A learned and eminent dissenting minister, born at Southampton, in the year 1674, of parents who were distinguished by their piety and virtue. He died in 1748. He possessed an uncommon genius, of which he gave early proofs. He received a very liberal education, which was rendered highly beneficial to him by his own unwearied efforts to improve himself. After the most serious deliberation, he determined to devote his life to the ministry, of the importance of which [pg 419] office he had a deep and awful sense. He labored very diligently to promote the instruction and happiness of the people under his care, to whom, by his Christian conduct and amiable disposition, he greatly endeared himself.

Soon after he had undertaken the pastoral office, his health sustained a severe shock by a painful and dangerous illness, from which he recovered very slowly. But, in the year 1712, he was afflicted with a violent fever, that entirely broke his constitution, and left such weakness upon his nerves, as continued with him, in some measure, to his dying day. For four years he was wholly prevented from discharging the public offices of his station. Though this long interval of sickness was, no doubt, very trying to his active mind, yet it proved ultimately a blessing to him; for it drew upon him the particular notice of Sir Thomas Abney, a very pious and worthy man, who, from motives of friendship, invited him into his family, in which he continued to the end of his life, and, for the long space of thirty-six years, was treated with uniform kindness, attention, and respect.

This excellent man was, by his natural temper, quick of resentment; but, by his established and habitual practice, he was gentle, modest, and inoffensive. His tenderness appeared in his attention to children and to the poor. To the poor, while he lived in the family of his friend, he allowed the third part of his annual revenue; and for children, he condescended to lay aside the scholar, the philosopher, and the wit, to write little poems of devotion, and systems of instruction, adapted to their wants and capacities, from the dawn of reason, through its gradations of advance in the morning of life. Few men have left behind them such purity of character, or such monuments of laborious piety. He has provided instruction for all ages, from those who are lisping their first lessons, to the enlightened readers of Malebranche and Locke. His “Improvement of the Mind” is a work in the highest degree useful and pleasing. Whatever he took in hand was, by his incessant solicitude for souls, converted to theology. As piety predominated in his mind, it is diffused [pg 420] over his works. Under his direction, it may be truly said that philosophy is subservient to evangelical instruction: it is difficult to read a page without learning, or at least wishing to be better.

The virtue of this good man eminently appeared in the happy state of his mind under great pains and weakness of body, and in the improvement which he derived from them. Of those seasons of affliction, he says, with a truly elevated mind and thankful heart, “I am not afraid to let the world know that, amidst the sinkings of life and nature, Christianity and the gospel were my support. Amidst all the violence of my distemper, and the tiresome months of it, I thank God I never lost sight of reason or religion, though sometimes I had much difficulty to preserve the machine of animal nature in such order as regularly to exercise either the man or the Christian.”

The sweet peace of conscience he enjoyed under these trying circumstances, and the rational and Christian foundation of his hope and trust in the divine goodness, are beautifully and justly expressed by him, in the following lines:—