6 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. particular business. Mr. Dod having answered in the negative, and signified that he could not rest till he had seen him, the gentleman replied, " 0, sir, you are sent of God at this very hour; for I was just now going to destroy myself," and immediately pulled the halter out of his pocket, by which he had intended to commit the horrid deed. Thus the mischief was prevented.. It is observed of Mr. Dod, that a person being once enraged at his close and awakening doctrine, picked a quarrel with him, smote him in the face, and dashed out two of his teeth. This meek and lowly servant of Christ, without taking the least offence, spit out the teeth and blood into his hand, and said, " See here, you have knocked out two of my teeth, without any just provocation ; but on condition I might do your soul good, I would give you leave to dash out all the rest."-i- Thus Mr. Dod wasnot overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. Mr. Timothy Dod, ejected in 1662, was his son, and imitated the amiable virtues of his excellent father.# Old Mr. Dod was commonly called the Decalogist, because he and Mr. Robert Cleaver, another puritan minister, published " An Exposition of the Ten Commandments," 1635. They also published " The Patrimony of Christian Children ; and were authors of " Ten Sermons to fit Men for the Worthy Receiving of the Lord's Supper." Mr. Dod, it is said, was the author of that singular and well-known little Sermon on the word MALT. Bishop Wilkins passes a high encomium upon his sermons, with those of other learned divines.§ THOMAS LYDIAT, A. M.-This celebrated scholar was born at Alkrington, or Okerton, near Banbury, in Oxford- shire, early in the year 1572, and educated first at Winchester school, then at New College, Oxford, where he was chosen fellow. A dispOsition to learning distinguished him from childhood, in consequence of which his parents, who lived in wealthy circumstances, designed him for a scholar, and placed him at the university under the tuition of Dr. (after- wards Sir Henry) Marten. He signalized himself by intense application to his studies, and became almost a prodigy in good literature, especially in logic, mathematics, astronomy, Flavel's Works, vol. iv. p. 399. Edit. 1797. + Ibid. vol. v. p. 470. t Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. iii. p. 30. Discourse ou Preaching, p. 82, 83.
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