visit the sick and others, and in their houses to instruct, admonish, exhort, and comfort them, as their cases required. In his visits to the poor, he not only ministered to their souls, but inquired into their bodily wants, and procured for them the supplies they needed. Among his intimate acquaintance he was cheerful, but yet always inclined

IV. As an attractive to faithfulness and great diligence in our ministry, let us contemplate the safety and reward that attends it. In thus doing we shall deliver our own souls from lying down in sorrow, from dwelling in darkness, and with the apostate infernal spirits. And besides this, we shall shine as the brightness of the firmament, as the stars, and as the sun, in the kingdom of our Father. In the consideration of these things let us be diligent, stedfast, unmoveable, and abounding in our ministerial work, that our labour may not be in vain. And if this life I have written may contribute hereunto, I shall rejoice. And let me add this advice, that our preaching be managed with respect to the prevailing errors of our times, to prevent our congregations from being infected by them. Deism is the taking error among men of parts and learning; and it gains among more ordinary people; so that we are in danger of preserving only natural religion, and letting go supernatural and divinely revealed Scripture truths. If care be not taken, religion among us will be ouly remembering our Creator, forgetting our Redeemer and Com. forter, and the addresses in our litany will go no farther than to GOD the Futher of henten. Let us then preach the divinity of Christ, the incarnation of the Son of GOD, and shew our people, that less than one truly Gon could not have been a sufficient king, priest, or prophet to the church. And let us not fail to open and confirm to them the doctrine of Christ's satisfaction made for our sins, by his being a real sacritice, made sin or a-sin-offering for us. Too many in our age depreciave Christ, aud account him only the most excellent man that ever was. And let us, in a just opposition, magnify Christ, and acquaint our congregations, that his goings forth were from everlasting, that he is the mighty GOD, and everlasting Father: And that he did not die only as a martyr, bearing testimouy to truth, but dying charged with our sins, bearing our iniquities and sufferings, and atoning for them, as is abun dantly declared in Scripture, and in the communion office of our church, and in some of the collects. In defence of the Christian religion, let us preach more of the person, natures and offices of Christ, and of justification, not by our best works, but by him, and faith in him, which is the church of England doctrine. Let us not stop in the dictates of Plutarch, Seneca, and Epictetus, but directly preach the evangelical truths cons cerning our Redeemer, and redemption by him; and let our people know a true faith is as needful to salvation as a good life, in opposition to a growing, spreading, pernicious error, that it matters not what men believe, provided they live a good life; and that a Jew, or a Turk, or an heathen, are in as good a condition as Christians, provided that they are not debauched and lewd in their manners. And that we may stem the Arian and Socinian tide, let us preach much concerning the Holy Spirit, and shew our congregations he is God, and a person distinct from Father and Son, though the same in essence. Let us shew them the Holy Spirit's co-operation with Father and Son in the works of crea tion, providence, redemption, sanctification, and resurrection; his offices with respect to the church and people of GOD, being their teacher, sanctifier,

clined to quit the innocent pleasantry, and turn the discourse into a serious channel. In his common conversation, he conducted himself with sobriety, justice, humility, and affability. No spots were to be found in his feasts; no unworthy behaviour stained his holy character. Wherever he appeared, there appeared the Christian and the minister,

sanctifier, helper, remembrancer, and comforter, and that no good thing is done well without his influence, aid, and assistance. Considering our being baptized in the name of the Holy Ghost, and that our bodies are his temples, and he seals us to the day of redemption, we should not in our sermons be silent concerning the Holy Spirit. The Scripture speaks much of the Holy Spirit, and therefore we should speak of him not a little; and the rather, that our congregations may pray with understanding, Take not thy Holy Spirit from us. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit. Send down thy Holy Spirit into our hearts. And that the conclusion of several prayers may be understood, and not be harder than Latin to them, viz. who liveth and reig eth with thee and the Holy Spirit. And if by much preaching of Christ and the Holy Spirit the people be inured to thoughts of, and dependence upon Christ and the Holy Spirit, it will not be so easy to deists to pervert them. Not that I would in the least divert from practical preaching by what I have said; for every doctrine concerning Christ and the Holy Spirit may be improved in an application to the urging and promoting virtue and godliness, as St. Chrysostom's expositions of Scripture are attended with his HOIKON. And a suredly, exhortations to piety and holiness in general, or to any particular branch of godliness, are rendered more lively by being grafted upon the stock of some evangelical truth. This was St. Paul's method in his Epistles to the Romans, Galatians, Ephe. sians, Colossians, and Hebrews, to insist first upon some great revealed truths, as the divinity of Christ or his priesthood, or justification by faith, or the like, and then bring in his exhortation to parents, children, masters, servants, husbands, and wives, to live becoming the gospel, in all holiness. We may then sufficiently attend to our endeavouring the reformation of our several congregations, and yet preach much concerning Christ and the Holy Ghost. And we have great patterns of it in our own church, and may have great help in it from the writings of some of them of great name, as Archbishop Usher, Bishop Pearson, Doctor Jackson, and others. And as moving to this, it is a deplorable thing, that as Britain bred the author of the Pelagian heresy, there should now be so much danger of the reviving Arianism in this island. Let us then use our endeavours to keep up the great doctrines of the Trinity, and incarnation of the Son of God; and his satisfaction and justification by him, and of the impotency and opposition of nature to faith and godliness, and of our need of the aids of an Almighty Holy Spirit, by preaching these things. Religion and godliness have flourished under these doctrines, and I verily believe piety will decay where these doctrines are forsaken, or not heeded. And we cannot do a better service than by maintaining them in our preaching by Scripture arguments, that it may appear we oppose Socinianism ex animo; and not only because otherwise we cannot read the church-service, in which we have Te Deum, Glor. Patri, Fil. Sp. Sanct. and addresses to Christ, O Lamb of GOD, Son of David, have mercy on us, and the like. And I shall conclude to you, my reverend brethren, with my earnest wishes, that we may be endued with power from on high to fulfill the ministry we have received of the Lord, and to adorn our function, that we may die with the consola,

minister. I am assured from one, (says Mr. Parkhurst, probably meaning his wife) that he enjoyed an uninterrupted calmness and serenity of mind, and lived in the comfortable hopes of God's love to his soul, and his title to glory, for several years before he died: A mercy, that those who are involved in the business of the world, and swallowed up in the pleasures of sin and sensuality, are strangers to and will not believe.' Some treated him unkindly, but he forbore speaking either bitterly or contemptibly of his enemies; and, if they needed his service, he was ready to afford them it, heaping coals of fire upon their heads. Knowing the mischiefs of animosities, he used his persuasions, his interest, and his friends to reduce his jarring neighbours to peace, and left nothing in his power undone to effect a reconciliation. In reference to young persons, besides his public catechizing of them, which he conducted in a very agreeable manner, he was very frequent, solemn, and importunate in his petitions to GoD for them. They were much upon his thoughts, and his desire for them was, that they might remember their Creator in the days of their youth.

His family religion was such as became the Gospel. His house was a house of morning and evening prayers, and the reading of the Scriptures was daily observed in it, and that many times attended with exposition. Beside family prayer twice in the day, he prayed with the most intimate companion of his cares, joys, and sorrows. was a strict observer of the Lord's Day, and did not think the duties of the day were over, when the public worship of God was at an end; but he spent the evening with his family

He

tions we have ministered to such as we have judged accepted of God in Christ.'

To this may be added (from the same excellent person) his definition of the minister who most honours the church of England.

1. He, who in doctrine comes nearest to the thirty-nine articles, serves and honours the church of England more than they who contradict those articles, in which is contained the church of England confession of faith.

2. He who, in the use of our holy forms, is solemn, serious, and grave, serves and honours the church of England more than they who huddle the prayers, and carry no appearance of reverence in divine offices.

3. He who is strict in his conversation, according to the gravity of the canons serves and honours the church of England more than they who appear with much air and levity, and comply with riot and disorder. 4. He who spends most of his time in studying, preaching, praying, and visiting his flock, serves and honours the church of England more than they who waste much time in innocent recreations, orworse.'

family in hearing them read the Scriptures, in examining them concerning the sermons they had heard, in catechizing them, in praising GoD, and in praying with them and for them. He was a great redeemer of time. Variety of business and improvement were his chief diversions. He was a man more than ordinarily mortified to the pleasures and vanities of the world.

Upon the Lord's Day, October 17, 1703, in the place (says Mr. Parkhurst) where he had pleaded the cause of GOD against Rome, the cause of Christ against deism, the cause of the Holy Ghost against the deriders of his name and office, the cause of faith against justification by imperfect works, and the cause of special grace against the pretended powers of nature to save, he was struck with that sickness which put an end to his days. His disorder was such as made him leave his beloved place the house of GOD, and it proved the last time of his appearance there. Upon returning to his house his distemper increased, but with intermissions, allowing some happy moments for thinking and speaking. In the short time of his illness, and in the view of approaching death, he very seriously entertained his friends who came to visit him, and prayed much himself with great ardour. In the midst of his bodily affliction, devout aspirations, and blessed hopes, he remembered his beloved Dedham, and in the near approach of death signed a letter to his diocesan, recommending a successor to him, whom he hoped would be faithful and diligent in the spiritual care of the flock he was now leaving. In his sickness, GoD made his face to shine upon him: The Spirit of GoD witnessed with his spirit his adoption, and he went with a full sail to heaven, as one of his much-valued friends, a witness of it, expressed it; to whom, speaking of the high pleasures of the Lord's Supper, in which they had often joined, and calling the wine in the sacrament the wine of the kingdom, he broke forth into these words: “But what will it be to drink the wine of the kingdom in the kingdom ?" Taking solemn leave of a friend a day or two before his death, he said, "I shall leave you; but may the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost be with you; may the presence of the whole Trinity be with you! I hope to see you again with joy, at the resurrection of the just." And he added, "What you have seen in me that is good and imitable, follow it; but what you have observed is not so, let not your affection and love to me sway you to do it."

Thus

Thus lived and died this holy man. God blessed the town of Dedham with Mr. Burkitt's ministry and labours eleven years and an half, and removed him when he was not far gone in his declining age, when the powers of both body and mind were yet in their vigour. His strength was such, and he conducted himself with so much temperance and moderation in every thing but in his work, (there indeed he exceeded) that it might have been hoped that he had been built for fourscore, but God took him away when he was but just turned of fifty-three. A seven days' conflict with a very malignant fever put an end to his life. He was taken with his death-sickness upon one Lord's day, when he was in the service of God at church, and he went to keep his everlasting Sabbath on the Lord's day after, about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, when he rested from his labours, while his works, do follow him. He preached some time to the people of a country village at a considerable distance from his own charge, who for a long season had been seldom provided with sermons, and, by his endeavours and contribution, and assistance from others obtained by his interest, that village had a settled minister for some years. By his great care, pains, and charges, he procured a pious minister to go and settle in Carolina. And he expended not a little of that with which GoD had blessed him, toward the maintenance of some poor students in the University of Cambridge. In his last sickness, when his friends about him bewailed the great loss which they feared was coming upon them by his decease, he desired them "not to be too much concerned for him, for to him to live would be Christ, and to die would be gain;" and added, "That GoD would provide for them." He blessed God that he had finished what he designed upon the New Testament; he said, that he had ushered this work into the world with many, very many prayers, and he hoped, through the divine blessing, that it would prove very beneficial to many, and especially to his own people. The declaration of several persons by his dying bed, that he had been the instrument of their conversion, put him into a transport of joy. His patience in his last sickness was very exemplary. He said he had preached patience, and written of patience, and that therefore he was bound to practise patience. His frame in his sickness was a continued series of prayer, thanksgiving, and cheerful resignation to the divine will. A little before he poured out his last breath, he prayed, "Come, Lord Jesus, make a short work of it!"