The day before his death, he sang the hundred and thirtieth Psalm, with great sense of GOD's presence and love, and passed the rest of his time in meditation and prayer. In the evening, he blessed his children; and the next morning, finding within himself that his departure was at hand, he told those about him, that before sun-set he should depart, and be with the Lord. Grounding his faith on the blood and righteousness of Jesus Christ, with the promises of his Gospel, and strengthened and comforted by the gracious influence of the Holy Ghost, he waited for death without any apparent fear; but bade those about him farewell, expressing his readiness and desire to be dissolved and to be with his Master. At length, in the presence of many learned and pious friends and relations, he yielded up his spirit without the least struggling, and quietly departed, August the twenty-fifth, 1644.

He was a man of great worth. The books he wrote shew his learning and the application he gave to the discharge of his academical duties; and we have many proofs of his public spirit and benevolence to mankind. Whilst he lived, he went yearly to wait upon the King of Bohemia, and to inspect the studies of the royal family. He was extremely active in raising the collections which were made throughout all the protestant countries for the churches of Germany, and chiefly of the palatinate: He acted also as one of the three distributors of the collections from England; and was almoner to Lewis de Geer. He was also employed in two other important commissions; one was in the revisal made at Leyden of the New Dutch translation of the Bible, and the visitation of the county of Steinfurt: In the first office he had colleagues, but he was sole general inspector in the second, the Count of Bentheim having sent for him to make inquisition against Socinianism, which the country was threatened with, and to establish good order in the churches. Alting, as we are told in his elogy, was no quarrelsome divine: He did not spend his time in trifling insignificant scruples; he was not fond of novelty, but zealous for the ancient doctrine; an enemy to the subtilties of the schools, and one who kept close to the Scriptures.

The Books which he published are these: I. Notæ in decadem problematum Johannis Behm de glorioso Dei et beatorum cælo. Heidelberga, 1688. II. Loci communes cum didactici, tum elenctici. III. Problemata, tam theoretica quam practica. IV. Explicatio catecheseos Palatina cum vindiciis ab Arminianis et Socinianis. Amst. 1646. 3 vols. V. Exegesis

V. Exegesis Augustana confessionis, una cum syllabo controversiarum Lutheranarum. Amst. 1647. VI. Methodus theologia didactica et catechetica. Amst. 1650. They were published together in three tomes, with this title: Scripta Theologica Heidelbergensia. VII. Thcologia Historica. 1664, 4to.

WILLIAM TWISSE, D.D.

THIS learned and very laborious divine was born at Speenham-Land, near Newbury, in Berkshire; his father was a substantial clothier in that town, and educated his son at Winchester school, from whence, at the age of eighteen, he was translated to New college in Oxford, of which he was fellow. Here he employed himself in the study of logic, then of philosophy, and afterwards of divinity, with the closest application, for sixteen years together.

In the year 1604, he proceeded master of arts; about the same time he entered into holy orders, and became a diligent and frequent preacher: He was admired by the university for his subtle wit, exact judgment, exemplary life and conversation, and for many other valuable qualities, which became a man of his function.

In the year 1614, he proceeded doctor of divinity, after having given abundant proof both of his learning and industry, in his lectures and disputations, as well as in transcribing and judiciously correcting the writings of the famous Dr. Thomas Bradwardine, Archbishop of Canterbury, which were to be published by Sir Henry Saville. He was esteemed a popular preacher in the university; and though some thought his discourses a little too scholastic, yet they were accompanied with power, and followed with success.

He was called upon at this time to preach a sermon on a day appointed, for the baptizing a Jew, who taught many of the students Hebrew, and deceived many of the doctors in the university, especially Dr. Lake, provost of New college, by pretending to be converted to Christianity; but the day before he was to have been baptized, having filled his purse, he ran away: However, being pursued and brought back, Dr. Twisse, the next day, laid aside the sermon he had studied, upon a supposition that the Jew

was

was to be baptized, and preached a most excellent discourse upon his revolt, in which he shewed God's just judgment upon that rebellious backsliding nation and people, whom he had given up to a reprobate mind, even to this very day. He acquitted himself on this occasion in so learned and masterly a manner, that he was applauded and admired by the whole university. His celebrated lectures, read every Thursday in the parish church of St. Olave's, were so much frequented by the gownsmen as well as by the town's people, that his fame reached the court, and King James made choice of him to be chaplain to his daughter Elizabeth, the Princess Palatine, and to accompany her into Germany.

The doctor, previous to his entering upon his travels, disposed of his patrimony, being about thirty pounds a year, and commended it to his brother, requiring him, that, out of the rents of it, he should raise portions for his sisters. In order to elude the tediousness of the journey, he expounded some part of the Scriptures every day, by which means, accompanied with many wise seasonable admonitions, this amiable Princess was enabled to moderate her grief, (on leaving her dear country, remembering that here we have no abiding city, but are to seek a better in the world to come) and to encounter all those adverse dispensations of the Divine Providence, with which she was afterwards so severely tried. For not long after she was crowned Queen of Bohemia, she was forced to fly out of that country, then pregnant, and excluded out of the palatinate, (her husband's paternal inheritance) and driven to live in exile the remainder of her days; all which she bore with the patience, magnanimity, and fortitude of a true Christian: Believing and experiencing, what the Doctor had so often inculcated, "That God's gracious

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providence doth order the estates and conditions of "men, whether prosperous or adverse, according to his "own good pleasure, and for the everlasting good of those "that belong to him, agreeable to that promise, Rom. "viii. 28. We know that all things work together for good, "to them that love God, to them who are the called accord"ing to his purpose."

It was probably on account of the Doctor's great services, this way to this illustrious Queen, that Prince Rupert, one of her sons, in the time of the civil war, coming to Newbury, where the Doctor was minister, behaved to him with the greatest courtesy and familiarity; making him large promises, if he would be of the court

VOL. III.

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party,