MEDE. 431 of effecting an universal pacification among protestants. He was, however, a friend to free inquiry. " I cannot believe," said he, " that truth can be prejudiced by the discovery of truth; but I fear that the maintenance thereof by fallacy or falsehood may not end with a blessing." He discovered a strong aversion to popery, and abhorred all idolatry and superstition. He led the way in shewing that papal Romewas one principal object of the Apocalyptic visions ; andwas the first who suggested that the dismoniacs in the New Testaments were not real possessions, but persons afflicted with lunacy and epilepsy. Bythe recommendation of Archbishop Usher, he was elected provost of Trinity college, Dublin, but declined accepting the preferment; as he did Lalso when it was offered him a second time. On the small income of his fellowship, he was extremely generous and charitable ; and by temperance, frugality, and a care to avoid unnecessary expenses, he 'constantly appropriated a tenth part of it to charitable uses.* Mr. Mede loved peace, unity, good order, and whatever promoted the beauty, the honour, and safety of the pro- testant reformation. Though he was certainly more con- formable than many ofhis brethren, he did not so decidedly approve ofthe discipline and government of theestablished church, as the writer of his life has endeavoured to repre- sent. He was suspected of puritanism; and having united himself with the puritans in the university, he is justly denominated one of them.i- He maintained ,a constant friendship with several eminent nonconformists, and kept up a regular correspondencewith them ; among whom were Dr. Ames and Dr. Twisse,'many of whose letters are pre.. served in his works. His sentiments relative to the estab- lished church, and its persecuting severities, are, indeed, sufficiently manifest from his own writings. In one of his letters to a learned friend, though expressed in very modest language, he discovers his puritanical opinions. Ad- dressing his friend on the subject of a universal pacification among protestants, which he was particularly desirous to see accomplished, he says, " But our church, you know, goes upon differing principles from the rest of the reformed, and so steers her course by another rule than what they do. We look after the form, rites, and ceremonies of antiquity, and endeavour to bring our own as near as we can to that pattern. We suppose the reformed churches have departed Life of Mr. Mede. + MS. Chronology, vol. iii. A. D. p. (8.)
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=