wealth he found, and leaving to the bishopric the poverty he brought with him. Yet was he not so covetous of gain as Bishop Jewell of time; not so greedy to cram himself, as this Bishop to feed his flock, and to distribute and dispense unto God's people the riches of his heavenly wisdom; which (contrary to the nature of the other) are kept by giving, lost by keeping, diminished by sparing, increased by spending. 28. His extraordinary diligence is easily seen in his paraphrastical interpretations of the Epistles and Gospels throughout the whole year; his divers treatises of the sacraments and exhortations to the readers; his continuate expositions of the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, and Ten Commandments; the Epistle to the Galatians; the First of Peter; and of both the Epistles unto the Thessalonians; scarce any year in all the time of his bishopric passed, which was not made noble and illustrious for some famous work set out in it by him. The year 1560 began with his noble challenge at Paul's Cross, and ended with his confutation of D. Cole. His Apology, begun in the year 1561, and perfected in the year 1562, was made so much of, not only by the Tigurines, but of all Protestants, that it was translated almost into all tongues, that it might be in all men's mouths. The council of Trent, held about this time, saw it, and censured it, and appointed one Frenchman, and another Italian, to answer it; but they are now not to answer the Apology, but to apologize for their politic not answering it. 29. The years 1564, 1565, were renowned with his and Mr. Harding's contentions about the former named challenge, of whom the same is fitly affirmed which was spoken of Jugurtha and Marius; they learned in the same that which in contrary camps they practised. In which time also he was solemnly created Doctor, and bare the part of a moderator in those famous acts, concluding with a divine speech of our then, and now more truly to be called, Urania, Elizabeth. His Apology fell in the years 1566, 1567, after which time divers famous books were dedicated unto him by Peter Martyr, Bullinger, Lavater, Simler, and others; divers other excellent works he had intended, but death prevented the birth of them. We may grieve at our own loss, we may not envy the more glorious part of his society with the saints in heaven. And although he was taken from us, ev ακμη Juxs, in the perfection of his best faculties, yet seeing that it is truly said, Vita est vigilia, that our living here is nothing but the keeping of the vigils of our sabbath-day in heaven, we may truly say this scene was long, and in Seneca's sense, Diu vixit licet non diu fuit, he lived long in the short scantling of his life. At meals, a chapter being first read, he recreated himself with scholastical wars between young scholars, whom he maintained at his table. The conquerors and their masters also he rewarded bountifully. In these pædomachy and witty frays he took a special delight. After meals, his doors and ears were open to all suits and causes; and at these times, for the most part, he dispatched all those businesses which either his place or other's importunity forced upon him, making gain of the residue of this time for his study. About the hour of nine at night he called all his servants to an account, how they had spent the day, and after prayers admonished them accordingly. From this examination to his study (how long, it is uncerLain, oft-times after midnight), and so to bed; wherein, after some part of an author read to him by the gentleman of his bedchamber, commending himself to the protection of his Saviour, he took his rest. 30. Two things yet remaining, not more com mendable than admirable, which I cannot let pass without wrong to history itself, his memory of things past, and presage of things to come. His memory, raised by art to the highest pitch of human possibility, for he could repeat faithfully any thing he had penned, as he had penned it, after once reading; and therefore usually at the ringing of the bell began to commit his sermons to heart; and by art was made so firm in keeping things committed unto it, that he was wont to say, that if he were to make a speech premeditated, before a thousand auditors shouting or fighting all the while, yet he could say all that he had provided to speak. And so quick also was he in receiving, that when the Bishop of Norwich proposed unto him many barbarous and hard names out of a calendar, and Hooper, Bishop of Gloucester, forty strange words, Welsh, Irish, and many other outlandish terms, he, after once or twice reading at the most, and short meditating, repeated them all by heart, backward and forward, Nay, which is yet more strange, when the Lord Bacon, Keeper of the Broad Seal, before the Bishop of Norwich and others, at his table, read only unto him the last clause of ten lines in Erasmus' Paraphrase, confused and dismembered of set purpose, he, sitting silent for a while, and covering his face with his hand, on the sudden rehearsed all those broken parcels of sentences, the right way and the contrary, without any stay or stumbling. He professed to teach others this skill, and taught his master, M. Parkhurst, beyond the sea, inso much, that, spending but one hour in the day in it, in a very short time he learned all the Gospels back ward and forward, by the benefit of this artificial memory, setting his places and images in clue. ! 32. And as his memory was excellent, so was his divination memorable. I omit that speech of his before mentioned, in the highest float of papal tyranny in England, and lowest ebb of his misery beyond the seas-Hæc non durabunt ætatem-which fell out most true. And I dispute not whether the soul of herself doth prominere in morte, that is, as the prison of the body, more broken by the violence of disease, doth see farther out, which heathen his torians make to seem not improbable, but (which I rather believe) God himself gives his saints sometime warning, to put their house in order before they are to leave it, either by visions in the night, as he fore! warned Cyprian and Bradford of their martyrdom, the one by fire, the other by the sword; or else by supernatural illumination, as it seems he assured B. Ridley, who, crossing the Thames, when on a sud den, at the rising of a tempest, all were astonished, looking for nothing but to be drowned, "Take heart," saith he, "for this boat carrieth a Bishop that must be burnt, and not drowned.". This much is certain, that, long before his sick. ness, he foretold the approaching, and in his sickness the precise day of his death. In the year 1570, in his letters to the Bishop of Norwich, after he had certified him of the death of D. Alley, Bishop of Exeter, he added these words, " And I must follow him, the lean bishop the fat ;" and in another letter these: "I would to God we might meet and talk together; but now it is too late, it makes not much matter; I hope we shall see one the other in heas ven. Flux, flux, that is, in the German tongue, you make any delay, Quick, quick, make haste; if I shall prevent you." ...And the same year that he died, February 3, he postcribed another letter thus: "There is a rumour of the calling a parliament, which if it be true, then perhaps we shall embrace one the other before death; my death, I say, not yours; for you shall yet in this life sing, ο Θεος ισχυρος ἀθάνατος, the strong and immortal God." Thus being forewarned to leave this hold of his body, and forewarning others of it, he did not, after the custom of most men, seek by all means, as it were, violently to keep possession beyond the day, and by all kind of natural aliments and medicate potions to surfeit the senses, and stop all the passages of the soul; no, but by fasting, labour, and watching, he opened them wider, that he might be the readier to entertain death, God's harbinger, and to meet his Saviour. 33. The supernatural motions of God's Spirit within him in the end became, as it were, natural, in fine velociores; and the last endeavours of grace in him were most vehement; for after his return from a conference at London, he began a new and more severe visitation through his whole diocese than ever before, correcting the vices of the clergy and laity more sharply, enjoining them in some places tasks of holy tracts to be learned by heart, conferring orders more circumspectly, and preaching oftener. By which restless labour and watchful cares he brought his feeble body so low, that as he rode to preach at Lacock, in Wiltshire, a gentleman friendly admonished him to return home for his health and strength's sake, saying, that such straining his body in riding and preaching, being so exceedingly weak and ill affected, might bring him in danger of his life, assuring him, that it was better the people should want one sermon, than be altogether deprived of such |