valued, and defired to appear in, both to God and the world, than in all the triumphs of wit and gallantry; and, therefore, (waving all these rhetorical flourishes, as beneath the folemnity of the occafion, and the majesty of that great and weighty truth I am now to deliver,) I fhall content myself with the office of a plain hiftorian, to relate faithfully and impartially what I faw and heard, efpecially during his penitential forrows; which, if all that hear me this day had been spectators of, there would then have been no need of a fermon to convince men; but every man would have been as much a preacher to himself of this truth as I am, except these forrows and yet even these forrows fhould be turned into joys too, if we would only do what we pray for, that the will of God may be done in earth as it is in heaven; for fo our bleffed Lord affures us: "I fay "unto you, that likewife joy fhall be in heaven "over one finner that repenteth," &c. From which I fhall confider,

I. The finner particularly that is before us.

II. The repentance of this finner, together with the means, the time, and all probable fincerity of it.

III. The joy that is in heaven, and fhould be on earth, for the repentance of this finner.

IV. I fhall apply myself to all that hear me; that they would join in this joy, in praise and thanks

giving

giving to God, for the converfion of this finner ; and, if there be any that have been like him in their fins, that they would also speedily imitate him in their repentance.

And, 1. Let us confider the perfon before us, as he certainly was a great finner. But, becaufe man. was upright before he was a finner, and, to meafure the greatnefs of his fall; it will be neceffary to take a view of that height from which he fell, give me leave to go back a little, to look into the rock from which he was hewn, the quality, family, education, and perfonal accomplishments, of this great man. In doing of which, I think no man will charge me with any defign of cuftomary Aattery or formality; fince I intend only thereby to fhew the greatness and unhappiness of his folly, in the perverting fo many excellent abilities and advantages for virtue and piety in the fervice of fin, and fo becoming a. more univerfal; infinuating, and prevailing, example of it.

As for his family, on both fides, from which he was defcended, they were fome of the moft'famous in their generations: His grandfather was that excellent and truly great man, Charles, lord Wilmot; . viscount Athlone in Ireland. Henry, his father,. who inherited the fame title and greatnefs, was by his late majefty, king Charles I. created baron of Adderbury, in Oxfordshire, and, by his prefent majefty,

f

majefty, earl of Rochefter. He was a man of signal loyalty and integrity indeed; and of fuch courage and conduct in military affairs as became a great general. His mother was the relict of fir Francis Henry Lee, of Ditchly, in the county of Oxford, baronet, grandmother to the prefent right honourable earl of Litchfield, and the daughter of that generous and honourable gentleman, fir John St. Johns, of Lyddiard, in the county of Wilts, baronet, whose family was fo remarkable for loyalty, that several of his fons willingly offered themselves in the day of battle, and died for it; and, whilst the memory of the English or Irish rebellion lafts, that family cannot want a due veneration in the minds of any perfon, that loves either God or the king.

As for his education, it was in Wadham College, Oxford, under the care of that wife and excellent governor, Dr. Blandford, the late bishop of Worcefter; there it was that he laid a good foundation of learning and ftudy, though he afterwards built upon that foundation hay and ftubble. There he first fucked from the breast of his mother, the univerfity, thofe perfections of wit, and eloquence, and poetry, which afterwards, by his own corrupt ftomach, were turned into poifon to himself and others; which certainly can be no more a blemish to those illuftrious feminaries of piety and good learning than a difobedient child is to a wife and

virtuous

t

virtuous father, or the fall of man to the excellency

of paradife.

A wit he had fo rare and fruitful in its invention, and withal so choice and delicate in its judgement, that there is nothing wanting in his compofures to give a full answer to that question, What and where -wit is except the purity and choice of fubject. For, had fuch excellent feeds but fallen upon good ground, and, inftead of pitching upon a beaft or a luft, been raised up on high, to celebrate the myfteries of the divine love, in pfalms, and hymns, and spiritual fongs; 1 perfuade myself we might, by this time, have received from his pen as excellent an idea of divine poetry, under the Gofpel, useful to the teaching of virtue, especially in this generation, as his profane verses have been to deftroy it. And I am confident, had God fpared him a longer life, this would have been the whole bufinefs of it, as I know it was the vow and purpose of his ficknefs.

His natural talent was excellent; but he had hugely improved it by learning and industry, being thoroughly acquainted with all the claffic authors, both Greek and Latin; a thing very rare, if not peculiar to him, among those of his quality: which yet, he ufed not, as other poets have done, to tranflate or fteal from them; but rather to better and improve them by his own natural fancy. And who

ever

ever reads his compofures will find all things in them fo peculiarly great, new, and excellent, that he will eafily pronounce that, though he has lent to many others, yet he has borrowed of none; and that he has been as far from a fordid imitation of those before him as he will be from being reached by thofe that follow him.

His other perfonal accomplishments in all the perfections of a gentleman, for the court or country, whereof he was known of all men to be a very great master, it is no part of my business to defcribe or understand; and, whatever they were in themselves, I am fure they were but miferable comforters to him, fince they only miniftered to his fins, and made his example the more fatal and dangerous; for fo we may own, (nay, I am obliged by him not to hide, but to fhew, the rocks, which others may avoid,) that he was once one of the greatest of finners.

And truly none but one fo great in parts could be fo. His fins were like his parts, from which they sprang, all of them high and extraordinary. He seemed to affect fomething fingular and paradoxical in his impieties, as well as in his writings, above the reach and thought of other men; taking as much pains to draw others in, and to pervert the right ways of virtue, as the apoftles and primitive faints did to fave their own fouls and them that heard them. For this was the heightening and amazing