JOHN WILMOT earl of Rochester, was born in April, anno domini 1648. His father was Henry earl of Rochester, but best know by the title of lord Wil­mot, who bore so great a part in all the late wars, that mention is often made of him in the history. He had the chief share in the honour of the preser­vation [Page 14] of his majesty that now reigns, after Worchester-fight, and the convey­ing him from place to place, till he happily escaped into France; but dy­ing before the king's return, he left his son little other inheritance, than the honour and title derived to him, with the pretensions such eminent services gave him to the king's favour. These were carefully managed by the great prudence and discretion of his mother, a daughter of that noble and ancient family of the St. John's of Wiltshire, so that his education was carried on in all things suitably to his quality.

When he was at school he was an ex­traordinary proficient at his book; and those shining parts which have since ap­peared with so much lustre, began then to shew themselves: He acquired the Latin to such perfection, that to his dy­ing-day he retained a great relish for the fineness and beauty of that tongue; and was exactly versed in the incom­parable authors that writ about Augus­tus' time, whom he read often with that peculiar delight, which the greatest wits have ever found in those studies.

[Page 15]When he went to the university, the general joy that over-ran the whole nation upon his majesty's restoration but was not regulated with that sobri­ety and temperance, that became a se­rious gratitude to God for so great a blessing, produced some of its ill ef­fects on him: He began to love these disorders too much.

His tutor was that eminent and pi­ous divine Dr. Blanford, afterwards promoted to the sees of Oxford and Worcester. And under his inspection, he was committed to the more imme­ate care of Mr. Phineas Berry, a fel­low of Wadham college, a very learn­ed and good natured man; whom he afterward used with much respect, and rewarded as became a great man. But the humour of that time wrought so much on him, that he broke off the course of his studies, to which no means could ever effectually recal him; till when he was in Italy his governor Dr. Balfour, a worthy and learned man, now a celebrated physician in Scotland, his native country, drew him [Page 16] to read such books as were most likely to bring him back to love learning and study: and he often acknowledged to me, in particular three days before his death, how much he was obliged to love and honour this his governor, to whom he thought he owed more than to all the world, next after his parents for his care and sidelity of him, while he was under his trust.

But no part of it affected him more sensibly, than that he engaged him by many tricks (so he expressed it) to delight in books and readings. So that ever after he took occasion in the inter­vals of those woeful extravagancies that consumed most of his time to read much: and though the time was ge­nerally but indifferently employed, for the choice of the subjects of his studies was not always good, yet the habitual love of knowledge, together with these fits of study, had much awakened his understanding and prepared him for better things, when his mind should be so far changed as to relish them.

[Page 17]He came from his travels in the 18th year of his age, and appeared at court with as great advantages as most ever had. He was a graceful and well sha­ped person, tall, and well made, if not a little too slender. He was ex­actly well bred, and what by a modest behaviour natural to him, what by a civility become almost as natural, his conversation was easy and obliging. He had a strange vivacity of thought, and vigour of expression. His wit had a subtility and sublimity both that were scarce imitable. His style was clear and strong. When he used fi­gures they were very lively, and yet far enough out of the common road. He had made himself master of the an­cient and modern wit, and of the mo­dern French and Italian as well as the English. He loved to talk and write of speculative matters, and did it with so fine a thread that even those that hated the subjects that his fancy run upon, yet could not but be charmed with his way of treating them. Boileau among the French, and [Page 18] Cowley among the English wits, were those he admired most, Sometimes o­ther mens thoughts mixed with his com­posures, but that flowed rather from the impressions they made on him when he read them, by which they came to return upon him as his own thoughts, than that he servilely copied them from any. For few men ever had a bold­er flight of fancy more steadily go­verned by judgment than he had. No wonder a young man so made and so improved was very acceptable in a court.

Soon after his coming thither, he laid hold on the first occasion that offer­ed, to shew his readiness to hazard his life in the defence and service of his, country. In the Winter of 1665, he went with the earl of Sandwich to sea, when he was fent to lie for the Dutch East India fleet; and was in the Re­venge commanded by Sir Thomas Tid­diman, when the attack was made on the port of Bergen in Norway, the Dutch ships having got into that port. It was as desperate an attempt as ever was [Page 19] made: during the whole action, the Earl of Rochester shewed as brave and and as resolute courage as was possible. A person of honour told me he heard the Lord Clifford, who was in the same ship, often magnify his courage at that time very highly. Nor did the rigours of the season, the hardness of the voyage, and the extreme dangers he had been in, deter him from running the like on the very next occasion. For in the Summer following he went to sea again, without communicating his design to his nearest relations. He went aboard the ship commanded by Sir Edward Spragge, the day before the great sea-fight of that year. Al­most all the volunteers that were in the same ship were killed. Mr. Middleton, (brother to Sir Hugh Middleton) was shot in his arms. During the action, Sir Edward Spragge not being satisfied with the behaviour of one of the cap­tains, could not easily find a person who would cheerfully venture through so much danger, to carry his commands to that captain. This lord offered him­self [Page 20] to the service; and went in a lit­tle boat through all the shot, and deli­vered his message, and returned back to Sir Edward: which was much com­mended by all that saw it. He thought it necessary to begin his life with these demonstrations of his courage in an e­lement and way of fighting, which is acknowledged to be the greatest trial of clear and undaunted valour.

He had so entirely laid down the in­temperance that was growing on him before his travels, that at his return he hated nothing more. But falling into company that loved these excesses, he was, though not without difficulty, and by many steps, brought back to it again. And the natural heat of his fan­cy being inflamed by wine, made him so extravagantly pleasant, that many to be more diverted by that humour, studied to engage him in deeper and deeper intemperance; which at length did so entirely subdue him, that, as he told me, for five years together he was continually drunk: not all the while under the visible effect of it, but his [Page 21] blood was so inflamed, that it was not in all that time cool enough to to be perfectly master of himself. This led him to say and do many wild and un­accountable things: by this, he said, he had broke the firm constitution of his health, that seemed so strong, that nothing was too hard for it; and he had suffered so much in his reputa­tion, that he almost dispaired to reco­ver it.

There were principles in his natural temper, that being heightened by that heat carried him to great excesses—a violent love of pleasure, and a disposi­tion to extravagant mirth. The one involved him in great sensuality; the other led him to many odd adventures and frolicks, in which he was oft in hazard of his life. The one being the same irregular appetite in his mind, that the other was in his body, which made him think nothing diver­ting that was not extravagant. And though in cold blood he was a generous and good natured man, yet he would go far in his heats, after any thing that [Page 22] might turn to a jest or matter of diver­sion.

He said to me, He never improved his interest at court, to do a premeditated mischief to other persons. Yet he laid out his wit very freely in libels and satires, in which he had a peculiar ta­lent of mixing his wit with his malice, and fitting both with such apt words, that men were tempted to be pleased with them; from thence his compo­sures came to be easily known, for few had such a way of tempering these to­gether as he had. So that when any thing extraordinary that way came out, as a child is fathered sometimes by its resemblance, so was it laid at his door as its parent and author.

These exercises in the course of his life were not always equally pleasant to him; he had often sad intervals and severe reflections on them. And though then he had not these awakened in him from any principle of religion, yet the horror that nature raised in him, espe­cially in some sicknesses, made him too easy to recieve some ill principles, [Page 23] which others endeavoured to possess him with; so that he was soon brought to set himself to secure and fortify his his mind against that, by dispossessing it of all he could of the belief or appre­hensions of religion.

The licentiousness of his temper, with the briskness of his wit, disposed him to love the conversation of those who divided their time between lewd acti­ons and irregular mirth. And so he came to bend his wit and direct his stu­dies and endeavours to support and strengthen these ill principles both in himself and others.

An accident fell out after this, which confirmed him more in these courses. When he went to sea in the year 1665 there happened to be in the same ship with him, Mr. Mountague, and another gentleman of quality; these two, the former especially, seemed persuaded that they should never return into En­gland. Mr. Mountague said, he was sure of it: the other was not so positive. The Earl of Rochester and the last of these, entered into a formal engage­ment, [Page 24] not without ceremonies of reli­gion, that if either of them died, he should appear and give the other notice of the future state, if there was any. But Mr. Mountague would not enter into the bond. When the day came that they thought to have taken the Dutch fleet in the port of Bergen, Mr. Mountague, though he had such a strong presage in his mind of his approaching death, yet he generously staid all the while in a place of the greatest danger. The other gentleman signalized his courage in a most undaunted manner, till near the end of the action, when he fell on a sudden into such a trembling that he could scarce stand: and Mr. Mountague going up to him to hold him up, as they were in each others arms, a cannot ball killed him outright, and carried away Mr. Mountague's belly, so that he died within an hour after.

The Earl of Rochester told me that these presages they had in their minds, made some impression on him, that there were separated beings; and that the soul, either by a natural sagacity, [Page 25] or some secret notice communicated to it, had a sort of divination. But that gentleman's never appearing was a great snare to him, during the rest of his life. Though when he told me this he could not but acknowledge, it was an unreasonable thing to think, that beings in another state were not under such laws and limits, that they could not command their own motions, but as the Supreme Power should order them; and that one who had so cor­rupted the natural principles of truth, as he had, had no reason to expect that such an extraordinary thing should be done for his conviction.

He also told me of another odd pre­sage that one had of his approaching death in the lady Warre, his mother in law's house. The chaplain dreamed that such a day he should die, but being by all the family put out of the belief of it, he had almost forgot it; till the even­ing before at supper, there being thir­teen at table, according to fond con­ceit that one of these must soon die, one of the young ladies pointed to him [Page 26] that he was to die. He remembering his dream fell into some disorder, and the lady Warre reproving him for his superstition, he said, he was confident he was to die before morning; but he being in perfect health it was not much minded. It was Saturday-night, and he was to preach the next day. He went to his chamber and sat up late, as appeared by the burning of his candle, and had been preparing his notes for his sermon, but was found dead in his bed the next morning. These things he said, made him inclined to believe the soul was a substance distinct from matter; and this often returned into his thoughts. But that which perfect­ed his persuasion about it, was that in the sickness which brought him so near death before I first knew him, when his spirits were so low and spent, that he could not move nor stir, and did not expect to live an hour. He said his reason and judgment were so clear and strong, that from thence he was fully persuaded that death was not the spending or dissolution of the soul, but [Page 27] only the separation of it from matter. He had in that sickness great, remorses for his past life, but he afterwards told me, they were rather general and dark horrors, than any convictions of fin­ning against God. He was sorry he lived so as to waste his strength so soon, or that he had brought such an ill name upon himself; and had an agony in his mind about it, which he knew not well how to express. But at such times though he complied with his friends in suffering divines to be sent for, he said, he had no great mind to it: and that it was but a piece of his breeding, to desire them to pray by him, in which he joined but little himself.

As to the supreme Being, he had al­ways some impression of one: and pro­fessed often to me, That he had never known an entire atheist, who full believ­ed there was no God. Yet when he explained his notion of that Being, it amounted to no more than a vast pow­er that had none of the attributes of goodness and justice we ascribe to the [Page 28] Deity. These were his thoughts about religion, as himself told me.

For morality, he freely owned to me, that though he talked of it as a fine thing, yet this was only because he thought it a decent way of speaking, and that as they went always in cloaths, though in their frolicks they would have chosen sometimes to have gone naked, if they had not feared the peo­ple; so that though some of them found it necessary for human life to talk of of morality, yet he confessed they car­ed not for it, further than the reputa­tion of it was necessary for their credit, and affairs; of which he gave me ma­ny instances, as their professing and swearing friendship, where they hated morality; their oaths and imprecati­ons in their addresses to women, which they intended never to make good; the pleasure they took in defaming in­nocent persons, and spreading false re­ports of some, perhaps in revenge, be­cause they could not engage them to comply with their ill designs: the de­light they had in making people quar­rel; [Page 29] their unjust usage to their credi­tors, and putting them off by any de­ceitful promise they could invent, that might deliver them from present im­portunity. So that in detestation of these courses, he would often break forth into such hard expressions con­cerning himself, as would be indecent for another to repeat.

Such had been his principles and practices in a course of many years, which had almost quite extinguished the natural propensities in him to justice and virtue. He would often go in to the country, and be for some months whol­ly employed in study, or the sallies of his wit; which he came to direct chief­ly to satire. And this he often defen­ded to me; by saying there were some people who could not be kept in order or admonished but in this way. I re­plied, That it might be granted that a grave way of satire, was sometimes no unprofitable way of reproof. Yet they who used it only out of spite, and mixed lies with truth, sparing nothing that mightadorn their poems, or gratify their [Page 30] revenge, could not excuse that way of reproach, by which the innocent often suffer; since the most malicious things, if wittily expressed, might stick to and blemish the best character in the world; and the malice of a libel could hardly consist with the charity of an admoni­tion. To this he answered, A man could not write with life, unless he was heated by revenge: for to make a sa­tire without resentment on the cold no­tions of philosophy, was as if a man would in cold blood, cut mens' throats, who had never offended him. And he said, The lies in these libels came often in as ornaments that could not be spa­red without spoiling the beauty of the poem.

For his other studies, they were di­vided between the comical and witty writings of the ancients and moderns, the Roman authors, and books of phy­sic, which the ill state of health he was fallen into made more necessary to himself; and which qualified him for an odd adventure which I shall but just mention. Being under an unlucky ac­cident [Page 31] which obliged him to keep out of the way, he disguised himself so that his nearest friends could not have known him, and set up in Tower-street, for an Italian mountebank, where he practised physick for some weeks not without success. In his latter years he read books of history more. He took pleasure to disguise himself as a porter, or as a beggar; sometimes to follow some mean amours, which for the variety of them he affected. At other times merely for diversion he would go about in odd shapes, in which he acted his part so naturally, that e­ven those who were in the secret, and saw him in these shapes, could per­cieve nothing by which he might be discovered.

I have now made the description of his former life and principles, as fully as I thought necessary to answer my end in writing. And yet with those reserves, that I hope I have given no just cause of offence to any. I have said nothing but what I had from his own mouth, and have avoided the [Page 32] mentioning of the more particular pas­sages of his life, of which he told me not a few. But since others were concerned in them, whose good only I design, I will say nothing that may provoke or blemish them. It is their reformation, and not their disgrace, I desire: this tender consideration of o­thers has made me suppress many re­markable and useful things he told me. But finding that though I should name none, yet I must relate such circum­stances as would give great occasion for the reader to conjecture concern­ing the persons intended right or wrong, either of which were inconvenient e­nough, I have chosen to pass them quite over. But I hope those that know how much they were engaged with him in his ill courses, will be some­what touched with this tenderness I express towards them; and be thereby the rather induced to reflect on their ways, and to consider without preju­dice or passion, what a sense this noble lord had of their case, when he came at last seriously to reflect upon his own.

[Page 33]I now turn to those parts of this nar­rative, wherein I myself bore some share, and which I am to deliver upon the observations I made, after a long and free conversation with him for some months. I was not long in his company when he told me, He should treat me with more freedom than he had ever used to men of my profession. He would conceal none of his princi­ples from me, but lay his thoughts open without any disguise; nor would he do it to maintain debate or shew his wit, but plainly tell me what stuck with him. And he protested to me, that he was not so engaged to his old maxims, as to resolve not to change, but if he could be convinced, he would choose rather to be of another mind. He said, he would impartially weigh what I should lay before him, and tell me freely when it did convince him, and when it did not. He expressed this disposition of mind to me in a man­ner so frank, that I could not but be­lieve him, and be much taken with his way of discourse. So we entered in­to [Page 34] almost all the parts of natural and revealed religion, and of morality. He seemed pleased, and in a great measure satisfied, with what I said on many of these heads. And though our freest conversation was when we were alone, yet upon several occasions other per­sons were witnesses to it. I under­stood from many hands, that my com­pany was not distasteful to him, and that the subjects about which we talk­ed most, were not unacceptable. And he expressed himself often not ill plea­sed with many things I said to him, and particularly when I visited him in his last sickness: so that I hope it may not be altogether unprofitable, to pub­lish the substance of those matters a­bout which we argued so freely, with our reasoning upon them. And per­haps what had some effects on him, may be not altogether ineffectual upon others.

I followed him with such arguments as I found were most likely to prevail with him. And my not urging other reasons proceeded not from any distrust [Page 35] I had of their force, but from the ne­cessity of using those that were most proper for him. He was than in a low state of health, and seemed to be slowly recovering from a great disease. He was in the milk diet, and apt to fall into hectic-fits; any accident weak­ened him; so that he thought he could not live long. And when he went from London, he said, He believed he should never come to town more. Yet during his being in town, he was so well that he went often abroad, and had great vivacity of spirit. So that he was under no such decay that either dark­ened or weakened his understanding; nor was he any way troubled with the spleen or vapours, or under the power of melancholy.

What he was then, compared to what he had been formerly, I could not so well judge, who had seen him but twice before. Others have told me they perceived no difference in his parts. This I mention more particu­larly that it may not be thought that melancholy or want of spirits made [Page 36] him more inclined to recieve any im­pressions; for indeed I never discovered any such thing in him.

Having thus opened my way to the heads of our discourse, I shall next mention them. The three chief things we talked about, were morality, natu­ral religion, and revealed religion, Christianity in particular. For mora­lity he confessed, he saw the necessity of it, both for the government of the world, and the preservation of health, life and friendship; and was very much ashamed of his former practices, ra­ther because he had made himself a beast, and brought pain and sickness upon his body, and had suffered much in his reputation, than from any deep sense of a Supreme Being, or another state. But so far this went with him that he firmly resolved to change the course of his life, which he thought he should effect by the study of philosophy, and had not a few, no less solid and plea­sant notions concerning the folly and madness of vice. But he confessed he [Page 37] had no remorse for his past actions or offences against God, but only as in­juries to himself and to mankind.

Upon this subject I shewed him the effects of philosophy, for reforming the world. That it was a matter of speculation, which but few either had the leisure or the capacity to enquire into. But the principle that must re­form mankind, must be obvious to every man's understanding. That philosophy in matters of morality, be­yond the great lines of our duty, had no very certain fixed rule, but the lesser offices and instances of our duty went much by the fancies of men, and customs of nations; and consequently could not have authority enough to bear down the propensities of nature, appetite or passion. For which I in­stanced in these two points.

The one was about that maxim of the Stoics, to extirpate all sorts of passion and concern for any thing. That, take it by one had, seemed desi­rable, because if it could be accom­plished, it would make all the acci­dents [Page 38] of life easy; but I think it can­not, because nature after all our stri­ving against it, will still return to it­self. Yet on the other hand it dissol­ved the bonds of nature and friend­ship, and slackened industry which will move but dully, without an in­ward heat, and if it delivered a man of many troubles, it deprived him of the chief pleasures of life which arise from friendship.

The other was concerning the re­straint of pleasure, how far that was to go. Upon this, he told me the two maxims of his morality then were; that he should do nothing to the hurt of any other, or that might prejudice his own health. And he thought that all pleasure, when it did not in­terfere with these, was to be indulged as the gratification of our natural ap­petites. It seemed unreasonable to imagine these were put into a man on­ly to be restrained, or curbed to such a narrowness. This he applied to the free use of wine and women.

[Page 39]To this I answered, that if appe­tites being natural, was an argument for indulging them, then the revenge­ful might as well alledge it for mur­der, and the covetous for stealing, whose appetites are no less keen on those objects and yet it is acknow­ledged that these appetites ought to be curbed. If the difference is urged from the injury another person re­ceives, the injury is as great, if a man's wife is defiled, or his daughter corrupted: and it is impossible for a man to let loose his appetites to va­grant lusts, and not transgress in these particulars. So there was no curing the disorders that must rise from thence but by regulating these appetites. And why should we not as well think that God intended our brutish and sensual appetites should be governed by our reason, as that the fierceness of beasts should be managed and tamed by the wisdom, and for the use of man? So that it is no real absurdity, to grant that these appetites were put into men, on purpose to exercise their reason in the restraint and government [Page 40] of them. Which to be able to do, ministers a higher and more lasting pleasure to a man, than to give them their full scope and range. And if o­ther rules of philosophy be observed, such as the avoiding those objects that stir passions, nothing raises higher pas­sions than ungoverned lust, nothing darkens the understanding and depres­ses a man's mind more, nor is any thing managed with more frequent returns of other immoralities, than such oaths and imprecations as are on­ly intended to compass what is desired. The expence that is necessary to main­tain these irregularities, make a man false in his other dealings.

All this he freely confessed was true; upon which I urged that if it was rea­sonable for a man to regulate his ap­petite in things which he knew to be hurtful to him, was it not reasonable for God to prescribe a regulation of these appetites, whose unrestrained courses did produce such mischievious effects? That it could not be denied, but doing to others what we would [Page 41] have others do unto us, was a just rule Those men then that knew how extremely sensible they themselves would be of the dishonour of their fa­milies in case their wives or daughters, must needs condemn themselves, for doing that which they could not bear from another. And if the peace of mankind, and the entire satisfaction of our whole life, ought to be one of the chief measures of our actions, then let all the world judge, whether a man that confines his appetite, and lives contented at home, is not much hap­pier than those that let their desires run after forbidden objects.

The thing being granted to be bet­ter in itself, then the question falls be­tween the restrain of appetite in some instances, and the freedom of a man's thoughts, the soundness of his health, his application to affairs, with the ea­sinelss of his whole life. Whether the one is not to be done before the other? As to the difficulty of such a restraint, though it is not easy to be done, when a man allows himself many liberties in [Page 42] which it is not possible to stop; yet those who avoid the occasions that may kindle these impure flames, and keep themselves well employed, find the victory and dominion over them no such impossible or hard matter as may seem at first view.

So that though the philosophy and morality of this point were plain, yet there is not strength enough in that principle to subdue nature and appe­tite.

Upon this I urged that morality could not be a strong thing, unless a man was determined by a law within himfelf: for if he only measured him­self by decency, or the laws of the land, this would teach him only to use such caution in his ill practices, that they should not break out too visibly; but would never carry him to an inward and universal probity. That virtue was of so complicated a nature, that unless man became entirely within its discipline, he could not adhere sted­fastly to any one precept. For vices are often made necessary supports to [Page 43] one another. That this cannot be done either steadily, or with any sa­tisfaction, unless the mind does in­wardly comply with, and delight in the dictates of virtue. And that could not be effected, except a man's nature was internally regenerated and changed by a higher principle. Till that came about, corrupt nature would be strong, and philosophy but feeble; especially when it struggled with such appetites or passions as were much kindled, or deeply rooted in the constitution of ones body.

This, he said, sounded to him like enthusiasm or canting. He had no notion of it, and so could not under­stand it. He comprehended the dic­tates of reason and philosophy, in which as the mind became much con­versant, there would soon follow as he believed, a greater easiness in obeying its precepts.

I told him on the other hand, that all his speculations of philosophy would not serve him in any stead, to the re­forming of his nature and life, till he [Page 44] applied himself to God for inward as­sistance. It was certain that the im­pressions made in his reason governed him, as they were lively presented to him. But these are so apt to slip out of our memory, and we too apt to turn our thoughts from them, and at sometimes the contrary impressions are so strong, that let a man set up a rea­soning in his mind against them, he finds that celebrated saying of the Po­et,

to be all that philosophy will amount to. Whereas those who upon such occasions apply themselves to God, by earnest prayer, feel a disengagement from such impressions and themselves endued with a power to resist them. So that the bonds which formerly held them, fall off.

[Page 45]This he said must be the effect of a heat in nature. It was only the strong diversion of the thoughts that gave the seeming victory, and he did not doubt but if one could turn to a problem in Euclid, or to write a copy of verses, it would have the same effect.

To this, I answered, that if such methods did only divert the thoughts, there might be some force in what he said; but if they not only drove out such inclinations, but begat impressi­ons contrary to them, and brought men into a new disposition and habit of mind, then he must confess there was somewhat more than a diversion in these changes, which were brought on our minds by true devotion. I ad­ded, that reason and experience were the things that determined our persua­sions; that as experience without rea­son may be thought the delusion of our fancy, so reason without experi­ence had not so convincing an operati­on; But these two meeting together, must needs give a man all the satisfac­tion he can desire.

[Page 46]He could not say it was unreasona­ble to believe that the Supreme Being could make some thoughts stir in our minds with more or less force as it pleased him: especially the force of these motions, being for the most part, according to the impression that was made on our brains, which that pow­er which directed the whole frame of nature, could make grow, deeper as it pleased. It was also reasonable to suppose God a being of such goodness, that he would give his assistance to such as desired it. For though he might upon some greater occasions in an extraordinary manner turn some people's minds, yet since he had endu­ed man with a faculty of reason, it is fit that men should employ that as far as they could, and beg his assistance; which certainly they can do.

All this seemed reasonable, and at least probable. Now good men who felt upon their frequent applications to God in prayer, a freedom from those ill impressions, that formerly subdued them, and inward love to virtue and [Page 47] true goodness, and easiness and de­light in all the parts of holiness, which was fed and cherished in them by a seriousness in prayer, and did languish as that went off; had as real a percep­tion of inward strength in their minds, that did rise and fall with true devoti­on, as they perceived the strength of their bodies increased or abated, ac­cording as they had or wanted good nourishment.

After many discourses upon this subject, he still continued to think all was the effect of fancy. He said, that he understood nothing of it, but ac­knowledged that he thought they were very happy whose fancies were under the power of such impressions, since they had somewhat on which their thoughts rested and centered. But when I saw him in his last sickness, he then told me, he had another sense of what we had talked concerning prayer and inward assistances.

This subject led us to discourse of God, and of the notion of religion in general. He believed there was a [Page 48] Supreme Being. He could not think the world was made by chance, and the regular course of nature seemed to demonstrate the eternal power of its Author. This, he said, he could never shake off; but when he came to explain his notion of the Deity, he said, he looked upon it as a vast pow­er that wrought every thing by the necessity of its nature; and thought that God had none of those affections of love or hatred, which breed per­turbation in us; and consequently could not see there was to be either reward or punishment. He thought our conceptions of God were so low, that we had better not think much of him. And to love God seemed to him a presumptuous thing, and the heat of fanciful men.

Therefore he believed there should be no other religious worship, but a general celebration of that being in some short hymn. All the other parts of worship he esteemed the inventions of priests, to make the world believe they had a secret of incensing and ap­peasing [Page 49] God as they pleased. In a word, he was neither persuaded that there was a special Providence about human affairs, nor that prayers were of much use, since that was to look on God as a weak being, that would be overcome with importunities. And for the state after death, he thought, the soul did not dissolve at death, yet he doubted much of rewards or punish­ments; the one he thought too high for us to attain by our slight services; and the other was too extreme to be inflicted for sin. This was the sub­stance of his speculations about God and religion.

I told him his notion of God was so low that the Supreme Being seemed to be nothing but nature. For if that Being had no freedom or choice of its own actions, nor operated by wisdom and goodness, all those reasons which led him to acknowledge a God, were contrary to this conceit. For if the order of the universe persuaded him to think there was a God, he must at the same time conceive him to be both wise [Page 50] and good, as well as powerful, since these all appeared equally in the crea­tion: though his wisdom and goodness had ways of exerting themselves, that were far beyond our notions or mea­sures.

If God was wise and good, he would naturally love and be pleased with those that resembled him in these perfections, and dislike those that were opposite to him. Every rational being naturally loves itself, and is delighted in others like itself, and averse from what is not so. Truth is a rational nature acting in conformity to itself in all things, and goodness is an inclination to pro­mote the happiness of other beings. So truth and goodness were the essen­tial perfections of every reasonable be­ing; and certainly most eminently in the Deity. Nor does his mercy or love raise passion or perturbation in him; for we feel that to be a weakness in ourselves, which indeed only flows from our want of power, or skill to do what we wish or desire.

It is also reasonable to believe God [Page 51] would assist the endeavour of the good, with some helps suitable to their na­ture. And it could not be imagined, that those who imitated him should not be especially favoured by him; and therefore since this did not fully ap­pear in this state, it was most reasonable to think it should be in another, where the rewards shall be an admission into a more perfect state of conformity with God with the felicity that follows it; and the punishments should be a total exclusion from him, with all the hor­ror and darkness that must follow that.

These seemed to be the natural results of such several courses of life, as well as the effects of divine justice, reward­ing or punishing. For since he believ­ed the soul had a distinct substance se­parated from the body, upon its dis­solution there was no reason to think it passed into a state of utter oblivion, of what it had been in formerly. But that as the reflections on the good or evil it had done, must raise joy or hor­ror in it, so those good or ill dispositi­ons accompanying the departed souls, [Page 52] they must either rise up to a higher perfection, or sink to a more depraved and miserable state.

In this life, variety of affairs and ob­jects do much cool and divert our minds; and are on the one hand, often great temptations to the good, and give the bad some ease in their trouble; but in a state wherein the soul shall be separated from sensible things, and em­ployed in a more quick and sublime way of operation, this must very much exalt the joys and improvements of the good, and as much heighten the hor­ror and rage of the wicked.

So that it seemed a vain thing to pretend to believe a Supreme Being, that is wise and good as well as great, and not think a discrimination will be made between the good and the bad, which, it is manifest, is not fully done in this life.

As for the government of the world if we believe the Supreme Power made it, there is no reason to think he does not govern it. For all that we can fancy against it is the distraction which that [Page 53] infinite variety of second causes, and the care of their concernments must give to the first, if it inspects them all. But as among men those of weaker ca­pacities are wholly taken up with some one thing, whereas those of more en­larged powers can, without distraction, have many things within their care; as the eye can at one view receive a great variety of objects, in that nar­row compass, without confusion: So if we conceive the divine understanding to be as far above ours, as his power of creating and framing the whole u­niverse is above our limited activity, we will no more think the government of the world a distraction on him. And if we have once overcome this preju­dice, we shall be ready to acknow­ledge a providence directing all affairs; a care well becoming the great crea­tor.

As for worshipping him, if we ima­gine our worship is a thing that adds to his happiness, or gives him such a fond pleasure as weak people have to hear themselves commended; or that [Page 54] our repeated addresses do overcome him through our mere importunity, we have certainly very unworthy thoughts of him. The true end of worship comes within another consideration, which is this, a man is never entirely reformed till a new principle governs his thoughts; nothing makes a princi­ple so strong, as deep and frequent meditations of God, whose nature though it be far above our comprehen­sion, yet his goodness and wisdom are such perfections as fall within our ima­gination. And he that thinks often of God, and considers him as governing the world, and as ever observing all his actions, will feel a very sensible ef­fect of such meditations, as they grow more lively and frequent with him; so the end of religious worship, either public or private, is to make the appre­hensions of God have deeper root and a stronger influence on us. The fre­quent returns of these are necessary, lest if we allow of too long intervals between them, these impressions may grow feebler, and other suggestions [Page 55] may come in their room. And the returns of prayer are not to be consi­dered as favours extorted by mere im­portunity, but as rewards conferred on men so well disposed and prepared for them, according to the promises that God had made for answering our prayers, thereby to engage and nou­rish a devout temper in us, which is the chief root of all true holiness and virtue.

It is true, we cannot have suitable notions of the divine essence; for in­deed we have no just Idea of any es­sence whatsoever. Since we common­ly consider all things either by their outward figure or effects, and from thence make inferences what their na­ture must be; so though we cannot frame any perfect image in our minds of the Divinity, yet we may from the discoveries God has made of himself, form such conceptions of him, as may possess our minds with great reverence for him, and beget in us such a love of those perfections as to engage us to imi­tate them. For when we say we love, [Page 56] the meaning is, we love that being God that is holy, just, good, wise, and in­finitely perfect. And loving these at­tributes in that object, will certainly carry us to desire them in ourselves. For whatever we love in another, we naturally, according to the degree of our love, endeavour to resemble. In sum, the loving and worshipping of God, though they are just and reason­able returns and expressions of the sense we have of his goodness to us, yet they are exacted of us not only as a tribute to God, but as a mean to beget in us a conformity to his nature, which is the chief end of pure and undefiled reli­gion.

If some men have at several times found out inventions to corrupt this, and cheat the world, it is nothing but what occurs in every form of employ­ment to which men betake themselves. Mountebanks corrupt physic: petty-foggers have entangled the matters of property: and all professions have been vitiated by the knaveries of a number of their calling.

[Page 57]With all these discourses he was not equally satisfied. He seemed convin­ced that the impressions of God being much in men's minds, would be a pow­erful means to reform the world; and did not seem determined against Pro­vidence. But for the next state he thought it more likely that the Soul be­gan anew, and that her sense of what she had done in this body, lying in the figures that are made in the brain as soon as she dislodged, all these perish­ed, and that the soul went into some other state to begin a new course.

But I said upon this head, that this was at best a conjecture raised in him by his fancy, for he could give no reason to prove it true. Nor was all the re­membrance our souls had of past things, seated in some material figures lodged in the brain: though it could not be denied but that a great deal of it lay in the brain. That we have many ab­stracted notions and ideas of immate­rial things, which depend not on bo­dily Figures. Some sins, such as fals­hood and ill nature were seated in the [Page 58] mind, as lust and appetite were in the body; and as the whole body was the receptacle of the soul, and the eyes and ears were the organs of seeing and hearing, so was the brain the seat of memory. Yet the power and faculty of memory, as well as of seeing and hearing, lay in the mind; and so it was no inconceivable thing that either the soul by its own strength, or by the means of some subtiler organs, which might be fitted for it in another state, should still remember as well as think.

But indeed we know so little of the nature of our souls, that it is a vain thing for us to raise an hypothesis out of the conjectures we have about it, or to reject one, because of some difficul­ties that occur to us; since it is as hard to understand how we remember things now, as how we shall do it in another state; only we are sure we do it now, and so we shall be then when we do it.

When I pressed him with the secret joys a good manfelt, particularly as he drew near death, and the horrors of ill men [Page 59] especially at that time; he was willing to ascribe to the impressions they had recei­ved from their education. But he often confessed that whether the business of religion was true or not, he thought those who had the persuasions of it, and lived so that they had quiet in their consciences, and believed God govern­ed the world, and acquiesced in his pro­vidence, and had the hope of an endless blessedness in another state, the hap­piest men in the world. And said, he would give all he was master of to be under those persuasions, and to have the supports and joys that must needs flow from them.

I told him the main root of all cor­ruptions in men's principles, was their ill life; which, as it darkened their minds, and disabled them from dis­cerning better things; so it made it necessary for them to seek out such opi­nions as might give them ease from those clamours, that would otherwise have been raised in them. He did not deny but that after the doing of some things, he felt great and severe chal­lenges [Page 60] within himself: But he said, he felt not these after some others which I would perhaps call far greater sins, than those that affected him more sen­sibly. This I said, might flow from the disorders he had cast himself into, which had corrupted his judgment and vitiated his taste of things; and by his long continuance in, and frequent re­peating of some immoralities, he had made them so familiar to him that they had become as it were natural: And then it was no wonder if he had not so exact a sense of what was good or e­vil; as a fevrish man cannot judge of tastes.

He did acknowledge the whole system of religion, if believed, was a greater foundation of quiet than any other thing whatsoever; for all the quiet he had in his mind, was, that he could not think so good a being as the Deity would make him miserable. I asked him if when by the ill course of his life he had brought so many diseases on his body, he could blame God for it; or expect that he should deliver him from [Page 61] them by a miracle. He confessed there was no reason for that. I then urged that if sin should cast the mind by a natural effect, into endless horrors and agonies, which being seated in a being not subject to death, it must last for ever unless some miraculous power in­terposed, could he accuse God for that which was the effect of his own choice and ill life.

He said, they were happy that be­lieved, for it was not in every man's power.

And upon this we discoursed long about revealed religion. He said, he did not understand the business of in­spiration; he believed the writers of the Scriptures had heats and honesty, and so writ; but could not compre­hend how God should reveal his secrets to mankind. Why was not man made a creature more disposed for religion, and better illuminated? He could not apprehend how there should be any corruption in the nature of man, or a lapse derived from Adam. God's communicating his mind to one man, [Page 62] was the putting it in his power to cheat the world. For propnesies and mi­racles, the world had always been full of strange stories; for the boldness and cunning of the contrivers meeting with the simplicity and credulity of the people, things were easily received; and being once received, passed down without contradiction. The incohe­rences of style in the Scriptures, the odd transitions, the seeming contra­dictions, chiefly about the order of time, the cruelties enjoyned the Isra­elites in destroying the Canaanites, cir­cumsicion, and many other rites of the Jewish worship, seemed to him unsuitable to the divine nature; and the first three chapters of Genesis, he thought could not be true, unless they were parables. This was the sub­stance of what he excepted to reveal­ed religion in general, and to the old Testament in particular.

I answered to all this, that believ­ing a thing upon the testimony of ano­ther, in other matters where there was no reason to suspect the testimony, [Page 63] chiefly where it was confirmed by o­ther circumstances, was not only a reasonable thing, but was the hinge on which all the government and jus­tice in the world depended; since all courts of justice proceed from evidence given by witnesses, for the use of wri­tings is but a thing more lately brought into the world.

So then if the credibility of the thing, the innocence and disinterested­ness of the witnesses, the number of them, and the most public confirmati­ons that could possibly be given, do concur to persuade us of any matter of fact, and it is a vain thing to say, because it is possible for so many men to agree in a lie, that therefore these have done it. In all other things a man gives his assent when the credibi­lity is strong on the one side, and there appears nothing on the other side to balance it.

So such numbers agreeing in the testimony of these miracles, for in­stance—our Saviour's calling Lazarus out of the grave the fourth day after [Page 64] he was buried, and his own rising a­gain after he was certainly dead; if there had been ever so many impos­tures in the world, no man can with reasonable colour pretend this was one.

We find both by the Jewish and Ro­man writers that lived in that time, that our Saviour was crucified: and that all his disciples and followers be­lieved certainly that he rose again. They believed this upon the testimony of the Apostles, and of many hun­dreds who saw it, and died confirm­ing it. They went about to persuade the world of it, with great zeal, though they knew they were to get nothing by it, but reproach and suffer­ings: and by many wonders which they wrought they confirmed their testimo­ny. Now to avoid all this by saying, it is possible this might be a contrivance and to give no presumption to make it so much as probable, that it was so, is in plain English to say, We are re­solved, let the evidence be what it will, we will not believe it.

[Page 65]He said, if a man says he cannot be­lieve, what help is there? for he was not master of his own belief, and be­lieving was at highest but a probable opinion.

To this I answered, that if a man will let a wanton conceit possess his fancy against these things and never consider the evidence for religion on the other hand, but reject it upon a flight view of it, he ought not to say he cannot, but will not believe. And while a man lives an ill course of life, he is not fitly qualified to examine the matter aright. Let him grow calm and virtuous, andup on due applicati­on examine things fairly, and then let him pronounce according to his con­science, if to take it at its lowest, the reasons on the one hand are not much stronger than they are on the other. For I found he was so possessed with the general conceit, that a mixture of knaves and fools had made all extra­ordinary things easily believed, that it carried him away to determine the matter, without so much as looking [Page 66] on the historical evidence for the truth of Christianity, which he had not en­quired into, but had bent all upon his wit and study to the support of the other side.

As for that, that believing is at best but an opinion; if the evidence be but probable, it is so; but if it be such that it cannot be questioned, it grows as certain as knowledge. For we are no less certain that there is a great town called Constantinople, the seat of the Ottoman empire, than that there is another called London. We have as little doubt that queen Elizabeth once reigned, as that king Charles now reigns in England. So that believing may be as certain, and as little subject to doubting as seeing or knowing.

There are two sorts of believing divine matters; the one is wrought in us by our comparing all the eviden­ces of matter of fact, for the confirma­tion of revealed religion, with the prophesies in the Scripture; where things were punctually predicted, some ages before their completion; not in [Page 67] dark and doubtful words, uttered like oracles, that could bend to any event; but in plain terms, as the foretelling that Cyrus by name should send the Jews back from the captivity, after the fixed period of seventy years: The history of the Syrian and Egyptian kings so punctually foretold by Daniel; and the prediction of the destruction of Jerusalem, with many circumstan­ces relating to it, made by our Savi­our; joining these to the excellent rule and design of the Scripture in mat­ters of morality, it is at least as rea­sonable to believe this as any thing else in the world. Yet such a believing as this, is only a general persuasion in the mind, which has not that effect, till a man applying himself to the di­rections set down in the Scriptures, which upon such evidence cannot be denied, to be as reasonable, as for a man to follow the prescriptions of a learned physician, and when these rules are both good and easy, to submit to them for the recovering of his health, and by following these, finds a [Page 68] power entering within him, that frees him from the slavery of his appetites and passions, that exalts his mind above the accidents of life, and spreads an inward purity in his heart, from which a serene and calm joy arises within him. And good men by the efficacy these methods have upon them, and from the returns of their prayers and other endeavours, grow assured that these things are true, and answerable to the promises they find registered in Scripture.

All this, he said, might be fancy. But to this I answered, that as it were unreasonable to tell a man that is a­broad, and knows he is awake, that perhaps he is in a dream, and in his bed, and only thinks he is abroad, or that as some go about in their sleep, so he may be asleep still; so good and religious men know, though others may be abused by their fancies, that they are under no such deception; and find they are neither hot nor en­thusiastical, but under the power of calm and pure principles. All this he [Page 69] said he did not understand, and that it was to assert or beg the thing in question which he could not compre­hend.

As for the possibility of revelation, it was a vain thing to deny it: For as God gives us the sense of seeing mate­rial objects by our eyes, and opened in some a capacity of apprehending high and sublime things, of which o­ther men seemed utterly incapable; so that it was a weak assertion, that God cannot awaken a power in some men's minds, to apprehend and know some things in such a manner that others are not capable of it. This is not half so incredible to us as sight is to a blind man, who yet may be convinced there is a strange power of seeing, that governs men, of which he finds him­self deprived.

As for the capacity put into such men's hands to deceive the world, we are at the same time to consider that besides the probity of their tempers, it cannot be thought but God can so forcibly bind up a man in some things [Page 70] that it should not be in his power to deliver them otherwise than as he gives him in commission. Besides the confirmation of miracles are a divine credential, to warrant such persons in what they deliver to the world; which cannot be imagined can be joined to a lie, since this were to put the omni­potence of God, to attest that which no honest man will do.

For the business of the fall of man, and other things of which we cannot perhaps give ourselves a perfect ac­count, we who cannot fathom the se­crets of the council of God, do very unreasonably to take on us to reject an excellent system of good and holy rules, because we cannot satisfy our­selves about some difficulties in them. Common experience tells us there is a great disorder in our natures, which is not easily rectified. All philosophers were sensible of it, and every man that designs to govern himself by rea­son, feels the struggle between it and nature. So that it is plain, there is a lapse of the high powers of the Soul.

[Page 71]But why, said he, could not this be rectified by some plain rules given; but men must come and shew a trick to persuade the world they speak to them in the name of God? I answer­ed that religion being a design to re­cover and save mankind, was to be so opened as to awaken and work upon all sorts of people: and generally men of a simplicity of mind, were those that were the fittest objects for God to shew his favour to. Therefore it was necessary that messengers sent from heaven, should appear with such a­larming evidences, as might awaken the world, and prepare them by some astonishing signs, to listen to the doc­trine they were to deliver.

Philosophy, that was only a matter of fine speculation, had few votaries. And as there was no authority in it to bind the world to believe its dictates, so they were only received by some of nobler and resined natures, who could apply themselves to and delight in such notions. But true religion was to be built upon a foundation, that [Page 72] should carry more weight on it, and to have such convictions as might not only reach those who were already disposed to receive them, but rouse up such as without great and sensible ex­citation would have otherwise slept on in their ill courses.

Upon this and some other occasions, I told him I saw the ill use he made of his wit, by which he flurred the grav­est things with a slight dash of his fan­cy; and the pleasure he found in such wanton expressions, as calling the do­ing of miracles, The shewing of a trick, did really keep him from examining them, with that care which such things required.

For the old Testament, we are so remote from that time, we have so little knowledge of the Language in which it was writ, have so imperfect an account of the history of those ages, know nothing of their customs, forms of speech, and the several periods they might have by which they reckoned their time, that it is rather a wonder we should understand so much of it, [Page 73] than that many passages in it should be sod ark to us. The chief use it has to us Christians is, that from writings which the Jews acknowledge to be divinely inspired, it is manifest the Messia was promised before the destruction of their temple; which being done long ago, and these prophesies agreeing to our Saviour, and no other; here is a great confirmation given to the Gospel. But though many things in these books could not be understood by us, who lived above three thousand years af­ter the chief of them were written, it is no such extraordinary matter.

For that of the destruction of the Ca­naanites by the Israelites, it is to be considered that if God had sent a plague among them all, that could not have been found fault with. If then God had a right to take away their lives, without injustice or cruel­ty, he had a right to appoint others to do it, as well to execute it by a more immediate way. And the taking away people by the sword is a much gentler way of dying, than to be smitten with [Page 74] a plague or a famine. And for the children that were innocent of their father's faults, God could in another state make that up to them. So all the difficulty is, why were the Israel­ites commanded to execute a thing of such barbarity? But this will not seem so hard, if we consider that this was to be no precedent for future times; since they did not do it but upon speci­al warrant and command from hea­ven, evidenced to all the world by such mighty miracles as did plainly shew that they were particularly design'd by God for the executioners of his jus­tice. And God by employing them in so severe a service, intended to pos­sess them with great horror of Idola­try, which was punished in so extreme a manner.

For the rites of their religion, we can ill judge of them, except we per­fectly understood the idolatries round about them; to which we find they were much inclined. So they were to be bent by other rites to an extreme aversion from them; and yet by the [Page 75] pomp of many of their ceremonies and sacrifices, great indulgencies were given to a people naturally fond of a visible splendor in religious worship.

In all which, if we cannot descend to such satisfactory answers, in every particular as a curious man could de­sire, it is no wonder. The long inter­val of time, and other accidents, have worn out those things which were ne­cessary to give us a clear light into the meaning of them. And for the story of the creation, how far some things in it may be parabolical, and how far historical, has been much disputed; there is nothing in it that may not be historically true. For if it be acknow­ledged that spirits can form voices in the air, for which we have as good authority as for any thing in history, then it is no wonder that Eve being so lately created, might be deceived and think a serpent spake to her, when the evil spirit framed the voice.

But in all these things I told him he was in the wrong way, when he exa­mined the business of religion, by some [Page 76] dark parts of scripture: there I desi­red him to consider the whole contex­ture of the Christrian religion, the rules it gives, and the methods it prescribes. Nothing can conduce more to the peace, order, and happiness of the world, than to be governed by its rules. Nothing is more for the inte­rests of every man in particular. The rules of sobriety, temperance and mo­deration, were the best preservers of life, and which was perhaps more, of health. Humility, contempt of the vanities of the world, and being well employed, raises a man's mind to a freedom from the follies and temptati­ons that haunted the greater part. Nothing was so generous and great, as to supply the necessities of the poor, and to forgive injuries. Nothing rai­sed and maintained a man's reputation so much, as to be exactly just and mer­ciful, kind, charitable, and compassi­onate; nothing opened the powers of a man's soul so much as a calm tem­per; a serene mind free of passion and disorder. Nothing made societies, [Page 77] families, and neighbourhoods so happy, as when these rules which the Gospel prescribes, took place, Of doing us we would have others do to us, and loving our neighbours as ourselves.

The Christian worship was also plain and simple; suitable to so pure a doc­trine. The ceremonies of it were few and significant, as the admission to it by a washing with water, and a me­morial of our Saviour's death in bread and wine; the motives in it to per­suade to this purity were strong—that God sees us, and will judge us for all our actions—that we shall be ever hap­py or miserable, as we pass our lives here—the example of our Saviour's life, and the great expressions of his love in dying for us, are mighty en­gagements to obey and imitate him—the plain way of expression used by our Saviour and his apostles, shews there was no artifice, where there was so much simplicity used—there was no secrets kept only among the priests, but every thing was open to all Christi­aus—the rewards of holiness are not [Page 78] entirely put over to another state, but good men are specially blest with peace in their consciences, great joy in the confidence they have of the love of God, and of seeing him for ever: And often a single course of blessings follows them in their whole lives: but if at other times calamities fell on them, these were so much mitigated by the patience they were taught, and the inward assistances with which they were furnished, that even those crosses were converted into blessings.

I desired he would lay all these things together, and see what he could except to them, to make him think this was a contrivance. Interest: ap­pears in all human contrivancies. Our Saviour plainly had none; he avoided applause, withdrew himself from the offers of a crown; he submitted to po­verty and reproach, much contradicti­on in his life, and to a most ignomi­nous and painful death.

His apostles had none neither; they did not pretend either to power or wealth, but delivered a doctrine that [Page 79] must needs condemn them, if they ever made use of it; they declared their commission fully without reserve till other times; they recorded their own weakness: some of them wrought with their own hands; and when they received the charities of their converts, it was not so much to supply their own necessities, as to distribute to others; they knew they were to suffer much for giving their testimonies to what they had seen and heard; in which so many in a thing so visible, as Christ's resurrection and ascension, and the ef­fusion of the Holy Ghost which he had promised, could not be deceived. And they gave such public confirmations of it, by the wonders they themselves wrought, that great multitudes were converted to a doctrine, which, be­sides the opposition it gave to lust and passion, was borne down and persecu­ted for three hundred years; and yet its force was such, that it not only weathered out all those storms, but even grew and spread vastly under them.

[Page 80] Pliny about threescore years after, found their numbers great and their lives innocent. And even Lucian a­midst all his raillery, gives a high testi­mony to their charity and contempt of life, and the other virtues of the Chris­tians, which is likewise more than once done by malice itself, Julian the apostate.

If a man will lay all this in one ba­lance, and compare with it the few exceptions brought to it, he will soon find how strong the one, and how slight the other are. Therefore it was an improper way, to begin at some cavils about some passages in the New Testament, or the Old, and from thence to prepossess one's mind against the whole. The right method had been first to consider the whole matter, and from so general a view to descend to more particular enquiries. Whereas they suffered their minds to be fore­stalled with prejudices, so that they never examined the matter impartial­ly.

To the greatest part of this he seem­ed [Page 81] to afsent, only he excepted to the belief of Mysteries in the Christian Re­ligion; which he thought no man could do, since it is not in a man's power to believe that which he cannot compre­hend, and of which he can have no notion.

The believing mysteries, he said, made way for all the jugglings of Priests, for they getting the people under them in that point, set out to them what they pleased; and giving it a hard name, and calling it a Myste­ry, the people were tamed, and easi­ly believed it.

The restraining a man from the use of women, except one in the way of marriage, and denying the remedy of divorce, he thought unreasonable im­positions on the freedom of mankind. And the business of the clergy, and their maintenance, with the belief of some authority and power conveyed in their orders, looked, as he thought, like a piece of contrivance. And why, said he, must a man tell me, I cannot be saved, unless I believe things against [Page 82] my reason, and then that I must pay him for telling me of them? These were all the exceptions which at any time I heard from him to Christianity. To which I made these answers.

For mysteries, it is plain there is in every thing somewhat unaccountable. How animals or men are formed in their mother's bellies, how seeds grow in the earth, how the soul dwells in the body, and acts and moves it; how we retain the figures of so many words or things in our memories, and how we draw them out so easily and order­ly in our thoughts or discourses? How sight and hearing were so quick and distinct, how we move, and how bo­dies were compounded and united?

These things if we follow them into all the difficulties, that we may raise about them, will appear every whit as unaccountable as any mystery of religion. And a blind or deaf man would judge sight or hearing as incre­dible, as any mystery may be judged by us: for our reason is not equal to them. In the same rank, different [Page 83] degrees of age or capacity raise some far above others: so that children can­not fathom the learning nor weak persons the counsels of more illumi­nated minds. Therefore it was no wonder if we could not understand the divine essence. We cannot ima­gine how two such different natures as soul and body should so unite together, and be mutually affected with one an­other's concerns; and how the soul has one principle of reason, by which it acts intellectually, and another of life by which it joins to the body and acts vitally; two principles so widely differing both in their nature and ope­ration, and yet united in one and the same person. There might be as ma­ny hard arguments brought against the possibility of these things, which yet every one knows to be true, from spe­culative notions, as against the myste­ries mentioned in the Scriptures.

As that of the Trinity, that in one essence there are three different prin­ciples of operation, which, for want of terms fit to express them by, are [Page 84] called persons, and are called in Scrip­ture, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; and that the second of these did unite himself in a most intimate manner with the humane nature of Jesus Christ: and that the sufferings he underwent were accepted of God as a sacrifice for our sins: who thereupon confer­red on him a power of granting eter­nal life to all that submit to the terms on which he offers it: and that the matter of which our bodies once con­sisted, which may be as justly called the bodies we laid down at our deaths, as these can be said to be the bodies we formerly lived in, being refined and made more spiritual, shall be reu­nited to our souls and become a fit instrument for them in a more per­fect estate: and that God inwardly bends and moves our wills, by such impressions as he can make on our bo­dies and minds.

These, which are the chief myste­ries of our religion, are neither so unreasonable, that any other objection lies against them, but this, that they [Page 85] agree not with our common notions, nor so unaccountable that somewhat like them, cannot be assigned in other things, which are believed really to be, though the manner of them can­not be apprehended.

So this ought not to be any just ob­jection to the submission of our reason to what we cannot so well conceive, provided our belief of it be well grounded. There have been too many niceties brought indeed, rather to darken than explain these: they have been defended by weak argu­ments, and illustrated by similies not always so very apt and pertinent. And new subtilties have been added which have rather perplexed than cleared them. All this cannot be denied; the opposition of hereticks anciently occasioned too much curiosity among the fathers: which the school-men have wonderfully advanced of late times.

But if mysteries were received rather in the simplicity in which they are delivered in the Scriptures, than [Page 86] according to the discantings of fanci­ful men upon them, they would not appear much more incredible, than some of the common objects of sense and perception. And it is a needless fear that if some mysteries are acknow­ledged, that are plainly mentioned in the new Testament, it will then be in the power of the priests to add more at their pleasure. For it is an absurd inference from our being bound to assent to some truths about the divine essence, of which the manner is not understood, to argue that therefore in an object presented duly to our senses, such as bread and wine, we should be bound to believe against their testimo­ny, that it is not what our senses per­ceived it to be, but the whole flesh and blood of Christ; an entire body being in every crumb and drop of it. It is not indeed in a man's power to believe thus against his sense and rea­son, where the object is proportioned to them, and fitly applied, and the organs are under no indisposition or disorder.

[Page 87]It is certain that no mystery is to be admitted, but upon very clear and express authorities from Scripture, which could not reasonably be under­stood in any other sense. And though a man can form no explicit notion of a mystery, for then it would be no lon­ger a mystery; yet in general he may believe a thing to be, though he can­not give himself a particular account of the way of it; or rather, though he cannot answer some objections that lie against it. We know we believe ma­ny such in human matters, which are more within our reach; and it is very unreasonable to say we may not do it in divine things, which are much more above our apprehensions.

For the severe restraint of the use of women, it is hard to deny that pri­vilege to Jesus Christ as a law-giver, to lay such restraints as all inserior le­gislators do; who when they find the liberties their subjects take, prove hurtful to them, set such limits, and make such regulations as they judge necessary and expedient. It cannot [Page 88] be said but the restraint of appetites is necessary in some instances; and if it is necessary in these, perhaps other re­straints are no less necessary to fortify and secure them. For if it be acknow­ledged that men have a property in their wives and daughters, so that to defile the one, or corrupt the other, is an unjust and injurious thing; it is certain, that except a man carefully governs his appetites, he will break through these restraints: and There­fore our Saviour knowing that nothing could so effectually deliver the world from mischief and unrestrained appe­tite, as such a consinement, might ve­ry reasonably enjoin it. And in all such cases we are to balance the inconveni­encies on both hands, and where we find they are heaviest, we are to acknowledge the equity of the law. On the one hand there is no prejudice but the restraint of appetite; on the other are the mischiefs of being given up to pleasure, of running inordinately into it, of breaking the quiet of our own family at home, and of others [Page 89] abroad; the engaging into much pas­sion, the doing many false and impi­ous things to compass what is desired, the waste of men's estates, time, and health. Now let any man judge whe­ther the prejudices of this side are not greater than that single one on the other side, of being denied some plea­sure?

For polygamy, it is but reasonable since women are equally concerned in the laws of marriage, that they should be considered as well as men. But in a state of polygamy they are under great misery and jealousy, and are indeed barbarously used. Man being also of a sociable nature, friendship and converse were among the primi­tive intendments of marriage, in which as far as man may excel the wife in greatness of mind, and height of know­ledge, the wife some way makes that up with, her affection and tender care: so that from both happily mixed, there arises a harmony, which is to virtu­ous minds one of the greatest joys of life. But all this is gone in a state of [Page 90] polygamy, which occasions perpetual jarrings and jealousies. And the va­riety does but engage men to a freer range of pleasure, which is not to be put in the balance with the far greater mischiefs that must follow the other course.

So that it is plain, our Saviour con­sidered the nature of man, what it could bear, and what was fit for it, when he so restrained us in these our liberties.

And for divorce, a power to break that bond would too much encourage married persons in the little quarrel­lings that may rise between them, if it were in their power to depart one from another. For when they know that cannot be, and that they must live and die together, it does naturally incline them to lay down their resent­ments, and to endeavour to live as well together as they can.

So the law of the gospel being a law of love, designed to engage Christians to mutual love; it was fit that all such provisions should be made, as might [Page 91] advance and maintain it: and all such liberties be taken away, as are apt to enkindle and foment strife. This might fall instances to be uneasy and hard, enough, but laws consider what falls out most commonly, and cannot provide for all particular cases. The best laws are in some instances very great grievances. But the advanta­ges being balanced with the inconve­niences, measures are to be taken ac­cordingly.

Upon this whole matter I said, that pleasure stood in opposition to other considerations of great weight, and so the decision was easy. And since our Saviour offers us so great rewards, it is but reasonable he has a privilege of loading these promises with such con­ditions, as are not in themselves grate­ful to our natural inclinations: for all that propose high rewards, have there­by a right to exact difficult perform­ances.

To this he said, we are sure the terms are difficult, but are not so sure of the rewards. Upon this I told [Page 92] him, that we have the same assurance of the rewards, that we have of the other parts of Christian Religion. We have the promises of God made to us by Christ, confirmed by many mira­cles. We have the earnests of these, in the quiet and peace which follows a good conscience; and in the resurrec­tion of him from the dead, who hath promised to raise us up. So that the reward is sufficiently assured to us: and there is no reason it should be given to us, before the conditions are perform­ed, on which the promises are made. It is but reasonable we should trust God, and do our duty, in hopes of that eternal life, which God who cannot lye, hath promised.

The difficulties are not so great, as those which sometimes the commonest concerns of life bring upon us. The learning some trades or sciences, the governing our health or affairs, bring us often under as great straights. So that it ought to be no just prejudice, that there are some things in Religion that are uneasy, since this is rather the [Page 93] effect of our corrupt natures, which are farther depraved by vicious habits, and can hardly turn to any new course of life, without some pain, than of the dictates of Christianity, which are in themselves just and reasonable, and will be easy to us when renewed, and in a good measure restored to our pri­mitive integrity.

As for the exceptions he had to the maintenance of the clergy, and the authority to which they pretended; if they stretched their designs too far, the Gospel did plainly reprove them for it. So that it was very suitable to that church, which was so grossly faul­ty this way, to take the Scriptures out of the hands of the people, since they do so manifestly disclaim all such practices. The priests of the true Christian Religion have no secrets a­mong them, which the world must not know, but are only an order of Men dedicated to God, to attend on sacred things, who ought to be holy in a more peculiar manner, since they are to handle the things of God. It [Page 94] was necessary that such persons should have a due esteem paid them, and a fit maintainance appointed for them, that so they might be preserved from the contempt that follows poverty, and the distractions which the provi­ding against it might other ways involve them in. And as in the order of the world, it was necessary for the sup­port of magistracy and government, and for preserving its esteem, that some state be used (though it is a hap­piness when great men have philoso­phical minds, to despise the pageant­ry of it.) So the plentiful supply of the clergy, if well used and applied by them, will certainly turn to the advantage of religion. And if some men either through ambition or covet­ousness used indirect means, or ser­vile compliances to aspire to such dig­nities, and being possessed of them, applied their wealth either to luxury or vain pomp, or made great fortunes out of it for their families; these were personal failings in which the doctrine of Christ was not concerned.

[Page 95]He upon that told me plainly, there was nothing that gave him, and ma­ny others, a more secret encourage­ment in their ill ways, than that those who pretended to believe, lived so that they could not be thought to be in earnest, when they said it. For he was sure religion was either a mere contrivance, or the most important thing that could be. So that if he once believed, he would set himself in great earnest to live suitably to it. The aspirings that he had observed at court, of some of the clergy, with the servile ways they took to attain to preferment, and the animosities among those of several parties, about trifles, made him often think they suspected the things were not true which in their sermons and discourses they so earnest­ly recommended.

Of this he had gathered many in­stances; I knew some of them were mistakes and calumnies; yet I could not deny but something of them might be too true. And I publish this the more freely, to put all that pretend [Page 96] to religion, chiefly to those that are dedicated to holy functions, in mind of the great obligation that lies on them to live suitably to their professi­on. Since otherwise a great deal of the irreligion and atheism that is a­mong us, may too justly be charged on them: for wicked men are delight­ed out of measure when they discover ill things in them, and conclude from thence not only that they are hypo­crites, but that religion itself is a cheat.

But I said to him on this head, that though no good man could continue in the practice of any known sin, yet such might by the violence or surprise of a temptation, to which they are li­able as much as others, be of a sudden overcome to do an ill thing, to their great grief all their life after. And then it was a very unjust inference, upon some few failings, to conclude that such men do not believe them­selves. But how bad so many are, it cannot be denied but that there are also many both of the clergy and laity, who give great and real demonstrati­ons [Page 97] of the power religion has over them; in their contempt of the world, the strictness of their lives, their rea­diness to forgive injuries, to relieve the poor and to do good on all occasi­ons. And yet even these may have their failings, either in such things wherein their constitutions are weak, or their temptations strong and sud­den. And in all such cases we are to judge of men, rather by the course of their lives, than by the errors that they through infirmity or surprise may have slipt into.

These were the chief heads we dis­coursed on; and as far as I can re­member, I have faithfully repeated the substance of our arguments. I have not concealed the strongest things he said to me, but though I have not enlarged on all the excursions of his wit in setting them off, yet I have gi­ven them their full strength, as he ex­pressed them; and as far as I could recollect, have used his own words. So that I am afraid some may censure me for setting down these things so [Page 98] largely, which impious men may make an ill use of, and gather together to encourage and desend themselves in their vices. But if they will compare them with the answers made to them, and the sense that so great and refined a wit had of them afterwards, I hope they may through the blessing of God be not altogether ineffectual.

The issue of all our discourse was this; he told me, he saw vice and impiety were as contrary to human society, as wild beasts let loose would be; and therefore he firmly resolved to change the whole method of his life, to become strictly just and true, to be chaste and temperate, to forbear swearing and irreligious discourse, to worship and pray to his maker. And that though he was not arrived at a full persuasion of Christianity, he would never employ his wit more to run it down, or to corrupt others.

Of which I have since a further as­surance from a person of quality, who conversed much with him, the last year of his life; to whom he would [Page 99] often say, that he was happy, if he did believe, and that he would never endeavour to draw him from it.

To all this I answered, that a vir­tuous life would be very uneasy to him, unless vicious inclinations were remo­ved. It would otherwise be a perpe­tual constraint. Nor could it be ef­fected without an inward principle to change him; and that was only to be had by applying himself to God for it in frequent and earnest prayers. And I was sure if his mind were once clear­ed of these disorders, and cured of those distempers, which vice brought on it, so great an understanding would soon see through all those flights of wit, that do feed atheism and irreligi­on; which have a false glittering in them, that dazzles some weak-fighted minds, who have not capacity enough to penetrate further than the surfaces of things: and so they stick in these toils, which the strength of his mind would soon break through, if it were once freed from those things that de­pressed and darkened it.

[Page 100]At this pass he was when he went from London, about the beginning of April. He had not been long in the country when he thought he was so well, that being to go to his estate in Somersetshire he rode thither post. This heat and violent motion did so inflame an ulcer, that was in his blad­der, that it raised a very great pain in those parts. Yet he with much difficulty came back by coach to the Lodge at Woodstock-Park. He was then wounded both in body and mind. He understood physic and his own constitution and distemper so well, that he concluded he could hardly re­cover: for the ulcer broke and vast quantities of purulent matter past with his urine. But now the hand of God touched him, and as he told me, it was not only a general dark melan­choly over his mind, such as he had formerly felt, but a most penetrating cutting sorrow. So that though in his body he suffered extreme pain for some weeks, yet the agonies of his [Page 101] mind sometimes swallowed up the sense of what he felt in the body.

He told me, and gave it me in charge, to tell it to one for whom he was much concerned, that though there were nothing to come after this life, yet all the pleasures he had ever known in sin, were not worth that torture he had felt in his mind. He considered he had not only neglected and dishonoured, but had openly defi­ed his Maker, and had drawn many others into the like impieties. So that he looked on himself as one that was in great danger of being damned. He then set himself wholly to turn to God unseignedly, and to do all that was possible in that little remainder of his life which was before him, to redeem those great portions of it, that he had formerly so ill employed.

The minister that attended constant­ly on him, was that good and worthy man Mr. Parsons, his mother's chap­lain, who hath since his death preach­ed, according to the directions he re­ceived from him, his funeral sermon; [Page 102] in which there are so many remarka­ble passages, that I shall refer my reader to them, and will repeat none of them here, that I may not thereby lessen his desire to edefy himself by that excellent discourse, which has given so great and so general a satis­faction to all good and judicious read­ers. I shall speak cursorily of every thing, but that which I had immedi­ately from himself. He was visited every week of his sickness by his Dio­cesan, that truly primitive prelate, the lord bishop of Oxford, Dr. Fell; who though he lived six miles from him, yet looked on this as so import­ant a piece of his pastoral care, that he went often to him; and treated him with that decent plainness and freedom which is so natural to him; and took care also that he might not on terms more easy than safe, be at peace with himself. Dr. Marshall the learned and worthy rector of Lincoln College in Oxford, being the minister of the parish, was also frequently with him; and by these helps he was so di­rected [Page 103] and supported, that he might not on the one hand satisfy himself with too superficial a repentance, nor on the other hand be out of measure oppressed with a sorrow without hope.

As soon as I heard he was ill, but yet in such a condition that I might write to him, I wrote a letter to the best purpose I could. He ordered one that was then with him, to assure me it was very welcome to him: but not satisfied with that, he sent me an an­swer, which, as the countess of Ro­chester his mother told me, he dictated every word, and then signed it.

I was once unwilling to have pub­lished it, because of a compliment in it to myself, far above my merit, and not very well suiting with his conditi­on.

But the sense he expresses in it of the change then wrought on him, hath upon second thoughts prevail'd with me to publish it, leaving out what concerns myself.

He told me when I saw him, that he hoped I would come to him upon that general insinuation of the desire he had of my company; and he was loth to write more plainly; not know­ing whether I could easily spare so much time. I told him, that on the other hand, I looked on it as a pre­sumption to come so far, when he was in such excellent hands; and though perhaps the freedom formerly between us, might have excused it with those to whom it was known; yet it might have the appearance of so much vani­ty, to such as were strangers to it; so that till I received his letter, I did not think it convenient to come to him: and then not hearing that there was any danger of a sudden change, I de­layed going to him till the twentieth of July.

[Page 106]At my coming to his house, an ac­cident fell out not worth mentioning, but that some have made a story of it. His servant, being a Frenchman, car­ried up my name wrong, so that he mistook it for another, who had sent to him, that he would undertake his cure, and he being resolved not to meddle with him, did not care to see him. This mistake lasted some hours, with which I was the better contented, because he was not then in such a con­dition, that my being about him could have been of any use to him; for that night was like to have been his last. He had a convulsion fit, and raved; but opiates being given him, after some hours rest, his raving left him so entirely, that it never again returned to him.

I cannot easily express the transport he was in, when he awoke and saw me by him. He broke out in the ten­derest expressions concerning my kind­ness in coming so far to see such a one, using terms of great abhorrence con­cerning himself, which I forbear to [Page 107] relate. He told me, as his strength served him at several snatches, for he was then so low, that he could not hold up discourse long at once, what sense he had of his past life; what sad apprehension for having so offended his maker, and dishonoured his re­deemer; what horrors he had gone through, and how much his mind was turned to call on God, and on his cru­cified Saviour So that he hoped he should obtain mercy, for he believed he had sincerely repented; and had now a calm in his mind after that storm that he had been in for some weeks.

He had strong apprehensions and persuasions of his admittance to hea­ven; of which he spake once not with­out some extraordinary emotion. It was indeed the only time that he spake with any great warmth to me; for his spirits were then low, and so far spent, that though those about him told me, he had expressed formerly great servour in his devotions; yet na­ture was so much sunk, that these were in a great measure fallen off.

[Page 108]But he made me pray often with him; and spoke of his conversion to God as a thing now grown up in him to a settled and calm serenity. He was very anxious to know my opinion of a death-bed repentance. I told him, that before I gave any resoluti­on in that, it would be convenient that I should be acquainted more particu­larly with the circumstances and pro­gress of his repentance.

Upon this he satisfied me in many particulars. He said, he was now persuaded both of the truth of Chris­tianity, and of the power of inward grace, of which he gave me this strange account. He said, Mr. Parsons in order to his conviction, read to him the 53d chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah, and compared that with the history of our Saviour's passion, that he might there see a prophecy con­cerning it, written many ages before it was done; which the Jews that blasphemed Jesus Christ still kept in their hands, as a book divinely inspi­red. He said to me, that as he heard [Page 109] it read, he felt an inward force upon him, which did so enlighten his mind, and convince him, that he could resist it no longer: for the words had an authority which did shoot like rays or beams in his mind; so that he was not only convinced by the reasonings he had about it, which satisfied his under­standing, but by a power which did so effectually constrain him, that he did ever after as firmly believe in his Saviour, as if he had seen him in the clouds.

He had made it be read so often to him, that he had got it by heart: and went through a great part of it in dis­course with me, with a sort of hea­venly pleasure, giving me his reflecti­ons on it. Some few I remember, Who hath believed our report? v. 1. Here, he said, was foretold the oppo­sition the gospel has to meet with from such wretches as he was. He hath no form or comeliness, and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him: v. ii. On this he said, the meanness of his appearance and [Page 110] person has made vain and foolish peo­ple disparage him, because he came not in such a fool's coat as they de­light in.

What he said on the other parts I do not well remember: and indeed I was so affected with what he said then to me, that the general transport I was under during the whole discourse, made me less capable to remember these particulars, as I wish I had done.

He told me, that he had thereupon received the sacrament with great sa­tisfaction, and that was increased by the pleasure he had in his lady's re­ceiving it with him; who had been for some years misled into the commu­nion of the church of Rome, and he himself had been not a little instru­mental in procuring it, as he freely acknowledged. So that it was one of the joyfullest things that befel him in his sickness, that he had seen that mis­chief removed, in which he had so great a hand,

And during his whole sickness, he expressed so much tenderness and true [Page 111] kindness to his lady, that as it easily defaced the remembrance of every thing wherein he had been in fault formerly, so it drew from her the most passionate care and concern for him that was possible; which indeed deserves a higher character than is de­cent to give of a person yet alive. But I shall confine myself to the dead.

He told me, he had overcome all his resentments to all the world; so that he bore ill-will to no person, nor hated any upon personal accounts. He had given a true state of his debts, and had ordered to pay them all, as far as his estate that was not settled, could go: and was confident that if all that was owing to him were paid to his executors, his creditors would be all satisfied.

He said, he found his mind now possessed with another sense of things, than ever he had formerly. He did not repine under all his pain, and in one of the sharpest fits he was under while I was with him, he said, he did willingly submit; and looking up to [Page 112] heaven, said, God's holy will be done, I bless him for all he does for me. He knew he could never be so well, that life could be comfortable to him. He was consident he should be happy if he died, but he feared if he lived he might relapse. And then said he to me, in what a condition shall I be, if I relapse after all this? But, he said, he trusted in the grace and good­ness of God, and was resolved to avoid all those temptations, that course of life and company, that was likely to insnare him: and he desired to live on no other account, but that he might by the change of his manners some way take off the high scandal his for­mer behaviour had given. All these things at several times I had from him, besides some messages which very well became a dying penitent to some of his former friends, and a charge to publish any thing concerning him, that might be a means to reclaim others. Praying God, that as his life had done much hurt, so his death might do some good.

[Page 113]Having understood all these things from him, and being pressed to give him my opinion plainly about his eter­nal state; I told him, that though the promises of the gospel did all depend upon a real change of heart and life, as the indispensible condition upon which they were made; and that it was scarce possible to know certainly whether our hearts are changed, un­less it appeared in our lives; and the repentance of most dying men, being like the how lings of condemned pri­soners for pardon, which flowed from no sense of their crimes, but from the horror of approaching death; there was little reason to encourage any to hope much from such sorrowing; yet certainly if the mind of a sinner, even on a death-bed, be truly renewed and turned to God, so great is his mercy, that he will receive him, even in that extremity.

He was sure his mind was entirely turned, and though horror had given him his first awaking, yet that was [Page 114] now grown up into a settled faith and conversion.

There is but one prejudice lies a­gainst all this, to defeat the good ends of divine providence by it upon others, as well as on himself; and that is, it was a part of his disease, and that the low­ness of his spirits made such an altera­tion in him, that he was not what he had formerly been: and this some have carried so far as to say, that he died mad. These reports are raised by those who are unwilling that the last thoughts or words of a person, every way so extraordinary, should have any effect either on themselves or others. And it is to be feared, that some may have so far feared their consciences, and exceeded the com­mon measures of sin and infidelity, that neither this testimony, nor one coming from the dead, would signify much towards their conviction.

That this lord was either mad or stupid, is a thing so notoriously untrue, that it is the greatest impudence for any that were about him, to report [Page 115] it; and a very unreasonable credulity in others to believe it. All the while I was with him, after he had slept out the disorders of the fit, he was not on­ly without ravings, but had a clear­ness in his thoughts, in his memory, in his reflections on things and persons, far beyond what I ever saw in a per­son so low in his strength. He was not able to hold out long in discourse, for his spirits failed; but once for half an hour, and often for a quarter of an hour, after he awakened, he had a vivacity in his discourse that was extraordinary, and in all things like himself.

He called often for his children, his son the now earl of Rochester, and his three daughters, and spake to them with a sense and feeling that cannot be expressed in writing.

He called me once to look on them all, and said, see how good God has been to me, in giving me so many blessings, and I have carried myself to him like an ungracious and un­thankful dog.

[Page 116]He once talked a great deal to me of public affairs, and of many persons and things, with the same clearness of thought and expression, that he had ever done before. So that by no sign but his weakness of body, and giving over discourse so soon, could I per­ceive a difference between what his parts formerly were, and what they were then.

And that wherein the presence of his mind appeared most, was in the total change of an ill habit grown so much upon him, that he could hardly govern himself, when he was any ways heated, three minutes without falling into it; I mean swearing.

He had acknowledged to me the former winter, that he abhorred it as a base and indecent thing, and had set himself much to break it off; but he confessed that he was so over pow­ered by that ill custom, that he could not speak with any warmth, without repeated oaths, which, upon any sort of provocation, came almost naturally from him. But in his last remorses [Page 117] this did so sensibly affect him, that by a resolute and constant watchfulness, the habit of it was perfectly mastered; so that upon the returns of pain which were very severe and frequent upon him, the last day I was with him; or upon such displeasures as people sick or in pain are apt to take of a sudden at those about them: on all these occasi­ons he never swore an oath all the while I was there.

Once he was offended with the delay of one that he thought made not haste enough, with some what he called for, and said in a little heat, that d—d fellow. Soon after I told him, I was glad to find his style so reformed, and that he had so entirely overcome that ill habit of swearing; only that word of calling any d—d, which had re­turned upon him, was not decent.

His answer was, Oh that language of fiends which was so familiar to me, hangs yet about me: sure none has deserved more to be damned than I have done. And after he had hum­bly asked God pardon for it, he desi­red [Page 118] me to call the person to him, that he might ask him forgiveness; but I told him that was needless, for he had said it of one that did not hear it, and so could not be offended by it.

In this disposition of mind did he continue all the while I was with him, four day's together; he was then brought so low that all hope of reco­very was gone. Much purulent mat­ter came from him with his urine, which he passed always with some pain; but one day with unexpressible torment. Yet bore it decently with­out breaking out into repinings, or impatient complaints. He imagined he had a stone in his passage, but it being searched, none was found.

The whole substance of his body was drained by the ulcer, and nothing was left but skin and bone; and by lying much on his back, the parts there began to mortify. But he had been formerly so low, that he seemed as much past all hopes of life as now; which made him one morning after a full and sweet night's rest procured by [Page 119] laudanum, given him without his knowledge, to fancy it was an effort of nature, and to begin to entertain some hopes of recovery: for he said, he felt himself perfectly well, and that he had nothing ailing him, but an ex­treme weakness, which might go off in time; and then he entertained me with the scheme he had laid down for the rest of his life, how retired, how strict, and how studious he intended to be. But this was soon over, for he quickly felt that it was only the effect of a good sleep, and that he was still in a very desperate state.

I thought to have left him on Fri­day, but not without some passion, he desired me to stay that day. There appeared no symptom of present death, and a worthy physician then with him told me, that though he was so low that an accident might carry him away on a sudden; yet without that, he thought he might live yet some weeks.

So on Saturday at four o'clock in the morning I left him, being the 24th [Page 120] of July. But I durst not take leave of him; for he had expressed so great an unwillingness to part with me the day before, that if I had not present­ly yielded to one day's stay, it was like to have given him some trouble, therefore I thought it better to leave him without any formality. Some hours after he asked for me, and when it was told him, I was gone, he seem­ed to be troubled, and said, has my friend left me, then I shall die short­ly. After that he spake but once or twice till he died: he lay much silent: once they heard him pray very devout­ly. And on Monday about two of the clock in the morning, he died without any convulsion, or so much as a groan.