160 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. him, " the first broacher of puritianism.". Mr. Clark, who treats his memory with great impartiality, says, " be was a hard student, continuinghis assiduity and close application to the endof his days. Although, on account of excessive pains and bodily infirmities, he was obliged, towards the close of life, to study continually upon his knees,, he rose as usual, at three o'clock in the morning; which practice he continued to the last. His humility and meekness were not the least conspicuous features in his character. He was far from courting the applause of men ; norcould he endure to hear himself commended, or to hear any titles ascribed to himself, which at all savoured of ambition: Though he was uncommonly popular, he did not seek popularity, but laboured to avoid it as much as possible. With these thoughts of himself, it is added, he could not endure to hear even his adversaries reproached ; and if any persons spoke disgracefully of them in his presence, he would sharply reprove them, saying, It is a christian's duty to pray for his enemies, and not to reproach them.' "t With what degree of truth then does a late writer assert, " that he was highly conceited of his own talents and learning ?"I Indeed, his highest ambition was to debase himself, and to advance the glory and kingdom of Jesus Christ. He was an acute disputant, an admired preacher, and eminently liberal, especially to poor scholars ; and, says Fuller, " lie was most pious and strict in his conversation, a pure Latinist, an accurate Grecian, an exact Hebrean, and, in short, a most excellent scholar."§ Notwithstanding all these excellent qualifications, his piety, his learning, and his good sense are most warmly censured by a modern writer. He charges Mr. Cartwright, in his correspondence with Sir Michael Hickes, with saying, " that prayer was as it were a bunch of keys, whereby we go to all the treasures and storehouses of the Lord ; his butteries, his pantries, his cellars, his wardrobe." Mr. Cart- wright might use these words in a familiar correspondence ; and what does it prove? This, it is readily admitted, was too much the taste of those times : but our author makes almost every thing that is bad of these few words. For he immediately breaks forth into a strain of most triumphant Strype's Whitgift, p. 554.-Fuller's Church Hist. b. x. p. 3.--Dugdale's Autiq. of Warwickshire, vol. i. p. 443. Edit. 1750.-Strype's Parker, Pref. p. 5. 4- Clark's Lives, p. 18-21. t Churton's Life of Nowell, p. 193. Church Hist. b. x. p. 3.
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