After his Admission into College he grew in Piety and Learning, and in Favour with God and Man. He performed all his Exercises to good Acceptance, many of them had the Applauses of his learned Tutor, Mr. John Leverett. — He was much animated to the Study of the liberal Sciences, and to make the utmost Improvement in them from the shining Example of the excellent Pemberton who was a Year before him in Stand­ing: To be next to him seems to bound his Ambition until he passed his Degrees ^* of Batchelor and Master of Arts, which he did in the Years 1692 and 95, under the Presidentship of the memorable Dr. Increase Mather. ^†

Mr. Colman had before this Time come into Church-Fellowship with the second Church of Christ in Boston, under the pastoral Care of Dr. Increase and Cotton Mather.

And being devoted to the Work of the evangelical Ministry by his Parents, and inclining to it from his Childhood, diligently applied himself to the Study of Divinity, and began (too soon as he was often pleased to say) to preach in the Year 1693, first privately and then publickly; the Excuse for which was the Decline of [Page 4]his Father's worldly Estate, after the Death of his Mo­ther, whom God took from his Head about three Years after his Admission into the College.

He began his stated preaching at Medford (then a small Village, now a flourishing Town) about four or five Miles from Boston, for half a Year, to the general Accep­tance of the People there, who would have settled him had they been able; and then returned to his Chamber in the College, to perfect his Studies till he took his second Degree; and within three Weeks after he had commenced Master of Arts, he embarked for London in the Heat of King William's War with the French King, having a strong Desire to see England, and make Im­provement by what he could see and learn there.

Just before his Voyage the reverend Ministers of the North-Church in Boston sent him to Newport on Rhode-Island, at the Church's Expence, to preach there a Sab­bath, which was his first publick Appearance and Display of his catholic Temper, Modesty and Constancy, which his Tutors much praised him for on his Return.

The Government there had given the Town-House for the Missionaries from the Bay to preach in; who had us'd it for that Purpose some Months before; but a Mi­nister of the Church of England happen'd to overtake Mr. Colman and Company on the Road, on Saturday in the Afternoon and went into Newport with them.— On the Lord's-Day Moring Notice was brought to him that this Minister had got the Governor's Leave to preach in the Town-House the Forenoon, and that in the After­noon he might take his Turn.— Mr. Colman told the Gentlemen he would go and join with the Minister, and prayed them all to accompany him, that they might dis­appoint the Quakers who officiously and openly played this Gentleman against them, and give them an Example of Charity and Accord in worshipping together, and of Unity in keeping the Sabbath: Which accordingly they did, and dined together at a Gentleman's House, Col. S—d. But when the Minister saw Mr. Colman take out his Bible [Page 5]after Dinner, he civilly told him that he supposed he had no Intention of preaching in the Afternoon, for the Go­vernor had given him the Use of the Town-House for that Day. The Governor was immediately sent to and owned it, saying, That the Gentleman had told him he was the King's Minister &c.—Upon which Col. S—d, Mr. B—y, Mr. C—n &c. told Mr. Colman that he should preach for them at Mr. B—y's House, where they would throw open the Windows about which the People might gather to hear, which was consented to, provided it could be done without Noise or Confusion; which being intimated to the People, the whole Morning Audience in a Manner resorted to the private House in the gravest Manner imaginable, and heard him to their great Satisfaction. An early Instance this of his Piety and Discretion, Charity and Peaceableness, Resolution and Steadiness: and shows the Meaness and Shame of a contrary Temper and Management.—

CHAP. II. A Voyage to England, Dangers and Hardships undergone in it,—taken Pri­soner and carried into France.

IT was after the Twentieth Day of July in the Year 1695 that Mr. Colman imbarked for London (by the Will of God) on board the Ship Swan Capt. Thomas Gilbert Commander—For the whole three first Days he was on Shipboard he endured the Extremity of Sea Sickness, and at times through the Voyage. On the fourth Day the Vessel sprang a Leek, and the Water was heard to pour in on the Star-board Tack, which alarmed the Sail­ors, and made some of them remark his Eveness and Calm­ness when they expected he should have been much af­frighted. When the Winds blew a Storm afterward, he [Page 6]governed his Fears by looking on the Captain, Mate, and Sailors to discover what he saw in their Faces. When they came into the warm Seas, a Dolphin which they had marked with a Scar on his shining Back, kept Company with the Ship for Ten or Twelve Days together, feeding on her Bottom.

At the End of seven Weeks a Seeker made after them, and soon came up with them. She was a Privateer of 20 Guns and an 100 Men, a light and fleet Ship; The Swan was heavy laden, twelve Guns and 24 Men, Sailors and Passengers together. The Swan's Company bore their Broad-sides and Vollies of small Arms six or seven Times that Afternoon, defending themselves and annoying the Enemy; but were taken the next Morning, having their Boltsprit shot away, and the Mast, and Rigging so torn and cut, that the Masts fell all together an Hour after; by which means the Ship became a perfect Wreck, and the Company were much looked at by the French when they came into Port. The French had a great Number of Men killed, for they were so full that if a shot entered it must do Execution.

God graciously preserved Mr. Colman in the Fight, exposed all the while on the Quarter-Deck, where four out of seven were wounded, and one mortally. He was much praised for his Courage when the Fight was over; but though he charged and discharged like the rest, yet he declared he was sensible of no Courage but of a great deal of Fear; and when they had reecived two or three Broadsides he wondered when his Courage would come, as he had heard others talk. In short, he fought like a Philosopher and a Christian. He looked Death in the Face, and prayed all the while he charged and fired, —while the Boat­swain and others made a Frolick and Sport of it.

There was a young Rake, a Passenger on board, that lisped at Atheism, and spit at Religion every Day of the Voyage, who was now in the Terrors of Death,— when he saw Mr. Colman take a Musket, he was ashamed to leave the Deck; but the first Volley of small Arms laid [Page 7]him flat on his Belly without being touched: when the great Guns roared he would have crept through the Boards to hide himself; he lay as one Dead, and let the Men tread on him or kick him as they pleased. At last he peeped up when the firing ceased for a Minute, and asked where they were? Mr. Colman told him they lay by to charge again; and in a Moment he flew down into the Doctor's Room, and was seen no more till the Ship was taken. Yet this Spark when safe in France was ridi­culing Religion again, and scorning the Ministers of it as much as ever.

When the Ship struck the French Boat came on Board, and the Lieutenant took all the Crews Moneys and put them into the Boat. The Sea ran so high that Mr. Col­man was in great Danger of falling beside the Boat, and when he was between the two Ships could see neither, no not a Times the Masts of either. This was a new Scene of Danger to him, but the Approach to the Priva­teer seemed greatest of all. As he got up the Side he found his Hat and Wigg gone; and as he looked over the Side there stood the young Atheist naked on the Deck. —His turn came next; but as they were haling off his Cloaths, he saw a compassionate Man lifting up his Eyes and Hands to Heaven.—He cried to him imme­diately Miserere mei Domine! and he answered him, Are you a Minister? And though he had often intreated the Company not to call him so, he immediately owned him­self; to be one, and down he came to seize him for him­self; But his Shirt was off before he could get down; and he carried him to his Room, and took away Stock­ings, Shoes and Breeches; and told him, that if he left them upon him some body else would presently have them. At last he obtained of him his under Pair of Stockings, by showing him eighteen Pistoles in the Rollers of the Breeches, but as soon as he came on the Deck a Fellow would have the Stockings.

They then dressed him up in a few Rags of the Sai­lors, which so changed him that none of the Ship's Crew [Page 8]knew him, but would turn from him till he spake to them, and then looked at him with Astonishment. The Captain spake English well, to whom he addressed for some Cloathing, but he turned from him with Disdain; and the Priest afterwards told him that he hated him as much.

Providence suffered him to be spoiled of all that he had thought to save in case he were taken, but that which he never meant to save was preserved for him. There was an ingenious French Gentlewoman on Board, Mad. Allaire, with four Children, going to her Husband at London. Mr. Colman's chief Delight in the Voyage was her little Son of two Years old—whom he made to love him for his Cakes and Sweetmeats. Madam Allaire seeing a piece of Gold in his Hand as the Privateers Boat was coming on Board, asked him to let her save it for him, which she did, and it brought him nineteen Pounds at Nants which made him rich; so that what he had no thought of sav­ing was preserved for him, and all that he had projected to save for himself was lost.

He was put down into the Hold of the Ship among his ragged Companions, which was at first grievous to him; but he found afterward the singular Care of Provi­dence in it: for there he was warm, now his Cloaths were taken away; and there he felt no more any Sickness, the Motion of the Ship being nothing sensible there, to affect the Head or Stomach.

He had been in the Hold but half a Day, when Ma­dam Allaire came on Board. The Captain and Officers of the Ship treated her well. She soon enquired after Mr. Colman, and hearing he was in the Hold, she entreated the Captain's Favour to him that he might be with them in the great Cabbin. When he refused that, she asked leave for him to come up and see them. This was granted. But when Madam first saw him at the Door, she shrieked out as if it had been a Ghost, ran to him and wept upon his Neck: and he wept with her. Capt. Gilbert burst out into Tears, and so did Capt. Anderson and his Lieutenant, [Page 9]Passengers. He was naked from his Ears to his Shoul­ders, and Madam covered him with some of her Chil­drens Linnen to keep him warm. He sat an Hour with them, eat and drank and returned comforted to his Hold.

Presently away came a Lieutenant to him, to ask him if Madam were not his Wife? He told him, No! He said he wondered he would [...]eny it, when he saw the Captain treated her so well; [...]nd they all knew that the English Ministers had Wives. He told him if Madam were his Wife he should have no reason but to be proud of her and own her. Why then, said he, did she run to you shrieking, and fall on your Neck? He told him, be­cause she honoured and loved him as a Gentleman and a Minister, and was frighted to see him [...]used so bar­barously.

When Mr. Grant the Mate of the Ship, first saw him put down into the Hold with them, he turned to those that sat nigh him, and said, We shall bury Mr. Colman in three Days Time: But the next Day Mr. Colman seeing that his Presence and Company restrained the Sailors from a necessary Chearfulness in their melancholy Condition; bid them be innocently chearful and divert themselves; upon which Mr. Grant (a very grave, prudent and pious Man, 50 Years old) answered with Joy; What Mr. Colman do you call upon us to be cheerful? What made us sad was to think you would die here of Sorrow: if we do but see you cheerful we shall all be merry.

Among the Plunder Mr. Colman's Bible was found, and the Captain was so civil as to send it to him, with a strict Prohibition of not showing it to any of his Men. This was a singular Favour of God to him, the Ten Days he was with them, and all the Days of his Captivity.—One of the wounded Men was dying in the Hold, and he had leave also to pray with him.

CHAP. III. What he met with in France, his Suffer­ings and Succours, embarking for Portsmouth, Danger of being lost, with other Remarbables occurring be­fore he reached London.

AT length they cast Anchor before Bell Isle, and from thence went up the River, towards the City of Nants. In the Way they were put on Board a great Hulk, but because it was the King's Store-Ship were not permitted to lye so much as under the Quarter Deck; it rained and they threw a Sail over them, and Mr. Colman slept comfortably till the Morning and took no cold.

In the Morning they travelled to Nants.

The Vineyards were very pleasant on the Banks of the River, and the Fruit delicious to him, especially after a tedious sick Voyage. But he could get little of them.

Madam Allaire wrote to her Husband's Mother at Ro­chel, and to her great Surprize down came her Husband himself in a very rich Dress: He had lost all at London and so went over to France, conformed to the Romish Church and so enjoyed his Estate.

Madam understood her Religion very well, and was a confirmed Protestant, and had Popery in infinite Con­tempt and Scorn. Her Grief was unutterable afterward, when she saw her Children in Danger of being Papists, and her Infants baptized in the Romish Way. The Priest teased her continually, and she sent Word to Mr. Colman by Mr. Middlecot, that she would be glad to be a Beggar in England, if Mr. Allaire would have staid there. She nev [...] was easy till she got out of ^† France, into Holland, at the End of fifteen Years.

The first Night in the Jayl was a very shocking Scene to Mr. Colman, but he took a Wisp of Straw like the Rest to lay under his Head, and slept soundly on the Floor till Morning, when the Door was unlocked to let the Prisoners into the Yard. But God gave him and two or three others Favour in the Eyes of the Captain of the Prison, and he allotted them a better Room by them­selves, one Corner of which they filled with Straw and slept there at Ease.

Now he cloathed himself from Head to Foot with about Three Pounds Ten Shillings. His Wigg cost him half a Crown, and the rest was in proportion. But it made him so fine, after what he had worn, that when he came into the Yard thus arrayed, his Company did not know him again till he spake, which made them very merry.

While he was in Jayl he and his Company were vi­sited by one Mr. Welch, whom God sent to comfort and cherish them. Whether he were a Protestant or n [...] he would not discover; but when Mr. Colman said to him, that he had never before seen such Charity; he answered it was one of the seven Acts of Mercy to visit an relieve [Page 12]Prisoners. He said nothing about Religion, which a Papist so compassionate as he was, would in all Probability have done. From Day to Day at Noon in came a Joint of Meat dressed, and by that Time the Company had eat half their Meat he came with a Bottle of Wine hid under his Coat. He sent also a Blanket or two to cover them. And when at seven Days End they were going out of Town, he saluted the Provost that went with them, asked him to drink, and treated the Company. So they took each of them a Penny Loaf from his Hand, and bid him farewel: pouring out their Prayers for the charitable Samaritan that had bound up their Wounds.

Late at Night they came to an House and Barn to lodge in, but the Barn was all Mire without a Wisp of Straw. Mr. Colman with two or three turned back to the House, took up the Candle and went up Stairs. The good Woman screamed out, and up came the Provost in great Wrath; but being showed an handful of Money the Woman made a low Courtesy and so all was well. Mr. Colman travelled Ninety Miles on Foot in Four or Five Days and had the best of the Inn wherever he came.

At Rennes he was accosted by a young Priest with a Crucifix in his Hands, and a few Rabble at his Heels, ask­ing him in Latin what he thought of the Crucifix. Mr. Colman suddenly answered him, That it was not an Ob­ject of religious Worship. He would prove (he said) that it was, so the Rabble got about them. The Provost told him he was a Minister. O Diabole! cry'd one of them. He bid the Priest reprove him. He said, no it was too true; for all Hereticks are out of the holy Church, and therefore belong to the Devil, and are going to the De­vil, and are Devils. Mr. Colman told him he would not have him so far to undervalue himself as to hold Conver­sation with the Devil, and bid him farewel.—The next Morning he came very humble and fawning, telling him that the Fathers had great Esteem of him, and Compassion to him, upon the Report he had made to them; and would not have a Man of his Parts and Learning perish [Page 13]through Ignorance and Prejudice. Mr. Colman prayed him to give his Thanks to their Reverences.—

When he came near the Walls of Dinan it was a sor­rowful Spectacle to see that Part of them covered with Prisoners; but when they entred the Town as many of them as had Money had Liberty to take up Lodgings, for three Pence a Night. Provisions were exceeding cheap, but the French had no Money to buy. The whole Country was poor that they passed through, and as for this Town it seemed perfectly to live upon them. Their Stay was long in it; two Months at least; the Cause of which was the floating Prisons that King James had set up which were two great Hulks, one at St.Malo, the other at Dunkirk; where he put the Prisoners that were taken by Ships bearing his Commission. This the Court of England resented, and would exchange no more Prisoners till these Floats were laid down.

At last the Paquets arrived at St. Malo, and there Mr. Colman and others embarked, near a Thousand of them on board three Boats. He was put on Board the largest, about 90 Tuns, and had 400 Men on board. They set Sail towards Evening, and set their Course to steer clear of a Ledge of Rocks a few Leagues off in their Way; But be­fore Midnight they were upon them, and in the midst of Breakers. A timorous Fellow upon the Deck screamed out, and alarmed the living Lading between Decks, and in the Hold. At once they all rose, and the Masters with the Men, though they called to them not to stir for their Lives, lest the Vessel upon such a Motion within should not feel her Helm. But they had as good have spoke to the Wind; every one were for running to see themselves die in the Dark; and Mr. Colman was left alone in the Cabbin, with a poor trembling Gentlewoman and her two Daughters from Barbados.

He had eight Pistoles left of his Money when the Pa­quets arrived. He kept two to carry him to London, and the other six God gave him an Heart to give among his poor Countrymen to redeem a few of them from remain­ing [Page 14]Prisoners for Debt. God wonderfully repaid him this his Charity to his Companions in Tribulation soon after his Arrival at London as you will hear.

They landed at Portsmouth before the End of two Days, but what with Sickness and Cold his Throat seemed to be closed up: But a warm Supping and Bed, by the Blessing of God, made him well the next Morning.

He had lent 30 s. to a young Spark from New-York. He told him of a rich Uncle he had half Way to London, and prayed him to lend him one of his Pistoles, to be re­paid there. He hired Horses presently and they mounted, but he had also bought himself Bootlashes, &c. So that before they reached his Uncles their Moneys were gone, and their Horses had done their Stage.

His Uncle was a wealthy Quaker and received them gravely. But no Credit would he give to this his Nephew, he knew him too well he said. Mr. Colman told him what Credit he had given to him, and saved him from the Expences of Portsmouth—At Table the good Man talked over the sad Story of New-England's persecuting and hanging the Quakers. Mr. Colman informed him what a strange Sort of People the Quakers were then, and what Provocations they gave our Fathers; how they disturbed our worshipping Assemblies, and sometimes appeared in an indecent and terrifying Manner to our timorous Mo­thers: But after all he confessed to him it was wrong in us to return their Persecutions of us in the Manner we did, and that the People of New-England all thought so now. ^†

Mr. Colman then prayed him to advise him how to get to London. He told him he would lend him Money to carry him thither. Lodge here to Night, said he, and I will have an Horse and Guide for Thee in the Morn­ing. The good Family entreated him courteously in the Evening, and in the Morning his good Host lent him Twenty Shillings: which he called for a Fortnight after and received, with most hearty Acknowledgments. But his Kinsman never repayed a Farthing of the Moneys he borrowed.—

There was another young Gentleman, a Rake with a sober Face, from Barbados. He travelled with the Com­pany from Nants to Dinan, and was lodged in the same Chamber with Mr. Colman. For him he paid Fifty Shil­lings in France, and in the End had like to have had his Throat cut for it. When this Spark came of London he found Sir — a Barbados Knight; an old gaming Com­panion of his, and won an handful or two of Guineas of him. The Moneys bought him two or three fine Suits, and Linnen agreeable. Which was no sooner in his Lodgings but he and his Clothes were out of them, and he shipped off to Barbados again without paying a Penny.

He bragged how generous he had been to good Mr. Colman and given him Five Pounds for his Fifty Shillings. [Page 16]A Friend of Mr. Colman's was saying in the Coffee-House he wondered at L— for abusing him after this Manner, and a Sharper that stood by took up the Argument in L— Favour; said he was well acquainted with him, and would shew him his Lodgings.—He said he had Money to spare, and he would pay him.

Mr. Colman was so overseen as to go with the Man upon his Friend's Advice. Accordingly they took Boat and rowed up to Chelsea. He led him to an Ale-House over against the Knight's Lodgings. The Servants of the House, and the Master of the Ale-House told him that L— was returned to Barbados above a Week before. By their looking on his Companion, they saw that he had known it. So Mr. Colman found himself kidnapt; and what remained was to get out of his Hands as well as he could.

He dined him handsomely at the Ale House, and was for returning by Water, but finding no Boat and the Sun hastning down they walked over the Fields to St. James's. On the Way Mr. Colman saw his cut-throat Companion on the Look-out at every By-place, and expected to be robbed, if not worse. But he shewed no Fear, and Hea­ven (to which he cryed) protected him. Some-body or other always appeared on the Way.

When they had passed by Whitehall it grew dark, and Mr. Colman found himself pushed in an Instant into a blind Ale-House, and his Companion caught him by the Hand and said, we must drink one Mug more at parting. Mr. Colman saw the Servitor's giggle, paying great Respect to this his Gentleman as a Man of Figure, and ready to assist him. So he put the best Face he could on it, and while the Ale was drawing he told him that he was a Sollicito [...], that he knew where L—y was and would have him next Morning, but he must have Six Shillings for a Writ and Charges. Mr. Colman was glad to give him the Money had it been six times as much to get rid of him; and they both laughed at parting for very dif­ferent Reasons.

Hitherto his Charity and Compassion was but ill re­quited by Men, but within a little time it was abundantly recompensed by God, as you will see in the next Chapter.

CHAP. IV. The Reception he met with at London, his Acquaintance with Divines and other Learned Men, Characters of divers of them, Preaching at London, Cambridge, Ipswich, Dedham, and at Bath, — his Visits to the two famous Universities Oxford and Cambridge, — the Honour and Pleasure he had in the Acquain­tance and Friendship of Philomela, Mrs. Elizabeth Singer, &c. &c.

HIS first Night at London was very melancholy. He had lost all his Letters from New-England, and in them his Directions to his Friends: With Difficulty he found out the House of a Reverend Minister, but he could not be seen: It grew dark, and he prayed Madam to direct him to some sober House where he might lodge that Night. She did him the Favour, and it looked dar­ker to him now than when the French turned him into the Hold.

But in the Morning the pious Mr. Ives made him full Amends.—A Man full of Grace, Humility Meekness and Charity. He took him into his Arms with the Tender­ness of a Father, and Madam chose him good Lodgings.

His dear Brother Mr. John Colman, though but a young Man and beginning the World himself, yet like a Father to him gave him a Bill of Exchange upon Mr. [Page 18] Ives for Thirty Pounds Sterling; and what was yet a far greater Piece of Generosity, he gave him Credit with him without any Limit. He did not trespass on this his Good­ness further then one Ten Pounds. This made Forty Pounds which he never asked him to repay.—

The Rev. Mr. Quick of London was the first Minister he was acquainted with. He loved the Stranger, and was a very affectionate Gentleman: but extreamly sud­den and quick in his Temper. His Arms and House were always open to him.

It pleased God (about this time) to visit Mr. Colman with a dangerous Fever, but Madam Ives had provided him with a good Nurse. Dr. Moreton visited him, and God healed him. Mr. Quick was often with him in his Sick­ness and cheered him by saying to him, "That he was as near Heaven at London as at Boston. It pleased God soon to recover him.—

Before he got abroad he was surprised with an Invitation from Mr. and Madam Parkhurst in Cheap-Side, to accept of half a Year's Board at their House. God made her a kind and loving Mother to him, and a generous Friend afterward to some of his Friends from New-England, in their Straits.

This happy Lodging at one of the most known and frequented Booksellers among the Dissenters, brought him soon into an Acquaintance with the City Ministers, which was a singular Advantage and Pleasure. And so it has been to his Country and the Churches thereof since, as will be seen in the Sequel of this Narrative.

The Family attended the Ministry of the Reverend and learned Mr. How and Mr. Colman with them. This brought him to the Lord's-Table with him and into his Pulpit. Mr. How was pleased to embrace him as soon as the Exercise was over, and told him that his Church had lately chosen the Reverend Mr. Spademan of Roterdam to be his Assistant and Successor in the Pastoral Care, and he had accepted their Call. He asked Mr. Colman if he was inclined to see Holland, and said his Church would bear [Page 19]his Charges over; and also back again if the People of Roterdam did not chuse him to be their Minister, or if he did not like the Place. Mr. Colman answered him, he greatly desired to see Holland, and no Terms could be more agreeable than these he proposed. The Support then was an Hundred and Forty Pounds a Year, paid by the States, and he was to be Colleague with the Reverend Aged and Learned Mr. Joseph Hill, by whom the Greek Lexicon was corrected and amended.

He was much pleased with this Offer of Providence, and spake openly of it, by which means it came to Mr. Hill's Ears. For he was then in the City, and averse to Mr. Spademan's coming over; of which Mr. How said nothing when he proposed the Matter. Mr. Hill had wrote a Book of the Dominion of England over the Nar­row Seas, for which K. Charles the II. had given him an Hundred a Year for Life. It had been with-held, and he was now suing for it. He came to Mr. Colman's Lodg­ings, and asked him if he was the young Man that was going to Roterdam? And told him he did ill to act in Concert with Mr. How to get his Kinsman away from him who had now been his Assistant for seventeen Years in the Work of the Ministry. Mr. Colman asked him with much Surprise, if he were the Reverend Mr. Hill? And told him that Mr. How had never let him know that he was in the City, or that he was not consenting to Mr. Spademan's coming away. He told him it was the Hope of being under his Ministry, Inspection and Wing that was one great Inducement to him to go to Roterdam: But since he had the Opportunity now of seeing him, and of asking his Consent, he should not go without it. He changed his Face upon this and said, "You speak like an ingenious and modest Youth, and have already made good Mr. How's Words to me concerning you, and you deserve a better Settlement than Roterdam." But he nei­ther would nor could part with his Kinsman.

Mr. Colman went to Mr. How and told him what had happened. He seemed much surprised at his sudden [Page 20]Promise, not to go without Mr. Hill's Consent. He told him there were enough ready to go: and so Mr. Col­man found it; for before the Week was out one went, without saying a Word of it to Mr. Hill. He told him Mr. Spademan was resolved to return to London, and that Mr. Hill had nothing to do to hinder it: If the People chose, the States paid; and in fine, that he had hurt himself by not using the Understanding God had given him.

At which Words Mr. Colman's Head turned, and he let him know it, and told him "That he began to ques­tion his own Understanding since he was pleased to tax his Conduct as he did."—He left him in some Amaze­ment, and meeting Mr. Timothy Rogers told him the Story, and prayed him to set him right if he had erred. He smiled on him and said, No; However he questi­oned whether many in his Circumstances would have acted with like Honesty and Simplicity.—Mr. Colman asked the Opinion of another Minister or two, who praised him for what he had done. But by this Means he lost the Favour of Mr. How for two or three Months, who would scarce look upon him as he bowed to him among the younger Ministers.

Soon after the Ministers waited on the King at Ken­sington, and Dr. Bates made one of his finest Speeches to him, upon the Discovery of the Assassination Plot. It happened the Coach Mr. Colman was in came first to the Park-Gate which led to the Palace, and there stood the Reverend Dr. Bates with his Chair that had carried him over the Stones, through the City; so he had the Ho­nour to give him his Place in the Coach, and walk on Foot to the Palace.—The Courtiers closed about the loved King William, and the Ministers about the Doctor, in a Circle; and then the Doctor delivered his Speech with an Easiness and Gravity that were peculiar to him, and charming to all. My Lord Chamberlain led the Ministers down to a Treat in the Buttery, where they eat a Bit of the King's Bread and drank a Glass of his Wine.

The Reverend Mr. Daniel Williams (afterwards Dr. Williams) being out of the City, Mr. Colman was asked to preach for him, and by that means became known to the Reverend Mr. Calamy (afterwards Dr. Calamy) his As­sistant. Mr. Calamy fell into an endearing Love to Mr. Colman, so far as to tell him he hoped they should spend their Lives in one Church. And soon after being in Dr. Bray's Lodgings at Whitehall the Doctor enquired after Mr. Calamy with great Respect, and run out in Praises of his Book concerning Vows; saying, that he had bought up thirty of them for the Libraries in the Plan­tations, which were then forming. Mr. Colman let the Doctor know that he should inform Mr. Calamy of the Honour he did him, which he presently did.

Mr. Williams was gone to Bath, to pass a Month there for the Benefit of the Waters: And Mr. How who had much at Heart a Reconciliation between the leading Brethren of the two Boards, Presbyterian and Congregati­onal, drew up a short Paper on the Head of Justification, and got it signed by Dr. Bates and others on one side, and by Mr. Mead, and Mr. Mather and others on the other side. Mr. Calamy sent down an Account of this to Mr. Williams, with a Copy of Mr. How's Paper, and up he came full of Resentment, that the Opportunity of his Absence should be taken for this, as if he were not for Peace, with Truth, as much as any of them.

He drew up twenty Objections against Mr. How's Pa­per, and finding none but Mr. Colman in the Bookseller's Shop, he showed him (young as he was) his Paper of Remonstrance; and talked over [...] Objections for an Hour together.

Mr. Colman thought the Reasons against Mr. How's Procedure were just, though his End was good, scil. Peace and Unity. But Displeasure had found false Doc­trine also on th [...] Paper, and dangerous Phrases, which showed, that too [...]arm Zeal for Peace, led wise Gentle­men into a Quarrel, and that the most guarded Words could not escape Objections when once we are angry.

Mr. Williams carried his Complaint to the Board the next Monday. It was a full House in Expectation of it, for the Thing made a great Noise. The Care of the Board was not to split if self again in two. Accordingly, they only chose a Committee to take the two Papers, and draw up a third in which all might agree. Dr. Bates, Dr.—, Mr. Hammond, Mr. Alsop, Mr. Burgess, Mr.—were the Committee. Mr. How and Mr. Wil­liams were to be present, to offer what they had to say.

The next thing was where to meet: Mr.—told them, "That as he came along Mr. Parkhurst had kindly offered his House, if they would meet there. It was agreed, and Mr. Colman by this means heard all that pas­sed between them, there being nothing but a Glass-Door and Curtain between the Gentlemen and him. The Points to be disputed were nice, and the Gentlemen of a superiour Character, which rendered the Hearing a most grateful Entertainment.

They were all very pleasant. Not an angry Word pas­sed between Mr. Williams and Mr. How. A third Paper was produced, and readily assented to by all the eight. So every thing was in Statu quo, and a great Flame stifled.

There was scarce any Difference between this third Pa­per and Mr. How's only the Phrase of Commutation of Persons between Christ and Believers was left out; as ob­scure and needing Explanation. If Mr. Williams had not been pacified, by the personal Aspect of Mr. How's Paper on him being taken away, he might have raised as many Objections against this also.—

Mr. Colman had the Pleasure of dining with all these reverend Gentlemen together, after this Meeting and Labour of Love, and heard their Wisdom on several abstruse Points, wherein he was confirmed by their seri­ous and calm Judgments.

Dr. Annesly's Death was after this, but the Part Mr. Colman saw of it was most pleasant. ^* He seemed at that [Page 23]Time perfectly at Ease in Body as well as Mind, with his wonted Cheerfulness and Smiles. "Yesterday, said he, I lost the use of this Finger, and the Day before of that, and to-morrow I look this will be gone. Brother Beverly, added he, your Faith has outran mine; but now I shall know before you: I leave you all in the Dark about the Times and Seasons.

Mr. Beverly had in Print fixed on the Year 1697 for the Accomplishment of all the great Expectanda, the Fall of Antichrist, &c. He was one of the most humble and modest Men living, and yet was so bold as to write his Thoughts, and set his Time, as is before said. When his Year came and produced nothing extraordinary, the good Man did in the most humble and publick Manner confess his Error and Presumption; asking Pardon of God and his People.

In like manner the learned Mr. Fleming was a most mo­dest Gentleman in Conversation, but in writing bold and daring. His Motto was Libere sed Modeste: The Mo­deste he wore abroad, the Libere he kept at Home, used it freely, and sent it abroad in Print.

Providence now invited Mr. Colman to see the two Universities. Sir Henry Ashurst; then our Agent for New-England, carried him with him to his Country-Seat near Oxford. He rode twice with him thither in his Coach, and had the Honour to dine with Dr. Hall, Bp. of Bristol, a venerable humble, grave Divine. He waited also on Dr. Hough, Bp. of Oxford, and Master of Magdalen College, a bright and lofry Gentleman, polite in Dress and Behaviour. Also the Rev. Dr. Gastrell, since Bp. of Chester, did him the Honour to shew him the several Colleges, and what was rare and curious in them. He told Mr. Colman that he wished the Dissenters might have a College in each Uni­versity for the educating their Children; He was per­swaded the Church would then prevail, and the Schism soon cease.—Mr. Colman agreed with him that it might be a probable Means of putting an End to the Schism, the Essence whereof lay (as he judged) very much in [Page 24]Uncharitableness, and that proceeded from the Ignorance we are in of each other.—These noble Persons also spent a Day with Sir Henry at his Seat. The Bishop of Oxford passed a Complement or two to Mrs. Ashurst, one of the loveliest Persons then in the Kingdom, and Mr. Colman turned them upon her again when they were gone: But she answered, "That was a likely Way to starve indeed, for what signified Eight Hundred Pounds per Annum only for Life"; she afterward married a Baro­net with three thousand a Year in Land.

It was a vast Pleasure to Mr. Colman to know the Piety and Humility of the Lady Ashurst, Daughter to Ld. Paget, and who inherited the high Devotion of her noble Mother. The Lady Paget being taxed once for marrying her Daugh­ters to Gentlemen of the fanatick Character, replied, I take Notice, Madam, that the Gentlemen of that sort com­monly make the best Husbands.

Mr. Colman was so happy as to gain the perfect Esteem of the Lady and her Family. He lived one Fortnight alone with her in the Country, and Sir Henry would long after rally him upon his Lady's Fondness for him.

Afterwards at London she would not suffer him to a­void her most publick Respects in the Congregation. And the honourable Mr. Bromfield came charged the last Time from London with highest Expressions of Love from her to him. The Daughter with Mr. Colman used to range over the Manor in the Afternoons. She asked a Poem from him: He told her it would lead into a Quarrel. She promised it should not on her Part. So the next Day he wrote one with this Title, A Quarrel with For [...]ne: Because (forsooth) he was not equal to her in Rank and Riches — In it was the following Simile,

One Afternoon as he came from Oxford, whether the Steward of Sir Henry had attended him, he saw a Num­bē [...] of People before him on the Downe, and was soon told that a Robber was just taken and carried to the next Village. He had the Curiosity to go into the Ta­vern and see him. He was a young Fellow of nineteen Years old, and one of the Company was telling after a boorish Manner, how he rode after him, came up with and took him.— But said the miserable Wretch, "I yielded honourably. "Yes, yes, said the other, that you did.—Well, 'tis but a Swing, cryed the Robber very impudently. This turned Mr. Colman's Compassion into Indignation, and he said,— ‘But vile Wretch con­sider, “whither that Swing is? Is it not into Eternity? And an Eternity of Misery if you die without Re­pentance; as you seem willing and likely to do? Do you like and can you bear to think of, A Swing in­to Hell, into unquenchable Fire and everlasting ”Burnings?’

A shivering Horror fell upon the Villain, and all the Room turned and stared on the Preacher; as if they had never heard a serious Discourse before. This ani­mated Mr. Colman to go on, and he found himself helped [Page 26]to speak very much to his own Satisfaction, on the Oc­casion for a Quarter of an Hour.

As soon as he mounted again, the Steward said to him, "Sir, you have preached a surprizing Sermon to one of the most ignorant and wicked Villages in England.

While Mr. Colman was at Sir Henry's pleasant Seat he received a kind Letter from a Gentleman in London, with one inclosed to the Right Reverend the Bishop of London; written as his Friend informed him by his Lordship's Order, upon the Recommendation he had re­ceived of him: But Mr. Colman did not see meet to wait upon him with it. At the same Time Providence was honouring him with an Invitation to see the other University: for he was called back to London by a Let­ter which informed him, that the Ministers of the Pres­byterian Board had chosen him to go down to Cambridge; the aged Pastor of a Church there being struck with a Palsy.— Mr. How seeing him at his Meeting on the Lord's-Day, came to his Lodgings on Monday, and in a most obliging Manner welcomed him to Town, telling him he had been absent himself three Sabbaths, while he was in Oxfordshire; and if he had been in the City he should have asked Nobody but him to have supplied his Place. Mr. Colman was glad to see himself forgiven by Mr. How, and believed he was indebted principally to him and the Rev. Messirs. Quick, Williams and Calamy, For the Honour the Board had done him in naming him (a Stranger) for the Congregation at Cambridge.

He took Coach on Christmas Day, and found in it a Gentlewoman of very good Fashion and Sense, with her little Daughter, and was much delighted in the Journey with the agreeable Conversation of the Lady and Prattle of Miss.

At Cambridge Mr. Colman found a small Congregation of inferior People, the Shadow of the University, like that of all Cathedrals, stunting the Growth of the Dis­senters.

They liked illiterate Preachers, and when Davis and [Page 27]others of that Sort came to Town, he was left by one half of his Hearers. They were also sadly tinged with Antinomian Principles, and his Texts were too legal for them. ^* —So he was ashamed of his Post, and wrote ear­nestly to London to be released from it.—He saw all the Colleges there after a Sort, but had none of those hono­rary Advantages for doing it as he had at Oxford.

At twelve Weeks End he returned to London, and some of the City Ministers resolved to take a Turn down themselves. The Reverend and zealous Mr. Pomfret went first for a Month, and others followed him.

But at length they got a handsom Subscription at Lon­don to the ingenious and learned Mr. Pearse, an excellent Preacher, to fix him at Cambridge for two or three Years. He went; and being already well entred into the Ma­thematicks, soon made himself known to the learned Mr. Whiston, and became his most esteemed Friend. A fatal Friendship! for then he also drank in Mr. Whiston's Arrian Principles, which has since been the Spring of so much Strife and Confusion and every evil Work among the Dissenters.

Within a few Weeks after Mr. Colman was invited to the great Town of Ipswich in Suffolk.—In his Way thi­ther God graciously preserved him from a very dangerous Snare, which three ill Women laid for him. He found them in the Stage-Coach, supped with them in the Even­ing, and was retired to his Chamber: But as he was go­ing to Bed one of them knocked at his Door, and told him that they had mulled a Glass of Wine, chiefly be­cause of the Cold that was upon him, and he must needs take Part of it with them. In their Chamber were two Beds, and he heard one of them gigling behind the Cur­tains of the furthermost Bed. He began now to suspect them, when one of them told him, that truly they were afraid to lie in the Chamber alone; that the furthest Bed would hold them three; and they begged of him to [Page 28]lodge in the nearest Bed. He told them he was greatly surprised at their Motion, and ashamed of it, that their Fear was groundless; no Danger would happen to them in the Inn; if there were any he should make a poor Defence; and that in short, they utterly forgot what they owed to their Reputation and Virtue, or to his. So they begged his Pardon, and he suddenly stept into his own Chamber.

At Ipswich he spent eleven Weeks very pleasantly, and with much Satisfaction; but they needed a Preacher only every other Lord's Day. The excellent Mr. Fair­fax divided his Time with them and some neighbouring Congregations, as the Bishop of them all. Being now got to a plentiful Fish-market, and near to the Oyster-Banks, he began to think himself again in New-England. He visited Yarmouth and Beckles, and saw his Father's Relations. He lodged at one Mr. Steward's, where he was most generously entertained.

More especially he there became known to the vene­rable Mr. Burkit of Debham, which is eight Miles from Ipswich. Mr. Burkit held a Lecture which he attended. He was pleased to call him the best Hearer that he ever had. Every other Lord's-Day almost Mr. Colman preached at Dedham, and the People spake of calling him to be their Minister. When Mr. Burkit heard of it he was so good as to bespeak a Lodging for him at the best House in the Town. There was a Gentlewoman, a Widow, that had six hundred a Year, a Dissenter in Principle, but a Conformist for Mr. Burkit's Sake, sitting under his excellent Ministry with great Delight. Madam, said he to her, I hear that our Congregation of Dissenters are about to chuse that young Man of Ipswich, of whom I told you; if they do, invite him to take his Board with you: It will be a Comfort to you for him to pray in your Family, and I am sure it will be so to him to be in your House, for that little People can do but little for him.—A teaching Instance of Moderation, Charity and Brotherly-love this, in a Churchman to a Dissenter, wor­thy [Page 29]to be told and imitated. — This is but agreeable to what the Rev. Mr. Nathaniel Parkhurst (who writes his Life and seems to be of the same Spirit) records of this great and good Man, Page 49. — ‘As he was a Member “of the Church universal, he had a good Respect and Esteem for many of our dissenting Brethren that are sound in the Faith, and holy and exemplary in their Lives, though they had different Sentiments from him in Matters of lesser Moment; and as he met with any of them, conversed with them freely; and I doubt not but he has given an acceptable Account of his Prac­tice in this Matter to our Lord Jesus Christ, of whom ”the whole Family in Heaven and Earth is named.’ But there happened at this Time to pass by an itinerant, powerful, illiterate Preacher, who had been a Taylor; and he cut Mr. Colman out of the whole Cloth, as he used pleasantly to relate it, and left him but three Votes.

Mr. Gale was the chief Gentleman of the Congrega­tion at Ipswich: Venerable for his Age, Gravity, Wisdom and true Piety. When King James the II. had took away their Charter, as he did others, he named Mr. Gale Bailiff in his new one. The Day came for it to take Place, and the new Commission was read in the Court-House. Mr. Gale stood up and with great Mo­desty and Respect asked, if there were any Objection to be made against the new Corporation taking Place and Authority upon them? — When all being silent, He to the great Surprise of the whole Assembly told them, "That if no one else had ought to object he must do it himself. So in an handsome Speech he shewed the Illegality of the present Commission; that the Town had done nothing he knew of to forfeit their former Charter; and that it stood good till tryed and condemned in a legal Process; and that therefore he was under a Necessity to refuse the great Honour which his Majesty was pleased to do him, how ambitious soever he was to serve his King and the Town. While he spake to this Effect, the People gazed and bowed, and were ready to [Page 30]worship him for his Honour, Honesty and Courage.—

Mr. Gale had a Land Tortoise in his Garden, that for the five warm Months ran up and down his Walks, and eat of a kind of Plantain which he set every where for it. In September the Creature took into the Ground, and from Year to Year continued there for about seven Months. While Mr. Colman resided there it came up in April, but mistook its way, and was found in the Church-Yard, which was parted from the [...]rden by a Wall.

There were Companies of Soldiers that Winter billeted in Ipswich, and some other neighbouring Towns; and several Robberies were committed by them. One Day he was himself dogged out of Town by a Soldier, and had straggled into a little Thicket of small Trees or Brush, by the Side of a Field adjoyning to the Lord — Park, there he happily turned to gaze about, and look down upon the Town: When the Soldier within a few Rods of him stopt short and looked round him: At the same Instant he jumpt over the Fence, and his Lordship's Coach appearing in Sight, he made towards it as fast as he could, and returned into Town.

At Bury he attended the Sessions, my Lord chief Justice Holt being the Judge.—He was astonished at the Powers and Sagacity of that great Man and the Dis­patch he made of Business well as his Integrity and Justice. Several Wretches received Sentence of Death (at that Time) for Robberies committed by them; the greatest Rogue of the Gang commonly hanged the rest.

But O the Shreiks at the Bar when the Sentence was pronounced upon them, "Mercy, my Lord, Mercy! Transportation, my Lord, Transportation! A most af­fecting Representation truly (as he has observed in his Record) of the Agonies of the Condemned at the great Day.

My Lord had the following fine and awful Passage in his Speech before he gave Sentence. "There are some indeed that are innocent and virtuous, who have been un­justly put to Death; and some have been hurled down [Page 31]to Destruction for their Piety and worthy Deeds: Virtue was grey Hairs to them, and an unspotted Life was length of Days.—But such Wretches as these (said he) we are forced to cut off as we do Wolves and Beasts of Prey, &c.

Soon after Mr. Colman's return to London Mr. Chris­topher Taylor, Minister of Bath was chosen by a Church in the City to be their Pastor. And now the Rev. Presby­terian Ministers did hi [...] a second Honour altogether without his seeking it, or knowing of it. They named him to succeed in Mr. Taylor's Place at Bath, and told him because it was the Resort of the Gentry of England, both the religious and profane. The Rev. Mr. Showers and Mr. Calamy appeared most to him in the Motion. They said, it was the best Stirrup in England, whereby to mount the best Pulpits that might be vacant. They promised him, that if he would serve the dissenting In­terest there a few Years, they would get him setled at London.

He readily came into this Motion, for he wanted to see the Waters which he had heard so much of, and he found more than he had heard. He desired also to see the West Country and Bristol.

He had the Pleasure to ride down in Company with the Rev. and learned Mr. Nathaniel Taylor, and Mr. Timothy Rogers, with whom [...]e visited several worthy Gentlemen on the Road; Mr. Taylor of Newbury, Mr. Doolittle of Reading, and others. — At Bath he spent five Weeks with them in the same House, and Mr. Taylor seeing him sad at their going away, gave him his Hand and cheered him with these Words, "Well, Colman, you are an in­genious Youth, and we will have you with us at London within a few Years.

With them he visited Bristol, and became acquainted with the venerable Mr. Weekes, Mr. Noble, Mr. Kentish, Mr. Pope &c.

Mr. Rogers had once been in the Depth of religious Melancholy, and he wrote a valuable Book on the Subject upon his Recovery. But now he was in the other Ex­tream, [Page 32]the merriest Man in the World. Mr. Colman was called by him all the dull Things that Wit could invent, but from an Heart full of Love. He was now Assistant to Mr. Showers in London.

One Day Mr. Colman spake his Mind to him freely about their private Baptisms. He suddenly replied, why our People give me but eighty Pounds a Year, and my Baptisms are worth fifty Guineas to me. He saw by this the wretched Snare and Temptation that had banished the Ordinance of Baptism out of their publick Worship.—

Indeed he saw but one publick Baptism all the while he was in England. It was at Mr. How's Church; the People got up over one another Shoulders to gaze. Mr. How looked round about with an awful Pause that drew the Attention and Eye of all present upon him, and then began, "I am sorry it is such a Rarity! That there should be such a gazing at it! &c.

In the City of Bristol, the Gentlemen of Mr. Weekes's Congregation went in a Body to the Pastors, and prayed they might have the Baptisms in publick, promising to make the same Presents as they did in private. By this Means they immediately prevailed.

While Mr. Colman sojourned at Bath, a Gentleman came thither to drink the Waters, who was tormented in a dread­ful Degree with the Gout. The Wretch lay swearing and cursing, instead of repenting and praying; wondering what he had done that God should lay such Pains on him more than on others. At last sending his Man down to warm him some Broth, he fell on his Sword and died. And went without doubt, to blaspheme on for ever; Curse the Author of his Plagues, and gnaw his Tongue for Pain. They brought him in Mad as indeed all Self-Murderers are: But such Juries are worse than Mad, and deserve to be buried under the Gallows.

Mr. Colman spent two Years at Bath, and found good Acceptance with the People and with the Strangers there. Before he had lived among them two Months he became acquainted with more Families of Fashion in London than he had done by living there two Years.

The People at Bath had been used to a different Sort of Preaching from his, and did not seem to relish his Way at first. So he proposed to them to think of some other, more agreable to their Taste, and that might better please and edify them. They blushed, and prayed him to con­tinue his Services among them: And within a Quarter of a Year were satisfied and delighted with them.

Among the Physicians that ply at Bath the Summer Season was Dr. Baynard.—He was a Gentleman of great Wit, and gave himself a great Licence in it, more espe­cially against the Conformist Clergy. — Mr. Fleetwood Shepard, and Mr. Pocock (Mayor of the City that Year) were Gentlemen of the same Character for Wit and Mirth. No wonder if they were very great and intimate Friends. — Mr. Pocock fell ill of a Fever, and Mr. Bay­nard was his Doctor.

One Morning after drinking the Waters the Doctor went to see his Patient, and Shepard with him. Baynard found him dying by his Pulse, and looked sad upon it; but Shepard, ignorant of his Danger, said to him with wonted Pleasancy and Droll, — "You lie here Pocock while we want you daily at the Bear: There is the best Red come to Town you ever tasted."— Pocock cast a dying Look on him and said, "I shall never be with you a­gain.—No, answered Shepard loosly, "Why then come and see us, Pocock, for we always loved you dearly.

Upon this he turned on his Heel, and went down, and Baynard after him. They went to the Coffee-House which was but three Doors off from Mr. Pocock's, and at Eleven it was Time to go Home and dress. But as Shepard stepped out of the Door, he fell a trembling and cried out, "Hold me Baynard, hold me"! The Doctor caught him in his Arms, and all the Gentlemen (who were many) in the Room ran to the Door, where they saw Mr. Shepard frighted and staring, and heard him say­ing, "Don't you see Pocock there? in the Middle of the Street! Why there he goes,—two Men lead him a­long! [Page 34]and now he is got up to the Gate,"— (which was but the Length of a Street from the Coffee-House.)

When Mr. Colman's Landlord, who was Serjeant of the Bath (Mr. Shelston) told him this wonderful Story, as a certain Matter of Fact, that happened but two Years before, he resolved to enquire of Dr. Baynard about it, for he was well acquainted with the Doctor, and he some­times came to hear him preach.

The Doctor assured him of the Truth of the whole Account, and when he asked him what Effect it had on Mr. Shepard, he said, He was sick upon it for two Days, but when he got out again he was as merry and wild as ever. He saw nothing himself (he said) but heard what Shepard said to their dying Friend, and he had no Doubt but that Shepard saw an Appearance of him.—They ran to the Mayor's House, and were told, he was just now dead.

Well, Doctor, said Mr. Colman upon it, Too well are our Saviour's Words verified, "Neither will they be per­swaded though one come from the Dead." No Sir, replied the Doctor, "These Things were never meant to con­vert us: It is the good Word which you preach to us, must do that, if it ever be done."

This Story is so remarkable and well attested, as few (if any, in all its Circumstances) are like unto it.

And doubtless the good Providence of God orders such Things every now and then, as superadded Testi­monies to revealed Religion, in the great Doctrine of the Soul's Immortality, a separate State, and the Judgment to come.— This was a Testimony to all England, and more especially to the Nobility and Gentry through the Kingdom, who all heard of it, and little heeded it.—No Doubt but the Fame of it went immediately to the King's Court. ^†

If Mr. Glanvill, Arch-Deacon of Bath in his Day, [Page 35]had been living he would hae triumph'd in this evident Testimony to an invisible World at his own Door: For there is scarce the like open incontestible Account in his Sadducismus Triumphatus. But none have been so good and just to the Publick as to publish this to the World.

While Mr. Colman was at Bath he preached for Mr. Cummins of Shepton-Mallet. He was a worthy Mi­nister and a strong, stout Man. Within a few Years after he met with a Robber on the High-Way that bid him deliver, with his Pistol in his Hand. Mr. Cummins told him he must give him Leave to dismount, which he did, the Robber being on his left Hand. In an Instant Mr. Cummins took the Wretch by the Foot, and canted him over his Horse, and as he came to the Ground his heavy and strong Foot was upon him, and lighting upon his Breast, struck the Breath out of his Body. Mr. Cummins was amazed to find him dead, and ready to repent of what he had done. Instead of praising him for his Cou­rage, or excusing him from the Suddenness with which a Man acts at such a Time, some were ready to censure him as a cruel Man, and that he had not the Pity which becomes a Minister for a poor Soul. Mr. Cummins was forced to pass his Trial.

One of the first Pleasures Mr. Colman had at Bath was his coming into an Acquaintance with the lovely Philo­mela, Mrs. Elizabeth Singer of Agford near Frome. She had a Volume of Poems then in Print, being about her twenty-fourth Year. Mr. Rogers had made her an high Complement, in a Book he dedicated to the virtuous and good-humoured Ladies. Mr. Singer invited him to come and see his Daughter, that she might thank him. Mr. Colman invited himself to go with him, having read her Poems. They found her comely in Body, lowly in Dress, with a Soul fair and bright as an Angel.

Mr. Singer led them out to see his Daughter's Walk or Lodge near his House, where she used to meditate and compose. It was a retired and shady Path; a Rivulet on one Side, and tall spreading Trees on the other. Mr. [Page 36] Rogers required Mr. Colman to make a Compliment on the Place: Her Father join [...]d his Request; when they returned he sent her a Poem which began thus,

Mr. Singer was highly pleas'd with Mr. Colman, and prayed him to enter into a Friendship and Correspondence with his Daughter, and that he would often come and see them.

Mr. Singer called himself Argos, having an hundred Eyes upon his Daughter, but he seemed to shut them all in Mr. Colman's favour. Both Father and Daughter treated him with utmost Freedom and Affection. Before Company especially, Mrs. Singer behaved as though he had been her Brother. Mr. Colman loved her without the least Intention of ever saying so to her. She saw it, and it pleased her greatly. They wrote to one another often: Mr. Colman made long Visits, sometimes for Days together: And they were always unwilling to part.

Once he visited her at my Lady Weymouth's, who much esteemed and honoured her. So did Bishop Kenn who then resided at that noble House. Mr. Roberts of London was then with Mr. Colman. They carried a Note from her Father without which they could not have seen her. She let the Family see how much she regarded him. The Bishop gave him his Blessing. And at a Mile from the Seat they met Mr. Phillips of Frome, a very aged gracious Minister, and he blest Mr. Roberts. Upon which he turned and said to Mr. Colman, Now, Sir, I am even with you.

Mr. Singer told Mr. Colman that Philomela's Mother was every way her Superiour, in Knowledge, Wisdom and Grace. And that he had buried a younger Daughter, her equal in Knowledge, and Superior in Grace. Philo­mela her self told him it was very true. The Discourse of that Afternoon was upon this dead charming Sister, the Father being gone out to his Work. She told him the following most entertaining Story.

"My Sister, said she, was a Year or two younger than I, and her Affection as well as Wit was quicker. I seemed however to my self to think more thoroughly. She desired ever to be with me, and I wanted to be more by my self. We often retired by Consent, each to her Chamber, to compose and then to compare what we wrote. She always exceeded me in the Num­ber of Lines, but mine I think were more correct. She exceeded me much in the Fondness of Love, but never in the Truth and Strength of it. She was jea­lous of me that my Love was not equal to her's, and invented an hundred Ways to try me; many of which I thought childish and weak, and therefore sometimes rather reproved then complyed with. This gave her Grief, and I should find her in Tears, which I could not put a stop to but by the tenderest Words and Embraces.

"We lived Years together as happy as Children could be in one another; We lived religiously together; took Care of one another's Souls, and had our constant Hours for Retirement and Devotion. We were daily speak­ing to one another of the Things of God, his Being, Perfections, Works; the Wonders of Creation and Pro­vidence, the Mysteries of Redemption and Grace.— My Father in his Widowhood took great Delight in us, cherished our Love to God and one another, but like good Jacob was fondest of the youngest, admiring all that she said or did. And in her Death he was to be tried.—

"But it was I that was taken sick, to a very dan­gerous Degree. And when the Physicians were giving [Page 38]me over, my dear Sister came to me drowned in Tears; and earnestly kissing me, besought me to tell her whether I was (through Grace) prepared to die? Whether my Interest in Christ and Title to Heaven were comfortable and clear to me? For she was afraid I would die; and she could not part with me only to go to Christ, which was far the better.

"I looked earnestly upon her and said, "Why Sister, do you think me dangerous? I must confess to you my Distress would be great on the Account of my Soul, if I thought my dying Hour were now coming on: For I have not that full Assurance of my Interest in Christ, which I have not always begged of God I might have, be­fore he would call me hence.

"No sooner had she heard me say this, but she fell as in an Agony on her Knees by my Bed, and in a manner inexpressible for Fervour and Humility, she begged of God, "That if her Father must have the Grief of burying one of his Children, it might be her: For through his free Grace, and to the Glory of it, she could humbly profess before him her assured Hope of her Interest in his everlasting Mercy through Jesus Christ. Wherefore she could gladly and joyfully sur­render her self to dye, if it might please God to grant her Sister a further Space wherein to make her Calling and Election sure.

"Having prayed thus in a Transport which was sur­prising and astonishing to me, she kissed me and left the Room, without giving me Time or Power to an­swer her a Word. And, what is almost incredible to relate, from that Minute I grew better and recovered, but she took her Bed and died within a few Days. ^*

"Conceive if you can Mr. Colman how I was asto­nished at this Event of Providence, and over-whelm'd with Sorrow; and my Father with me. Yet I reco­vered [Page 39]Health: but the Load of Grief upon me con­fined me to my Chamber for more than six Weeks. My chief Work was to consider the Mind of God, in this his Mercy to me, that I might make it evident to my self, that indeed in Love to my Soul he delivered me from the Pit of Corruption. I set my self to com­fort my Father, what I could, and that was his Care for me. We durst not be inconsolable under a Bereavement so circumstanced: Yet my mourning is always returning with the Remembrance of a Love stronger than Death, and bright like the Seraphims, those Flames of Love and Devotion.

How exalted a Conversation was this which Mr. Col­man had with Mrs. Singer. He told her upon it he was more in Love with the Dead than the Living: And that she must yield her Sister the Victory; and confess her Love to excell in Strength as well as Fervour.

After many such happy Conversations the Day arrived when he was obliged to pay a parting Visit, being earnestly invited to New-England and to a Settlement in Boston, which he informed the Family of—when Mrs. Singer poured out a thousand Wishes for his Pros­perity▪ his Serviceableness in the Church of Christ on Earth, and his Happiness with her in that above for ever. Her Father added a thousand Prayers and Bles­sings to her's, with Tears and the most tender Embraces. Mr. Colman believed God called him to return Home to his dear Relations and loved Country.—

His Character of Mrs. Singer in his Manuscripts fol­lows,—"She was an heavenly Maid of sublime De­votion and Piety, as well as Ingenuity and Wit. How she had collected such a Stock of Knowledge and Li­terature, by reading and Conversation, without a learned Tutor ^* was wonderful. But her Wisdom and Discretion [Page 40]outshone her Knowledge. She had only her Mother-Tongue, but had made all the Improvement of an Aca­demical Education. She was a Poet, a Philosopher and a Divine. And above all, a most devout Worshippe [...] of God in Secret and in Publick. She hid her self in the publick Worship in an obscure Place, where she could neither see others nor be seen by them.

"Musick, Poetry and Painting were her three Beau­ties and Delights. She used her Pencil almost as well as her Pen. She never was idle, but either her Needle or her Pencil was going in all Conversations. And what she drew she gave to the Company.—She used to declare the great Assistance she had sometimes found in her Devotions by the Organs, and Anthems well sung to them. ^†—

CHAP. V. Invitations to return to New-England — His Ordination at London— Arrival at Boston and Settlement there— Letters sent to him before his Embarkation and soon after.

MR. Colman as I hinted in the foregoing Chapter re­ceived kind Letters from a Number of Gentlemen in Boston the Place of his Nativity, who had built an handsome House there, informing, "That they had [Page 42]chosen him to be their Minister, and urging him to make what Haste he could to them. These Letters were sub­scribed by Messirs. Thomas Brattle, Benjamin Davis, John Mico, Thomas Cooper, and John Colman in the Name of the rest, and in them they only propose to him that the holy Scriptures might be publickly read every Sabbath in the Worship of GOD, which was not practised in other [Page 43]Churches of New-England at that Time, and that they might lay aside the Relation of Experiences which were imposed in other Churches, in Order to the Admission of Persons to the Lord's-Table.

This Invitation was very acceptable and pleasing to him, for his Heart was always very much in his native Country, and to the Churches of Christ here, and the more acceptable it was by Reason of the kind and en­couraging Letters which accompanied it from his excel­lent Friends the Honourable John Leverett, the Rev. Messirs. William Brattle, Ebenezer Pemberton, and others. A few Passages out of some of these are presented unto the Reader.

CHAP. VI. Many eminent Services done by him for the Churches, Colleges and Country; some of his Projections and Essays to do good— Thoughts on Church-Go­vernment—Honours done him.

MR. Colman (thus settled) was animated with a sin­cere and ardent Love to his Country; and laid himself out to the utmost Stretch of his Power, as Op­portunities offered, to serve its best Interests.

H [...]s first and greatest Care, and most arduous Labours were bestowed on his own Church and Congregation.— But as I shall have Occasion hereafter to consider and write more particularly of some of his Ministerial Quali­fications and Excellencies, I shall here only say in general what all his Congregation have been Witnesses of, and God more, viz. "That he approved himself a wise, di­ligent, zealous, faithful, tender and condescending Mini­ster of JESUS CHRIST; in studying, watching, visiting, counselling, earnest Praying and Preaching, exhorting, charging and comforting them as a Father his Children: And this he did through a long and shining Course, even for Forty-seven Years; for so long it pleased a gracious God to continue his precious Life and Usefulness to them.

About fifteen Years he ministred to them without a settled Assistant or Colleague, ^† viz. to May 23. 1716, when Mr. William Cooper (who with great Peace and Union of Hearts was chosen by the Congregation, Aug. 16. 1715) was most happily join'd in the Pastoral Care, [Page 51]and continued labouring with him in Word and Doctrine, as a Son with a Father, for Twenty-seven Years. ^* It pleased God to remove him by Death on December the 13th. 1743. Of this excellent Person more will be said in another Chapter of our Narrative.

After Mr. William Cooper's Decease, viz. on December 31st. 1744, Mr. Samuel Cooper second Son of the Deceas­ed, was with great Unanimity chosen Co-Pastor and Col­league; at a Meeting of the Congregation, after Dr. Colman had made a moving, pathetick Speech to them, in which among other Things, he said, ‘I thank God for the Op­portunity “of seeing you together; with an happy Prospect of Unity and Comfort in the great and im­portant Point that we are met upon.—The Year of our Mourning, under the holy bereaving Hand of God upon us, is now finished.— We have from one Lord's-Day to another, as well as on our set and solemn Days of Humiliation and Prayer ^†, been supplicating [Page 52]the great Head of the Church to repair the Breath, in his own Time and Way, and give us another Pastor after his own Heart, gifted and spirited like the doer Deceased; and I hope the gracious Saviour has such an One in Store for you and your Children, your Fa­milies ”and Housholds.’

‘“Through the Patience of God I continue with you to this Day, under the growing Infirmities of Age; nevertheless having obtained Help of God I have not failed, in one Administration or other, I think, to mi­nister every Lord's-Day; and I thank God, to your ”kind Acceptance.’

‘“And if I may now live to see you united in your Choice of another Pastor, as I once saw your Prede­cessors with not a few of your selves here present, I shall rejoice and give Thanks with you all: Yea, might this be the Day, it will be a gladsome one to ”me.—’

‘“Shew, Lord, which thou hast chosen! And lead us in thy Truth and teach us!—in Paths of Righteous­ness for thy Name Sake; in the Determinations of ”this Morning. Amen.’

Accordingly Mr. Cooper was peaceably and happily settled in his Father's Room ^† May 21. 1746, ^* on which [Page 53]Occasion Dr. Colman preached and printed an excellent Sermon on Isa. vith Chap. and 8th Ver. Also I heard the Voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send? And who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me. In which among other Things, he uttered this Wish, ‘May “his Days be more than his Father's were, in the Work of the Ministry, and as well filled up with Study and Fidelity; and crowned even with more Success, from ”the Fulness that is in Christ.’—To which I doubt not the whole Assembly said Amen.

Dr. Colman Faithfully served the College as an Overseer to his Death; and as a Fellow of the Rev. Corporation for a great Number of Years, until by reason of Age and bodily Infirmities he thought himself called to resign that important Office and Trust: This he did with many De­clarations of his Readiness further to serve, and promote the Prosperity and Flourishing of that loved and honour­ed Society, to his utmost Ability. ^‖

While he had a Place in the Corporation he was much employed in draughting Letters and Addresses about the Affairs of the House, such especially as were sent Abroad to Persons of Distinction and Benefactors, were mostly done by him, as appears by the Votes of the honoura­ble and reverend Overseers, and Corporation, and many rough Copies found in his Study. ^†

His warm and well governed Zeal for the just Rights and Privileges of the College shewed it self on various Occasions.— I will hint at one or two.

When above twenty Years ago, some reverend episco­pal Gentlemen endeavoured to push themselves into the [Page 54]Oversight and Government of it, he strenuously opposed them, and wrote a judicious and nervous Answer to the Memorial presented by them, which is found among his Papers. ^*

There is also a large Bundle of Writings left, contain­ing Addresses, Letters and Arguments about the Regu­lation of the Corporation (a Matter in Dispute about the Year 1721) wherein he earnestly pleads for what appeared to him the good of the Society at that Time, and in all Times to come.

He took indefatigable Pains with the honoured and worthy Mr. Thomas Hollis, and the Rev. Mr. Daniel Neal and others, concerned in forming Rules and Orders relating to the Settlement of the Hollisian Professor of Di­vinity (to the obtaining which great Benefit to the Col­lege he had been by God's Favour very Instrumental) And he had no small Success in finishing that Matter to the Satisfaction of all concerned.—But the History of his procuring Benefactions will be particularly related in another Chapter— wherefore I shall conclude this Sec­tion with Part of a Letter draughted by Mr. Colman, written to Mr. Hollis in the Name of the Corporation, re­commending one to him for his first Professor.

"There is but one thing more, Sir, which I have now to add, but 'tis a very great one; "The Nomination of a Person to you to be your first Professor. There is lately returned to, and is now residing in the College, a very accomplished Person for the Office in our joint Opi­nion and Judgment; Mr. Edward Wigglesworth, who in the Year 1710, passed his first Degree with us, and has ever since diligently applied himself to the learned Stu­dies, and to the Study of Divinity more especially: He is a Person of known and exemplary Virtue, Piety, Li­terature, Modesty, Meekness, and other Christian Orna­ments: [Page 55]His publick Exercises in the Pulpit discovers a solid Judgment, a clean Stile, a clear Method, a bright and strong Thought, and a Facility or Aptness to teach: And it now appears to us, as if Providence may have re­served him for such a Service as this now before us; which we apprehend may sute him in all Respects; ex­cepting his low Opinion of himself: yet neither is he wanting his Gravity, Wisdom, and a Spirit of Govern­ment and Authority, which may be necessary to command the Reverence of others to him in any Office he may be called to.

We do therefore heartily and earnestly recommend him to your Favour, to be nominated by you your first Professor; and the sooner you please to name him the better, that he may be ready to enter on the Work as soon as we can be ready to install him; or that being ap­prized of his Nomination he may be preparing himself for his Entrance thereon. B. COLMAN."

After the Decease of the Rev. and Hon. John Leverett, President, viz. on November 18. 1724. The Rev. Corpo­ration met and chose Mr. Colman Successor ^* to that great and excellent Man.—And on November 24th follow­ing, the Hon. and Rev. the Overseers of the College unanimously approved of, and confirmed the said Elec­tion; and on the 30th by their Committee invited him to accept of the Office: But the Great and General Court of the Province not willing (at that Time) to settle an Ho­nourable Stipend or Salary, until his Inclination to accept, and his Church's to part with him were known, he ex­cused himself from accepting the Honour and Charge, though with repeated and earnest Solicitations and Argu­ments he was urged to it—here and from Abroad.

The Answers he returned were in these Words— As I find in a Paper entitled, "A Minute or Record of that troublesome Affair, my Election to the Presidency over Harvard-College."

"To the Hon. Samuel Sewall Esq and the other Hon. and Rev. Gentlemen the Committee of the Hon. and Rev. the Overseers of Harvard-College.

Gentlemen,

When you did me the Honour to inform me in the Name of the Hon. and Rev. the Overseers of Harvard-College, of their approving the Choice, made of me by the Rev. Corporation to be President of said College, I did then express to you my grateful Acknowledgment of the Regards shown me by so Hon. and Rev. a Body, and my humble Sense of my own Unworthiness thereof. Since which I have privately seen a Copy of the Vote of the Hon. House of Representatives of December 3. sent up for Concurrence, which Vote I am informed has been non-concurred by the Honourable his Majesty's Council, and hereupon fearing lest on my Account there may be like to ensue any Difficulty to the honourable Government, or Detriment to the College for Want of an honourable Allowance or Salary to the President;— I do therefore willingly lay before the honourable and re­verend Overseers, or before the General Court if it be thought meet, my humble Apprehensions relating unto what so nearly concerns the College and my self; and as I judge, its just Interests and Welfare in all Times to come. I crave Leave therefore to say,

That I never sought or desired, but modestly shunned the Election that has been made of me to be the Presi­dent of Harvard-College.

That I hope I have always shewn my self very inclin­able, to the utmost of my Power, every Way I can, to serve the College, and have had great Pleasure therein, and I thank God sometimes no small Success.

That I must readily own, I am very much disinclined to leave my Church, or to undertake an Office so much a­bove me, as that of President of the College.

That I truly esteem it a Matter of great Importance to the Establishment of the Churches in the Province, as well as to the College, that ordinarily some grave and learned [Page 57]Person, who has been a considerable Time in the Pasto­ral Office, and is in some eminent Degree, gifted for preaching and expounding the holy Scriptures to the Stu­dents, be chosen President of the College.

That as I wish the President in all Times to come, may especially give himself unto these sacred Studies and Exercises, so I would humbly supplicate the General Court for any one who shall do so, to grant him a very sufficient and honourable Support.

But for the honourable Court to insist on their Vote of knowing my Mind, whether I am willing to accept of the Choice, and to undertake the Office of President, to which I am chosen, and also of knowing my Church's Mind, whe­ther they can part from me before they will fix any Salary for me in said Office, must determine me to give my Answer in the Negative to the honourable and reverend the Overseers of Harvard College, which in that Ca [...]e I now do.

Finally, As it highly becomes me to acquiesce in the Pleasure and Wisdom of the honourable Court; so I hold my self now called in Providence with new Ar­dours to recommend the College to their wise and tender Care.

I ask the Prayers of the honourable and reverend Board and am —

Boston, Dec. 10th. 1724."

A Second Answer upon further Application.

"Gentlemen,

Beseeching the God of the Spirits of all Flesh to provide graciously for the College, and to set a much worthier Person over it, and to make it in all Times to come more and more a Blessing both to Church and State, I do hum­bly think it my Duty to return my Answer to the ho­nourable and reverend Overseers of Harvard-College in the Negative, praying you in Time convenient to inform [Page 58]them that I do not see my way clear to accept of the Choice made of me to be the President of said College.

I am Honoured and Reverend, your obliged humble Servant."—

Although Dr. Colman excused himself from this high Honour and Trust, yet no one shewed a greater Solicitude, nor took more Pains, to have the College well supplyed,— His moving Speech to the Old South Church in Boston, September the 30th 1724 to part with their Reverend and Honoured Pastor, Dr. Joseph Sewall for that Service, which lies before me, is a Demonstration of it.—With many other Essays afterwards for its Good.

Dr. Colman writes down at large his Opinion, What President Harvard-College needed at that Day.—His Words are,

Dr. Colman greatly served Yale College in the Colony of Connecticut, by procuring for it many valuable Books, whereby its Library has been enriched; and on many Occasions shewed his Zeal for the Purity and Welfare of that Society.

Three Letters, shewing Dr. Colman's Zeal for the Good of Yale College, which he serv'd many Ways, as well as Harvard his Mother.

He served much and long in the religious Affairs of the Indians being commissioned and employed by the Indian Corporation in London. ^†

Sept. 4th 1730, He was appointed one of the Commis­sioners by the honourable and reverend Society for propa­gating Christian Knowledge at Edinburgh, and by many Letters sent to and received from the worthy Members thereof it appears that he was indefatigable in managing that important Trust which he resigned about the Year 1740.

He wrote once and again to Monsieur Levergiat a Je­suit among our Eastern Tribes of Indians on Occasion of one of his Letters to one of our worthy Missionaries on Georges River. For divers good Reasons they are here inserted.

As his Heart was much set upon serving this and o­ther Missions to the Tribes of Indians on our Borders, of which you will hear hereafter, and his Mind and Pen employ'd in the good Work going on among them: So he was no less solicitously concerned to have the pure Gospel sent into Places within our several Governments, where the Inhabitants were either under strange Preju­dices against it; or so poor that they could not honoura­bly support it. Accordingly, he layed out himself to the uttermost to collect Moneys for the Maintenance of suta­ble [Page 70]Missionaries, and always gave liberally of his own E­state. — This appears from many Papers encouraging Subscriptions for Block-Island, Nantucket, Providence, &c. &c. &c. ^*—He also for a long Time stood Treasurer for some of them which cost him much Pains and Labour. — In his younger Times he has gone himself in Person to preach among them. The Letters he has been called to write on such Occasions would make a Volume.

He projected and essayed to do good many other Ways.— I find two Papers, on the Outside of which is written, My own, the one about setting up Charity-Schools, the other a Proposal of a Fund for pious Uses, both highly worthy to be published to the World, and are therefore here inserted.

Boston, New-England, Feb. 1713.

"Whereas it has of late Years pleased God by his Grace, wonderfully to incline and spirit many piously dis­posed People in the several Parts of our Nation, to set up and support many Charity-Schools, for the Mainte­nance and Education of poor Children of either Sex; and in his Providence to smile on those their good En­deavours; the Fame whereof reaching us in these dis­tant Regions has provoked a Zeal to a like Undertaking, for the Glory of God, and the Good of this Place.

And as we justly apprehend there can be no Sort of Charity more acceptable to God, and beneficial to our Country than this; nothing being more likely under the Blessing of God, to serve unto the Reformation of Man­ners, the preventing the Growth of Profaness and De­bauchery among us, and to promote Virtue and true Godliness, than an early and pious Education of Youth: We do therefore propose, under the Favour and Direc­tion of God, to endeavour the setting up and supporting [Page 71]two Charity-Schools or Hospitals, in the Town of Boston in New-England, the One for the intire Maintenance, In­struction and godly Education of poor Boys, the other of poor Girls.

In Order whereunto it is proposed,

• 1. That there be some convenient Place and Habita­tion provided: And particularly that the Town be moved at their next Town-Meeting, to appropriate the long House upon Fort-Hill, with some Addition of Land for a Garden, and some adjoining Spot for a Pasture, if it might be obtain'd; to be given for this Use for so long a Time as the Charity proposed shall continue to make this Improvement of it.
• 2. That the Children entertained in the said Schools shall be such as are the proper Objects of Charity, by Reason of Poverty; so that all such in the Town with­out Distinction or Respect, be meant equally to be pro­vided for in this Charity; so far as the Fund designed shall be found sufficient.
• 3. That where poor People are seen visibly to neglect their Children, and by such their Neglect to abandon them to Vice and Idleness; and are yet unwilling to have their Children maintained and educated in a Way of publick Charity; the Help of the Laws provided, or that shall be provided in that Case shall be sought and taken.
• 4. That the Maintenance proposed for the Children is the whole Provision of Lodging, Food, Physick, Cloth­ing, Firing, Washing, Tendance, and every Thing ne­cessary to their decent and confortable Subsistence: And that the Children be clothed alike in some Livery, where­by they may be known; and kept neat, clean and wholesom.
• 5. That from six Years old and upward, Children shall be received into these Schools or Hospitals, there to be supported and instructed till Twelve or Fourteen Years of Age: And then as they shall be found fit to be disposed of by the Care of the Overseers, consulting [Page 72]the Children's Capacity and Inclinations, to Services and Trades.
• 6. That the Children be instructed carefully in the Principles and Duties of Religion; taught to read well, to write and cypher: The Girls to knit, sew, spin, and whatsoever may be proper to keep them employed, and fit them for Services, and to get their Living in the World.
• 7. That there be strict Rules of Discipline and Go­vernment observed, to restrain the Children from Idleness, and for the Punishment of every Thing that is vicious; to form them into good Manners and virtuous Behaviour, and that particular Care be taken for their reverent Be­haviour in God's Worship, and the Sanctification of the Lord's-Day.
• 8. That there be daily Prayers, Morning and Evening, with the reading the holy Scriptures, attended with suta­ble Solemnity, and none allowed to be absent.
• 9. That the Master and Mistress of the Schools be Persons of good Life, and Repute for Knowledge, Pru­dence and a Spirit of Government: Capable of so great a Trust and Service; who shall be honourably supported.
• 10. That there be three or five Trustees chosen annu­ally by the Subscribers, one of which to be the Trea­surer; to whom the Care, Inspection and Supply of the two Houses shall belong; who shall keep and render an exact Account of all Payments made, or Gifts received, or of Expences and Disbursements, and make up their Accounts once a Year.
• 11. That there be a Number of Overseers chosen, a­mong whom the Ministers of the Town shall be always reputed, and the Trustees for the Time being; to visit the Schools once a Month, and catechise the Children; when also there shall be an Account taken of their Faults noted down by the Master or Mistress, and sutable Ad­monitions or Corrections administred.
• 12. That there be a Quarterly Meeting of the Sub­scribers and Benefactors, when any further Rules and Me­thods [Page 73]from Time to Time found necessary or convenient shall be propounded and agreed unto, and a publick Ser­mon shall be preached sutable to the Occasion; the Children walking in Form to Church, and there sitting together in the Front-Gallery when they shall be pub­lickly catechised, and a Collection shall be made of the Charity of the Congregation.
• 13. That for the more easy gathering, and Payment of the Sums subscribed, it be agreed by the Subscribers to pay the same in, at their Quarterly Meetings, to the Treasurer.
• 14. Finally, That all Persons be assured on the Faith of said Society, that whatever Sums be subscribed and paid, or whatever Gifts and Contributions be made, or Legacies left by Will or Testament, for the Support and Benefit of the said Schools, shall be by them faithfully and without Fraud, applied and improved to the said Use and no other.

Wherefore in Pursuit of this Christian Design, we whose Names are underwritten, do hereby agree to pay yearly at four equal quarterly Payments, during Pleasure, the several respective Sums of Money over against our Names subscribed. Humbly commending this our poor Endeavour and Offering, to the Blessing and Acceptance of God, and ourselves to his gracious Direction with Re­spect unto any further Methods of Wisdom and Piety, which may best answer the Intentions above proposed.

The Proposal for a Fund.

A Proposal humbly offered to the Consideration of the Ministers and Churches of Christ, through this and the neighbouring Provinces, for the collecting and keeping a small Fund of Moneys in every Church, to be disposed of from Time to Time in such pious Uses, and in such Pro­portions, as the particular Churches to which it belongs shall see meet.

As we are directed and commanded by God our Sa­viour to be ready unto every good Work, and to be rich [Page 74]in good Works, ^† according to the Ability which he has given us, and his Blessing on us in our worldly Estate; so we are particularly encouraged to be devising liberal Things with this Promise, That by liberal Things we shall stand. ^*

This Promise obviates and removes the Objection, that may be ready to rise in the Minds of some at the first Sight of the present Proposal, from our present difficult Circumstances.

For as one Reason of these may be, that we have done and do no more in a free Expence from Year to Year as a People, for the Support of Religion among our selves, and the carrying it unto others in our Neighbourhood; so one of the shortest and most direct Ways that a People can take to obtain of God the Return of their Prosperity, and their future Establishment, may be to come into some Methods of this Nature which we now propose; with a pure Aim at the Honour of God, and the Good of Souls. ^§

Let us prove a gracious and bountiful Providence, if it may not pour out a Blessing, ^‖ and add no Sorrow with it: But what is of much greater Weight, and what we may more assuredly expect, by this Means we may reap more abundantly in the spiritual Blessing, ^† — The Spirit of God with his Word and Ordinances among us, and on our Offspring.

It is proposed then,

• I. That every particular Church do furnish themselves with a greater or smaller Stock, that may be a constant and ready Fund for Uses of Piety and Charity, as they may see Occasion.
• II. That to this End there may be in every Congre­gation a Collection made on our Days of General Fasting [Page 75]and Thanksgiving, appointed by the Government over us from Year to Year.
• III. These Stocks may also be from Time to Time increased by private Communications, as any Persons on particular Occasions may find themselves inclined.
• IV. This Evangelical Treasury may be lodged in the Hands of the Deacons of each of the Churches where it is gathered, or whomsoever the Church shall appoint to that Trust; and a true and fair Accompt shall be kept by them, to be on all Occasions produced, of all that is brought in, or laid out.
• V. Nothing shall be at any Time, or for any Occasion drawn out, without the Knowledge and Consent of the Church to which it belongs.
• VI. It is proposed that the first and main Intention of these Funds shall be the Propagation of Religion in un­gospelized Places; and the dispersing Bibles, Catechisms, and other Instruments of Piety among the Poor, as any particular Churches may see Occasion.

We have observed with Thankfulness to God for it, that of late Years the Hearts of many good Men among us, have been much upon this great and good Work here proposed, Namely, the Mission of the Gospel into such Places as have been hitherto negligent or averse to the Settlement of it among them, and also the giving Bibles, Catechisms, and other good Books among the Ignorant, the Prejudiced and the Profane, as well as unto poor and pious People. An Odour we trust it is of a sweet Smell, a Sacrifice acceptable and well pleasing to God. ^†

A more compendious Way to do Good to Souls, and bring much Glory to God, can scarce be thought of. The Wisdom which is from above, full of Mercy and of good Fruits, ^‖ we think, has scarce projected a more com­prehensive and effectual Piece of Charity and Beneficence than this is.— What can we think of more likely [Page 76]to be owned, accepted, prospered and rewarded by God.

And as to the Method we propose for the raising these Funds, scil. by Collections in our Congregations every publick Fast and Thanksgiving Day; what can be more agreeable to both those Solemnities?

It is very fit, if not indeed a Duty, that our Fasts both private and publick, should be accompanied with pious Distributions and Communications in Ways of Charity and Mercy. Such were the Prayers and Fasts of the devout Cornelius, who also gave much Alms to the People; ^* and how well accepted of God and rewarded, none need to be told. And such is the publick Fast which God hath chosen: Is it not to deal thy Bread to the Hungry, and that thou bring the Poor that are cast out to thy House? When thou seest the Naked that thou cover him, &c. Then shall thy Light break forth as the Morning, and thine Health shall spring forth speedily. ^† Now from God's Promises, on Ac­count of these private Exercises of Bounty and Mercy to the Bodies of Men on our Days of solemn Fasting and Prayer, we may well argue that an Alms on such Occasions, de­signed for the Salvation of their immortal Souls, cannot but be a Sacrifice with which God in well-pleased.

Nor do we at all mean by proposing this Offering to the Souls of Men, to put by the other to their Bodies; God forbid: But as we would hereby intimate to our People, how necessary an Attendant of a religious Fast Alms to the Poor is, and what ought to be preached to them and observed by them on such an Occasion; so we only propose to them the adding a Mite to be cast into a Trea­sury of the Lord for the pious Uses abovesaid.

And then as to our Days of publick Thanksgiving; as we cannot but praise (and bless God for) the excellent Usage (which has obtained among us from the Days of our Fathers, and we pray God may never cease among us) of making Gifts to the Poor, and sending them Portions [Page 77]from our Tables: So we hope, that the adding these Con­tributions for the Services of Piety above proposed, will be grievous to none, but may be a vast Benefit to us both on temporal and spiritual Accounts. ^†

To be sure, on our Thanksgiving Days we should re­member both the laudable Practice of the pious Jews on their Days of Gladness and Feasting; a good Day and of sending Portions one to another, and of Gifts to the Poor; ^* and also the Law given to Israel by the Hand of Moses, That on their three yearly Feasts none of them should appear before the Lord empty, but every one (says the Text) shall give as he is able, according to the Blessing of the Lord thy God which he hath given thee. ^‖

We need add no more to justify and press the Pro­posal here made. We give our Judgment to the Churches for publick Collections to be made in our Assemblies for the Poor, or for other pious Uses, as every Church and Congregation may think best, on every Day of General Fasting, or Thanksgiving observed by us. We wish that by mutual Consent it may universally come into Practice. We hope that what we here offer, will be seriously weighed, candidly construed, and be cordially entertained by the beloved Churches of Christ and their Rev. Pastors, whom we salute in the Lord, and ask their Prayers for us."

As he ever expressed high an Regard for the Town of Boston the Place of his Nativity and Residence, he ac­cordingly sought its Welfare and Flourishing conti­nually.

He used his best Endeavours that Peace with Truth and Holiness might be and abide in the Churches; and an happy Union subsist among the Pastors; and in his Turn visited the Schools, and encouraged the Youth in Piety and Learning both by Word and Writing. ^# He [Page 78]bore an open Testimony against such Things in the Weekly Prints as had a Tendency to mock Religion, and bring it into Contempt, particularly a vile Paper called the Courant. He also shewed his Concern for what he esteemed the Temporal Interest of the Inhabitants.

There is an Essay of his printed in the Year 1719, for the setting up and establishing a Market, fairly repre­senting the Conveniences and Advantages thereof.

He greatly encouraged by private Conversation the receiving the Small-Pox by the safe and easy Way of In­oculation; and by a printed Composure in the Year 1721 entitled, Some Observations on the new Method of receiving the Small Pox by ingrafting or inoculating, which was well accepted by many, and did much Good both here and in Great-Britain, where it had a second Impression. ^*

He also wrote and published a Letter in Vindication of his Friend Z. Boylston F. R. S. who was the first and chief Surgeon that performed the Operation, and had suf­fered much from the Tongues and Pens of some good as well as many bad Men that opposed the Practice.

I come now to write largely of Dr. Colman's serving the Publick, his Country, and the Churches.

He was employed in his younger as well as later Times by the Great and General Court of the Province, and the several distinct Branches of it on divers weighty Af­fairs. At their Desire he not only preached and printed once and again on grand Occasions ^‖ but also draughted Letters and Addresses for them relating to publick Mat­ters which were highly approved. Sometimes he has [Page 79]been engaged for them in secret Services on the most momentous Concerns, and succeeded in them. We have no Minister now left, that has that Interest and Influence here or at Home which he seemed to have.

I find by many Copies left that he wrote freely (but always with greatest Complaisance and Humility to our ex­cellent Governors, and Agents ^* for the Province; and to the leading Members in both Houses, of our Great and General Court, from Time to Time, which were gene­rally well accepted, and sometimes did eminent Service. The Governors DUDLEY, SHUTE, BERNETT, BELCHER exprest the highest Value for him, and his Excellency our present Governor will not be offended if I say he has shown him as great Regards.

I own he has been blamed by some (who have not turned out the best Friends to their Country) for inter­meddling at all with civil and secular Matters. But must a Person who knows well the Interest of his Coun­try, and is capable of serving it, and saving it too when sinking, be silent only because he is a Minister? Is he nothing else? Is he not a Subject of his Prince, and a Member of the Commonwealth?—Mr. Colman was full in the Sentiments of the Rev. Drs. Increase and Cotton [Page 80]Mather, his Pastors and Predecessors on this Head. ^† — Viz. ‘That Opportunities to do good not only legiti­mate “the Application of our Capacities to do it, but also oblige and require us do it. That upon pub­lick and pressing Emergencies Ministers may apply their superior Talents to some Things of secular Im­portance. The great Selden is quoted by them in Vindication of such a Practice—'Tis a foolish Thing (says he) to say, A Minister must not meddle with se­cular Matters because his own Profession will take up his whole Man. The Meaning is only, that he must ”attend his Calling.’

I hope the Country will be so just, now he is Dead, as to own that by his unwearied Pains and Essays of this Kind, we have been generally and greatly served.—

His Fathers and Brethren in the sacred Ministry as they highly and justly valued Him on Account of his many excellent Endowments, so they particularly discerned and distinguished his shining Talent in draughting Letters and Addresses by employing it on various Occasions.—So long ago as in the Year 1715 there is found his Draught of an Address to our Great and General Court about cal­ling a Synod.—In the same Year an Address to his Majesty King GEORGE the First.—Two more in the Year 1716.—Another in the Year 1717.—Another in the Year 1727—Another in the Year 1734.—Another in the Year 1737.—

The Address to the King in the Year 1716 was ac­companied with Addresses to divers Lords, Nobles, Gen­tlemen, and some eminent Dissenting Ministers in London, viz. To my Lord Chancellor Cooper, Lord Chief Justice King, Sir William Ashurst, John Barrington Shute Esq The Rev. Messirs. Calamy, Bradbury, Reynolds, Tong, &c. &c. To which Addresses, several kind and gracious An­swers were returned; and a useful Correspondence en­tered into by him with some of these great Men.

The Address sent in the Year 1737 was also attended with like Applications to Noblemen, Gentlemen, and Divines pleading Favours to the Province. The Right Honourable Sir Robert Walpole, His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, the Right Honourable the Earl of Harrington, the Honourable Samuel Holden Esq the Rev. Messirs. Harris, Watts, Neal and Guise, were written unto.—

A few of these Draughts are here inserted, viz.

"To His Excellency Joseph Dudley, Esq Captain General and Governour in Chief. And to the Great and General Court or Assembly of His Majesty's Province of the Massachusetts-Bay; begun and held at Boston upon Wednesday the 25th of May, 1715.

The Ministers of the Gospel and Pastors of the Chur­ches in this Province, convened in Boston on the 25th and 26th Days of this Instant May, having taken into their serious Consideration the State of Religion among us, and of the Churches under their Pastoral Care and Watch, are humbly of Opinion that it is a Thing hightly expedient and necessary, speedily to convene a General Synod, to consider what Remedies may be applied un­to these Evils and Distempers, whereby our Churches and the Power of Godliness, among us, may seem En­feebled and Endangered.

It is a Thing well known that our pious Fathers and venerable Predecessors held their Synodical Meetings, in laying the Foundation of their Churches, in the happy Fruits whereof we rejoice to this Day: And we cannot but apprehend it to have been a great Omission and faulty Neglect among us of the present Generation, the Blame whereof we the Ministers of Religion must very much take upon ourselves, that we have for so long a Time been without one such Assembly of Charity by their Pastors and Delegates in a General Synod: Though it has been the acknowledged Principle as well as Prac­tice of these Churches from the beginning, and might ever be their Beauty, Strength and Safety.

That we may therefore, however late, answer our Ob­ligations [Page 82]to God and to these dear Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ, over which the Holy Ghost has made us Overseers; and in the most effectual manner we can now propose to do our Part to promote a godly Reformation, and the Revival of true Piety through the Land; and be­ing desirous to enjoy the fullest Opportunity of bearing our Testimony to the Faith and Order of the Gospel; knowing that we owe, and are accountable to God and to the World how we discharge the same Pastoral Care and Duty in these Respects to the People of our own Generation, which our Fathers did in their Day to a Generation of far less abounding Disorders, Irreligion and Immorality; And finally, esteeming ourselves called of God hereunto, and relying humbly on the same Pre­sence of the Divine Spirit to be with us which was with them:

We do therefore in the Name of the Ministers lately here convened, and as they have directed us to do, lay before your Excellency and the General Assembly their Humble Desire and Petition, that if in your Wisdom you shall think fit, you would please to give your Coun­tenance and Assistance in all the proper and needful Ways to the speedy meeting of such a Synod, and to fa­vour it with that paternal Protection which our Churches have enjoyed upon such Occasions in former Times from their pious Rulers.

We pray God to fill you with heavenly Wisdom, and grant you at all Times his gracious Guidance and Lead­ing, and are among the most Dutiful and Obedient of your People,

Boston, May 27. 1715."

"To the King's most Excellent Majesty.

The Humble Memorial of his Majesty's Loyal and Duti­ful Subjects, the Pastors of the Churches of Christ in New-England, humbly Sheweth,

That having had the Honour lately to approach the Throne with our most humble and dutiful Congratula­tion [Page 83]of your Majesty's happy Accession thereto, to implore your Majesty's gracious Protection of us in our Religious Liberties; We do now in all Humility beg leave to re­present to your sacred Majesty the Constitution of our Churches, their Rise, Growth and present State.

We are in Denomination, and so in Principle and Practice, Discipline and Worship, Congregational and Presbyterian; of one Body with the Protestant Dissen­ters from the Church of England as by Law established in Great-Britain, commonly known by the Name of United Brethren; and like them we have signalized our Zeal for and Adherence to the Protestant Succession in your most serene and illustrious House.

Our Fathers were some of the Old Puritans, so called from their purer Church State, and Way of Worship and Manner of godly Discipline, which in their Appre­hension they sought and practised.—

They were People of exemplary Devotion towards God, Loyalty to their Prince, and of conspicuous Sobri­ety, Virtue and true Goodness in the Sight of all Men.

Uneasy as they were made at Home, under the Im­position of some Things which they esteemed sinful to comply with; the Spirit and Providence of God directed them to seek and find some quiet Seat for themselves and their Posterity in the Desarts of America.

Religion was their Motive and their Support in the sorrowful Leave they took of their pleasant Native Coun­try, —they parted with high Expressions of Affection and Esteem to the Church of England.

They chearfully planted and subdued a vast Wilderness at their own Expence, and not without many Hardships and Hazards.

They obtained Royal Charters to encourage their Un­dertakings, and to remain the everlasting Testimonials of their Allegiance to the British Crown, as well as Bonds thereto.

They were animated with a Prospect of enlarging the Empire of Great-Britain, in Regions not known to for­mer Ages.

But to their immortal Honour it must be ever remem­bred and recorded, that Religion was their first and chief Care, and in order to that Learning.

In this they have been singular and eminent among the Plantations, and we their Posterity reap the Honour and happy Fruits thereof.

At this Day through the Blessing of Heaven on us, we are become a great People, spreading upwards of three hundred Miles along the Sea-Coasts, and from thirty to fifty Miles up into the inland Parts of the Country to the Number of—Towns, and many more Wor­shipping Congregations and Churches.

At the same Time we have but one single Congrega­tion among us of the Worship of the Church of England; who are treated by us with all that christian Respect, and brotherly Esteem and Regard they can reasonably expect and desire.

Besides inferiour Schools of Literature by Law en­joined in every Town, for Reading, Writing or Grammar, we have two Colleges for Academical Learning, where the Languages and literal Arts and Sciences are taught; and whereby our many Churches have been hitherto more than supplied with Pastors, and the highest Chairs of Ho­nour have been laudably filled, to the Service of the Prince and the good of the Country.

In these Academies for Liberal Education, nothing but Learning and good Morals are required to qualify any Person for the Privileges there to be attained, but they are equally dispensed unto Persons of all Perswa [...]ions.

The Principles of Loyalty, as well as Religion in all other Instances of it, are instilled in our Colleges into our Youth, as well as taught in our Pulpits; where we never omit to pray also for the King in Supream, and for Governors as sent by Him.

Nor have we been without many Endeavours, laborious and expensive for the Conversion of the Natives to Chris­tianity. The Bible has been translated into their Language and twice printed; besides other good Books of Piety [Page 85]and Religion. There are at this Day above thirty Wor­shipping Congregations of the Indians among us: who are partly taught by English Ministers that have learned their Language, but more statedly by Indian Preachers of their own. Some Schools also there are among them for the teaching of their Children to Read and Write.

To add no more, our Churches are famous for their Zeal for the true Protestant Religion, according to the Doctrinal Articles and Homilies of the Church of England; and have been excelled by none in the Joy of seeing these Divine Truths secured to us (as we trust) in your Majesty's Possession of the Thrones of your Ancestors.

Moreover, we ought gratefully to acknowledge to God and the King,

That we have been distinguished among the Plantati­ons by divers Acts of the Royal Favour and Grace to us; particularly in the Royal Charter granted to us by the late glorious Princes of immortal Memory, King WILLIAM and Queen MARY: In diverse of which ci­vil Rights and Privileges therein granted, the Vertue and Morals of our People are greatly consulted and guarded; as also in many subsequent Laws which have received the Royal Sanction; and by which we enjoy many valuable religious Liberties as well as civil; Namely,

The Settlement and Support of Schools in our Towns, and of Orthodox Ministers in our Churches; the Peo­ple's Right of electing their own Ministers, the strict Sanctification of the Sabbath, and the planting Religion in such Places, where People profanely despise to seek it for themselves.

Our Prayer therefore is unto the King's most excellent Majesty.

That this our Country and these Churches may ever find Grace and Favour in your Royal Eyes, and in the Sight of his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and of all your illustrious Race; whom God continue on the Throne of your Majesty down to the latest Posterity.

That we may have both our religious Rights and Pri­vileges, [Page 86]as well as civil now enjoyed by us, continued and secured to us and to our Posterity.

That his Majesty would graciously please to believe concerning us, that he has no where any Subjects more true and faithful, dutiful and loyal, and who will more desire to deserve his Royal Favour than his New-English Churches.

That is would please his Majesty of his meer Grace, and as his Princely Wisdom and Paternal Tenderness to us shall ever direct him, to vouchsafe to consider the Constitution of our Churches in the Commissions from the Throne: And that from Time to Time we may have Men of Virtue and Justice, set over us in chief Command; and who may be of a Spirit of Moderation, and friendly to our Churches.

And in an especial Manner, we pray that our Colleges which God has made the singular Honour and Blessing of our Country, may ever have your Royal Favour and Protection."

Minister of Christ in and about Boston in New-England."

A Letter which in several Copies was sent to Dr. Ca­lamy, Mr. Bradbury, Mr. Reynolds, Mr. Tong, &c.

An additional Letter affixed to the several Copies of that foregoing.

"To His Most Excellent Majesty King GEORGE the Second.

The humble Address of his Majesty's loyal and dutiful Subjects, the Ministers of Christ and Pastors of the Churches in his Majesty's Province of the Massachu­setts-Bay in New-England, at their Convention in Bos­ton, May the 29th, 1734.

In the Name of the Pastors or Teaching Elders present, Peter Thacher, Moderator."

It will I think be granted, that he was equal to any of the Sons of New-England in his ardent Love and Affection to, and his assiduous Care for, these Churches of our Lord Jesus Christ. No one served them with greater Pleasure. He did his utmost to render them [Page 95] beautiful as Tirza, comely as Jerusalem, and terrible as an Army with Banners. ^†

It appears by many rough Copies of Letters left, and the Answers to them, how indefatigable and successful an Instrument he was in the Hand of the great Lord of the Church in compromising Differences, healing Divisions, and quenching Fires kindling and flaming among Parties, Pastors and Brethren. For the Maintenance and Resto­ration of Peace with Truth and Holiness, he wrote and sent vast Numbers of Letters to New-York and the Jer­sies, to Connecticut, Rhode-Island, Piscataqua, and to many Churches and Pastors in the Massachusetts Bay, all truly Apostolick, pleading for and breathing forth Love and Charity.—A Collection of them should be here publish­ed to render his Character illustrious if it could be done without exposing opposite Characters; and reviving the Memory of such Strifes and Animosities which had better be buried and forgotten, and are therefore omitted.

Notwithstanding his tender Constitution and often In­firmities, he went abroad to Councils or Synods, to set Things in Order in the Churches: And in his latter Days (in some Respects) the Care of all the Churches came upon him as you will see anon.

And as he early shewed a catholick and pacifick Spirit (as has been already noted) it increased in him as he grew in Years and Experience.—He ever exprest an utter Dis­like of that narrow Spirit of Bigotry, which he saw pre­vailing in two many of the greatest and best Men of all Sects and Perswasions in past Ages and the present.—He was for extending his Charity and holding Communion with all that held the Foundation. He loved and hon­oured good Men of every Denomination how much so­ever they differed from him in some peculiar Sentiments, Circumstantials and Modalities.

His Moderation and Readiness to sacrifice every Thing but Truth and Duty for Peace, was manifested by many [Page 96]Instances, both in his younger and later Times.—Indeed he had such an Aversion to Disputing and Jangling that he declined engaging in Controversy as much as possible.

I have often heard that when a Seventh Day Baptist Preacher (a noisy Creature) came from a neighbouring Colony to dispute with him about the Sabbath; after Dr. Colman had heard all his Objections patiently, and answer­ed them mildly, and the Blade would go on fiercely dis­puting he told him he had no more to say to him, but if he was minded further to indulge his disputacious Hu­mour, he would direct him to a Person in Town that would be a Match for him, which he accordingly did, and so dismissed him.

Here it may be remarked, "That Dr. Colman's No­tions of Church-Government and Discipline were larger than many of his Brethren's; neither had he any Opi­nion of an exacted Uniformity in religious Administra­tions. ^†

And while he entertained (and on all Occasions ex­prest) the highest Esteem and Veneration for the primi­tive Fathers of New-England and their Writings, he would pleasantly say, ‘That the Bible was his Plat­form.“ ”’ ^* No particular Constitution hitherto publish­ed (by whatever Authority or Pretence) appeared to him to be Jure Divino. The best were in his Eye either de­ficient or redundant. ^‖ In one of his late Letters to a Reverend Association, he says, ‘I have always openly “owned my self something of a Presbyterian under our Congregational Form, and my People freely allowed me my Latitude, and sometimes pleasantly told me [Page 97]that they thought me the most cautious of any Pastor in the Town or Land, not to break in upon the ”Rights of the Brethren.’

A few of his Sentiments concerning Councils or Synods and other Ecclesiastical Affairs and Transactions are here offered to the publick View, not with the least Design to reflect on our excellent Constitution (which yet I hum­bly apprehend may in many Particulars be mended) nor to manifest the Publisher's Concurrence, who does not a­dopt every Article or Paragraph in them, but to show the Author, and his distinguishing Lineaments ^†.

On Councils and their Efficacy. ^*

The Efficacy of our Councils depends much on their having a due Constitution; if we complain of the Want of their Efficacy, we had best search into their Constitu­tion, if that be weak and defective, how should Govern­ment be built upon it?

Councils, or somewhat equivalent to that Name, are necessary to the Preservation of Peace, Order, and Purity in the Churches. Experience shows us, that the Cor­ruptions of Men will be breaking out, and that it is a Thing of great Difficulty to heal the Wounds given to particular Churches by them. We have found also both the Confusion and Impossibility of every particular Con­gregation's governing all Things within it self, indepen­dently on other Churches. So that there must be some­thing of the Nature of a Council of Churches for pri­vate Christians, or particular Churches to refer themselves to for Advice, or Appeal unto for their Judgment.

It was soon seen in the Church, that such Cases and Occasions were and would be, and we read in the xvth of Acts, That the Apostles and Elders came together to consider of the Matter referred to them, and disputed and determined it. This is a sufficient Warrant for the [Page 98]Thing, that there should be Councils convened upon Difficulties arising in Churches; but I cannot find any particular Direction here given, or designed to be here given by the Holy Ghost, just how Councils should be constituted for ever after in all the Churches, and no other­wise. For I do not exactly see how this was: Yet the Thing it self is of Apostolical Practice; and as it is con­sonant to our Reason, so surely it should be looked upon as Scripture-Warrant and Direction to us in like Cases.

And now I shall write my poor Thoughts about the due Constitution of Councils, that they may have the de­sired Efficacy; and I freely confess I do not see what much short of the Practice of the French and Scotch Churches will be sufficient, nor what beyond them is necessary.

1. I think there should in every particular Church be former and fixed, a Consistory, as the French Churches had, or a Kirk Session as the Churches of Scotland, to have the Government of it in all Things. This is to consist of the Pastor, the perpetual President, ex Officio, and therefore not censurable here, and with him a select Number of Elders, Men of the greatest Piety, Gravity, Wisdom, and Authority in the Congregation. We find something equivalent to this necessary in our popular Form of Government, commonly having a kind of Church within a Church, leading Men whom we pri­vately consult, before we offer any Thing to a publick Debate and Vote. Which shows it to be our common Sense, that the whole Government would be better there.

2. Out of these Sessions or Consistories I think Coun­cils should be always gathered.

The Reason is, Because that the Government of par­ticular Churches is lodged here, which supposes them to be the most accomplished to advise or judge in any Ec­clesiastical Case.

3. The Pastors are ex Officio of these Councils, and of the Seniors only one should be delegated from the Con­sistory to accompany the Pastor: And if the Elders of [Page 99]the several Consistories should not attend, though their Neglect [...]s censurable, yet then the Ministers alone may warrantably proceed without them.

The Reasons why I am for only one Elder to be de­puted with a Pastor to the Council, are,

• (1) Or else the Ministry there have not an equal Vote, though Government is confessedly first lodged in them, and they may be modestly supposed to be their Superiors in Knowledge and Grace.
• (2) A Multitude of Messengers may be used as Crea­tures by a designing leading Person.
• (3) One rich and large Church may else send a Majo­rity to all the rest, if the Number of Messengers be not limited.
• (4) It was expresly the very first Canon of the French Churches, respecting their fixed Councils, or Colloquies, "That Ministers should be accompanied each of them with an Elder from every Church. The Scotch also re­quire only the Attendance of one ruling Elder from each Congregation at their Presbyteries. ^*

4. These Councils I would have to be know, stated, and fixed in the Nature of the French Colloquies and [Page 100]Classes, or the Scotch Presby [...]e [...]es; nor matters it which Name be given to them: Consisting of Ten on Twelve neighbouring Churches, to meet so many Times a Year at a certain Place, where they may be applied to if Need be: Or on extraordinary Occasions may be called toge­ther at a Week's Warning by the Moderator; which Call all the Members shall be obliged to obey and attend.

The Reasons why they should be standing and fixed are,

• (1) That all the Churches may know whither to repair for Advice or Judgment, and who are their Judges if they transgress.
• (2) It may redeem much Time, and stifle many a Fire which would not break out, if it did not lie so long a glowing.
• (3) It will give all Ministers and Churches an equal Honour, and not undue Preheminence to any.
• (4) It will prevent the Confusion and Disorder of Par­ty-making and Prejudices, against one Church, and for another.

5. These standing Councils, Classes or Presbyteries should be divided by Authority of a provincial Synod; and then (if it might be) confirmed by the Civil Au­thority.

The Reasons are,

• (1) Councils will act with the more Freedom, Boldness and Authority, and command the more Reverence and Regard among the People.
• (2) The bare Agreement of Churches among them­selves is an uncertain and weak Bottom to go on, and more easily broken in upon by him that lists.
• (3) The Countenance of Civil Authority honours the Ministry and Discipline of the Church to the World, and is (humanely speaking) greatly for the Security of both.

6. The several Consistories shall be accountable to their respective Classes or Council, and Ministers them­selves are censurable here; and Processes against them to begin here. Cases which the Consistory cannot end, or [Page 101]which fall not under their Decision, shall be brought hi­ther by Way of Reference, Appeal, or Complaint: And if the Classes please they may send for and examine the Register of every Consistory.

7. But it shall not be left to the Choice of any Church, Consistory or aggrieved Party to have a particular special Council of Churches of their own picking here and there; but every Classes or Presbytery shall have the In­spection and judging of all and every particular Church within their own District: And it shall be disorderly to leave one of those Churches uncall'd, or to call in another of a neighbouring Presbytery.

The Reasons are,

• (1) The Honour of the particular Presbyteries forbid it, for they are not to assume one over another.
• (2) The Honour of particular Churches forbid it also, it being a Disrespect to skip over neighbour Churches, and send to another afar off, as if this only had Wisdom and Integrity to judge in their Case.

8. These Councils or Presbyteries are accountable to a Provincial Synod, whither Appeals from them, and Re­ferences by them, are to be made: But by no means from one Presbytery to another, or to have Councils upon Coun­cils —Unless instead of a Provincial Synod there be ra­ther fixed a Superiour Council or Councils in every Pro­vince which may consist of two Presbyteries or more united into one.

The Reasons of this are many,

• (1) To keep Councils themselves in Fear, and awe them to Faithfulness.
• (2) To correct their Errors, or to vindicate and confirm their Decisions.
• (3) That a Man may have the Liberty of Appeal and a Possibility of being righted when his good Name and Enjoyment of spiritual Privileges lie at Stake, as well as in lighter secular Matters.
• (4) That Differences may not be endless, but there be some Judgment by which every one shall be determined and submit unto.

Thus I think Councils should be constituted if we desire to see them have their Efficacy in supporting, preserving and well ordering the Interests of the Churches in the Country.

• (1) I think that standing Councils are not only war­rantable, but are also the best and wisest Constitution.
• (2) Their Power should be binding, saving only Ap­peals to be from them to Synods, or Superiour Councils.
• (3) The Matters to be handled in them are whatever concerns the Peace, Order and Purity of the Churches with­in their District, which their own Consistories cannot come at effectual Measures about: as directing in doubtful Cases, healing Differences, rebuking, correcting and purging out Errors and Scandals, &c.
• (4) I think there should be no such thing as calling of Councils, save only the Moderators doing so upon extra­ordinary Occasions: for I would suppose them always in Being; and they are to be applied to as need is by parti­cular Churches or Persons.
• (5) As for the Right of Voting in Councils, I incline to think that every Member has a Suffrage; nor do I see through the Opinion of some, that Persons should be present to advise that are not however allowed to Vote.
• (6) Excepting such an extraordinary Case should happen as I hope never to see, I think some senior Pastor should ever preside: And a Clerk or Scribe should be chosen and fixed as much as a Moderator.
• (7) In judging of Cases and censuring Persons there must appear great Integrity, Impartiality, Tenderness, Goodness, Gentleness and a particular Regard had to the sacred Office entreating a Minister as a Father: If there be Appearance of Craft, Prejudices, Cruelty or Disrespect it will hinder the good Effect of our Councils.—The Efficacy of our Councils will also much depend on the Candor and mutual Respects of the Members to each other in their Debates and Carriages.

  A Deference and Honour to be paid by all to the Chair; An equal Regard given by the Moderator to every Member: The Freedom of speaking being pre­served [Page 103]to each; that Offence be not taken at Difference of Thought; and as on the one Hand the Moderator to be submitted to respectfully, when he goes to convince of Error in Opinion, or Indecency of Speech and Be­havior; so the blamed Action or Words or Opinion, ne­ver to be heard out of those Walls to his Prejudice, either as bold or erroneous in him.

• (8) The keeping Errors and Faults secret, unless Duty and Necessity forbid it, may be a means to give our Councils Efficacy, and constrain Men's Honour and Reverence for them, when they see we aim not to expose Faults, but to recover from them and so bury them.—

N. B. The two last Rules more proper and necessary in Consistories than Councils or Synods.—

Some of the Doctor's Thoughts on the Third Way of Communion, dated July 23. 1733.

(1) Although our Fathers in the Synod of—pro­posed it, yet they did not see cause afterwards to prac­tice upon it, not for want of Occasion and Opportunity, or from Inconsideration of the Matter, and Unfaithfulness to the Churches but in point of Prudence. They were as wise and faithful as we are now, but they threw it by as not so proper a Method, or at least fearing the Event of it, and it may be scrupling it from the Nature of the Thing.—By so long a Disuse, even from the Begin­ning, like a Law or Rule made and never put in practice, it is grown Obsolete and become as a Thing dead and buried, and not to be revived and put in force at the Will of a private Person, nor on a particular Occasion here and there: for as much as we are sure in this Case the Parties concerned will cry out of it as an Hardship and Singularity, a Novelty and Imposition, as the Rev. Mr. G—of W—did in the Day when he was surprised with the Rev. Mr. W—Visitation, and almost all the Ministers and Churches round about him joined in the Surprize and Resentment which he showed on that Oc­casion.

(2) Our Fathers fled from the Visitation of private Persons, Arch-deacons and Bishops, and their authorita­tive Inquisitions; and though I will not compare the Enquiry propos'd in the third Way of Communion, with these Episcopal Visitations, which were imperious, trivial and cruel in that Day to an intollerable Degree: yet neither will I consent to be subject as a Pastor, and my Church with me, to the Visitation of every Neighbour Pastor and his Church, when they shall please to come and make Inquisition how Things stand among us; upon the Complaint or at the Desire of some uneasy, or ag­grieved Person or Persons belonging to us: For I think it too much Authority for any private Neighbour Mi­nister and Church to assume to themselves; And though we are bid all of us to be subject one to another in a pri­vate Capacity, and all things are lawful for me, yet all things are not expedient, and I will not be brought un­der the Power of any, in such a manner and to such a Degree: scil, 'That it shall be accounted a Fault, and just Matter of Complaint to other Churches, that the Visitation of one has not been submitted to; so that other Churches upon the hearing thereof shall then join with the first Visitors and come and challenge our Submission, and if refused withdraw Communion from us, which is a very grievous Sentence, but a Brutum Fulmen if a Curse causeless.

No private Pastor, in this State of Infirmity, wherein all Men are of like Passions, is fit to be trusted with this Power of Visitation and Inquisition, and much less all and every Pastor through the Land; and if one is, all and every one must be so.—No single Person is another's Peer to enquire and judge concerning his Con­duct; But the Right of Men (and the Claim of English-men especially) is to be judged by their Peer's, and by a sufficient Number of them; and these disinterested and unprejudiced; against others he has a Right to make Exception in all Cases whatsoever.

We Ministers know our own and the Infirmities of [Page 105]others: How apt a Pastor sometimes is to be prepossess­ed by the Applications of a Brother to him, with a long formal Story of his Grievances: We know too of one another, how apt we may be to be partial in our Opinion of one Man and another, our Esteem of one Man and not of another; our Affection and Disaffection: This alone renders the Visitation of this or that Pastor, unfit in the Case of such or such an one; and so it does of his Delegates with him, who perhaps are of his own Nomi­nation, and very much under his Influence.— And he a­gain upon his not being hearkned to, has the Nomination of other Churches to return with him, and to be sure he will pick out such Pastors as will be like to be of his Mind, and act with or under him.— But let me have a free and chosen Jury, a competent Number of unexcep­tionable Persons, to make Enquiry and pass Judgment in my Case; but let me not have any Visitor or Inquisitor set over me, who is no more or better than my self; and least of all let me have every Neighbour made that in­quisitor to come upon me when he will, and call me to Account. This may possibly, be even a greater Hard­ship, and more intollerable Yoke of Bondage, than that which our Fathers fled from.

(3) Is it expedient at this Day to go into this Method? Perhaps the Principles of many of the Pastors through the Land are in Favour of a more Classical and Presby­terial Order in our Churches: To be sure the Episcopal Gentlemen will be like to make Advantages of our going into this Method.

(1) Would it be prudent to set Pastor upon Pastor, as we lie mixed through the Land, of a different Opinion on this Head? Will one be like to submit to the Visi­tation of another? Will you withdraw communion with all that will not? What say you? Will it not run us presently into a kind of civil War? Will it not produce Jealousies, and Envyings, and Strifes, and every evil Work? Can you bear down, and turn out those that will oppose this Method? Or is their Character from Place [Page 106]to Place, from County to County, such as shall deserve it? Can the Pastors of these Churches, upon any rational Prospect, remain united Brethren under this Conduct?

(2) What Advantage then shall we give to the Epis­copal Gentlemen by our Divisions on this Head? Men will be ready to prefer the Power of Visitation in a sin­gle eminent Bishop or Arch-Deacon, to that of every pri­vate Pastor that shall please to set up himself? And our own Pastors may be tempted and driven to submit to the Visitation of two or three, rather than that of every one. And if one and another has a Mind to go over to the Church, or find themselves forced to take Refuge there, they will do it with far the more Grace, and plausible Shew of flying from an Imposition or Inquisition, less to­lerable (they will say) than that of Episcopacy.—At the same Time the Protestant Churches through the World, both the Episcopal, Presbyterian, and Independent, will look upon the odd Representation and Face that will be given of the Matter, as a new and strange Sort of Crea­ture, in the other Extream of Discipline; "Every Pas­tor vested with the Right and Power of visiting the o­ther! They may gaze at this Phenomenon, but will ne­ver wander after it.—They that go off from us will catch at it as a Pretence for doing so, and No-body but our­selves will see into the Reason of this new Method, nor say a Word in Justification of it.

(4) That which gives me a particular Offence and scandalizes me against it, is the Pretence 'That this is the only Way wherein to admonish a faulty Pastor or Church, or to withdraw from Communion with them.—So that if there be a Council of Ten Churches, that have met in the second Way of Communion (as it is called) and having heard the Case, and find Things very much amiss, and that the Pastor and the Majority of a Church are very injurious to the Aggrieved, yet this large Coun­cil may not presume, and have no Call or Right to dis­pense a Word of Admonition to them, or to certify to them, that if the Offence given be not removed, they [Page 107]must lay it before their respective Churches, and be in the Advice to them to withdraw Communion from them. Yet at the same Time, a single Church in the third Way of Communion, taking with them one or two, or a few more shall have Authority to admonish and withdraw Communion.

Now what Reason can there be for a Council of three or four Churches in one Way to have that Power which is denied to a Council of ten Churches in the other? If it be said, this is our Constitution by Platform, it only shows the Imperfection and Unreasonableness of the Platform, in denying to the Council in the second Way, the Rights that belong to them as Christian Men, Pastors and Messengers met together to hear, judge, advise, ad­monish as there may be Occasion. As a private Christi­an I may lawfully reprove and admonish my Brother; but ten Churches met together in Council, may not do the like to an offending Church. Why, who can say? How come we to lose the Rights of Men and Christians by coming together into a Council? Is not the Judg­ment, Admonition, and Advice, the more reverend and weighty, by its coming from many, than from one or a few? If the bare human Constitution must debar one Council and authorize another, where both have equal Right in the Nature of Things, I desire to be free from such imposing and abridging Canons of Men. I would never go to Council, with my Tongue and Hands tied, no more than with my Eyes and Ears stopped.

That Dr. Colman retained like Sentiments on these Heads the following Extract from a Letter, wrote to one of his Brethren, Nov. 17. 1735, shews,

"Rev. Sir,

—In short, the Consociation of Churches, is the very Soul and Life of the Congregational Scheme, necessary to the very Esse as well as Bene of it; without which we must be Independent, and with which all the Good of Presbyterianism is attainable.

But the consociated Churches of every Neighbourhood must have their stated Meetings, the Pastor with a Dele­gate from each Church, and whatever Case may occur in said Churches, comes naturally and by Consent first un­der the Cognizance and Counsel of this Assembly, whe­ther it be by Way of Enquiry, or by Applications made to them.

Our present Way of going on Enquiry, or sending for Counsel whither we list, picking and chusing, with open Partiality and manifest Selfishness, here and there, in Contempt of Neighbours, who best know and should most care for us, is manifestly not of GOD and Order, nor for Righteousness and Peace, or efficacious Influence.

So neither is the Pastor's going like a common Bro­ther, without Character, or ex Officio; when the Scrip­ture every where gives him a distinguishing Character (and so does the Platform too in many Places) and con­siders him always in his Office.

Nor is it just or orderly for one Church to send a great­er Number of Delegates than another, and every Dele­gate with a Voice equal to his Pastors, by which Means the Brotherhood becomes vastly superior to the Eldership in our Councils. This is all Confusion, without Reason, and contrary to the Current of Scripture, respecting the Eldership, in my Opinion.

If the Churches come into such an Act of Consocia­tion through the Land, it may make them strong; but for any or every Church to take upon them to visit ano­ther, when and as they please, and whom they please to forbear, making Enquiries into their State, Peace and Pu­rity, must needs be a Source of endless Animosity, and is a Yoke which neither our Fathers before us were able to bear, nor will any that shall come after us.

By these Hints, Sir, you may see my Thoughts; for which End I suppose you put the Essay into my Hand, and I am your weak unworthy Brother and Servant,

On the Right of chusing a Minister.

He was not for confining the Right of chusing a Mi­nister to the Communicants alone, but thought that every baptized adult Person, of sober and good Conversation, who contributed to the Maintenance of one should have a Vote in electing. It appeared to him that this Order was right and good, founded in Nature, and confirmed by Apostolick Practice, and through the first 300 Years of the Primitive Church. Accordingly when his People were about chusing him a Colleague 1715—He uttered the following Words, in a Speech to them.

‘“As to the Apostolical Times and Records there are but two Elections that occur to my Remembrance, and they were both made by the free Vote of all the Dis­ciples ”together, in the Presence of the Apostles.’

The first was the Nomination of two Persons one of whom should by Lot (and not by Vote of Election which of the two) succeed to the Apostleship from which Judas by Transgression fell; of which you read Acts i. from 15th Ver. &c. that Peter stood up in the Midst of the Disciples (now the Number of the Names toge­ther were about an Hundred and twenty) and proposed to them to chuse two Persons; and they ( i. e. the Hun­dred and twenty, the Apostles not assuming this Nomi­nation to themselves, which was certainly by the special Direction of the Holy Ghost, as a Rule to Christian So­cieties in future Elections) they, I say, the whole Hundred and twenty Brethren appointed two, and so referred the Lot to Providence; and it fell upon Matthias, and he was numbered with the eleven Apostles.

The other Scripture Instance we have in the sixth Chapter of Acts, where the Apostles found it necessary to have seven Men chosen, of honest Report, Sanctity and Wisdom, to minister as Deacons in the Church; whereupon they called the Multitude of the Disciples to­gether, and said— Brethren, look ye out among you se­ven Men whom we may appoint over this Business: and [Page 110]the Saying pleased the whole Multitude, and they chose the seven Persons, and set them before the Apostles, who ordained them by Prayer and Imposition of Hands.

There has been a great deal of Dispute about the Of­fice to which these Seven were ordained, but whatever it was, more or less, you see that the whole Multitude of the Believers chose them, and then the Apostles ordained them.

And now Brethren, shall I go into the History of the Primitive Church, and shew you that this was the Prac­tice of the next Ages after the Apostles in the Election of their Bishops and Pastors: Their Parishes which were their Diocesses chose them. And I am glad, Brethren, to see among you so many Persons of liberal Education, while I lay before the whole Society, a brief Collection of Instances in the Christian Church of the first 300 Years after our Saviour's Ascension, to countenance and confirm us in our present Method.

In the first Place I observe, That the Bishop or Pastor's Cure was in the primitive Times denominated by the Word Parish, paraike, which Word to this Day keeps the same Sense among us which it did then: scil. the Bounds of a particular Church or Congregation of Wor­shippers: For indeed the proper Sense of the Word paraike, is — dwelling one by another, as Neighbours do.

Accordingly the Epistle of Clemens Romanus, is to the Church of God parishing at Corinth: paraikoese korinthon And this Name had so obtained by long Use, before Eu­sebius's Time, that through his Ecclesiastical History, there is nothing more common than to read of the Bi­shop of the Parish of Alexandria, the Parish of Ephesus, the Parish of Corinth, the Parish of Athens, the Parish of Carthage, &c.

The Word Diocess is of modern Use, and not to be found in its present Sense among the Ancients: Dioce­san Episcopacy is of a later Institution and human only; but the Pastoral Care and Charge of a Parish or particu­lar Flock is from the Beginning.

But that which concerns us at this Time, is only this, that when the Bishop or Pastor of a Church was dead, all the People of that Church met together in one Place to chuse a new Bishop.

Agreeably Cyprian tells us that Sabinus was elected Bi­shop of Emerita, by the Suffrage of all the Brotherhood: ( Universae Fraternitatis suffragio) and that it was the Custom through all Africa, Episcopus deligatur plebe presente.

Eusebius tells us, that Fabianus was chosen Bishop of Rome by all the Brethren met together for that End.

And Cyprian tells us, that after the Death of Fabianus, Cornelius was chosen Bishop ( Cleri ac Plebis Suffragio) by the Suffrage of the Clergy and People.

Clement in his Epistle to the Corinthians says, that none were ordained but with the Approbation of the whole Church: sunenotokesases tes ekklesias pases.

And by Ignatius in his Epistle to the Philadelphians, it appears that when they were to send a Messenger to any foreign Church, the People met together to chuse him.— And in his Epistle to Polycarp, there are two Things observed to our present Purpose.

• (1) That the Bishop is there supposed to know his whole Flock personally by their Names: ek, onomatos pantas zetei.
• (2) That he advises Polycarp to convene his People to chuse a faithful Man to send into Syria.

In the Life of Cyprian, the Author tells us, that he was chosen Bishop ( Plebis Favore) by the Favour of the People; and Cyprian himself in one of his Epistles owns that he was chosen ( Populi universi Suffragio) by the Suf­frage of all his People.

Only it needs to be noted upon what has been said; that these Elections were not made by the People without the Notice and Approbation of the neighbouring Bishops or Pastors; and it seems to me that they sometimes com­mended the Person to the Flock to be chosen by them; and at other Times that they were present and chose with [Page 112]or for them: We find by Cyprian, Episcoporum Judicium (the Judgment of the neighbouring Bishops) for just before it is said ( Episcopi ejusdem Provinciae proximi qui (que) conveniant, plebe presente, the neighbouring Bishops of the Province being present) We find I say, the Judg­ment of the Bishops join'd with the Suffragium universae Fraternitatis: with the Vote and Election of the Bro­therhood; which is agreeable to our own Practice, for we chuse none but whom the neighbouring Pastors consent and agree in; to whom we present them for Ordination.

Now, Brethren, by these and many more Examples which might be brought, as well as by the Rights of Na­ture, it appears to me that we are upon a right Foot of Election, all the Brethren of the Congregation joining to­gether therein.

If you ask me what makes a Brother and Member of a particular Church? I answer, Baptism into the Name of Christ, and a publick Profession of the Faith of Christ together with a Christian Conversation agreeable thereunto, and attending the Worship of God in this or that particular Congregation, submitting to the Orders of Christ therein, and contributing to the Support of the Worship of God there.

When I say this, I don't excuse those that neglect the Table of Christ, which the primitive Church knew no­thing of: No, it is a strange and blameable Defect and Fault among us, which should not be found among Chri­stians: But under this Defect, God forbid, that therefore these our sober and vertuous Brethren, whom we should be glad to see at the Lord's Table with us, should be therefore denied their Right to act with us in the Choice of a Minister.

I take it to be a Privilege equally purchased by Christ for all that profess his Name; whose Souls are equally precious, and who must judge every one for himself, and if any thing calls for a free and serious Choice for ones own Comfort and Benefit, that of our Minister doth so.

CHAP. VII. Great Benefits arising from his Travels Abroad in his Youth, and his Sagacity and Diligence at Home, more particu­larly in the Matter of Benefactions, — Honours done him from Scotland &c.

THE wise and gracious Providence of God which orders all Things well, and for Ends that lie far out of his Creatures View, suffered Dr. Colman (as has been before largely related) to be stript naked in the Way to London, and there presented him in his destitute Condition to the Charity and Generosity of Madam Parkhurst, where his Lodgings immediately brought him into the Knowledge of the London Ministers, and after­wards into a most happy Correspondence with her worthy Son the honorable Samuel Holden Esq whom God en­riched and raised to the Head of the Bank of England, and set also at the Head of the Dissenters in London; and withal gave him an Heart to use both his Estate and his great Interest at Court for the doing Good in his Generation.

From his Hand, (of his own meer Motion,) Dr. Colman received no less than Thirty-nine Sets of the prac­tical Works of the late venerable Mr. Richard Baxter, about the Year 1730.—to destribute among our Churches, which amounts to more then Five Hundred Pounds in our Money; And afterward at Dr. Colman's Request to him undertook the Cause of the Infant-Church at South-Kingston in the Naraganset Country, and sent us an Order of the King and Council for putting the Rev. Mr. Torry ^‖ in [Page 114]Possession of the Ministry Lands there (near 300 Acres) ^*

In his Letter to Dr. Colman which inclosed the King's Order, he writes, ‘All I have to desire in Life, unworthy “of any Thing, is to fill up the Remainder in Thank­fulness to God, Usefulness to Men, and a growing ”Meetness for a better State.’—Would to God this golden Passage might be considered and weighed by the great Ones of our Nation and Land!

Other eminent Services for the Country and Churches were undertaken and performed by him relating to unhap­py Law-suits commenced between Church-men and Dis­senters with Respect to Ministry Rates, and the Province Laws about them, all through Dr. Colman's Influence who wrote to him by desire of the Government.

Great and numerous were his Bounties to us as appears by the Receipts: In Books and Bills of Exchange to the amount of no less than 4847 £. New-England Currency to be distributed by Dr. Colman in works of Piety and Charity.

And after his Death from the Honourable Madam Holden and her virtuous Daughters (the Chappel in Cam­bridge included ^†) no less than 5585 £. which makes 10,432 £. in all.—Now it was Dr. Colman's early Tra­vels and Sufferings and Recommendations happily laid the Foundation of all these great Benefactions and Exhi­bitions to the Churches and Poor among us.

Upon the sorrowful News of this great and good Man's Decease Dr. Colman preached a Sermon ^† at the Publick Lecture in Boston, Sept. 4. 1740, in the Audience of his Excellency the Governor, and the Great and General Court of the Province, wherein he embalms the Memory of this our great Benefactor, and bestows, due Honours upon him, which was printed at the Desire, and by Or­der of the General Assembly. In that Sermon may be seen Transcripts of many Letters, which show the Gen­tleman, the Philosopher, and the Christian.

‘“Such a Man (says Dr. Colman) God raised up for us, our Friend for his Name's Sake. He loved our Country, and served our Churches, with his rich Estate, and with all his great Interest at Court, for the Name of pure Re­ligion among us—This was the Servant who like his SAVIOUR was not to be tempted by the World in all its Glories! They could not move off his Eye and ”Heart from the heavenly Glory.’—In more like grate­ful Strains of Eloquence did the Dr. celebrate and com­memorate him.—

I pass now to mention and record Dr. Colman's great and happy Services to the College, and in that to the Country, and all the Churches in the Matter of the ho­noured Mr. Thomas Hollis's Bounties which he ever spake of as the great Honour and first Pleasure of his Life— When he saw the Father of this good Man in his Dark­ness at Bath Eight and Forty Years ago, he little thought of the happy Correspondence he was to go into with this his Son, which was altogether providential and not at all of his seeking; but while he was pursuing the Reco­very of a Legacy of 160 £. Sterling, for two poor Or­phans (in the Years 1717 and 18) his Letters fell into this Gentleman's Hands, whose Heart was devising liberal Things, and fixt it on us, and the Interests of Learning among us, by the Will of God, to that Degree as has pro­duced [Page 116]all the Profusion of Bounties for a Course of Years together, the Fruit whereof we trust will remain to all Posterity, to the Glory of God for ever!

There are found no less than Fifty-three Letters from Mr. Thomas Hollis to Mr. Colman (all relating to the Col­lege) put in Order, in which are to be seen the Particulars of the great and good Things intended and done by him for New-England, besides a Multitude of others on vari­ous Occasions.

He founded a Professorship of Divinity allowing Eighty Pounds per Annum; and ten Scholars to receive annual­ly forever Ten Pounds; he sent us the Hebrew and Greek Types; and Books to a great Value.— Then he pro­ceeded and founded a Professorship of the Mathematicks and Experimental Philosophy, allowing Eighty Pounds per Annum: And age a rich Apparatus for his Profes­sor's Use of One Hundred and Fifty Pounds Sterling; so that his Bounties amount to several Thousand Pounds our Money. I find the Sum Total set down in one of Dr. Colman's Papers to be 5,400 £. To the procuring all which he was singularly instrumental.

When Dr. Colman received the sad Tydings of the Decrease of this his dear and honoured Friend, he preached a Sermon ^† on the Occasion at the publick Lecture in Boston, April 1. 1731. before the Great and General Court, wherein he celebrates Mr. Hollis as a most gene­rous and noble Patron of Learning and Religion in the Churches of New-England. This Sermon was also print­ed by Desire and Order of the General Assembly and de­dicated to them. "He was (says he) one of those righ­teous Men who should be had in everlasting Remem­brance. Like Araunnah he gave as a Prince.—Of his own meer Motion he poured in upon us, and upon other Places also, from Time to Time, as a living Spring whose Waters fail not.— That which is singular in the Piety and Benefits of Mr. Hollis unto these Churches was, that [Page 117]he was not strictly of our Way; nor in Judgment with us in Point of Infant-Baptism; yet his Heart and Hand was the same to us— as if we had been one in Opinion and Practice with him.— And in this let him stand a teaching Pattern and Example to us of a noble, christian and catholick apostolick Spirit of Love," &c.

"It was some Account he received from us of the free and catholick Air we breathe at out Cambridge, where Protestants of every Denomination may have their Chil­dren educated, and graduated in our College, if they be­have with Sobriety and Virtue; that took his generous Heart and fixed it on us, and enlarged it to us.— And this shall be with me among his distinguishing Praises, while we rise up and bless his Memory; i. e. bless God in Remembrance of all the undeserved Favours done us by him ^*

Soon after the Death of this pious and charitable Gen­tleman, Dr. Colman received Letters from Another at London, a near Relation of Mr. Hollis's, and a joyful Witness of their long and happy Correspondence, with a Bill of Exchange for 340. £. New-England Currency to distribute among the Poor in our Churches.

This same Gentleman offered the Settlement of Twenty Pounds Sterling per Annum for a Fourth Missionary among the Indians on our Borders.

When he first wrote to Dr. Colman, he desired to have his Name secreted: And I doubt not (by the Temper and Spirit discovered in his many Letters that now lie be­fore me) he would be glad to do all his Charities accord­ing to our Lord's Direction ( Mat. vi. 1, 2, 3.) in the most secret Manner.—But this was impracticable as to some of those Exhibitions and Uses proposed by him. ^† [Page 118] April 6. 1736, He wrote again, and added another Bounty, and a great One for the Support of some Indian Children at Housatonnoc, Food, Cloathing and Lodging, the entire Charge of which he would defray; and ac­cordingly gave Order to draw immediately for Two Hundred Pounds our Money for a Beginning.— In No­vember the same Year he sent 56 £. Sterling more, to be applied to the Use aforesaid, which was accordingly sent to the Rev. Mr. John Sergeant Minister of the Gospel at Stockbridge, to whom the Education of the Children was committed — And from Year to Year ever since he has supported them ^* there.

It is set down on a loose Paper, dated Feb. 1745, 6, Six Hundred and thirty-four Pounds has been already sent and applied to said Use.—But I forbear enlarging on this Head, lest I should offer Violence to the Modesty of this good and rising Benefactor to Mankind.

Dr. Colman's Heart was as much set on the civilizing and gospelizing these our Heathen Neighbours (as the o­thers mentioned Chap. 6th) and he embraced every Oc­casion and happy Incident for this Purpose—There is one Instance of his Care and Zeal for them, which the World has been already made acquainted withal, viz. The Pub­lication of a Letter wrote to him from a worthy Gentle­man, in Answer to one of his in our Weekly Journal of Feb. 7. 1744, which is worthy of a Place here.— A warm Provocation to good Works!

Part of a Letter from the Rev. Mr. Sergeant to Dr. Colman.

Many more Letters and some of a great Length, were written by him to the Rev. Mr. Hollis, and to Mr. Ser­geant, and others, to promote this benevolent and christi­an Design, and I would hope that this Record may great­ly serve it by the Will of God.

He held a long and most agreable Correspondence with the Rev. and learned Dr. White Kennett, Bishop of Peterborough, which was begun and ended with an intire View to the Services of Truth and Relig [...]on; and his Letters were sometimes carried to the Lord Bishop of London who discoursed with Dr. Kennett upon them (as he informed him) to the frustrating some Attempts of the High Church Missionaries here —

A Copy of his first Letter to the Rev. Dr. White Ken­nett, Dean of Peterborough, afterward Lord Bishop, ^‖ which introduced him into a happy, pleasant and profitable Cor­respondence with him to the Day of his Death.

The Rev. Dean was so good and just as to answer to the foregoing Letter, and many others wrote to him by Mr. Colman, expressing in them all the highest Esteem for him, and often subscribes himself your affectionate Friend and Brother.

Part of another Letter dated July 28. 1716, is printed in the Life Bishop Kennett, of which the Compiler says, it is Pity it should be buried with him. And as he has given it a Place in the Bishop's Life for an Entertainment to his Readers, it is here also inserted— To which I shall take the Liberty to add some Passages out of others that are now before me.

After he was promoted to the See of Peterborough ^† he was the same good and kind Friend and Correspondent. ^*

In a Letter dated Feb. 27th 1722, 3. He writes,

—"I have often accused my self of Negligence (which I beg you would not think a Disrespect) in not writing to you. It is not for any Change of Station, and much less for any Alteration of christian charitable Sen­timents, but out of pure Hurry of Life, and necessary Ap­plication to Men, and Things and Books.—I thank you for your very good Sermon ^‖ on Occasion of the Jewish Convert to Christianity. I wish you would repub­blish it with some Declaration of Motives and Reasons given by the Person himself: and a Catalogue of such eminent Converts from Judaism to our Reformed Reli­gion, as have been publickly baptized.—Here many of them publish very sound Testimonies of their real Con­version and Sincerity in our Faith and Worship. I think I could furnish you with near an Hundred Instances out of my poor Collections if you will make the seasonable Use and Application of them.

I was sent to this Moment by my good Neighbour Chamberlain to write a Line to you, and have put up a little Parcel for your Amusement, and desire you to Esteem me, and to pray for me as your very affectionate Friend and Brother, White Peterborough."

Thus writes this excellent Bishop who for his Mode­ration and good Works was very ill treated by the Jaco­bite Party in the Nation—of whom the Writer of his Life says, Pag. 193. "He was a Man of great Probity, Courage, and Resolution in the Discharge of his Duty. He lived (especially since the Revolution) in Times of great Trial and Discrimination; and in all of them, he approved his steady, inflexible and fearless Temper. The Frowns of great Men in Power, could no more awe him, than popular Clamours could shake his Stedfast­ness."—

I shall close the Account of this happy Correspondence with a long and fine Letter of Mr. Colman's to the good Bishop dated December 17th 1725.

On the Account of apprehended Abuses and Misap­plications of the Moneys of the Honourable and Rever­end Society for Propagating the Gospel in foreign Parts, Dr. Colman (in his old Age) wrote once and again to my Lord of London by the Desire of the Reverend Asso­ciation of the County of Hampshire, who made their hum­ble Representation to his Lordship and the said Society, to which Answers were returned.

May the 6th 1719, Mr. Colman wrote to Dr. Ho [...]dley Bishop of Bangor (since Bishop of Winchester)

Dr. Colman wrote a Letter to the Earl of Egmont, who was at the Head of the Associates of Dr. Bray, July 8th 1734, which obtained a Number of Books for each of or three Missionaries at the Forts George, Richmond and Dummer.

To this Letter the Right Honourable the Earl returned a kind Answer.

Upon his dear and ancient Friend and constant Cor­respondent, Henry Newman, Esq ^‖ informing him of Sir Richard Ellis Baronet, his Intention, to give his great and noble Library to the Dissenters; He immediately wrote to Sir Richard and acquainted him of the State of our Colleges and the Churches in these Provinces, and sent him his Sermon on Mr. Hollis and Mr. Holden's Death's that he might see the Gratitude of the Government and [Page 147]People here to their Benefactors. He also wrote at the same Time to Dr. Watts, Dr. Guise, Mr. Neal, Mr. Bradbury, and other of favour us in that Matter.

And here it may be as proper as any where in this Narrative to record the Favour done Mr. Colman by the ancient and learned University of Glasgow, in conferring on him the highest Academical Honours — the Degree of Doctor in Divinity, and sending him a Diploma signed and sealed according to the Customs of that illustrious Senate, which was delivered to him by his Excellency Governour Belcher, Nov. 1. 1731.— It is here inserted for the Sake of some among our selves.

"Senatus Academiae Glasgoviensis Christiano Lectori Salutem.

Viri admodum Reverendi Benjamini Colman apud Novae Angliae Bostonienses Verbi Divini Ministri tum mo­rum Sanctimonium et Pietatem vere Christianam, tum Ingenium, Eruditionem ac Literarum sacrarum Peritiam, adeo nobis compertae dederunt et probatae gravissimae Laudationes, et nobis commendantium testimonia fide dignissima, ut dignum omnino censeamus Virum Rever­endum quem summis afficiamus Honoribus Academicis.

Dictum propteria Virum Reverendum Benjaminum Colman Doctorali in Sacro Sancta Theologia Dignitate or­nandum decrevimus: Eumque Theologiae Doctorem cre­avimus, declaravimus, et renunciavimus: et [...]is eum Lite­ris Doctorem Theologiae creamus, declaramus, et renuncia­mus: Eumque cuncta Privilegia et jura Theologiae Doc­toribus [Page 158]usquam Gentium concessa vel concedi solita con­cedimus nos et tribuimus Lubentissime.

In quorum fidem Literas hasce majore Academiae nostrae Sigillo munitas Dabamus Glasguae, 28 Maij. MDCCXXXI."

This Character and Dignity (which his eminent Endow­ments and Services had long merited) he ever studied and endeavoured to act up unto and adorn; and was happily assisted so to answer its Obligations, as neither to be envi­ed, or despised by any.

Here follows the humble Record he makes of it; and the Letters it occasioned him to write.

Boston, Nov. 10. 1731.

On the first Instant, His Excellency Governor Belcher delivered me a Diploma from the University of Glasgow, asked by the Honourable and Reverend Society for the propagating Christian Knowledge, at Edinburgh; upon the Receipt whereof I wrote the following Letters,

"Boston. Nov. Angl. Nov. 2. 1731.

Doctissimo et Reverendissimo Senatui Academiae Glasguensis.

Cum illustri Universitati vestrae placuit, Me prorsus in­dignum unanimi suffragio Doctorem in S. S. Theologia constituisse et renunciasse, sicut ex Diplomate heri accepto constat, grata mea Agnitio pro tanto Honore et Favore humilimè se praebet.

Fateor me, Divina Providentia et Patientia, Ministrum et Pastorem inauguratum fuisse apud Bostonienses, natali Oppido, per Annos triginta duos; et quatuor novissimos Natu maximum: Et inde necessariò in me venit Nimium Cura Ecclesiarum hujus florentissimae Provinciae. Statio heu quanta! Animo tam debili et infirmo.

Attamen praeter Officia Curae Pastoralis, evocavit me Divina Benignitas ad Ministeria singularia in Commodum et Emolumentum Academiae nostrae, charissimae meae Matris, Collegii Harvardini. Nec ingrati fuerunt Senatus [Page 159]Collegii, et Academiae Curatores, quùm Annis sex jam elapsis in Cathedram Praesidis me eligerunt. Et nune, quamobrem nescio, Academia Glasguensis, multo magis nobilis et insignis, sponte reddit Honores adaequales iis, quos consia mente diu recusavi.

Certè Academia nostra humilis non sibi arrogat Potes­tatem conferendi Gradum Doctoralem, vel Theologiae, vel Medicinae, vel Juris Civilis. Dignitates igitur hujusce Generis sunt apud nos majoris Pretii, quùm ex Longinquo, nec quaesitae, liberè transmittuntur.

Medium, seu Via vestrae Communicationis, mihi et Fratri meo charissimo D. D. Sewallo, Existimatione nostra Accessio est Honoribus transmis;sis; s [...]il, Nominatio ho­noratissimae et Reverendissimae Societatis Scoticanae. ad propagandum Cognitionem Christi Ejus (que) Evangelii, sub sigillo Regali delegatae; Una et Literae Commendatitiae Excellentissimi Dom. nostri Gubernatoris Belcher; Cujus Pietas erga Deum et Integritas coram Hominibus, aeque ac Praecellentia in omni liberali Doctrina et politissima Arte, sellam Curulem apud nos abunde promereant et adornant.

Debemus igitur existimare nos ipsos magis magis (que) de­vinctos, alacriter et toto Pectore Operam dare (Deo ad­juvante) in Ministerio Evangelii, et in Missione illa specia­tim ad Indos Aborigines in his Regionibus dispersos; quorum Illuminatio in Doctrina Christi salvifica, et Con­versio a Tenebris ad Lucem, et a Potestate Satanae ad Deum, est Supplicatio et Cura Venerandae Societatis, et Depositum (Grande quidem) nobis Concreditum.

Per multos Annos jamdudum ministravi, Delegatione so­dalitii Honoratissimi Londinensis, Indis convertis in his Regi­onibus; quorum nonnulli regulariter in Ecclesias colliguntur sub Indis Pastoribus; Caeteri colunt Deum in Nomine Christi Conventibus multò minoribus: Omnes sub Cura Inspec­tione et Doctrina Pastorum Anglicorum vicinalium: Et etiam us (que) ad Senectutem et Canitiem, Deus ne deferas me! ut libenter progrediar omni studio persequi pia Pro­posita à Scotia jam nobis mandata; longiùs extender [...]o­titiam [Page 160]et verum Cultum Unici Dei, et Domini nostri Sal­vatoris, Ethnicis Orientalibus finitimis.

Adjuvate nos Precibus vestris, Reverendi Fratres; Pa­tri Luminum et Misericordiae; et libenter solvetis nullus dubito: quod Inflatu Spiritus Sancti, Animosiùs et Eventu prospero ministrare possimus, ad Incrementum Regni Jesu Christi in his nuperrime sedibus Tenebrarum.

Deus O. M. diu conservet et benedicat felici vestrae Universitati, et dilectissimis Ecclesiis Scotiae; et semper adsit Ministris suis fidelibus, et Missionariis in omni Terra, us (que) ad Extremitates Orbis.

Valete Viri Doctissimi et Reverendissimi. Sum Ves­trum Observantissimus et Addictissimus, Benjamin Colman."

I take Leave to cover a Copy of some of my last Writings to each of the learned Gentlemen, who have honoured me with their Names to the Diploma."

For a Close of this Chapter I shall hint at, and remark upon Dr. Colman's Character for Publick-Spiritedness, Fidelity, Liberality and Charity.

By the foregoing Pages it appears that the Doctor had a large and generous Soul, and made his Life as significant to the World, and to his won Nation and Country in par­ticular as he possibly could. He might perhaps with as Apostle for his Motto, Rom. xiv. 7. None of us liveth to himself.

In every Stage of Life there are some notable Disco­veries of his acting agreeable to it—He could say with the Stoicks, Agenerous Action is a Reward to it self. Thro' all his costly and painful (to him pleasant and delightful) Correspondence with Mr. Holden and Messirs. Hollis's &c. &c. &c. he never asked any Thing for himself. And when he was offered and pressed to accept of a Set of valuable Books by Mr. Thomas Hollis, he refused taking them on any other Condition than their going to the Col­lege at his Death, where he ordered them by his Will. Therefore in the Dedication of his Twenty Sacramental Sermons he could say, "I had no private Interest in View. Nor have I ever had any private or oblique Re­spect to my self in the long Course of Letters that have passed between us for more than sever Years past.— I appeal to you, Sir, if I have not acted toward you [Page 164]and my Country a sincere, open and disinterested Part."

"He was singularly Faithful in the numerous Trusts reposed in him. Although there was a large Liberty sometimes given him to dispose of many Hundred Pounds in Books and Monies (as he saw Cause) yet he endeavour­ed with the exactest Care and most diligent Study to find out the Mind of the Donor from his general Directions: And ever kept and sent a particular Account of every Farthing distributed (to what Use, &c.) to his Employers: He was anxiously fearful, least any Monies in his keeping should at his Death be thought his own, and therefore not only told his Friends from Time to Time what he had, but also wrote upon it, and gave special Orders about it in his Will.

I shall add no more here— As the Doctor devised li­beral Things, and warmly and prudently provoked others to Love and good Works; so according to his Ability and sometimes beyond it [...]e freely gave of his own pro­per Goods. ^† When Subscriptions for pious and chari­table Uses were set on Foot among us, his Name is ge­nerally seen among the first Subscribers. The Poor re­paired to him as their Father with a filial Confidence in their Wants. He was also singularly liberal and gene­rous in rewarding such as he employed in any Affairs whatsoever.

CHAP. VIII. His Manner of Studying—Writing Ser­mons and Letters—His Diligence, Ap­plication and Dispatch— Character of some of his Writings—His Manner of Preaching, Praying— Thoughts on Psalmody—Reading the Scriptures,— Using the Lord's Prayer— Catechising — Visiting— Letters of Consolation, &c.—

AFTER having observed and given so many Instances of the Doctor's catholick Charity, disinterested Ge­nerosity, and inviolable Fidelity in the many important Trusts reposed in him (in the preceeding Chapters) I come now to delineate some other Parts of his Character, which also distinguished him; and for which he was justly ad­mired, as an extraordinary Person among us.

Reading, and close Application of Mind to Study was early, and ever his Delight—He read much, and digest­ed well the various Authors he perused; and often col­lected from them what was curious and useful, as appears by many Sheets left, and numerous Quotations in his Sermons. ^*

In his younger Times he was a Night-Student, by which his Health was greatly impaired, and he experienc­ed the Truth of that Saying in Erasmus, 'Nocturnae Lu­cubrationes [Page 166]longe periculosissimae habentur. In his latter Years he plied his Studies chiefly in the Forenoon, and or­dinarily spent the whole of it in them. And he has been heard to say on the Verge of Seventy, "That he found himself best in Health and Spirit, at his Table with a Book or Pen in his Hand.— All must be hushed and still when he was there employed either in Reading, writing Letters or composing Sermons— He wrote many Hun­dred Epistles in a Year— (Nulla Dies sine Epistolis) to all Ranks of Persons; on all Occasions and Businesses, and with greatest Ease imaginable, to the vast Pleasure and Profit of his Friends, the Benefit of his Country and the Churches in it; and the Good of Mankind.— His Let­ters to his Correspondents abroad being seen and admired, created him new Friends and were a happy Means of raising up new Benefactors to these Provinces (as appears from what has been already written)— I need not there­fore here observe to my Readers, how good a Master he was of the Epistolary Stile — The Letters already insert­ed and others to be published in our Narrative shall speak for themselves. ^†

When he was about making a Sermon, after he had first looked up to Heaven for Assistance, he chose a Text, and consulted the best Expositors upon it (particu­larly the Rev. Mr. Matthew Henry, for whose Writings he seems to have had the greatest Value next to the sacred Scriptures) and drew the Scheme of it on loose Papers, and noted down not only general Heads and Subdivisions, but also some of the leading Thoughts and bright­est Quotations from Authors (around him) with many Passages of Scripture for Proof and Illustration.— Thus prepared he proceeded to write his Sermon on a Sheet of Paper neatly folded and stitched, which he sometimes fi­nished with a Celerity and Exactness incredible. I have [Page 167]known him begin and compleat a Discourse that would last an Hour at one Sitting in a Forenoon. ^* Few In­terlines or Emendations were afterward inserted or needed. ^†

Many of the Sermons he wrote and delivered at Bath in England forty-eight Years ago, are yet to be seen in his Study (all fair and clean) some of them in a Volume in the Bulk and Form of a Preaching Bible, and others in distinct Sheets. How pleasant a Sight if it were only for the Orthography of them! ^‖ Besides vast Numbers since made and delivered to his People here; many of which he took Pains to prepare for the Press.

Some of the Discourses he has favoured the World with were printed from the first rough draught ^# and not a few have been honoured with divers Impressions. ^**

And here although (as we hinted in the Introduction) I am every way unfit to give the Doctor and his Writings their just Praises yet I will venture to say a few Things more of him and them.

As a Preacher he was emulous to excel, and second to none among the bright Sons of New-England either living or deceased. He always brought Light and Heat into the Pulpit with him, to improve the Minds and affect the Hearts of his Hearers, and appeared to be in his proper Element there. His exact and exquisite Judgment as well as his lively Fancy and Imagination were employed in every Discourse.—The choicest [Page 168]Matter presented in elegant Language and flowing Eloquence.

His Wisdom and Ingenuity was seen in the Choice and Variety of the Subjects handled by him: He gave every Truth and Duty in the wide Circle of Divinity its proper Place and Inculcation. He was particularly no­ted and commended for a nice and careful Observation of the Face of divine Providence, towards the World in general, and towards our Nation and Land, and for im­proving every Merciful, Afflictive and judicial Dispen­sation, for the Benefit of his Hearers in his publick Dis­courses as well as private Conversation—The special Cases and Circumstances of his own Flock and Friends were in a very singular Manner regarded as appears by many Sermons in print and Manuscripts left by him ^‖

But above all JESUS CHRIST and the Covenant of Salvation through him was his grand and favourite Sub­ject, and most usual Topick, as appears from his Notes and his repeated Declarations to the World.

"He preached Jesus Christ in his Person, Natures, Offices, Benefits; Christ in his eternal Godhead, in the Covenant of Redemption and Grace; in the Promises, Prophecies and Types of him; In his Birth, Life, Doctrines, Laws, Miracles, Sufferings and Death; In his Resurrection, Ascention to, and Session at the Right Hand of God, his Intercession and second coming to judge the World; In short the Covenant of Salvation through him: And every Doctrine and Law of natural Religion with a direct Reference unto him as revealed and enjoined by him, as performed only by his Grace, and acceptable only for his Sake, who is the End of the Law for Righteousness, and as inforced upon us by his Promises and Threatnings; that he in all may be glorified, and the Grace of God through him.—So it is noted in the [Page 169]Life of Mr. Philip Henry, ‘that whenever he preached “of moral Duties, he would always bring Christ into his Sermon, his Life as the Pattern of the Duty, his Love as the grand Motive to it, his Merits as the great A­tonement ”for our Defects in it.’ This primitive and apostolic Preaching was the Manner of Dr. Colman's preaching the Gospel of the Grace of God.

Accordingly he has declared once and again, ^† ‘This “has been the Favourite Subject in the Course of my Studies for the Pulpit, I have ever determined to know Jesus Christ and him crucified." "My Speech and Preaching among you has been an Exhibition of the Glories of redeeming Grace and Mercy, from the Be­ginning ”of the Bible to the End thereof. ^*’ And I doubt not but he was often favoured with most ravishing Views of his Saviour's Glory, while he was composing and preaching on these Heads.

The Doctor had a most beautiful Way of introducing large Paragraphs of Scripture to enrich his Discourses; and was singularly famous for the frequent apposite Use he made of the historical Parts of the Bible whereby he surprisingly embellished them, and threw new Light on almost every Subject he handled. ^§ He often made Use of Scripture, not for Proof and Illustration only, but for the Sake of the inspired Language. ^‖

And as the Matter of his Sermons were weighty, and the Language and Stile grand and polite; so the Manner [Page 170]of his Delivery, added Beauty and Force to them, which was grave yet lively, with a Voice sweet and harmonious, and an Action singularly delightful and inimitable. His Countenance taught, and his Face shone as with a divine Ray on it like Moses reflecting on the Assembly, and con­straining Attention, Reverence and Affection. The elo­quent Orator, is a just Stroke in his Character. He evi­dently and eminently answered that Part of the Descrip­tion of the Prophet Ezekiel, And lo, thou art unto them as a very lovely Song, of one that hath a pleasant Voice, and can play well on an Instrument. ^(a) And I doubt not but many while hanging on his Lips have thought of that ami­able Description of Christ's prophetick Office given us in the Canticle, "His Mouth is most sweet." ^(b) But although in general his Voice might be said to be soft and still, and that his Speech and Doctrine dropt as the Dew, and distil­led as the small Rain upon the tender Herb, ^(c) yet when oc­casions for it occurred he could notably imitate a Boaner­ges, and play the Artillery of Heaven against the hardy Sons of Vice, and uncover the dreadful Pit.—With what Light, and Flame, and Power have we sometimes known him dispense the Word, and by the Terrors of the Lord perswade Men in the Applications of his Discourse? ^(d) Yet he was ever careful to observe a just Decorum and Behaviour, and spake as became the Oracles of God. ^*

I shall now add the Character of some of the Doctor's Publications which the World has been blessed withal [a compleat Catalogue of which will be annexed to this Nar­rative] from some very good Judges —These have been all along justly admired and valued by Persons of Taste for the Vein of fine Sense, Language and that Seriousness of Spirit that runs through them. They are mostly occa­sional, and printed at the Desire of the Hearers.

On some of his early Works a Reverend and learned Person in England writes to him, —

"Sir, I am sorry so many of your Works are cast away upon France. I wish however they were translated into their Language, and dispersed among the People. Such a Vein of Sense and Piety, such a smooth and yet strong Torrent of divine Eloquence must certainly (by God's As­sistance) carry all before it, and find a Way into the most [Page 172]hardned Souls.—I am not afraid to say, that I think the Sermons of America may be a Pattern for the politest, the most nervous, and affectionate Preachers of Europe." ^†

The Reverend and venerable Solomon Stoddard of our Northampton, upon reading the Discourses on the Parable writes thus to the Author, "If such Books will not work on the Consciences of Men I know not what will, the Hopes of your living to do Service when I am Dead is a Comfort to me. 1709." Dr. Watts and other eminent Ministers in England upon receiving and reading his Trea­tises and Sermons in their Letters often observe with Plea­sure "the Variety of useful and beautiful Thoughts, just Sentiments and fine Address in them. —

I find by a Letter from an eminent Person "that a Lady of Quality of the greatest Wit in the Nation (but of the High Church) upon reading his Sermon on the Death of Governor Dudley was so pleased with it as to say "She should be for ever hereafter in Love with the short Cloak."

But it would be endless (as it is needless) to record the Encomiums and Panegyricks of worthy Persons at Home and Abroad on this Head; I shall only offer the Reader two more which are printed, — scil.

The great and learned Mr. Pemberton in his Preface to the Doctor's Sermons on the Incomprehensibleness of God, published in the Year 1715 says, "in these Discourses we have the sublime Subject of God's Incomprehensibleness treated with a becoming Modesty and Reverence, with an agreable Life, Judgment and Perspicuity. The Character of the Reverend Author and his Performance are too bright to receive any Lustre from my Recom­mendation.

However, I must be allowed to rejoice in, and to bless the great Head of the Church for, those uncommon Gifts his Servant is endowed with; which appear observably [Page 173]in these Discourses.—And sure I am it is not Partiality to a Friend, but Justice to the Merit of the Performance, which compels me to believe, that every impartial, judi­cious Reader will esteem these Meditations, every Way fitted to entertain, and improve the Understanding of the most Intelligent; and to quicken the Devotion of the most devout Christian."

The other is from divers eminent Ministers of London, in their Preface to his Twenty Sacramental Sermons.

Signed, Edm. Calamy, Jer. Hunt, I. Watts, W. Harris, Dan. Neal, John Evans.

To proceed on this Head of the Doctor's Pulpit Perfor­mance.—When he was the People's Mouth to God in Prayer, his Adorations, Confession, Supplications, Thanksgivings and Intercessions were profoundly reverend, solemn, copious and pathetick—On new and grand Oc­casions when he had Time, and took Pains to meditate and prepare himself, his Ideas and Expressions were sublime—He soared on high and led those that joined (with Hearts melted and filled with Devotion) even to the Seat and Throne of God, as far as Example, and the Power of Words could do it.—Sometimes we have known him on the most sudden Calls, occasioned by extraordinary Provi­dences, so animated and elevated with the Spirit of De­votion, as to exceed himself and his most studied Addres­ses. And although in his ordinary Course he confined himself to a form of Words as little as most of his Bre­thren, yet he ever had an high Value for Helps ^‖ to De­votion, which he ever strongly recommended to younger Ministers, as well as private Christians; and his Spirit was moved with a just Disdain and Indignation upon hearing them so much preached against and vilified by some warm Itinerants in the late Times.

As he looked on the whole Canon of Scripture, and particularly the Psalms the best Common Prayer Book for the Church of God, so for the most part he kept to in­spired Language in his Devotions.—In short, he prayed with the Spirit and with the Understanding also, and with the greatest Fervour and Earnestness of his own Spirit—what Life what Ardour did he discover? how lavish of his Strength and animal Spirits? more especially in his Prayers at the Administration of the Sacraments of the New Testament, he did spend and was spent even to Faintness. ^*

As singing of Psalms is a Part of the publick Worship which the Doctor highly delighted in, and was greatly concerned to have performed to Edification, it may not seem improper to give our Readers the Result of his Thot's about the Introduction of some other Version of the Psalms and select Portions of Scripture in the Room of that which has been so long in Use among us; and which he laid before his People sometime in the Year 1738. He apprehended this heavenly Exercise might be carried on with more Understanding and Spirit, and with better Me­lody of Voice and Heart by making an Alteration and Change of our Version (though he was far from despising it and speaking reproachfully of it as some have)— pro­vided it could be done with Peace, and a general Agree­ment.—

He wrote thus,

• 1. My Opinion is, That in the Book of Psalms, and in several other Parts of holy Scripture, there is full Provi­sion made for the Collection of a Body of Psalmody, for the Use of the Churches through all Ages in the publick and private Worship of God.
• 2. That more especially and eminently the Book of Psalms, though not singly and alone, nor yet equally in every Part of it, is prepared and given by the Holy Ghost, as this Fund of Devotion for the Use of the Church.
• 3. That therefore a Collection ought to be made with the best Care and Judgment, of such Parts of the Book of Psalms, with other Portions of the Old and New-Testament, for the Use of particular Churches and Con­gregations.
• 4. That in the Versions made in one Language and another through the Christian World there ought not to [Page 176]be affected a keeping to the Letter of the original Lan­guages; but the true Sense, Scope, Spirit and Life of the Portions chosen, ought to be given in the proper poetick Stile and Diction of the Language and Age wherein the Version is made: the Gravity and Majesty of the sacred Subject and Exercise being duly attended to and preserved.
• 5. That the best Collections of this Nature, that our Age and Nation have seen, or I think are like to see, may be easily made from Dr. Watts his Imitation of the Psalms of David, in the Language of the New Testament, and from his Book of Hymns. His Poetry is grave and so­lemn, full of Light and Heat, and the Evangelical Turn he gives in many Places is wonderfully adapted, in my Opinion, for the Service of Souls. I cannot but think it to be the Intention of the Spirit in leaving us these in­spired Psalms, that we should make some such Use of them, and accordingly it is the Practice of the Christian Church universal (a very few Instances excepted) to se­lect a Portion here or there from Time to Time.
• 6. That therefore it be recommended to the Church and Congregation that such a Collection be made and laid before them when prepared for their Approbation and Acceptance, and thereupon to be printed, and the Congregation being therewith supplied, thenceforth used in the publick Worship of God among us.
• 7. That particular Care be taken not to make the Collection too large, or the Book too bulky and dear for the poorer Families or Persons, and that out of the publick Stock a competent Number of Books be provided for the Supply of such as are not able to furnish them­selves.
• 8. That with respect unto such Psalm as Dr. Watts has adapted only to a Tune which our Congregation can­not sing, either we resolve upon learning and bringing into Use among us said Tune, or that a new Metr [...] of such Psalms, or part of them, be attempted as near as we can turn them to his Stile and Manner.
• 9. That where he has omitted whole Psalms, like Pro­vision [Page 177]be made, for I judge it best for us to have the whole Book of Psalms in its Order as we now have it.&

Inclosed in the above Proposal (which was not com­plied with) the Doctor has set down on a Paper a Num­ber of select Hymns from Dr. Watts, which if added to our Psalm Book might possibly answer his pious Design and be much for Edification, viz.

• Hymn 1—3 last Verses
• Hymn 2—Ver. 1, 4, 5, 7
• Hymn 7—5 first Verses
• Hymn 10—the [...]hole of it
• Hymn 12—
• Hymn 14—
• Hymn 16—
• Hymn 17—
• Hymn 18—
• Hymn 19—Ver. 1, 2, 3, 4
• Hymn 28—
• Hymn 45—Ver. 1, 2, 7, 8
• Hymn 52—
• Hymn 56—1, 2, 3, 4
• Hymn 57—
• Hymn 58—4, 5, 6,
• Hymn 59—
• Hymn 61—
• Hymn 62—
• Hymn 63—
• Hymn 64—
• Hymn 66—V. 6, 7, 8,
• Hymn 67—
• Hymn 68—
• Hymn 69—
• Hymn 70—
• Hymn 71—
• Hymn 72—
• Hymn 73—
• Hymn 74—
• Hymn 75—
• Hymn 76—
• Hymn 77—
• Hymn 78—
• Hymn 101—
• Hymn 106—
• Hymn 113—
• Hymn 116—
• Hymn 121—

• Hymn 1—3 and 7
• Hymn 2—3, 6
• Hymn 6—1, 4
• Hymn 11—1, 2, 3, 7
• Hymn 14—1, 2, 3, 5
• Hymn 17—1, 2, 3, 8
• Hymn 19—
• Hymn 23—2, 3, 4
• Hymn 24—
• Hymn 25—
• Hymn 26—Common Metre
• Hymn 42—Long Metre

It is recorded in the 42 Page of our Narrative that the Gentlemen who invited Dr. Colman's Return to New-England proposed to him in their Letter "That the [Page 178]Holy Scriptures might be read every ^† Sabbath in the publick Worship of God among them, which was not practised in other Churches (in the Town) at that Day.— He readily concurred with their Proposal, and practised accordingly to his Death.—For he ever looked upon this Publick Reading as but a due Reverence and Honour done to them, and a suitable Acknowledgment made to the glorious Author Jehovah, who in infinite Mercy has given his Word to us, and by which he will judge the World at the great Day.—His Custom was to begin the Religious Exercises of God's House with a short Prayer for a Blessing on that Portion of the Word that was then to be read to the Congregation—And herein he humbly apprehended he followed the Foot-steps of the Flock.—He found both the Jewish and Christian Churches in their best and purest Times paying such a Regard to it,—The Reverend Assembly of Divines at Westminster advising to it—Our New-England Con­fession of Faith (in Chapter 22d Sect. 5. which treats of religious Worship and the Sabbath Day) according with them—the Words are scil: "The Reading of the Scripture, Preaching and Hearing the Word of God, singing of Psalms, and also the Administration of Baptism, and the Lords-Supper are all Parts of the religious Wor­ship of God, to be performed in Obedience unto God with Understanding, Faith, Reverence, and godly Fear. But what weighed infinitely more with him than all such [Page 179]Authorities was "That he plainly discerned sufficient Grounds for the Practice in the sacred Oracles. ^*—

And he had soon the Pleasure of hearing the Testimo­nies and Thanks of many for the Benefit and Advantage they received by it.—And of some too who came at first with strange Prejudices against it. He lived to see this laudable Custom prevail in and spread through many Churches of the Land; and so the Reproaches we had long lain under for this Omission in some Measure taken away. ^†

Yet I would by no means be thought to represent the Doctor as censuring his Brethren that did not see with his Eyes, but were for having some Exposition accompa­nying the Word publickly read; for he has been often heard to say "That if the Scripture were but read in our Assemblies, either with or without an Exposition the Institution and Ordinance of God was in a good Measure answered—And therefore although he vastly preferred the Method above mentioned; yet he readily complied with the Customs of Neighbour-Churches, when he occasion­ally ministred unto them.— One Instance of his Conde­scension, and becoming all Things to all Men for their spiritual Edification may be here told.— Upon the Old Meeting-House (so called) in Boston, being consumed by Fire in the Year 1711, about one half of the Congrega­tion that used to meet in it attended his Ministry for many Months; in which Time after he had read his [Page 180]Chapter as usual, he made short expository Notes upon it to gratify his new Hearers. ^†

Another Thing which the Doctor and his People ap­proved of was the Use of the Lord's-Prayer, i. e. all the Words of it together as it stands in the New-Testament, in the Close of his first short Prayer before reading the Scriptures—a Custom which many took Offence at in the Beginning, although the Lawfulness of it was denied by none.

As the Doctor was intirely of Mr. Philip Henry's Mind about it, I can't represent his Sentiments, better than in those Words in the 110th Page of the Life of that ex­cellent Man of God—Which were sometimes quoted by him, viz. "He looked upon the Lord's-Prayer, to be “not only a Directory or Pattern for Prayer, but (accord­ing to the Advice of the Assembly of Divines) proper to be used as a Form, and accordingly he often used it both in Publick and in his Family. And as he thought it was an Error on the one Hand, to lay so much Stress upon it as some do, who think no solemn Prayer ac­cepted, nor any solemn Ordinance or Administration of Worship compleat without it, and so repeat it five or six Times, and perhaps oftner at one Meeting; so he thought it an Error on the other Hand not to use it at all; since it is a Prayer, a compendious and com­prehensive Prayer, and may be of Use to us, at least as other Scripture Prayers, but he thought it a much greater Error, to be angry at those who do use it, to judge and censure them, and for no other Reason to conceive Prejudices against them and their Ministry.

A great Strait (saith he) poor Ministers are in, when some will not hear them, if they do not use the Lord's Prayer, and others will not hear them if they do; what is to be done in this Case? We must walk according to the Light we have, and approve our selves to God, ei­ther [Page 181]in using or not using it, and wait for the Day when God will mend the Matter; which I hope he will do in ”his own due Time."

He was constant (in his Turn) in catechising the Chil­dren of his Congregation, and speaking to them concern­ing their Souls from their early Days, putting them in Mind of their Baptism, and the holy Bonds they are un­der thereby to be the Lord's, and in this Way to bring them on to an early Recognition of these Bonds, if it might please God to impress their tender Hearts betimes. —At these Exercises he used his singular Gift of insinu­ating and inculcating the Truths and Duties of Christi­anity by putting Questions and laying hold on the Chil­dren's Answers, and giving such Advices and Warnings as he thought needful.

As soon as they were grown up to Years of Discretion, he urged upon them the publick Renewal of their Bap­tismal Covenant— When any of them entred into the Marriage-State, he failed not to visit and counsel them on this Head; and it has been thought by some that he exceeded in his Compulsions to fill the House and Table of the Lord.

It must be owned, the Doctor was for a freer Admis­sion to the Lord's-Supper than some of his Brethren, but far, very far from approving general Admissions, or even of thinking that all that is necessary thereunto, is a Com­petency of Knowledge, and Orderliness of Conversation. I find some of his Thoughts on this Head, in a private Letter to a Friend, "I think more is necessary both in Foro Ecclesiae et Conscientiae; before Man there should be a credible Profession of Repentance and Faith, with serious Purposes and Promises by the Grace of God of New Obedience: To all which the Person should have the Answer of a good Conscience, his Heart not con­demning him — So in the Beginning of the Gospel they came confessing their Sins, sorrowing for them, and pro­mising to forsake them— I very much question whether there would be nigh so much Holiness in our Churches, [Page 182]were our Admissions to be general as there now is. The Table of the Lord should, and does indeed lie open to all, the People are earnestly invited to it, as well as ex­horted to prepare for it, no Inquisition is or should be set up over their Consciences, though they are admonish­ed to look to their Sincerity before God, and the best Signs of that are laid before them, for their Assistance; only the Scandalous are restrained from coming: Others are encouraged, if they can but profess in private to their Pastors a serious Thoughtfulness and Concern for their Souls, and a better Life, and a Resolution by the Grace of God for a Life of Obedience to God in secret and in publick.—As to publick Relations in the Churches of Ex­periences it is an human Invention." Yet I would ob­serve, the Doctor was a great Friend to Confessions of Faith, and the Publication of them too on special Occa­sions, but then he would always have Men at Liberty to draught their own, and not be obliged to subscribe the Words of others.

The Doctor as became a vigilant Overseer made fre­quent Visits to the several Families of his Charge, not only common and civil to cultivate Friendship and Good Will, but proper Pastoral Ones to enquire into and know their State and Circumstances in Order to treat them a­greably, wisely and faithfully, and that he might the bet­ter adapt his publick Exercises, and give to every one their Portion in due Season.

He made Conscience of visiting the Poor as well as the Rich (especially in their Afflictions) instructing, advising, admonishing and comforting as he saw Occasion: And this he did Night and Day as long as his Strength lasted, and oftentimes to the no small Hazard of his Health and Life.

And when he gave Visits to any of his Congregation or received Visits from them (or other his Friends) he ge­nerally and generously bestowed Books of Piety on them, either his own Sermons, or the Publications of others.— When he was called to minister to the Souls of the Poor [Page 183]at their own Dwellings, he ordinarily enquired of their bodily Wants, which were soon supplyed either by him­self, or charitable Friends to whom he instantly applyed on their Behalf.

His Prayers over sick and dying Ones, were not only very affectionate and fervent, but also most instructive and edifying—By a Train of excellent Thoughts he led them into the Knowledge of Sin and Duty, of God and Christ, and from Earth to Heaven. ^†

When he could not conveniently visit his People or other his Friends in distant Places, he sent his Thoughts to them in Writing, suted to the various Pro­vidences he heard they were under—A few ^* of the Co­pies which are found, and which are found, and which exhibit the bright Image of his Mind, the Reader shall be entertained withal after I have just added a Word or two (for a Close to this Chapter) on his gentlemanly Carriage and Behaviour, and other Homiletical Virtues which adorned him, and were so conspicuous to all he conversed with.—He was a good Master of Address, and carried all the Politeness of a Court about him.— And as he treated Mankind of va­rious Degrees and Ranks with a Civility, Courtesy, Affa­bility, Complaisance and Candor scarce to be equalled. So all but the Base and Mean showed him an high De­gree of Respect and Reverence, Love and Affection.— Particularly Men of Figure and Parts of our own Nation and Foreigners, whom he failed not to visit upon their coming among us, greatly valued and admired him.

It has been said (perhaps not without some seeming Grounds for it) that he sometimes went too far in comple­mental Strains both in Word and Writing—but if he did, I am perswaded such Flights took their Rise rather from [Page 184]an Exuberance or Excrescence (if the Phrase be allowa­ble) of the before-mentioned homiletical Virtues, and a too high Complacency in the appearing Excellencies of others, than from faulty Insincerity and designed Flattery in the Time of it.—As he took a sincere Pleasure in the Gifts of others, and had a natural Proneness to think fa­vourably of all Men, and construed every Thing in the most candid Sense, it is not much to be wondered at if he sometimes exceeded in his Expressions.—And it is to be lamented that some have swollen with Pride, and made an ill Use of the Doctor's high Esteem and good Opi­nion of them.

Letters of Consolation.

On receiving a Letter from a Person of Distinction, wherein a Mourning-Book was inclosed, the Doctor writes on the Backside of it these Words,

Received late in the Evening, put my Sermon in Or­der for the Sabbath in the Morning; and before Noon returned the Answer following, to his E—y.

Sir, Will your E—y prolong your Grief forever? And at the End of Years call us still to mourn on with you? And can you think any one but your J—n will keep Pace and Length with you?—How much do you honour some of us to think we can and will? How kind and righteous the Supposal of this sacred constant Friendship and Duty in us.—

Accept Sir, with all the Candour of your proved Love, this feeble Effort of an aged Friend, firm from my Youth I loved you; joyed to see your rising Honours! may they lasting be, be everlasting! Such thy growing Joys to everlasting! When all Tears shall cease, and Death shall be no more. Yours, &c.

Boston, Sept. 8. 1729.

The Town was exceedingly surprized this Morning, with the sad News of the Death of his Excellency our Governor, WILLIAM BURNETT, Esq

He had been very ill all the Week past, but on Friday the Symptoms grew threatning; after which he very lit­tle recovered any Use of his Understanding.

He expired about eleven of the Clock, the Lord's Day Night; a teaching and monitory Instance to us of the Vanity of human Life and Greatness. For it is but a few Months since he was received here with all possible Demonstrations of publick Joy; in the Meridian of Life, and in his full Strength; and now we are suddenly called to attend him with publick and solemn Mourning to his Grave.

He was the eldest Son of the late right reverend and learned GILBERT BERNETT, Lord Bishop of Sarum; among the Divines, States Men, and Patriots of the last Age, a most shining Character. In Body, he was very much the Image of his noble Father, and in Soul, he was Heir of his Learning, Justice and Moderation.

He was born at the Hague in Holland, in March pre­ceeding the Revolution 1688, and named William, after the illustrious PRINCE OF ORANGE, who condescended to stand his God Father.

The great Part which his Father had in the Accession of that PRINCE to the British Throne, and afterward in the Succession of the illustrious House of Hanover, was rewarded to this worthy Son by King GEORGE the First, who named him Governor of New York and Jersies; [Page 197]and by his present MAJESTY, who appointed him over the Provinces of the Massachusetts-Bay and New Hamp­shire.

It was pleasant to see a Gentleman in the Chair over us, who was allowed by all to be chief for Knowledge and Learning, for bright and quick Parts, for Discerning and Judgment, for true Eloquence, both in speaking and writing, with the greatest Facility; for a noble Genero­sity and Largeness of Heart, for hating Covetousness and disdaining a Bribe, for Temperance, and for Humanity, Courtesy and Affability.

At the same Time his invincible Constancy and Re­solution, in what he judged due to the KING'S Instruc­tion and his own Honour, surmounted all Regards to his own private Interest and Gain.

He has left three Children, two Sons and a Daughter; for whom we can wish nothing better, than that they may all inherit the Powers of their Father, the Virtues of their Grandfather, and the high Favour of a gracious GOD and King.

His Library, which was his chief Delight and Pride, is one of the noblest and richest Collections that America has seen.

We are very happy in the Presence of the Honourable WILLIAM DUMMER, Esq our Lieut. Governor; to re­sume the Chair which he so lately resigned to Governor BURNETT; in whose wise and just Administration we have been already happy, and from whom we are sure of all the Good that is within the Compass of his Power."

CHAP. IX. The Doctor's private Life— Marriages and Children—Education of them— His Character in several Relations— Family-Religion— Ejaculations— Closet-Devotions—Sabbath-Sanctifica­tion —Trials, &c.

I COME now to write more particularly of the Doc­tor's private Life, and the Circumstances of i [...]—his Behaviour and Carriages.

§. 1. Of his Marriages.

Soon after his Return to New-England, and Settlement in Boston, viz. on June the 5th 1700, he was married to Mrs. Janes Clark (Daughter of Mr. Thomas and Mrs. Jane Clark) with whom he lived for more than thirty Years.—She died suddenly October 26. 1731—On the Lord's Day after her Funeral he preached from those Words in Lev. [Page 208]10.3. And Aaron held his Peace. ^† She was a pious, di­ligent, prudent, humble and prayerful Gentlewoman, a most tender and dutiful Wife, a loving and careful Mo­ther, and a shining Example of Patience and Submission to the Will of God under a Variety of sore Trials, strong Pains and long Weaknesses.

It having pleased God to bring him into a State of Widowhood, I find a Paper whereon he wrote these Words: "It soon appeared to me that among the many virtuous single Gentlewomen of the Town, Madam Sarah Clark, Relict of the Hon. John Clark, Esq must be the Person to make me and my Children most happy, if I married again. Her Piety, Gravity, Humi­lity, Diligence, Cheerfulness, natural Love, (long since) to my Children, and theirs to her; ^* besides her retired Way of living, and a small worldly Estate free from all Incumbrance; all concurred, after Prayer to God for his Counsel, and the Advice of my nearest Relations, to in­cline and move me to make my Addresses to her.

"God gave me a kind Welcome, and I hope, I have much to acknowledge of a gracious Providence presid­ing over the Beginning of this important Step. And I humbly implore the Government and Guidance of Hea­ven in all that is to come, submitting this great Affair to his Will, Glory and Blessing, and our mutual Comfort here, and Happiness for ever.—"Now that I begin to look upon her as the destined Companion of my Life, and Sharer in all my Joys and Sorrows; a Meet-help to me (I hope) the few last Days of my Pilgrimage; I would set my self daily to remember her in my Prayers and Thanksgivings to God; blessing him for her, for a prudent Wife is of the Lord; and begging him to bless her to me, and make me a Blessing to her, &c. &c.

The Doctor was married to her, May the 6th, 1732, and she lived with him till April 24. 1744, when she died after a long Languishment, and State of Infancy for most of the Year past, Aet. 72—On the Lord's-Day after her Funeral, he preached a Sermon from those Words in 1 Thess. iv. 14. For if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus, will God bring with him.

August the 12th 1745, it pleased God in his most gra­cious Providence to lead him into a third and happy Mar­riage with Madam Mary Frost of New-Castle, New-Hamp­shire, Relict of the Hon. John Frost, Esq who was a great Comfort and Support to him the two last Years of his Life. She survives—a Gentlewoman of many amia­ble Qualities—But I may not offend her Modesty, by en­larging on her Character here—

§. The Doctor had Issue by the first of these Gentle­women only, viz. a Son born Sept. 1. 1704, who was bap­tized on the 3d, and named Benjamin after his Father.— The Child died on the 18th.— He had two Daughters who lived to be married and have Children, viz. Jane named after her Mother, who was born Feb. 25. 1708. She was married to the Compiler of this Narrative Au­gust the 11th 1726, and died March 26. 1735— She had four Children, but only one of them survived her, viz. a Son Samuel, who died in about a Year and half after her, scil. October 8. 1736. Of this virtuous and in­genious Person the Publick has had a large Account in some Memoirs that were printed after her Death in New-England, and also in London, (chiefly collected from her Manuscripts) by her Husband, which were well accepted by the Pious and Learned at Home and Abroad.

The other Daughter named Abigail, was born Jan. 14. 1714, 15, and married to Mr. Albert Dennie of Boston Merchant, Sept. 1737.

She died after a long Languishment, May 17. 1745. She had three Children, but only one of them surviv­ed her, viz, — a Son John, and this is the only [Page 210] Lamp the Doctor left burning in his House, at his Decease.

And now I shall attempt some Hints of the Doctor's Character in the several Relations of a Son, an Husband, a Father, a Friend, a Master, &c. in all which he exhibit­ed a Pattern worthy Imitation.

§. His filial Piety, Affection and Duty was eminent and known to all his Acquaintance. As he obeyed the Law of his Mother, whom God took from his Head (as has been before noted) about three Years after his Admission into the College; so he ever paid all Respect and Re­verence to his honoured Father, whose Life was continued down to the Year 1712. After the Decline of his Fa­ther's wordly Estate, he cheerfully afforded him all need­ed Assistance, and did every Thing that lay in his Power, to render his Age easy and agreeable. He exprest this his filial Duty not only in kind Words, and transient good Deeds, but willingly bound himself, with his kind Brother in written Obligations for his comfortable Sup­port; praying a gracious God to prolong his Life in the Increase of his Graces and Consolations to him. Thus he was the very Reverse of those Scribes and Pharisees, whom our Lord taxes and faults for saying, It is Corban. ^†

In the Relation of an Husband, he was most complai­sant, tender and affectionate.

Consider him as a Father, he was wise and indulgent. [Page 211]I dare not say, he did not exceed sometimes in Point of Fondness and Solicitude for his Children. Their Wel­fare and Happiness lay on his Mind continually: But then his first and chief Study and Care was to form them to Virtue, and train them up in the Love and Fear of the great God: For this he prayed, wrestled, and ago­nized, and used all sutable Means that a glorious Christ might take an early Possession of them.

From meer Infants, he endeavoured to train them up in the Way they should go: ^‖ And for this End he was daily relating to them (as they could bear it) in the most familiar and artful Manner, the entertaining Histories and Stories in the Old and New Testaments, together with the Doctrines and Precepts of our holy Religion, and he soon saw the good Effect of such his Essays in the laudable Proficiency they made in Knowledge and Wisdom.

As his Daughters grew in Years and Understanding, he would some Times write and send Letters to them from his Study of the Things of God, and of the com­mon Businesses of Life, of Learning, Wit, &c. in Prose or Verse, to these he expected Answers, and by them he soon discovered their Genius and Disposition. ^*

And he lived (as he thought) to perceive the Grace of God in them both—in his eldest Daughter early and evi­dently—and in his youngest many Months, if not Years, before she died. And "although (as he remarks upon the Success and Fruit of these happy Methods) it cannot be pretended, that the like Endeavours will always be at­tended with the like Success, yet it may be supposed they would very often, if Parents, with an humble Reliance on the Blessing of God, and Prayers for it, would go into them."

I find among other Particulars recorded by him, con­cerning his youngest Daughter Abigail, the following, viz. "She gave her self to Reading from her Childhood, and soon to Writing. She wanted not a Taste for what was excellent in Books, more especially of a Poetical Turn or Relish, which soon appeared to be her favourite Turn. This run her too soon and too far into the reading No­vels, &c. for which God in his righteous Providence af­terwards punished her by suffering her to leave her Fa­ther's House, to the Grief of her Friends and the Sur­prise of the Town.

But a gracious God was pleased some Years after, to set this her Misconduct in such a glaring Light, as threw her at the Foot of sovereign Grace and Mercy, for Hu­miliation and deep Repentance, Renovation and Forgive­ness.

And long before her Death she was apparently alter­ed and changed by the Spirit of God, and increased in Grace, manifesting great Humility and Resignedness to [Page 213]the Will of God. Her Death had all the Calm and Peace in it one would desire.

I was present, and prayed with her while dying, and well remember when her Father spake to her (a few Mo­ments before she breathed out her Soul) of the holy An­gels being the Convoy of happy Spirits—She made an Effort to utter some Lines of one of Dr. Watts's Hymns (most, if not all of them were long before treasured in her Memory)

The two last Words seemed to die on her Lips, and after a few easy Gasps she expired.

His paternal Care descended to his Grand-Children. He wrote to his Daughter Turell's little Son of six Years old.— Upon her Decease, he has these Words in a Let­ter to me—

April 14. 1735.

"God Almighty, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Ja­cob, bless my dear Grand Child—I charge you my dear Son, to govern my dear Grand-Son, with a strict and tender Care for his spiritual and everlasting Good.

I leave him this my dying Charge and Blessing, "Lord! may he live in thy sight! and know thee the God of his Fathers, and serve thee with a perfect Heart! and to this End seek thee early and with his whole Desire."

He also sealed up two Copies of the printed Remains of his Daughter in which are found the following Charges and Counsels.

" My dear Child, Boston, June 8, 1735.

Your Grand-father Colman, who loved your excellent Mother, and now loves you the only Branch from her, like his own Soul, seals up these two Copies of the Me­moirs of her Piety and Ingenuity, for your use when you come to Years of Understanding, for you carefully to keep for your Children if you live to have any, to preserve the Memory of your Mother to you and them

Your Grand-father does not expect to live to see you grown up, and therefore now leaves with you this his dying Charge, to know and love the Lord God of your Father and Mother, and to fear and serve him with all your Heart and Soul, all the Days of your Life; and like your dear Mother to give your self up to God in the Days of your Youth.

My Prayer for you is that a double Portion of that good Spirit which adorned and sanctified your gracious Mother and has rested on your—Father and his Father, may be your Inheritance.

Often read over these her living Remains, and beg of God his Holy Spirit to make you a Son worthy of such Parents and Ancestors.

You will find that your Mother's Desire was to dedi­cate you to the Service of Christ in the Work of the Ministry; and my Hearts desire and Prayer to God is to incline you to, furnish you for, and use you in that blessed Service. But if God otherwise incline and dis­pose you, yet I charge you to devote your self to be his only for evermore, to serve him in your Generation ac­cording to his Will, to desire to be a Blessing in your Place, and to take Care of your own Soul, and of the Souls of your's.

And now, my Son, the Lord be with thee and pros­per thou! God Almighty bless thee and keep thee! the Blessing of Abraham be to thee and thy Seed! and the God of Abraham be thy Shield and exceeding great Reward; and the Fear of thy Father and Mother, be thy God and Fear forever and ever. Amen.

So prays your mourning, dying, loving Grandfather for you and blesses you, now in the Day when your Mo­ther is taken up from you; of whose Virtues and Graces, may you always be seen a true and worthy Heir.

B. C—"

His dear Grand-son John Dennie (spes sola) he daily instructed, charged and prayed over in like Manner, and committed to the Care of God's kind Providence and to the keeping of his special Grace.—

To others, his Relations by Consanguinity and Affinity he was singularly affectionate and kind; ready to lay himself out on all Occasions for promoting their spiritual and temporal Interests, oftentimes he straitned himself in serving such of them as were reduced to a State of In­digence; and next to the Consolations of God's Spirit and Grace he was their greatest Pleasure, Support and Comfort both in his Youth and Age.

He was also a sincere and useful Friend to all such as he professed any Friendship to; and extended his Benevolence and Beneficence to their Friends.—The numerous Persons recommended to him by his Friends here and from abroad were ever kindly and generously received, entertained counselled and advised &c.—In Return for which good Offices there are many Letters of Thanks found. — And if the Number of Persons whom he served by Letters of Recommendation and other-ways was to be told it would surprise the Reader. — Few Persons of Figure of later Years have travelled to Europe without seeking and obtaining Favours from him — And those who have gone from us in Forma Pauperis were with an equal For­wardness commended to his Friends and Correspondents. And yet it must be confessed that he was sometimes too sudden in contracting Friendship with Persons and trus­ted them too far without sufficient Trial, being struck with their plausible Addresses in Word and Writing who after they had answered their own Ends, soon treated him with a criminal Indifference &c. Ah! 'Tis an un­grateful World we live in! ^†

The Doctor was a gentle and compassionate Master to all his Servants, whether they were bought Slaves or hired into his Employ—He carefully saw to it that they had every Thing necessary for their Comfort and even for Delight.—Such as lived with him any con­siderable Time are Witnesses of his wise Instructions, Counsels, Admonitions, Reproofs &c. He condescended to teach his Negroes in Person (dull and ignorant as they came) to read; and catechised them; and was ever drop­ping some good Sentence to instruct and help them.— And with a most distinguished Humanity ministered to the meanest of his Houshold when sick.

§ And this leads me to write of other his Excellencies as Head of a Family ^*—

He did all that lay in his Power that all that belonged to his House might be also of the Houshold of Faith. He ordinarily had his sett Hours for Family Devotion and Instruction.—For the last Twenty Years of his Life (and I suppose before) it was his Practice to read the sacred Scriptures Morning and Evening with large Paragraphs of Mr. Henry's or Burkett's Annotations on them before Prayer: And his Prayers (the Matter of them) was chiefly taken from the Portions read.— Yet he never forgot the special Condition and Circum­stances of his own Family and Flock or of his absent Friends and Relations, the Town, Country, Nation and the Protestant Interest abroad in the World. He was very particular on the Face of divine Providence toward all and each of these.—And sometimes he would discourse largely to us on the Chapter read after Prayer.—He seemed greatly affected in the Time of reading, and made his Pauses and often found something new and striking in the Oracles of God.—

I shall give but one Instance of many, and that is mentioned by himself in his Funeral Sermon on the Honourable Mrs. Fances Shirley 1746.

"I can never (says he) forget, how as I was once reading the 6th Chapter of the Prophet Zechariah's Pro­phecy in my Family, those Words in the 8th Verse ^† struck me with a marvellous Light and Force, " Behold these have quieted my Spirit: representing to me the per­fect infinite Complacency which the Soul of God has in all Events of his Providence, which are all and every one of them altogether such as they should be; the full Accom­plishment of the everlasting Purposes of his own Wisdom, Holiness and Grace; wherein therefore the Hole Spirit of the Lord must have everlasting Rest and Quiet, Plea­sure and Satisfaction. Can there be a more calming, quieting Consideration than this to the Spirit which God has made and sanctified! has made to govern, and to be in Subjection unto his own holy, perfect and blessed Will: " Behold these have quieted my Spirit: And what quiets the Spirit of the Lord should quiet ours; and will do so, if we desire to be holy, wise and good as He is."

Such Persons who have been much in the Doctor's Com­pany have often seen and known (if any external Signs can indicate it) "That he was abundant in Ejaculatory Prayer: How would his Eyes and Hands be lifted up to Heaven, on hearing of the Dispensations of God's Grace and Providence? And in his latter Years, his de­vout Thoughts and inward Breathings were frequently vented in pathetic Expressions of Humiliation and Praise on one Occasion and another.

There are not indeed so many Particulars recorded of his Closet and secret Devotions and Communion with God, as is wished for; and those that are found have such a Relation to Family-Circumstances and other Grievances, as the Publick is but little concerned in, and therefore must be omitted: Nevertheless, on just Grounds we may assert, "That he spent much Time in Self-Examination, Supplications, Intercessions, and Renewals of Covenant— [Page 218]Such important Duties he pressed with all Earnestness on his Children and others, not only from the sacred Desk (as what he preached and printed abundantly proves) but also in his private Letters and Visits and Applications to Souls.—'Tis probable, he designed, as is said of the Rev. Mr. John Shower, "That the chief Transactions between God and his own Soul should remain a Secret."

However, I find him ordinarily taking a religious No­tice of the Return of his Birth-Days, and composing and preaching Sermons sutable to the Occasion.

I shall offer the Reader two or three Records, made of Incidents and Occurrences, by which you may judge of his good Spirit and Frame of Mind, under Providences.

Upon his Removal from his House in King-Street to his new-built House in Brattle-Street, May 1715, he wrote this Meditation, "It was a very pleasing and instructive Sight once to me in a far distant Land, where a Person of Honour and Riches was building a stately House for himself and his Family, but at once he took off the Work­men to build himself a Vault or Tomb to be buried in. It becomes us ever to keep in Mind, and lay to Heart, the Remove that we must soon make to our Grave.— A convenient House, and easy Bed, and agreeable Rela­tives, are among the valuable Comforts of this Life. When we are building to our selves pleasant Houses to live in, we should all the while be thinking of the dark­some House or Place, where our Bodies will shortly be laid: And when we enter into our new Habitations, or after we are settled in them, the same Thought must still abide with us. We must not entertain a Thought of living long; and must be willing and ready to go, and to leave our new-built Houses as soon as God calls us a­way. They are only to be used as Accommodations for us in the Way unto an everlasting Habitation and House eternal.— We may not set too much by an House on Earth, but ought to raise our Affections to Things above, &c.—We ought to serve God in our Houses—This was Joshua's holy Resolution, As for me and my House, we [Page 219]will serve the Lord! And this was David's, Psal. 101. I will walk within my House with a perfect Heart, &c. Surely we ought, under the outward Smiles of Provi­dence upon us, to be renewing the Consecration of our selves and all that we have to the Service of God; we ought like Abraham, to charge our Housholds and our Children after us to keep the Way of the Lord. We ought to worship God in secret, in our Closets, and we ought every Day to pray to, and praise him in our Families: We ought to read his holy Word, and meditate on his Law, and teach it diligently to our Children, and talk of it when we set in our House, when we lay down, &c. Thus we must write as it were upon the Posts of our House, and our Gates, Deut. 6.7, 9.—Our Houses should be Bethels, little Churches for the Practice of Pi­ety, and the Exercises of Devotion therein, that the Apo­stle's Salutation may reach us, Rom. 16.5. Greet the Church in their House. With these and such like Medita­tions, I can truly say, I have been building, and would now enter into my new and pleasant Habitation: May they abide and dwell always in my Soul, that thus I may there dwell the few remaining Days of my frail Life."

As he wrote and printed Sermons, Meditations and Let­ters on the great Earthquake in the Year 1727, so I find him making the following Record of that which hap­pened on June 3d. 1744.

"In the Midst of Singing, in the Morning Exercise, being the Lord's-Day of our holy Communion, a great Shock of an Earthquake terrified the Congregation, and broke off the Worship; all rose up, many ran out of the House, Women and Children cried out, &c.— But it pleased God to enable me to rise up and take the Pulpit, and with great Composure and Sedateness, and an unex­pected Flow of ready Words to still and quiet the As­sembly; who all earnestly listned to me, and I went on and finished the Exercises, and administred the Sacrament of the Lord's-Supper with the greatest Solemnity, Pro­priety, Fulness and Brevity I had ever experienced. — Laus Deo.

On Dec. 31st 1743. He writes in his Almanack,

"I thank God, I have been enabled to go through a World of Work since Mr. Cooper's Death; and now am preparing for a sorrowful New-Year's-Day; and if it be my dying, Year, I commit my Soul, and the Flock, to the great Shepherd—the everlasting Father."

Before I finish these Sections, I cannot but in Justice mention the high Regard, the Doctor paid to the Chris­tian Sabbath ^*— He mentioned it oftner in his Prayers and Sermons, and pressed the due Sanctification of the Lord's-Day, beyond any Divine I have ever known. ^†

He ever manifested his Mindfulness of it, and Joy at its Approaches, in his Morning-Prayer on Saturday, be­gan it in the Evening, ^‖ and was truly in the Spirit in his own House, as well as God's.—And although he preached in the Forenoon to Weariness, he not only soon retired to his beloved Study for Devotion, but also some­times read and instructed his Family in the Time of In­termission —And in the Evening did often repeat his Ser­mon; and with great Fervour and Enlargement, lead in the religious Duties of the Family, as he has directed others in his Treatise of Family-Worship.

Most Company gave him Uneasiness and Disturbance on the Lord's Day.—He used to invite and admit Per­sons (for Conference in the Evening) when he first settled in Boston, but found such Inconveniences attending it, that he was obliged to desire his Friends to visit him at other Times.

§. He passed through many fore Trials and Temptations in the several Stages of Life (some of which have been already recorded in this Narrative) I shall only cursorily [Page 221]mention a few more of them. He sometimes suffered by the Tongues and Pens of angry and unreasonable Men for his zealous Essays to serve the best Interests of his Coun­try, and the Churches of Christ. ^† Good Men also of narrow and contracted Spirits, ill treated him on Account of his Catholicism. Under such petty Persecutions he was an Example of Patience, and instead of revenging Injuries (when it was in his Power) he laid himself out to do all the Kindnesses he could to his Adversaries. This might be shown in numerous Instances. ^*

There have been Times wherein he has been in strait Circumstances, and met with most grievous Disappoint­ments in worldly Matters, and this too after his Expecta­tion had been long rising; and some peculiar Family-Afflictions lay heavy upon him, and bruised the Heel of his Life. But all that seems further needful to be added under this Head, is a Record of his Behaviour under God's Visitations of him by Sickness, and calling for the precious Lives of such as were dear to him.

Since my Acquaintance with him, he was divers Times visited with acute and threatning Maladies, and had the Sentence of Death within himself— But with what Constancy and Serenity, Tranquility and Peace, pro­found Resignations to the divine Will, and Humiliation under the Hand of God, and unshaken Hope and Trust in his great Saviour, were they all entertained?— He spake to his Friends that visited him in the Language and Spirit of David, "I have seen an End of all Perfec­tion. ^†— I go the Way of all the Earth. ^* And when (by his Desire) we have been praying with him, and com­mitting him to God, a Ray of the excellent Glory has [Page 222]appeared on him, and his inward Satisfaction and Joy has discovered it self by a loud Amen.

§. His Graces were also tried in the often Sicknesses and Deaths of his loved Wives, Children, Grand-Children, &c.— of which the Reader has had some Notices al­ready. His Behaviour, and writing on these Occasions follows.

All may see and read his truly Christian Deportment under the Death of his Daughter Turell in the Sermons, &c. published to the World.

On the Sickness and Death of a dear Grandson, he writes,

"The Lord prepare us for his holy Will, and the Child for his everlasting Mercies. Help us by Faith to resign and commit it, Amen; and yet spare it to us, if it may be for his Glory.

I am your Father and Brother in Tribulation, and in the Kingdom and Patience of Jesus Christ. Your Love and Affection, will I think, be my highest and only Con­solation, under the past breaking Bereavements, after the Consolations of the Grace and Spirit of Christ, which are internal and sanctifying. I am going from you very soon. O might I no more be called to bury Children, but as God will, if it may be for his Glory. Pray for me, for I am weak! Lord, help me, for I am broken! So commending you to the Love, Grace and Consolation of your Father in Heaven, I remain your second unwor­thy earthly Father &c."

Immediately after the Death of his Daughter Dennie, he wrote these Words.

"Father thy Will be done! Thy Name be sanctifi­ed. Glorify thy Grace in me, that I may glorify thee.— Who am I Lord, and what is my Father's House, that thou hast brought me hitherto.—My Turell died in Fear, who never offended any one, and if she knew her own Heart, had a Thousand Times given herself to God. [Page 223]My Dennie dies in Peace and Transports, that had made the greatest Breaches on me, and had given Scandal and Offence to all in Point of filial Duty. ^†— The Grace of God is free and sovereign. He has Mercy because he will have Mercy.

Scarce any Thing touched the Doctor's Soul more nearly than the sudden Death of his dear Colleague, the Rev. Mr. William Cooper.

When he was lying under the deadly Symptoms of a Lethargy, the Doctor made and wrote his Supplications to Heaven for his precious Life, in the Close of a Sermon preached ^* on Monday Morning to a reverend and sor­rowful Assembly, who early and earnestly came together, to humble themselves and cry to God to spare and heal him.

After Mr. Cooper's Death (which was the next Morn­ing) I find sorrowful Mention made of it in divers Papers of Addresses to the Church, and Supplications to Hea­ven; all showing how deeply his Spirit was affected by this sore Stroke of Providence, and also the holy and wise Improvement he made upon it.

The good and just Character of this excellent and va­luable Servant of God may be seen published in a Sermon preached by Dr. Colman, the Lord's Day af­ter his Funeral, from those Words, John xi. 35. Jesus wept; and dedicated to the honoured Committee of the Congregation. ^‖

CHAP. X. The Doctor's Mindfulness of Death — The Time and Manner of his Withdraw and Departure.

DR. Colman, like his great Master Christ Jesus, was ever mindful of the Hour of his Death; and often spake of it in his Prayers, Preaching, ^† Conversation and Let­ters ^* to his Friends.

His tender Constitution and often Infirmities from his Youth ^‖ up, together with many sudden and threatning Shocks on his Health by acute Diseases, were earnest and quickning Memento's to him of his Frailty and Mortality; and these he wisely improved to a most serious and dili­gent Preparation for his great Change; and also as pow­erful Incitements to Faithfulness and Industry in his mi­nisterial Work.

A Saying of the renowned Baxter, was often in his Mouth, and sometimes quoted by him in his Sermons, scil. "I often reflect with Pleasure on the Goodness of God through my Life, that by a weak and dying State [Page 225]of Body, I have been kept studying, praying and preach­ing like a dying Man for Thirty Years together." A constant inwrought Sense of our standing on the Borders of Eternity, is one of the most effectual Motives to our Zeal and Diligence in the sacred Work, and it is also of eminent Use to direct us what Studies and what Labours to pursue, and which to neglect.

About the Time of his preaching Funeral Sermons on the Deaths of the Rev. Dr. Cotton Mather, and the venerable Mr. Solomon Stoddard ^† of Northampton, at the publick Lecture in Boston, he found himself so languid and spent that he expected daily to depart— When he was helped home from one of those Exercises, he fainted in his Study, and spoke to us of soon following those Worthies of our Israel, to the eternal World— And a­greeably to such Apprehensions and Impressions, he took Care to set and keep his Heart and House in Order and died daily ^*— But a gracious God had more Work for him to do, some great and special Services for his Name and Churches, and Poor among us, which have been at large related in the preceeding Chapters. After this his Health grew firmer for a considerable Number of Years, and he was brought to his End by a meer gradual De­cay. As it has been observed of the great Mr. Locke, "That by a constant Temperance, he preserved a very weak Constitution to an Age very few attain unto" So under Providence, the Age of Dr. Colman may be ascribed to a nice Care about, and a discreet Use of those Things which Physcians call Non-Naturals. ^‖

He had that great Favour of God granted to him, which some eminent Lights of the Church have earnest­ly [Page 226]desired, scil. "Not to outlive his Work and Useful­ness." God highly honoured him, by enabling him to preach constancy on Lord's-Days to his Seventy-fourth Year with very little Abatement of his former Vigour and Agreeableness—Thus his Day and his Work ended together. ^*— A long and bright Course! and that Pro­mise was eminently made good to him, " Those that are planted in the House of the Lord, shall flourish in the Courts of our God:—They shall still bring forth Fruit in old Age, they shall be fat and flourishing; to shew that the Lord is upright. ^†—"He was brought slowly and safely to Hea­ven" as Dr. Bates says of Mr. Ba [...]ter—Serus in C [...]lum—

No remarkable Symptoms appeared of his Di [...]ution being at Hand, until a few Days before he died— He mentions one in a Letter (the very last I suppose h [...] ever wro [...]e, whether sent or not, is uncertain) to his honoured Friend and Correspondent Dr. Benjamin Avery, the rough Draught of which is found dated, August 26. 1747 (three Days before his Death) wherein are these Passages, scil.

"Most honoured Sir,

I once more salute you before I die. The Humours long resting in my Feet, have taken a sudden Turn up­ward to my Breast; and whether I shall be able on the Verge of Seventy-four, tender and asthmatick from my Youth up, to serve the Flock to whom I have not failed yet in my weekly Ministrations; or to serve my Coun­try again by my late failing Correspondence with you and others, is with the God of my Life.

The last Effort I have made for the Service of my Country and Nation, and the Churches here, and with you, and we are one in CHRIST; is in the inclosed Let­ter to the Honourable Sir PETER WARREN, which I have lately forwarded to him, and if he have not receiv­ed it, I leave it open for your Reading, and putting a Seal to it; and if you think it of Importance enough to dis­course with him upon it, and strengthen his Hand in God, by your generous christian Manner of Address, I hope it may be of publick Advantage to the British Kingdom and Provinces, the Religion of JESUS which you have been ever and highly serving; and may you live on to serve by the Will of God.

Salute from me our honoured Friend Mr. Palmer, to whom I even wish to have communicated every worthy Endeavour for publick Benefit to State or Church: And when you see Dr. Watts or Dr. Guise, salute them from me; to whom I have not failed to write, if the Enemy do not intercept, &c. &c. ^†

Thus this Friend, Ornament and Glory of New-England expiring wrote.

And while such evident Symptoms of Death were upon him, he visited and took leave of some of his near Relatives and spake to them of his Decease.

Even the Day before he died he received Company [Page 228]at Home.—Mrs. Colman's Son, Charles Frost Esq with his Spouse arrived from the East-ward to pay a Visit, whom he welcomed with his usual Complaisance: But told them withal (after the first Salutations were over) "That they were come to see him die." ^† He spent the Evening religiously and pleasantly with them, and about the Hour of Eleven waited on them to their Chamber, blessing them and wishing them a good Repose. Then returning to his own, he endeavoured to compose him­self to Rest, but had little Sleep. However, he rose in the Morning as usual, but rather more feeble than on the preceeding Day, and about the Hour of Nine or Ten A. M. after a little faint Turn or two expired in an happy Euthanasia. God kissed away his Soul (as the Jews express it.) ^* Thus he was favoured with a kind of Translation, and his Spirit conveyed on the Pinions of Angels to the Paradise of God, the Hades of the Blessed to adorn the Heavenly World. ^‖

Hereby our Glory is thinned, and a splendid Part of the Beauty of our Israel fallen, or rather ascended!

His surviving Brethren with the Sons of the Prophets will be looking up and crying after him as Elisha after Elijah, My Father, My Father, &c. ^#

All New-England is called to mourning on this solemn Occasion, as Israel was for their Moses, their Aaron, their Samuel, &c. and should pay all due Honours to his Remains and Memory, as to a Jehoiada of whom it is said —He had done good in Israel, both toward God, and towards his House. ^‖‖

We have often (of late Years) been called to utter our Sorrows, upon seeing the Execution of that divine Threatning, " For behold the Lord, the Lord of Hosts, doth take away—The Prophet, and the Prudent, and the Ancient—and the eloquent Orator. ^†— Which brings to my Mind a Saying of the great Mr. Howe (in a Dedication of a Sermon upon the Decease of the Rev. Mr. Matthew Mead) "Such excellent Persons leave this World so fast, that it grows a more difficult Choice, with whom to live, than with whom to die!"

May a double Portion of the Spirit of Piety, Industry, Fidelity, Candour, Catholicism, Generosity, Charity, &c. which eminently dwelt in, and was exercised by this de­ceased Servant of God rest upon, and be increased to all surviving Ministers through the Land, and Christian World:—And particularly on the dear young Pastor of that Flock of Christ, to whom our Reverend Father so long ministred.

And may this Breach (wide as the Sea) be soon repair­ed by our glorious Mediator, JESUS, with whom is the Residue of the Spirit (and all needful precious Gifts for his Church) by fixing some eminent Man of God over the Congregation, in whose Light, Influence and Use­fulness, they and all New-England may again and long rejoice.

May the God of all Consolations abound in his di­vine Supports and reviving Comforts to all bereaved Re­latives and Friends: And in special Favour take up in the Arms of his Providence and Grace, the dear and only remaining Branch, and so form, and furnish, and spirit him for Service, in his Generation, that he may a­dorn the Memory of his great and good Grand-father.

May the honoured and bereaved Church and Congre­gation in Brattle-Street (for whom the Deceased ever ex­pressed the highest Esteem and Honour, the tenderest [Page 230]Love and Affection, both in his Youth and Age, and to whom by his Will, he bequeathed a select valuable Num­ber of Books out of his Library, for the Use of their Pastors in all Times to come, besides a Sum of Money for their Poor,) Remember them which have had the Rule over them, who have spoken to them the World of the Lord, and follow their Faith, considering the End of their Con­versation.

It is not my Province here to exhort, counsel and di­rect you— Yet permit me to say, your excellent Pastors (now with God) speak unto you in their many useful Publications (left in your Hands) with all Wisdom and Pungency.

Some Paragraphs, especially in the late Dedication and Address made to you before the Sermon on the Death of your first honoured and beloved Cooper, which is in your Hands, are recommended to your serious Review.

If any should enquire concerning the Person of Dr. Colman, in what Kind of Body, this bright and holy Soul was lodged;

His Form was spare and slender, but of a Stature tall, and erect above the common Height; his Complection fair and delicate; his Aspect and Mien benign and graceful; ^* and his whole Appearance amiable and venerable. There was a peculiar Flame and Dignity in his Eye; which he could soften and manage with all the Beauty and Force of Oratory; but still natural, and without the least Af­fectation. Wisdom and Grace made his Face to shine; especially while praying or preaching, when we beheld him, like another Stephen, his Face as it had been the Face of an Angel. ^† And his neat and clean Manner of Dress, [Page 231]and genteel, complaisant Behaviour, Politeness and Elegance in Conversation, set off his Person to the best Advantage.

His Picture drawn in the Year 1734, by the greatest Master our Country has seen, Mr. John Smibert, shows both his Face and Air to Perfection: And a very con­siderable Resemblance is given us in the Metsotinto done from it by Mr. P. Pelham, which is in many of our Houses.

To finish this lovely and sublime Character, we shall conclude with the publick Honours done him before the Fathers of his Country, on the Commencement after his Departure, in the Oration of Mr. HOLYOKE, the Reve­rend and Learned President of Harvard College, at the Close of the Academical Acts.