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And withal, in the midst of all these great accomplishments, as eminent and exemplary in unaffected humility and true lowliness of mind. And herein he was like to Moses, that servant and friend of GoD, who was most weak and lowly in heart, (as our Lord is also said to be, Matth. xi. in this, as in all other respects, greater than Moses, who was vir mitissimus) above all the men which were upon the face of the earth, Numb. xii. And thus he excelled others as much in humility as he did in knowledge, in that thing which, though in a less degree in some than in others, is apt to puff up and swell them with pride and self-conceit. But Moses was humble, though he was a person of brave parts, Ogomμati Yevalos, as Josephus speaks of him, and havΦρονηματι γενναίος, ing had the advantages of a most ingenuous education, was most admirably accomplished in the choicest parts of knowledge, and learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians; whereby some of the ancients understood the mysterious hieroglyphical learning, natural philosophy, music, physic, and mathematics. And for this last (to omit the rest) how excellent this humble man, the Author, was therein, did appear to those that heard him read a mathematical lecture in the schools for some years, and may appear hereafter to the reader, if those lectures can be recovered.

To conclude, he was a plain-hearted friend and Christian, one in whose spirit and mouth there was no guile; a profitable companion; nothing of vanity and triflingness in him, as there was nothing of sourness and stoicism. I can very well remember, when I have had private converse with him, how pertinently and freely he would speak to any matter proposed, how weightily, substantially, and clearly expressive of his sense his private discourses would be, and both for matter and language, much of the same importance and value with such exercises as he studied for, and performed in public.

I have intimated some things concerning the Author; much more might be added: But it needs not, there being (as I before insinuated) already drawn a fair and lively character of him by a worthy friend of his in the sermon preached at his funeral; for the publishing whereof and annexing it (as now it is) to those discourses, he was importuned by letters from several hands, and prevailed with: Wherein if some part of the character should seem to have in it any thing of

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hyperbole and strangeness, it must seem so to such only who either were unacquainted with him, and strangers to his worth, or else find it an hard thing not to be envious, and a difficulty to be humble. But those that had a more inward converse with him, knew him to be one of those of whom the world was not worthy, one of the excellent ones in the earth; a person truly exemplary in the temper and constitution of his spirit, and in the well ordered course of his life; a life unius quasi coloris, sine actionum dissentione (as I remember Seneca doth express it somewhere in his epistles,) all of one colour, every where like itself:' And eminent in those things that are worthy of praise and imitation. And certainly a just representation of those excellencies that shined in him, (as also a faithful celebration of the like accomplishments in others) is a doing honour to God, who is wonderful in his saints, (if I may with some apply to this sense that in Psalm lx.) and it may be also of great use to others, particularly for the awakening and obliging them to an earnest endeavouring after those heights and eminent degrees in grace and virtue and every worthy accomplishment, which by such examples they see to be possible and attainable through the assistances which the Divine Goodness is ready to afford those souls which press toward the mark, and reach forth to those things that are before.

The lives and examples of men eminently holy and useful in their generation, such as were patterns of good works, τυπον καλών έργων, are ever to be valued by us as great blessings and favours from heaven, and to be considered as excellent helps to the advancement of religion in the world: And therefore there being before us these xos qutuxo, living pictures', (as Basil speaks in his epistle, and a little afterwards in the same epistle) αγαλματα κινέμενα

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such moving and active statues,' fair ideas and lively patterns of what is most praise-worthy, lovely and excellent; it should be our serious care that we be not, through an unworthy and lazy self-neglect, ingentium exemplorum parvi imitatores, (small imitators of vast examples) to use Salvian's expression; it should be our holy ambition to transcribe their virtues and excellencies, to make their noblest and best accomplishments our own, by a constant endeavour after the greatest resemblance of them, and by being followers of them as they were also of Christ, who is the fair and bright exemplar of all purity and holiness,

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holiness, the highest and most absolute pattern of whatsoever is lovely and excellent, and makes most for the accomplishing and perfecting of human nature.'

His Works published are but few, but truly excellent; which makes us wish, that no part of his labours left in manuscript, had been withheld from the public. Dr. Worthington published a short quarto volume in 1660, entitled "SELECT DISCOURSES, treating, 1. Of the true Way or Method of attaining to Divine Knowledge. 2. Of Superstition. 3. Of Atheism. 4. Of the Immortality of the Soul. 5. Of the Existence and Nature of God. 6. Of Prophecy. 7. Of the Difference between the legal and the evangelical Righteousness, the old and the new Covenant, &c. 8. Of the shortness and vanity of a Pharisaic Righteousness. 9. Of the excellency and nobleness of true Religion. 10. Of a Christian's Conflicts with, and Conquests over, Satan."

WILLIAM GOUGE, D.D.

THIS excellent divine was born in Stratford, Bow, in the county of Middlesex, Nov. 1, 1575. His father was Mr. Thomas Gouge, a pious gentleman. His mother was the religious daughter of one Mr. Nicholas Culverel, a merchant in London; and sister of those two famous preachers, Mr. Samuel and Mr. Ezekiel Culverel Her two sisters were married to those two famous divines, Dr. Chadderton, master of Emanuel college, and Dr. Whitaker, the learned and devout professor of divinity in Cambridge. In his younger years he was first trained up in St. Paul's school, London, and afterwards was sent to the free school at Felstead, in Essex, where he was led on for three years under the public ministry of his uncle, Mr. Ezekiel Culverel, and thereby much wrought upon, and if not first begotten, yet much built up in his holy faith, as himself often expressed. From thence he was sent to Eton, where he was instructed for six years, during which time he was more than ordinarily studious and industrious; for, when other scholars upon play-days took their liberty for their sports and pastimes, he would be at his study, in which he took more delight than they could do at their recreations. At this time, when he was a scholar

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