He was a strict observer of family religion. His method was this : he began morning and evening with a short prayer, then read a chap- ter, his children and servants were obliged to remember some part of it, which he made easy and pleasant to them by a familiar exposition ; then he concluded with a longer prayer. Notwithstanding the labours of the Lord's-day, he never omitted, after an hour's respite, to repeat the heads of both his sermons to his family, usually walking, and then concluded the day with prayer and singing a psalm. His great acquaintance with the scriptures, and deep seriousness of mind, fur- nished him with great pertinency and variety of expression upon all occasions, and preserved a great solemnity and reverence in all his addresses to God. His prayer after sermon usually contained the heads of his sermon. He was noted for a lively and afiectionate manner of administering the Lord's Supper. He consecrated the elements of bread and wine aj^art ; and whilst they were delivering, he was always full of heavenly discourse. He would often utter, with great fervour, those words : ' Who is a God like unto thee, pardoning iniquity, transgression, and sin ? ' and illustrate, in an afi'ecting manner, the glory of the divine mercy to the lost world, in the death of Christ; and jmthetically represent the danger of those who neglect and slight their baptismal covenant, and how terrible a witness it would be against them at the day of judgment.
Monday was his chief day of rest, in which he used to attend his visitors. On his Wednesday lecture several persons of considerable quality and distinction, who went to the EstalDlished Church on the Lord's-day, would come to hear him. One observing to him that there were many coaches at his doors on those days, he answered, smiling, ' I have coach-hearers, but foot-payers;' and yet he was far from the love of filthy lucre ; for when it was proposed to him to bring his hearers to a subscription, he would not yield to it, but said his house should be free for all, as long as he could pay the rent of it.
^ Anthony Wood's Fasti Oion.
XXXU MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE AND CHARACTER
Some of his parishioners, and others who attended his ministry, used to present him, about Christmas, with what they collected among themselves, which was seldom above twelve or thirteen pounds. He had several persons of the first rank who belonged to his congregation, as the Countesses of Bedford, Manchester, Clare ; the Ladies Baker, Trevor, the present Lord Trevor's mother ; the Lord and Lady Wharton, and most of their children, &c. By this means he had always a considerable collection for the poor at the sacrament, which was a great pleasure to him. He used to say sometimes, pleasantly, that he had money in the poor's bag when he had little in his own. This he sometimes distributed among poor ministers, who were, many of them, at that time, in strait circumstances, as well as the poor of the congregation. Though he was a man of great gravity, and of a regular unaffected piety, yet he was extremely cheerful and pleasant among his friends, and upon every proper occasion. His religion sat easy, and well became him, and appeared amiable and lovely to others. He greatly disliked the forbidding rigours of some good people, and the rapturous pretensions of others ; and used to say he liad found it, by long observation, that they who would be over-godly at one time, would be under-godly at another.
I shall conclude with this summary account of his person and character. He was of a middle stature, and of a fair and fresh complexion, Avith a great mixture of majesty and sweetness in his countenance. In his younger years he was very slender, but grew corpulent in his advanced age ; not by idleness or excess,i for he was remarkably temperate and unweariedly diligent. He had naturally a little appetite, and generally declined all manner of feasts ; but by a sedentary life, and the long confinement of the five-mile-act, which, he used to complain, first broke his constitution. In short, perhaps few men of the age in which he lived had more virtues and fewer failings, or were more remarkable for general knowledge, fearless integrity, great candour and wisdom, sound judgment, and natural eloquence, copious invention, and incredible industry, zeal for the glory of God, and good-will to men ; for acceptance and usefulness in the world, and a clear and unspotted reputation, through a course of many years, among all parties of men.
^ Anthony 'Wood ('Athenae Oxon.,' p. 600), says, ' When he took his degree at Oxford, he looked like a person rather fatted for the slaughter, than an apostle; being a round, plump, jolly man; but the Royalists resembled apostles by their macerated bodies and countenances.' Which, besides the injurious falsehood of the insinuation, is a coarse and butcherly comparison. I doubt it would not be safe to make that the standing measure of apostolical men.
A PRACTICAL EXPOSITION
THE LORD'S PRAYER.
VOL. I.
PEEFACE.
Such is tlie divine matter and admirable order of the Lord's Prayer, as became the eternal wisdom of God, that composed and dictated it to his disciples. In it are opened the fountains of all our regular petitions, and the arguments contained to encourage our hopes for obtaining them. In our addresses to men, our study is to conciliate their favourable audience ; but God is most graciously inclined and ready to grant our requests, therefore we are directed to call upon him by the title of ' Our Father. in heaven,' to assure us of his love and power, and thereby to excite our reverent attention, to raise our affections, to confirm our confidence in prayer. The supreme end of our desires is the glory of God, in conjunction with our own happiness : this is expressed in the two first petitions, that ' his name may be hallowed,' and ' his kingdom come,' that we may par- take of its felicity. In order to this, our desires are directed for the means that are proper and effectual to accomplish it. And those are of two kinds — the good things that conduct us, and the removal of those evils that obstruct our happiness. The good things are either, the spiritual and principal means to prepare us for glory, an entire, cordial, and constant obedience to the divine commands, expressed in the third petition, ' Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven ; ' or, natural and subservient, the supports and comforts of this life, Avliich are contained in the fourth petition, ' Give us this day our daily bread.' The removal of evils is disposed according to the order of the good things we are to seek : we pray that our sins may be" forgiven, the guilt of which directly excludes from his glorious kingdom ; that we may be preserved from temptations, that with- draw us from observing the divine commands ; and to be delivered from all afflicting evils, that hinder our arrival at our blessed end. The conclusion is to strengthen our faith, by ascribing to our heavenly Father, the kingdom, power, and glory, and to express our ardent desires of his blessing, by sa}ang, Amen.