NICOLLS. 575 -" I have been an unprofitable servant ; and all my doings " I count but loss and dung. All my desire is to win " Christ, and be found in him, not having, my own " righteousness." He died in the month of August, 1630, aged forty-tbree years. His funeral was attended with all possible solemnity. He was richly endowed with divine grace, mighty in the scriptures, a good linguist, and an excellent preacher. He held the hearts of his people, and his memory was dear to their posterity. He left a widow and eight children. Mr. Higginson had two sons, Francis and John, who afterwards became ministers the former at Kirkby Stephen in Westmoreland, England, where he conformed at the restoration.. The latter was chosen pastor of his father's church, in the year 1659 ; and was labourhig there in the year 1696, in the eightieth year of his age, and the sixtieth of his ministry. Mr. Higgin- son's posterity still remain in New England, and are among themost respectable people of thecommonwealtb.i- RoBERT NicoLLs was minister of Wrenbury in Cheshire, where he was held in high repute for his excellent abilities and worthy ministerial labours. He was a man of a clear head, a tender heart, and a most holy life, always abound- ing in the work of the Lord.t He was called before the high commission, and, with many of his brethren, exceed- ingly harassed for nonconformity. Being required by Bishop Morton to produce his arguments against the cross in baptism, the use of the surplice, and kneeling at the sacrament, he presented them to the bishop in the high commission court, when, though he was esteemed a most learned and pious minister, his lordship treated himwith much scorn and abuse.§ He was contemporary with Mr. Ball, Mr. Herring, Mr. Ashe, and other divines of dis- tinguished eminence, with whom he lived in the greatest friendship. During the persecution of the times, he found an asylum under the hospitable roof of the excellent Lady Bromley, of Sheriff-Hales in Shropshire ; at whose house he died about the year 1630.11 He was author of the Mather's Dist. of New Eng. b. iii. p. 75.-Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol, iii, p. 355.-This Mr. Francis Higginson, says Dr. Mather, wrote the host book that was ever published against the quakers, entitled, "'The Irreligion of Northern Quakers."-./bid. p. 76. Morseand Parish's Hist. of New Cog. p. 52. f. Clark's Lives annexed to Martyrologie, p. 164. § Paget's Defence, Pref. I Clark's Lives, p. 165.
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