210 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. Blessedate they who, while they have tongues, use them 'to God's glory." As the hour of his dissolution approached, being raised up hi bed, his friends desired him to say something to their edification and comfort. The sun shining in his face, he thus addressed them : "As there is only one sun in the world, so there is only one righteousness, and one commu- nion of saints. If I were the most excellent creature in the world, equal in righteousness to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, yetwould I confess myself to be a sinner, and that I expected salvation in the righteousness of Jesus Christ alone : for we all stand in need of the grace of God. As for my death, I bless God, I find and feel so much comfort and joy in my soul, that if I were put to my choice, whether to dieor live, I would a thousand times rather choose death than life, if it was the holy will of God." He died soon after, June 26, 1576.. Fuller denominates Mr, Deering a pious man, a painful preacher, and an eminent divine ; but disaffected to bishops and cerernonies.t Mr. Strype says, he was disliked by the bishops, and some other great personages, as a man vain and full offancies, because he would tell them of their common swearing and covetousness. He would not associate with persecutors ; andwas much grieved when the benefice of a great parish was given to an unpreaching minister. Yet, says he, it was Mr. Deering's common fault to tell lies Does not this look like a slander ? What did the excellent Dr. Sampson say of him, as already noticed, who knew him well ? Surely, if this had been his common fault, having so many enemies constantly and narrowly watching him, his sin would have found him out. Granger gives a very different account of him. 4c The happy death," says he, " of this truly religious man, was suitable to the purity and integrity ofhis life."§ He is classed with the other learned writers and fellows of Christ's college, Cambridge.II Mr-Deering was a man of great learning, and a fine orator; but in his sermon before the queen, February 25, 1569, he had the boldness to say, " If you have sometimes said (meaning in the days of her sister Mary,) tanquamovis, as a sheep appointed to be slain ; take heed you hear not a Account annexed to Mr. Deering's Lects. on Heb.-Fuller's Abel Redivivus,p. 341,342. f Fuller's Church Hist. b. ix. p. 109. t Strype's Parker, p. 381, 429. § Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 215. Fuller's Hist. of Cam. p. 92.
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