Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

and could speak with ability upon those subjects in which he was professionally conversant.

As all the places where the Ark of God rested were blessed by the divine presence, which was more especially resident therein; so the places in which he resided were all improved by his care and bounty. In the parish of St. Giles he fixed a rate for the better maintenance of the place, and repaired the house. In the treasury of Pembroke Hall, which he found empty, he left a thousand pounds. As residentiary of St. Paul's, he built the house in Creed Lane belonging to his prebend, and recovered it to the Church. He repaired the Dean's lodgings in Westminster. When he came to Chichester, he repaired the palace there, and the house in Aldingbourne. As Bishop of Ely, he spent in repair of Ely-house, in Holborn, of Ely Palace, at Downham, and Wisbeach, Castle, two thousand pounds. At Winchester house, at Farnham, at Waltham, and Wolvesey, he likewise. spent two thousand pounds.

[ocr errors]

He plainly loved the interest of the churches in which he was promoted and lived, better than he did his own. He laid out large sums, as we have seen, upon his episcopal houses; and gave to his most gracious Sovereign King James at Farnham, a magnificent entertainment, which cost him in three days three thousand pounds; besides for the benefit of his successors, he refused to make certain leases in his latter years, which might have been very beneficial to himself: assigning as a reason, that Many are too ready to spoil bishopricks, and few enough to uphold them." He moreover gave much alms in his lifetime, and at his death was free from all imputation of avarice and love of money. He regarded the advice of St. John, "Love not the world, neither the things of the world;" he used them as a steward; and by his faithful and prudent use of them, purchased for: himself an everlasting treasure in Heaven. He intermeddled but little in the management of his accounts, but left his brother to settle them with his officers; and when he began to make his will at Waltham a year be-fore his death, he understood not his own estate. Hence. in the first draught of his will, he gave but little to his relations, fearing lest he might bequeath more than he had; and therefore, in a codicil annexed to his will, he doubled all his legacies to them, and made every hundred two, and every two hundred four. Notwithstand

ing this addition, he yet gave more to the maintenance of learning, and to the poor, than to his own relations charity and the love of God and the poor, in him, were greater than natural affection; and yet in natural affec tion was he by no means deficient.

[ocr errors]

It was said of Titus, the admired Emperor of Rome, "Abstinuit alieno, ut si quis unquam." This was equally true of this disinterested prelate. But to the higher praise of him may it be said, "Distribuit sua, ut si quis unquam:" if ever any man was ready to do good, and distribute his own, surely this was the man.

Nor were these sacrifices, which are pleasing to God, offered only at the approach of death, and his goods then distributed when he could no longer keep them; to the parish of St. Giles he continued his charity, and gave a certain alms, ten pounds per annum, in quarterly payments by equal portions, and twelvepence every Sunday he came to church, and five shillings at every communion; and for many years after he left that cure, he sent five pounds about Christmas, besides a number of gowns to the poor women of that parish when he was almoner. It is to be presumed that his beneficence was likewise extended to those other parishes mentioned in his will, to which he also gave legacies: to St. Giles's, where he had been Vicar, one hundred pounds: to Allhallowes, Barking, where he was born, twenty pounds to St. Martin's, Ludgate, where he dwelt, five pounds:" to St. Andrew's, Holborn, where Ely-house stood, ten pounds and to the parish of St. Saviour, Southwark, where he died, twenty pounds. These parishes he desired might be partakers of his alms, when the purchase of certain lands had been made for the relief and use of the poor.

When he came to Oxford, attending King James in the end of his progress, his custom was to send fifty pounds to be distributed among poor scholars. He did the same at Cambridge, in his journey to Ely. And lest his "left hand should know what his right hand did," he sent large alms to many poor places, under others names. He waited not till the poor sought for him; he first sought out them, as those who were employed by him in this service can testify, at Farnham, at Waltham, and Winchester. In the last year of the epidemical sickness, he gave in the parish of St. Saviour, a hundred marks. And, since the year 1620, according to the information

of

of those who kept his accounts, and delivered him the money, he gave in private alms to the amount of one thousand three hundred and forty pounds.

The total of the pious and charitable bequests mentioned in his will, amounted to the sum of 63261. Of which he gave to Pembroke Hall, for the foundation of fellowships, and other uses mentioned in the codicil, 1000l. to purchase lands of the annual value of 501, for that purpose: he gave beside a bason and ewer, like that of the Foundress, and some books. He bequeathed 40001. to purchase annuities of 2001. of which he left 501, to aged poor men; 501. to poor widows, the wives of one husband; 501. for the purpose of apprenticing poor or phans; and 50l. to prisoners.

He was always a diligent and laborious preacher; very careful and exact in the composition of his most solemn sermons; few of which were preached, before they had been thrice revised. They had the general approbation of the Court, before which they were chiefly preached, and added greatly to his reputation. Though he was a frequent preacher, he ever disliked those loose and hasty sermons which were written without a previous study of antiquity; and he would reprove himself with this saying, that" when he preached twice a day at St. Giles's, he prated once." As the weakness and infirmity of his body rendered him unable to preach, he went less frequently to court; not so much from bodily weakness, as from an inability to preach.

After he had an episcopal palace and chapel, he held monthly communions inviolably, even though he had received at court, the same month. In the discharge of this sacred office, his behaviour was decent, religious, and exemplary: he always offered twice at the altar, and so did every one of his servants, to whom he gave money for that purpose, that it might not be burthensome to them.

He found much fault with, and reproved, three sins, which were common and predominant in his time. Usury was one; from which by his sermons, and by private conferences, he withdrew many. Another was Simony, for which he endured many troubles. In the disposal of his own preferments, he seldom gave a benefice to any who petitioned or made suit for it: but rather sent for eminent men, who he thought wanted preferment; and often gave places and benefices, under seal, to persons;

before

before they knew of it, as to Mr. Boys, and Mr. Fuller. The third and greatest sin was Sacrilege, which he abhorred, as one principal cause among many, of foreign and civil wars in Christendom, and of the invasions by the Turks. Even the reformed, and otherwise true professors and servants of Christ, because they had taken God's portion, and applied it to publick and profane uses, or to private advancement, suffered just chastisement and correction at God's hand: and at home it had been observed, and he wished some one would take the pains to collect, how many families, that were raised by the spoils of the Church, had now vanished, and "the place thereof knew them no more."

According to the Apostle's direction, this pious prelate "continued instant in prayer," and spent a great part of five hours, every day, in prayer and devotion to God. After the death of his brother Mr. Thomas Andrewes, whom he tenderly loved, in the time of the pestilential sickness, he began to foretel that his own great change would take place before the end of the summer, or the beginning of winter. And when his brother Mr. Nicholas Andrewes died, he considered that as a certain prognostic and warning of his own approaching death; and henceforward to the hour of his dissolution, he spent all his time in prayer. His prayer book, when he was in private, was seldom out of his hands. In the time of his fever and last illness, besides the frequent prayers which were read to him, in which he repeated all the parts of the confession and other petitions, with an audible voice, as long as his strength lasted; he continually prayed to himself, as was plainly observed by certain tokens in him, though he appeared otherwise to rest and slumber. When he could pray no longer with his voice, yet by lifting up his eyes and hands he prayed still; and when voice, and eyes, and hands failed in their office, in heart he still prayed, until it pleased God to receive his blessed soul unto himself.

Thus his mortal existence ended, and he died peaceably and quietly in the Lord; but his life shall have no end: his life rather then began when his mortality had an end: that was his proper birth-day, the commencement of a new and eternal life, September 25, 1626, being Monday, about four o'clock in the morning. The change was doubtless most desirable and happy to himself, though deeply to be regretted by the Church of Eng

land

land and all Christendom; who were thereby deprived of a prelate, furnished with extraordinary endowments of learning and knowledge, with great innocency and holiness of life, and with exemplary piety and charity.

He was a most able preacher and writer, yet more distinguished by his pious and charitable actions; an eminent example of learning and virtue. His virtue was comparable to that which we are wont to admire in the primitive bishops of the Church. His learning was as well known abroad, as respected at home: there was hardly any kind of it to which he was a stranger; but in that learning which belonged to his profession he excelled. None was more powerful in controversy; as Bellarmine felt, who was himself as able an opponent as any that defended the Romish party. None more exact, more judicious than he, where he was to instruct and inform others. And yet this fulness of material learning left room enough in him for the acquisition of almost all languages, ancient and modern; so that his learning had all the helps which language can afford; and his language learning enough for the best of them to express. His judgment in the mean time so regulated and commanded both, that neither of them was suffered idly, or curiously to start from, or fall short of, their intended scope; so that it might more truly be said of him, than was sometime said of Claudius Drusus, "He had as many, and as great virtues, as human nature could receive, or human industry make perfect." In his life he was most innocent, in knowlege and learning most flourishing and eminent, in behaviour most holy and devout: his general carriage was so happy, that it extorted even involuntary commendation: "they that spake truth of him, could not but speak well of him; and if they spake falsely of him, his life and manners did confute them."

But the following inscription, written to perpetuate the memory of this venerable prelate, will be the best recapitulation of the several virtues of his life and character before mentioned :

Lector,

Si Christianus es, siste:
Moræ pretium erit,

Non nescire te, qui vir hic situs sit:
Ejusdem tecuin Catholicæ Ecclesiæ membrum,
Fol. VIII. Churchm. Mag. Jan. 1805.

C Sub

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »