This was one paragraph in a commencement-oration pronounced by the Lactantius of New-England. And that stroke, which this very person had in an elegy, by him composed on the death of his dearest Shepard. They that can Shepard's goodness well display,

Must be as good as he: but who are they?

He did himself make a near essay towards the doing of it, and in my thought, he was, according to his own rule, well qualified for the doing of it.

§ 5. But if the reader must have one in all things, as good as he, to display his goodness, behold then he shall effectually, and not improperly do it himself. Let the reader peruse his elaborate sermon, preached at the anniversary election of the governour and magistrates in Boston, May 5, 1672, and afterwards printed; and he will there see constellated so much learning, wisdom, holiness and faithfulness, that he will pronounce the author to have been a person of more than common talents for the service of our churches.

imitation, as an illustrious pattern of true piety and virtue: în him, as for example's sake, remained the imprint of his ancient office. He did not follow empty applause, or permit himself to be led astray by a delusive phantom of glory, or insolently magnify himself. Far, far was he from all pride and disdain of others. With all his wonderful gifts, which yielded him so much honor, authority and favor, he yet shed around him the soft light of extreme humility: and a rare virtue (it is claimed) is honored lowliness. It is an ancient saying, that "one man is no man.” With no less truth can I assert, that to me "one man was ten thousand men." I assent in full to the testimony of Nazianzen, that "apart from friendship, there is no zest to life." Alas for me! how melancholy a void has he left me! He was so dear to me-so pleasant-that at the sight of him every grief was forgotten, and every care that touched me utterly dissipated. Well do I remember how, in the midst of his discourse, that calm face and mien, "so full (to quote Ovid's expression) of serene dignity," would fix its gaze on me! In my view, he appeared so great a feature in these college festivals, that he brought to my mind what Cicero states of Antomachus Clavius, the poet; who recited to his assembled auditory from a large volume which he had composed, until all left him in the midst of his reading except Plato. "I will still read on,” said the poet, "for Plato alone is to me equal to them all." In like manner was Shepard (I would speak without offence) to me another Plato-the equal of all the rest. Letters cannot describe how, at Commencement, his pleasant countenance cheered and refreshed me, toiling through my concluding remarks. But Shepard will not appear to-day to grace this occasion. I turn my eyes hither and thither; wherever they fall, they still search, even amid this reverend assembly, for my Plato: yet no where can I trace out, on this solemn occasion, among these venerable theologians, these supervisors of the college, my friend and intimate. We have lost that most saintly man and ardent defender of the orthodox faith, who was not only pleasing and acceptable to men, but dear to God; "a man intimate with his Maker," as Tertullian describes Abraham. Wherefore, most honored friends, mourn the loss of a citizen who was always true to the best party and the best measures; the crown and ornament of your commonwealth; by whose death, I might almost say, your commonwealth itself is swept away. Mourn, reverend elders, the loss of a dear brother and fellow, the honor and chief light of your order. Mourn, citizens of Charlestown, for your excellent bishop, once your delight and love, ravished from your gaze. Mourn, sons of Harvard, your most watchful supervisor, by whose decease, as all understand, the dignity of this institution is immensely diminished and its safety endangered. Mourn, all who hear me, for the loss of a perfect man-"the chariot of Israel and the horsemen thereof”—most worthy to be mourned evermore with the tears of New England. If I seem to dwell too long and be carried too far in discussing this theme, bear me witness that you think some license should be granted to grief like mine. You see me plunge into the praises of our dear Shepard as into an ocean, and that it is hard for me to find bounds either for praise or for sorrow.

CHAPTER VII.

ST. STEPHEN'S RELIQUES.

MEDITATIONS, AWAKENED BY THE DEATH OF THE REVEREND MR. JOSHUA MOODEY;

WITH SOME SHORT CHARACTER OF THAT EMINENT PERSON:

Who slept in Jesus 4d. 5m., 1697, in the 65th Year of his Age.

BY COTTON MATHER. THE SECOND EDITION.

Josh. xxiv. 22, 23. 29.-JOSHUA said unto the people, ye have chosen you the Lord, to serve Him. Now therefore, incline your heart unto the Lord. And it came to pass, after these things, that Joshua, the servant of the Lord, dyed.

READER, tell me not that the people's being taken with Publicola's funeral oration in praise of the dead Brutus, or the decree of the Roman Senate, that it should be lawful to make a funeral oration on such as deserved well of the commonwealth, made Polydore Virgil say, Hinc mortuos laudandi mos fluxit, quem nos hodie servamus.* The book of Lamentations, on the death of Josiah, is of an elder date; the Roll of Lamentations on the death of Jonathan, is of yet an elder; and certainly to be imitated among the faithful people of God. Tell me not that some eminent Nonconformists have therefore scrupled the preaching of any funeral sermons: that in some Reformed churches, the practice of them is wholly omitted; that in the Primitive churches they were not practiced until the apostacy began; and that there have been decrees of councils against them. I readily grant that the custom of praising the dead, has been scandalously abused; but I cannot grant that the abuse is best corrected by taking away all publick meditations on the funerals of those in whose deaths God from heaven speaks great things unto the living. We do but wisely fulfil our ministry by watching, to suit the words of God unto those works of his, which occur to our notice when men of note are taken away. Behold, according to the laudable usage in the churches of New-England, the meditations which have been awakened by the falling asleep of an eminent person, who was "a memorable servant of those churches!" I am out of measure astonished, when I read in an author as old and as great as Austin, the wonderful effects which the pretended reliques of the Martyr Stephen had upon those who repaired thereunto for the cure of maladies. llowbeit, when I find that great man, in his epistle to the clergy of Hippo, denying that any miracles were then done in Africa, (which he also again said in his book, (De Utilitate Credendi,†) and in his book of True Religion, affirming that God permitted not miracles to continue until then, lest the minds of men should be too much taken up with visible matters, I perswade myself, that the story of the reliques of Stephen was foisted into his ⚫ Hence originated the custom of eulogizing the dead, which we still observe. On the Utility of Faith.

book, De Civitate Dei,* by some later hand. The best sort of reliq after all, are those which we have here preserved and proposed; an will be no superstition to hope, that a cure of spiritual maladies too g erally prevailing, may be promoted by repairing unto them. And I not more question the opinion of a very learned man concerning the ang whom we find mentioned in the Scriptures as doing very humane acti Veros homines fuisse, qui a Spiritu Messiæ, et a spiritibus angelicis ageban et movebantur ad ea agenda, quæ ipsi non intelligebant, phantasia eor obsessa, et a cogitationibus consuetis abducta: Qui homines, negotio peracto, quod fuerant à Deo adhibiti, discusso veterno, et cessante ecstasi, ad cons munera reversi sunt, immemores eorum, quæ impulsore Spiritu Divino angelico egerant: than I do believe that, in our actions, there is an im tion of the holy angels to be endeavoured, by which a man may beco another Stephen.

THE WAY TO EXCEL.

Acts vi. 15.-Looking steadfastly on him, they saw his face, as it had been the face of an AN

SINCE the oracles of Heaven have (with a most significant admonition allowed a well-served church to call its pastor by the name of its an we may now say, "the angel of the church of Portsmouth has new taken wing!" Yea, not the least of the "angelical chariots and horseme of New-England, have departed from us, in the withdrawing of one, af whom that bereaved church is crying, "My Father, My Father!"

To preserve the idea and memory of his face, as far as the infirmit of this mortal state permitted any approaches to the angelical character it, is that whereto not only nature does invite us: Twill be but a co pliance with that edict of heaven, "Remember them who have spoken you the word of God; whose faith follow, considering the end of the conversation."

'Tis well known, that among the chief works of the Most High, creat by the Son of God, at the first beginning of time, there were his "go angels:" Angels, which are spiritual and rational substances, created the Lord for his own immediate service and honour. None deny, no dispute, the existence of those good angels, but men that are under a mo than ordinary possession of evil ones.

Our Lord Jesus Christ has given it, as a description of that future stat wherein he will make us happy for ever, (Mat. xxii. 30,) "They are as th angels of God in heaven." And if we hope to be happy in that futu state, we must endeavour to anticipate it, by being very holy in our pre

* Concerning the City of God.

+ These have been real living men, who were acted upon by the spirit of the Messiah and by angelic inte gences; and also were moved to actions, which they did not themselves comprehend, originating in a sort of h lucination, and apart from their usual course of thought. Those men, when they have fulfilled the special missi to which God has called them, have shaken off their lethargy, come out of their ecstatic state, and returned their ordinary duties; entirely unconscious of what they had done, while under the influence of the Divine Spi and the angelic agency.

ent state. But the way for us to be very holy, is to resemble and imitate the "angels of God in heaven," while we are on earth, as far as we are able. Every holy man does a little of this: and how much of it was done by that holy man who is now gone to live and praise, and see CHRIST among the angels for ever, may be proposed with some advantage unto the abortation, wherein I have a "few things to preach unto the people." But my exhortation must be introduced with a report of that glory, which the Martyr Stephen, while he was yet on earth, attained unto. There being occasion to choose deacons in the primitive church, that so they who were to give themselves continually unto the "ministry of the Ford" might be released, by the faithful cares of those deacons, from secular encumbrances; one of them was the blessed Stephen; who being the first that arrived unto the "crown of martyrdom" for our Lord Jesus in the New-Testament, had in the name of Stephen, which signifies, a , a notable specification of the event and reward which will attend all our sufferings for the Lord.

It was then an age of many miracles wrought by the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ; and such a measure of that Spirit possessed this excellent man, that by the impulse of that Spirit, he could with all assurance perceive when the Spirit was going to work miracles, and apply himself to accompany the miracles of the Spirit, by some wonderful actions of his own. This illustrious worker of miracles was accused before the Council at Jerusalem for saying that it was the design of Jesus to destroy the temple and the city, and alter the rites which Moses had from God commanded unto Israel. When he appeared before the Council to answer this accusation, 'tis here said: "They saw his face, as it had been the face of an angel."

Concerning the "face of an angel," we have a remarkable account in what we read about one of the angels in Mat. xxviii. 3: His "countennce was like lightning." And we read concerning a great man, who had got the "face of an angel" by being much with the angels, in Exod. xxxiv. 10: "Behold, the skin of his face shone." If we carry the passage now before us unto the highest sense which it would lay claim unto, we are to suppose, that such a splendor was discernible upon the face of Stephen: And surely, if they who discerned it had not the heart of a devil in them, they durst not have gone on to abuse a man that appeared before them with the "face of an angel." Alas, the more of an angel there is in any man, the more stones will the devil procure to be thrown at such a man! Bat behold the agreeableness of the matter: Stephen was persecuted for vilifying of Moses; and, behold, at this very time, he is vindicated with a aline upon his face, like that once upon the face of Moses. The things here spoken by Stephen, were those very things which the angel Gabriel had formerly spoken unto the prophet Daniel; and, behold, the aspect of an angel adorns him in his discourse.

We may from hence take leave to observe, "that a saint on earth, may arrive to those attainments that shall make him look like an angel of heaven."

There are angelical excellencies, a degree whereof, poor man, sorry man, sinful man, even while such, may very much attain unto.

But now, this CASE calls for our attention: "What are those excellencies that would make a saint look like an ANGEL?"

And the general answer hereunto is, "the excellencies of holiness." For

First, The angels of God have many excellencies, the imitation whereof cannot by men, in this life, be reasonably proposed. The angelical ma jesty, as a mortal eye would not be able steadily to behold it, much less, in this mortal state may we affect it. A man may not wish to shine like Stephen in this world, and have a face that may dazzle the spectators. Or, what would it avail, if a man could make a glare on his face, by smearing it with some of the noctiluca's invented by the modern chymistry? A devil has, before now, pretended unto such a face. 'Tis not the face, but the grace of an angel, which is here to be aspired after. It were a foolish and a faulty thing for any man to be ambitious of wearing in this world such a figure as that in Dan. x. 6: "His body like the beryl, and his face as the appearance of lightning, and his eyes as lamps of fire." Immortality itself is one of the angelical excellencies. But, while we are among mortals here, we must submit unto the laws of mortality, and be willing to dye when and how the Sovereign God shall order it. There are also those flights of wisdom, and those heights of power among the angelical excellencies, wherein 'tis not for us to dream of being like thein, until we are become "the children of the resurrection." It was the ruine of our first parents to imagine in Gen. iii. 5, they "might be as Elohim!" No, this cannot be, until our Lord Jesus Christ has by a new birth brought us into that world to come, where the "wise converters of many to righteousness," will be those who shall "shine as the brightness of the firmament, and as the stars for ever and ever!" Our Lord Jesus Christ will make us the angels of the new world. Indeed, the angels now turn and move all the wheels of the "kingdoms of this world," but we are they that shall "receive the kingdom that cannot be moved."

But, secondly, The excellencies of holiness [for, the saints are the excel lencies!] These are they, wherein the imitation of the angels by men, may be very far proceeded in. The angels of God, are styled in Mat. xxv. 31, "The holy angels;" and in Dan. iv. 17, "The holy ones." "Tis not as they are mighty angels, but as they are holy angels, that we must propound our coming to look like unto them. These holy angels never did and never will sin against their God; but are continually serving of him: "They serve him day and night in his temple!" And it may the "bright garments," wherein these "angels of light" have appeared,

be