at he was
moderately tall: his behaviour had in it much of a plain comeliness,
and very little, yet enough, of ceremony or courtship; his looks and
motion manifested affability and mildness, and yet he had with these a
calm, but so matchless a fortitude, as secured him from complying
with any of those many Parliament injunctions, that interfered with a
doubtful conscience. His learning was methodical and exact, his wisdom
useful, his integrity visible, and his whole life so unspotted, that
all ought to be preserved as copies for posterity to write after; the
Clergy especially, who with impure hands ought not to offer sacrifice
to that God, whose pure eyes abhor iniquity.

There was in his Sermons no improper rhetoric, nor such perplexed
divisions, as may be said to be like too much light, that so dazzles
the eyes, that the sight becomes less perfect: but there was therein
no want of useful matter, nor waste of words; and yet such clear
distinctions as dispelled all confused notions, and made his hearers
depart both wiser, and more confirmed in virtuous resolutions.

[Sidenote: His memory]

[Sidenote: His even temper]

His memory was so matchless and firm, as 'twas only overcome by his
bashfulness; for he alone, or to a friend, could repeat all the Odes
of Horace, all Tully's Offices, and much of Juvenal and Persius,
without book: and would say, "the repetition of one of the Odes of
Horace to himself, was to him such music, as a lesson on the viol was
to others, when they played it to themselves or friends." And though
he was blest with a clearer judgment than other men, yet he was so
distrustful of it, that he did over-consider of consequences, and
would so delay and re-consider what to determine, that though none
ever determined better, yet, when the bell tolled for him to appear
and read his Divinity Lectures in Oxford, and all the Scholars
attended to hear him, he had not then, or not till then, resolved and
writ what he meant to determine; so that that appeared to be a truth,
which his old dear friend Dr. Sheldon would often say, namely, "That
his judgment was so much superior to his fancy, that whatsoever
this suggested, that disliked and controlled; still considering, and
re-considering, till his time was so wasted, that he was forced to
write, not, probably, what was best, but what he thought last." And
yet what he did then read, appeared to all hearers to be so useful,
clear, and satisfactory, as none ever