nto the Ministry; in which I have now lived
almost twenty years--I hope to His glory,--and by which, I most
humbly thank Him, I have been enabled to requite most of those
friends which shewed me kindness when my fortune was very low, as
God knows it was: and--as it hath occasioned the expression of my
gratitude--I thank God most of them have stood in need of my
requital. I have lived to be useful and comfortable to my good
Father-in-law, Sir George More, whose patience God hath been
pleased to exercise with many temporal crosses; I have maintained
my own mother, whom it hath pleased God, after a plentiful fortune
in her younger days, to bring to great decay in her very old age. I
have quieted the consciences of many, that have groaned under the
burden of a wounded spirit, whose prayers I hope are available for
me. I cannot plead innocency of life, especially of my youth; but I
am to be judged by a merciful God, who is not willing to see what I
have done amiss. And though of myself I have nothing to present to
Him but sins and misery, yet I know He looks not upon me now as I
am of myself, but as I am in my Saviour, and hath given me, even at
this present time, some testimonies by His Holy Spirit, that I am
of the number of His Elect: I am therefore full of inexpressible
joy, and shall die in peace."

I must here look so far back, as to tell the reader that at his first
return out of Essex, to preach his last sermon, his old friend and
physician, Dr. Fox--a man of great worth--came to him to consult his
health; and that after a sight of him, and some queries concerning his
distempers he told him, "That by cordials, and drinking milk twenty days
together, there was a probability of his restoration to health"; but he
passionately denied to drink it. Nevertheless, Dr. Fox, who loved him
most entirely, wearied him with solicitations, till he yielded to take
it for ten days; at the end of which time he told Dr. Fox, "He had drunk
it more to satisfy him, than to recover his health; and that he would
not drink it ten days longer, upon the best moral assurance of having
twenty years added to his life; for he loved it not; and was so far from
fearing Death, which to others is the King of Terrors, that he longed
for the day of his dissolution."

It is observed, that a desire of glory or commendation is rooted in the
very nature of m