value what is so illustriously conspicuous and estimable in itself, and not so blear our sight with the observation of the miscarriages in this kind, as not to discern or value. the designation [purpose, or intention], which if the abuses, and excesses, and mistakes that have crept in, in that matter, were timely discerned and removed, and that which is christian and apostolical revived, and restored in prudence and sobriety, might yet again show the world the use of that prelacy, which is now so zealously contemned, and recover at once the order and estimation of it; set more saints on their knees in petitions for the restoring, than ever employed their hands towards the suppressing of it." And pondering, as he says, "the tempers of men, and the so mutable habits of their minds," he felt confident that in a few years, when the pleasure of the change should cease with its novelty, reason would come back in the cool of the day, and the nation would again build up the prostrate church."

Meanwhile he employed all his energies to comfort and sustain her in her low estate. He liberally contributed according to his means towards the support of the indigent clergy as well as collected subscriptions in their behalf; he sought places for them as tutors and chaplains, and obtained help for their widows and orphans.

When the fatal interdict of January 1655* was enforced, disabling the episcopal clergy from doing any ministerial act, Dr. Hammond published a tract, entitled A Parænesis, or seasonable Exhortatory to all true Sons of the Church of England, which he wrote "first in tears and then in ink." He was led by that "sad conjuncture of affairs, when those whose office it was to speak to the people from God, and to God from the people, were solemnly forbidden all public discharge of these and all other branches of their sacred function," to endeavour to comfort and strengthen the souls of his brethren. "I shall now," he says, though the unworthiest of all my many brethren, assume this venerable office of being a remem

* More fully noticed in the life of Archbishop Usher, chap. iv.

brancer to the people of God, even to all those who have been brought forth unto Christ by our precious dear persecuted mother, the church of England, and remain still constant to that faith which from her breasts they have sucked, and are not yet scandalized in her."

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On the same occasion he humbled himself before God with fasting, for he thought that this dispensation which "cast him out as straw to the dunghill," was a reproach to him for his unprofitableness. Confessing that the provocations were great, he prayed that God would not leave nor forsake this church ;"poor "But though Thou feed us with the bread of adversity and water of affliction, yet let not our teachers be removed into a corner, but let our eyes still see our teachers; let not Sion complain that she hath none to lead her by the hand among all the sons that she hath brought up, but provide her such supports in this her declining condition, that she may still have a seed and a remnant left!"

He then reflected by what means the ruinous tendency of this tyrannical edict might be frustrated; and as he saw that the ancient clergy were hastening to the grave, and that in the present state of things they must all in a few years waste away, he formed the plan of training up young persons for the sacred ministry and maintaining them in the universities; and although he was not assisted as liberally as he had hoped at first, he contrived by the help of his friends to carry his pious wishes into effect to a considerable extent; and he besought those who favoured his design to aid him in selecting candidates for that holy vocation, and carefully to seek out such as were religiously disposed, preferring that qualification before unsanctified good parts, since he was sure that exemplary virtue must restore the church.

When the prospect of the restoration began to open, Dr. Hammond's health was in a declining state. Sedentary habits had brought on, or aggravated, diseases which made it necessary for him to curtail his hours of study, and threatened to shorten his life.

His bodily sufferings were sometimes very severe, but the power of religion made him patient and resigned, and thankful for any intervals of ease; nay he acknowledged it to be a christian's duty to entertain so deep a conviction of the goodness of God, as to behold in the present state the very best that could be wished or fancied. He anxiously inquired into the inward provocations which made such chastisements necessary, at the same time praying that God would remove whatever was displeasing in his sight, even by the sharpest discipline, if gentler means would not avail.

He followed our Saviour's maxim, feeling that sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof; and, far from anticipating future sorrow, he accounted it great folly to distress himself by conjectures about events which might never come to pass, and which, if they did, God would order so as to promote his own glory, and the eternal welfare of his creatures. "Besides all this," he would say "in the very dispensation, God will not fail to give such allays, as (like the cool gales under the Line,) will make the greatest heats of sufferance very supportable;" and looking at his past experience, he could observe that "God had mercifully proportioned his strength to his trials."

In March, 1659, he began to anticipate the revival of the prostrate church. He says in a letter, dated the 16th, "I am very glad that the troubles that were so near us to menace, were not permitted to take any hold on you. I hope that the fears of that sort are now pretty well dispersed, if our unreformed sins do not call them again upon us. It appears not improbable that the tabernacle of David, which hath been in the dust so long, may ere long be re-edified; but whether or not with those diminutions which may extort tears from them that compare the second with the former edifice, I am not able to divine.”

In the following September, about half a year before the restoration, and just after the defeat of the royalists of Cheshire, he evinced in another letter his firm reliance on the goodness of God, even when the light of his coun

"It is the supreme

tenance seemed to be withdrawn. privilege of christianity," he writes, "to convert the saddest evils into the most medicinal advantages, the valley of Achor into the door of hope, the blackest tempest into the most perfect sunshine; and it is certain you have an excellent opportunity now before you, to improve and receive benefit by; and you will not despise that affection which attempts to tell you somewhat of it. It is plainly this: that all kind of prosperity (even that which we most think we can justify the most importunate pursuance of, the flourishing of a church and monarchy,) is treacherous and dangerous, and might very probably tend to our great ills: and nothing is so entirely safe and wholesome as to be continued under God's disciplines. Those that are not bettered by such methods would certainly be intoxicated and destroyed by the pleasanter draughts; and those that would ever serve God sincerely in affluence have infinitely greater advantages and opportunities for it in the adverse fortune. Therefore let us now all adore and bless God's wisest choices, and set vigorously to the task that lies before us, improving the present advantages, and supplying in the abundance of the inward beauty what is wanting to the outward lustre of a church; and we shall not fail to find that the grots and caves lie as open to the celestial influences as the fairest and most beautified temples. We are ordinarily very willing to be rich, and flatter ourselves that our aims are no other than to be enabled by much wealth to do as much good; and some live to see themselves confuted, and want hearts when wealth comes in greatest abundance; so those that never come to make the experiment have yet reason to judge that God saw it fit not to lead them into temptation, lest, if they had been proved, they should have been found faithless. And the same judgment are we now obliged to pass for ourselves, and, by what God appears to have chosen for us, to resolve what he sees to be absolutely best for us; and it must be our greatest blame and wretchedness, if what hath now befallen us be not

effectually better for us, than whatever else even piety could have suggested to us to wish or pray for."

Soon after the writing of this letter, when the hopes and prayers of many years seemed near their accomplishment, in the restoration of the monarchy and the church, he "rejoiced with trembling;" for while he believed that the righteous cause was about to triumph, he feared that as religion had been made subservient to ambition, and assumed as a cloak by so many who had evil purposes to promote, the nation might be disgusted with real piety, and hurry into the opposite extreme of open profligacy and profaneness. It had been his prayer, that whenever God should see fit to turn the captivity of the nation, it might be in a state of repentance; but now they were not in that condition, and he contemplated the course of events with many painful forebodings. He remarked that "after seriously considering what sort of men would be better for the change, he could not think of any." the church, "persecution was generally the happiest means of propagating that; she then grew fastest when most pruned! was then of the best complexion and most healthy when fainting through loss of blood." He feared that the laity, in their several stations and estates, “had so much perverted the healthful dispensations of judgment, that it was most improbable they should make any tolerable use of mercy." And he even looked upon the king as an object of compassion, since in taking his rightful sceptre he would be brought into many difficulties and cares from which he was exempt before.

As for

As for himself, Dr. Hammond was convinced that the retirement in which he had passed the latter years of his life was more to be desired than the honourable public station to which he was likely to be promoted. He had long enjoyed, as Dr. Fell expresses it, a constant equable serenity, and unthoughtfulness in outward accidents."

"I must confess," he remarked one day to a friend with much feeling, I never saw the time in all my life