do here, I could be gladly in heaven, where I shall serve him better, delivered from sin and distractions. I pass from one death to another, yet I fear none. I praise God that I can live, and dare die. If God has more work for me to do here, I am willing to do it, though my infirm body be very weary." Afterward, he said, "I do now no good, I hinder other persons who might be better employed, if I were removed. Why should any desire to live, but to do God service? Now I cease from that, I do not live." When both the violence of his trouble and the advice of his physicians prohibited speech, he called upon those persons who attended him, to read the Holy Scriptures unto him, and upon his son to pray frequently with him. In the immediate views of an approaching eternity, he desired that the eighth chapter of the epistle to the Romans should be read unto him. And he professed that he lived and died in that faith which he had preached and printed, and that he now, in the near prospect of death, found the unspeakable comfort of it; desiring that intimation should be made thereof in that country where he had been longest known. Having given strong evidence of the excellence and power of that religion, which can support the precious and immortal soul, and make the, otherwise very gloomy, prospect of death easy and cheerful, he closed his eyes in peace, pleasingly resigning his soul to God, on the 11th of Dec. 1658, aged eighty years. The following brief account has been given of the excellent endowments of Dr Harris.-He was a very hard student, a man of great abilities, and richly furnished with all learning which is necessary to a divine. He was a pure and elegant Latinist, he had a considerable knowledge of the Greek, and was an exact master of the Hebrew language. He was greatly admired as a subtle, clear, and very ready, disputant. He excelled in chronology, church-history, the councils, case-divinity, and in the knowledge of the fathers. But his parts were best seen in the pulpit. His gifts and graces eminently appeared, in prayer; his affections were warm and elevated; his petitions weighty and substantial; and his language, pertinent, unaffected, and without tautology. He was accounted a judicious divine, and an accomplished preacher. He preached with much learned plainness, beautifully unfolding the grand mysteries of the glorious Gospel of the grace of God unto persons of the meanest capacities. In his younger days, about twenty years toge ther, he wrote his sermons exactly, and committed them to memory, which he could do with much ease. He was very large and particular in the application of his sermons. In prayer and preaching, he had an admirable faculty of engaging the attention, and of warming and raising the affections of his auditory. He was exceedingly charitable to the poor, and eminently distinguished for humility, mortification, and self-denial. In short, he was a person of eminent piety and gravity, and was richly furnished with every necessary qualification to render him a complete scholar, a wise governor, a profitable preacher, and an excellent Christian. - Some of his choice sayings follow. He used to say, "That a preacher has three books to study: the Bible, himself, and the people.—That preaching to the people was but one part of the pastor's duty: he was to live and die in them, as well as for, and with them." He advised young preachers to pen largely, and to keep their notes for all emergencies. He observed, That the humblest preachers converted the greatest number of souls, not the most choice scholars while unbroken.-That he valued no man for his gifts, but for his humility under them.-Nor did he expect much from any man, were his parts ever so great, until he was broken by afflictions and temptations. -That so much humility as any man had, so much grace and worth, and no more.-That it was just with God to deny us the comforts of our graces, when we deny him the glory of them. He used to say, that some duties which were often in men's mouths, were very difficult to him: as, to deny himself, in all the extent of that expression; to live only by faith, and a bare promise witht out a pawn; to ascribe all to free grace, and to Chrisalone; and to love where we meet with the want of love, and contempt.-He said, "That it was a hard thing for a saint to forgive himself some faults, even when God has forgiven these. It is hard to continue long in holy thoughts, and to confine our thoughts to the prayers of another person. We know but little of Christ's love, till all be perfected, and spread before us in heaven." a Dr Harris's last will and testament contains much excellent advice to his wife and to his numerous children, but it is too long for insertion in this place. His writings came forth at different times, in their first appearance to the public eye. "The Way to True Happiness, in twenty-four Sermons upon the Beatitudes," Mat. v. and A Treatise of the New Covenant," from Ezek. xi. 19, 20. were both printed at London, in quarto, in 1632. But these and his other writings were afterward collected and published in one volume, small folio, London, 1654. The eminently pious bishop Wilkins passes an high encomium upon his English Sermons. his English Sermons. And his Latin Sermons to the clergy have been very highly commended. These are said to have gained the approbation of all persons who were skilful in that language. Wood says, that one of his Latin Sermons, from John xxi. 17, 18. with another Latin Sermon of Dr Dan. Featly were printed at Utrecht, in 1657, and both entitled Pedum Pastorale, &c. CHARLES HERLE, A. M. PASTOR OF WINWICK, IN LANCASHIRE, A MEMBER AND SOME TIME PROLOCUTOR OF THE ASSEMBLY OF DIVINES AT WESTMINSTER. CHARLES HERLE was born at Prideaux-Herle, near Lystwithyel, or Lostwithiel, in the county of Cornwall, in England, in the year 1598. He was descended from a good family, and born of honourable parents. a Clark's Lives, and Durham's Life of Dr Harris. He was the third son of Ed. Herle, Esq. Wood says, that though his ancestors had lived several generations in that place above mentioned in genteel fashion, yet they were originally of West Herle in Northumberland. He received his education in Exeter-college, in Oxford, where he entered a student, in the year 1612. He took his degrees in arts, that of master being completed in the year 1618. Having finished his studies at the University, he entered upon the ministerial work. He was first settled at some place in Devonshire, where, being always accounted a Puritan, he suffered persecution on account of his non-conformity. For, All who will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. Afterward, he became rector of Winwick, in Lancashire, which is said to have been one of the richest livings in England. Upon the commencement of the civil war, he took part with the Parliament, was elected one of the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and, upon the death of Dr Twisse, in the year 1646, he was chosen prolocutor to the Assembly. He took the Covenant, preached frequently before the Parliament, was appointed one of the licensers of the press for books of divinity, in 1643, one of the morning lecturers at the Abbey-church, Westminster, and one of the select committee for the examination and approbation of ministers of the Gospel who petitioned for sequestered livings. And, in the year 1644, he and others, to the number of twenty-one, had full power given them to ordain ministers for a time in the county of Lancaster. Mr Herle was also appointed one of the committee of accommodation, in 1645; and he was one of the committee of learned divines appointed by the Assembly to prepare materials for their Confession of Faith. He subscribed the proposition, "That Jesus Christ, as King of the church has himself appointed a church-government distinct from the civil magistrate.' He was accounted a moderate presbyterian. In his imprimatur to the Apology of the Independents, he calls it a Performance full of peaceableness, modesty and candour; and though he wrote against it, yet in the preface to his book, which is entitled, The Independency on ScripVOL. II. D " tures of the Independency of Churches," he says, "The difference between us and our brethren who are for Independency, is nothing so great as you seemed to conceive it;-at most it does but ruffle a little the fringe, not any way rend the garment of Christ; it is so far from being a fundamental. that it is scarcely a material, difference." -When the Scottish commissioners proposed to leave the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, with a view to return home, Mr Herle, who was then prolocutor to the Assembly, spoke in the name of his brethren, and thanked the honourable and reverend commissioners from the church of Scotland for their seasonable assistance. Upon this occasion, he excused, in the best manner that he could, the Directory's not being so well observed as it ought; and lamented that the Assembly had not power to call offenders to an account. He confessed, that their affairs were very much embarassed, and that they were still in great confusion. He observed that the Parliament was in great distress, while the common enemy was high and strong. He added, that their extraordinary successes hitherto were owing to the prayers of their brethren of Scotland, and of other Protestants abroad, as well as to their own. He then mentioned with deep concern some other restraints which the Assembly lay under, but that this was not a proper time for redress. In the year 1647, Mr Herle and Mr Stephen Marshall were appointed to attend the commissioners of Parliament to Scotland, with a view to give the Scots a just account of the affairs of England. After the King's death, Mr Herle retired to his flock and stated ministerial labours in the Lord's vineyard at Winwick, where he continued the remainder of his days, and was very much beloved by his brethren in the ministry in that country. In the year 1651, the Earl of Derby having raised a regiment of soldiers for Charles Second, who was then on his march from Scotland, he sent Lieutenant Arundal, with about forty horses, to Mr Herle's house at Winwick, which filled the whole family with the utmost consterna a Neal's Hist. Puritans, vol. iii. chap. viii. a |