butic medicines, which did him no good, but reduced him to a very weak and low state. Dr Ashworth, finding he had mistaken his case, returned to Oxford; and Dr Preston, laying aside all physical helps, gave himself up to GOD in a patient waiting for his dissolution, when he should be for ever with the Lord.

He had a servant, who had long been to him more than a servant, and whom he had often used as a friend; to him he unbosomed himself, not only respecting the vanity and emptiness of all things here below, but his expectation of a speedy change; "Not (said he) of my company; for I "shall still converse with GOD and saints; but of my "place and way of doing it.". He revised his will, and settled all his worldly affairs, and then prayed for a proper supply for the places he possessed; for the college, that it might continue a flourishing nursery of religion and learning for Lincoln's-inn, that GOD would from time to time furnish it with able preachers; and that he would also provide for his lecture at Cambridge, which had cost him so much trouble to obtain.

A few hours before his death, asking what day it was, and being told it was the Lord's day; "A fit day (said "he) to be sacrificed on! I have accompanied saints on "earth; and now I shall accompany angels in heaven:

My dissolution is at hand; let me go to my home, and to Jesus Christ, who hath bought me with his precious. "blood." Soon after, he fell into a cold and clammy sweat, which, he told them, was the messenger of death. Not long after, he said, "I feel death coming to my

heart; my pain shall now be quickly turned into joy." Just before he died, a minister prayed with him: When the prayer was ended, he looked on those who assisted; and then turned away his head, and gave up the ghost, in the forty-first year of his age. He was interred in Fausleychurch, in the county of Northampton; and Mr Dod, the minister of that place, preached his funeral sermon : On which occasion a very great number of people flocked together from all the neighbouring parts. This sermon was preached on the twentieth of July, in the year 1628.

Besides the WRITINGS above hinted at, we have seen a posthumous work of Dr Preston's, entitled "Life eternal, or a Treatise of the Knowledge of the Divine Essence and Attributes: Delivered in xviii Sermons. Printed at London, in 4to. 1631. To this is prefixed a Dedication to Lord Viscount Say and Sele, from Dr Thomas Godwin and Mr Thomas Ball, the latter of whom either wrote, or

furnished

furnished materials for Clarke to write, the account of his life. This is a very excellent Publication, and was offered to the world with infinitely more decency, than a late posthumous collection of Common Places, &c. compiled by a deceased writer, who was eminent in the religious world. Dr Preston's executor, most likely, had no desire to make any other gain of his memory, than to promote the welfare of souls and GOD's glory: And the Doctor himself, it is probable, had too much regard both for his own credit and the feelings of his friends, to leave manuscripts in the hands of meanness and ignorance, which could only value them, or any thing else, by what they might produce in the market."

TOBIE MATTHEW, D. D.

THI

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK.

HIS truly good man, an honour to his age, was descended from an ancient family of the Williams's of Flint, in the principality of North Wales, being the fourteenth in a lineal descent from Roger Williams, Esq. of which family John Williams, Esq. receiver of Flintshire 10 E. IV. marrying the daughter and heir of Edmund Matthew, Esq. his son George assumed the name of Matthew, and by the daughter of Sir John Ardin, Knt. had issue Richard Matthew, of Flint, the father of John Matthew of Bristol, merchant, where this his son Tobie was born, in the year 1546, upon that part of the bridge which is in Somersetshire.

In his childhood, an extraordinary circumstance befel him. By a fall, he broke his foot, ancle, and small of his leg, almost to pieces; yet he obtained a speedy and effectual cure. From the school at wells, he was sent to Oxford, at thirteen years of age. University-college and Christ-church, do both challenge him; it was as member of the latter he took the degree of bachelor of arts, February 11, 1563; and three years after, (the twenty-fifth of June) that of master, and entered into holy orders; at which time he was much respected for his great learning, eloquence,

eloquence, sweet conversation, friendly disposition, and the sharpness of his wit.

The third year after this, he was unanimously elected the public orator of the university, which office he executed with great applause to himself, and honour to the public, when he was but twenty-three. He took his degrecs so ripe in learning, and young in years, as was half a miracle, saith Sir John Harrington, who is seldom too liberal in his commendation of bishops. He was a most celebrated preacher, even when Oxford seems to have been well stocked with such. Afterwards preferments came thick upon him. In 1570, he was made canon of Christ-church, and archdeacon of Bath. In 1572, prebendary of Sarum, and president of St John's-college; when being famous for his admirable preaching he was made the queen's chaplain, and dean of Christ's-church in 1576. Two years after, he was vice-chancellor of Oxford, and afterwards chantor in the church of Salisbury; the one a place of the greatest honour the university could give; the other a preferment of considerable profit.

In August, 1583, he was installed dean of Durham. It may be wondered, why he should leave the university, where he had so many ingenious frends and great admirers; relinquish preferments that seem as considerable as this single deanery, if not more so; and go northward farther from court, the fountain of preferment.

• But

to me (says Mr Thoresby) it seems evident, there was some Christian act of self-denial in the case;' and his diligence in preaching afterwards in places that, for the most part, wanted instruction (whereas Oxford had now some excellent preachers, as Dr Rainolds, and others) and his apostolic travelling from town to town to preach the gospel, shews that he aimed at the glory of GOD and the good of mankind, in going to that northern region. He kept a diary or journal of the several times and places, when, and where he preached; to set down which, would be to transcribe the Villare of the County-Palatine; scarce any town but had him in their pulpit, and some places very often. He frequently mentions the text, and sometimes the occasion, as before the lord-president, at the court, at the assizes, &c. His first sermon was before the council, from these words, Seek ye first the kingdom of God; a subject that befits all to begin with.

He held his deanery eleven years and a half, and accounts for seven hundred and twenty-one sermons preached in that time, in some years sixty, in others seventy or

eighty:

eighty; we sometimes find him preaching twice a day, especially when he found no preaching minister there; but rarely omitted every Sunday and holiday, except when sickness, or some inevitable cause hindered. Thus when any of the prebendaries took their courses in the cathedral, he rode abroad to carry the message of his great Master to the country towns and villages. At Christmas he usually preached on the Nativity, St Stephen, St John, Innocents, &c. He would often reflect upon his performances, and observe with what fervour and spirit he had discharged his duty, sometimes giving GOD thanks, at other times blaming himself; his words were, "frigide, "eheu" or, "Deo gratias."

He was elected bishop of Durham, March 29th, 1595, and not 1594, as Godwin mistakes in his Catalogue of Bishops; for himself notes, that he preached before Q Elizabeth the fourth Sunday in Lent, 1595, and adds, the "Saturday before this, I was elected bishop, when I was "forty years of age." He preached at court again, May 11th, which was the first sermon after he was made bishop. As soon as the consecration was over, he hastened to his own cathedral, and, as his custom was, perfumed almost every considerable town in his way, with the sweet odour of the gospel; as, May 14th at Northampton, the fifteenth at Leicester, the sunday after at Doncaster, the nineteenth at Holden, the twenty-first at Allerton, and the Sunday following at his own cathedral at Durham; where he continued so faithful and assiduous a Preacher, that the most severe animadverters upon bishops, had not one word to say against him; not so much as his name occurs in Prynne against Prelates. 'Tis easy to trace his journies, by the churches he preached at, and that not in the neighbourhood only, but in his journey or embassy to Scotland, in 1596, when he preached every Lord's day in Berwick, except one in Holy-Island.

He seldom omitted preaching once a-week, when at London, in times of parliament; one short session from October 19th, to December 19th, we find him nine times at (what he called) HIS BELOVED WORK*; this was in the year 1601. He had then, as at all other times, one turn at the court. He mentions in his diary, a long discourse her majesty, Q. Elizabeth, had with him, which,

as

He feems to have adopted the late bishop Burnet's advice in contend. ing with oppofite parties-Out preach; out-pray; out-live them. This is a fort of conteft, which none but good men will engage in, and in which they will always rejoice to be overcome.

as it was the last time he saw her, he calls it "his last "farewell."

In April, 1603, he preached before K. James at Berwick, and again at Newcastle; from whence he waited upon his majesty to his own seat at Durham, where he entertained him; after this Stow adds, The king took leave, gave him thanks, and highly commended him for humanity, learning, and gravity; promising to restore divers things taken from the bishopric.' Having preached before the king at Greenwich, he hasted back to meet the queen, prince, princess Elizabeth (afterwards queen of Bohemia, and grandmother to K. George I.) before whom he preached at York on Whitsunday, at Worsop on Trinity-sunday, on Midsummer-day at Leicester, at Althorpe (still attending on the queen into the South) on the first Sunday after Trinity, upon the second at Sherfield, upon the third and fourth at Hampstead, the fifth at Paddington, the sixth at Wilsdon, August the 5th at Hampton-court, the seventh at Ware, in his return home: Where he found an additional work on the fast-days, observed weekly for the pestilence then raging in England. He was not content to hear one sermon; but himself would preach a second, and sometimes, when two preceded, a third; as at Darton, September 28th, Mr Tomlinson, Mr Tanstall, and I;" and so on October 12," Mr Cradock, Dr Barnes, and my

"self."

About the latter end of this year, he was summoned to the Hampton-court conference, of which he gives an account in a remarkable letter to archbishop Hutton which letter may be seen in Mr Strype's life of archbishop Whitgift. By the king's special appointment, he preached before his majesty at Hampton-court, at the end of the conference, as also at Westminster, at the opening of the parliament; and as he concluded this, so he began the succeeding year with a sermon before the king, and not long after before prince Henry, from the words of the Psalmist, Wherewithal shall a young man, &c. and that dayfortnight before the king, queen, prince, the council, bishops, &c. in Whitehall gallery; because, the king's leg being hurt, he could not go to the chapel. Shortly after, he returned to his diocese, where he preached at Bishop-Aukland before prince Charles, then the king's second son.

When his great guest was gone, he visited his diocese, and at Darneton earnestly pressed the renewal of the ExerVOL. II. Hh

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