He was, moreover, a man exceedingly conscionable.* He had a very tender conscience, being willing in all doubtful things to be directed and resolved, which was an excellent thing. He knew, and so should all you, that the time would come ere long that a man would give a great deal to have a good conscience, and this was in him.
For his conversation in his family, he was very mild and gentle at all times ; not as some, who being sweetened with a fee, are wonderful mild and calm to their clients, but are lions in their own houses. His carriage was not such.
For his conversation with other kind of men, it was sweet and loving, and very useful. He was full of goodness, and offices of love. He did not bear himself big upon his offices or place ; but was, as David saith of him- self, ' as a weaned child,' Ps. cxxxi. 2. Though his parts did raise him up, and advance him above the ordinary sort of men, yet his grace levelled him, that he made himself equal to the lower sort, and yet in such sort that he had wisdom to understand and know himself in his place, and so grace will teach a man to do.
He was a marvellous great encourager of honest, laborious, religious ministers, for their Master's sake, and for their work's sake, and he lost nothing by it. He had a prophet's reward, the prayers of all good men that were acquainted with him. And I hope that that commendation will not die with him, but that it will live in those that he lives in.f
For his disposition toward the poor, he was very merciful and compas- sionate. He was the poor man's lawyer; insomuch that the last cause that ever he pleaded was snh forma imuper is, for a poor man, and a minister; as it was publicly shewn to the greatest and most judicious magistrates in the kingdom. ' He was a foot to the lame, and eyes to the blind,' as Job saith he was. Job xxix. 15, and * he made the widows to rejoice.' He was a helpful and fruitful man, ' a tree of righteousness,' full of good fruit. He made the times and places better where he lived. He was a great lover of his country, even in some degree to the prejudice of himself.
It pleased I^ng James, of famous memory, to choose him with some other commissioners, to go into Ireland about public employment, which he performed with such care and conscience, that when he returned home again he was made the king's serjeant, and after that speaker in parlia- ment, and the mouth of the Commons.
* That is, ' conscientious.' — G. t Qu. 'leaves'? — Ed.
THE bride's LONCxING. 559
He was forty years a practitioner in his calling ; in which time God blessed him with a great increase of his estate. God sometimes doth dehght to make good his temporal promises to a religious, industrious, and faithful man, and that in the eyes of the world. Sometimes God carries things in a cloud and in a mystery. We cannot see how such and such men should go back in the world. This will appear to us another day, in the day of revelation. But because God would encourage religion, faith- fulness, and industry, he makes good his temporal promises to such faithful men as he was. Such was his faithfulness, such was his dexterity and quickness in dispatching men's causes and business, that men were willing to put their causes and estates into his hands. Therefore it is no wonder, if in so long a time as forty years'- practice, God blessed him with so great an estate.
Obj. But some may object his going to London of late times, when his infirmities grew upon him.
Ans. But this much I know, that the exigency and urgency of other men's occasions did importune, and in part draw him to it. And then again his staying at home was very tedious to him. It is death to an industrious man, that hath been in employment, to be idle, as it is death to an idle man to be employed. He was a man of an active spirit, and one that was not hindered by his journeys. Neither would it have holpen or eased him to have stayed at home. Therefore you must judge charitably of that.
But I come in a word to the time of his sickness, and so to the hour of his death.
For these later years he had two several severe churlish monitors that did put him in mind of his end, namely, the stone and the strangury. In these sore diseases he carried himself with wonderful great patience. None did ever hear any words fall from him that witnessed any impatience.
Toward his end, he considered that he was now for another and a better place. Therefore, when he was invited to dinner in the house of which he was, in Gray's Inn, saith he, * I must dine in another jDlace.'
When his sickness did seize upon him more sharply, though the pain thereof took away a great part of the powers of his soul, yet he did mani- fest a great deal of strength of faith by divers words that fell from him : ' As the hart brays after the rivers of water, so panteth my soul after thee, 0 God,' Ps. xlii. 1. And as the church doth here, ' Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly :' and, ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.' He was displeased with them about him, that out of their love to him did recall him by cordials out of a swoon, and so pro- tracted his life longer than he would have had it : ' You keep me too long from Christ,' saith he, ' God is merciful to me, and you are not,' with many the like. And when they heaved up his body, his spirit was so strong in him as if he desired to meet Christ before his time.