vent prayer till the evening, when he breathed his last, having whispered a few moments before his departure— "Lord, make haste!"

Thus terminated the mortal life of this eminent servant of God. The preceding narrative shows that his character combined christian virtues of a very high order, with fewer defects than are commonly the lot of man. His death was, as bishop Burnet remarks, "an unspeakable loss to the church; for as he was a man of great learning, and of most eminent merit, he having been the person that, during the bad times, had maintained the cause of the church in a very singular manner, so he was a very moderate man in his temper, though with a high principle; and probably he would have fallen into healing counsels."

At the very close of life he left on record his desire, "that no unseasonable stiffness of those that were in the right, no perverse obstinacy of those that were in the wrong, might hinder the closing of the wounds of the church; "but that all private and secular designs might be laid aside, all lawful concessions made, and the one great and common concernment of truth and peace unanimously and vigorously pursued."

With a disposition calculated to conciliate affection. and command respect, an ambition having no other aim but to do good, an unbounded generosity, an active mind and sound judgment, a real anxiety for the well-being of religion and the salvation of souls, and a life and conversation upon which a pure light was shed by his constant communion with God, he would probably have been of great service in repairing the ruins of the church, whether in consultation about the measures which would best promote the interests of religion, or in the management of a diocese.

His views of church-government, and of the duties of the clergy, were such as caused many to regret still more that he was not longer spared. He had hoped that "a moderate episcopacy, with a standing assistant presbytery," having certain duties expressly assigned to them, would satisfy the desires of those whose pretensions were regular and moderate," and would be such a constitution of the church as all the contending parties would prefer next to their own.

"He was also," as Burnet says, "much set on reforming abuses, and for raising in the clergy a due sense of the obligations they lay under." He thought that a strict search ought to be made into the morals, tempers, and capacities of those who were to be admitted into holy orders, and licensed as public preachers; and that "painful, mature, and sober preaching and catechizing, and studies of all kinds, ought to be so far considered in the collating of church preferments and dignities, and that so much of duty should be required of clergymen, and so little left arbitrary and at large, that every church preferment in this kingdom might have such a due burthen annexed to it, that no ignorant person should be able, no lazy or luxurious person willing or forward to undergo it."

The church, therefore, might weep over her departed son, but for himself the change was happily timed, as it released him from bodily sufferings which would have continued to afflict him to the end of his days, rescued him from the temptations of prosperity which he feared,

saved him the pain of witnessing the increase of vice and irreligion, which he sorrowfully anticipated, and bore him to those pure and peaceful habitations for which he had been constantly preparing.

The day of his death was that on which parliament was assembled for the purpose of recalling the king. On the following evening he was buried without pomp, for so he requested, in the neighbouring parish church of Hampton, the service of the church of England being used on that occasion. Multitudes of persons, of various classes, assembled to testify their grateful and respectful remembrance of the piety and virtues of the deceased; and the clergymen who were present showed their affection by bearing his body to the church, where it was deposited in the vault of that generous family whose friendship he had experienced during so many years of his life.