bridging them, and by interleaving them to amplify one system with
supplements from another.

With the congregation of his tutor, Mr. Rowe, who were, I believe,
Independents, he communicated in his nineteenth year. At the age of
twenty he left the academy, and spent two years in study and devotion at
the house of his father, who treated him with great tenderness, and had
the happiness, indulged to few parents, of living to see his son eminent
for literature and venerable for piety. He was then entertained by Sir
John Hartopp five years, as domestic tutor to his son, and in that time
particularly devoted himself to the study of the Holy Scriptures; and,
being chosen assistant to Dr. Chauncey, preached the first time on the
birthday that completed his twenty-fourth year, probably considering
that as the day of a second nativity, by which he entered on a new
period of existence.

In about three years he succeeded Dr. Chauncey; but soon after his
entrance on his charge he was seized by a dangerous illness, which
sunk him to such weakness that the congregation thought an assistant
necessary, and appointed Mr. Price. His health then returned gradually,
and he performed his duty till (1712) he was seized by a fever of such
violence and continuance, that from the feebleness which it brought
upon him he never perfectly recovered. This calamitous state made the
compassion of his friends necessary, and drew upon him the attention
of Sir Thomas Abney, who received him into his house, where, with a
constancy of friendship and uniformity of conduct not often to be
found, he was treated for thirty-six years with all the kindness that
friendship could prompt, and all the attention that respect could
dictate. Sir Thomas died about eight years afterwards, but he continued
with the lady and her daughters to the end of his life. The lady died
about a year after him.

A coalition like this, a state in which the notions of patronage and
dependence were overpowered by the perception of reciprocal benefits,
deserves a particular memorial; and I will not withhold from the reader
Dr. Gibbons's representation, to which regard is to be paid as to the
narrative of one who writes what he knows, and what is known likewise to
multitudes besides:--

"Our next observation shall be made upon that remarkably kind Providence
which brought the Doctor into Sir Thomas Abney's family, and continued
him there till his death, a period of no less than thirty-