cation, the Bishop made the following reply::-"What your Lawyers may answer I know not; but for my part, where my Power will prevent it, I will take care that my Church shall sustain no loss whilst I live." The interest he took in the welfare of the Church generally appears from a Sermon he preached from Psalm lxix. 9:

The Zeal of

which he de

thine House hath eaten me up; livered before the Queen and her Court. He observed; "In other Countries the receiving of the Gospel hath always been the cause of Learning being more valued and Learning hath ever been the furtherance of the Gospel. In ENGLAND I know not how it cometh otherwise to pass; for since the Gospel hath been received, the maintenance for Learning hath been decayed; and the lack of Learning will be the decay of the Gospel." In another part he continues; "Those that should be fosterers of Learning, and increase the Livings had no zeal. Nay, the Livings and Provisions which were heretofore given to

this use are taken away."

Afterwards he

adds; "Whereas all other Labourers and Artificers have their hire increased double, as much as it was wont to be; only the poor man that laboureth and sweateth in the Vineyard of the Lord of Hosts hath his hire abridged and abated." And addressing himself to the Great Men, he concluded; "You enriched them who mocked, blinded, and devoured you; spoil not them now who feed, instruct, and comfort you." He seems here to have foreseen the ruin which overwhelmed the Reformed Church as well as the Monarchy, A. D. 1640, in which many of those Families whose Ancestors had enriched themselves with the Spoils of the Church were ruined. And such was the poverty of the Clergy at this period, caused by the alienation of Church Lands, and other property, that in many of the Market Towns people were obliged to pay preachers out of their own pockets.

to

He ever governed his own Diocese with the greatest possible diligence and anxiety for the prosperity of the Reformed Church, and the happiness of all who looked up him for instruction in divine knowledge; and when he perceived his Death approaching*, he undertook a new and more severe Visitation of it: correcting and reproving the Vices of the Clergy and Laity more sharply than he had hitherto done; enjoining them in some cases a portion of Holy Tracts to be learned by heart, conferring Orders more carefully, and himself preaching

*"God himself (says old Fuller in his quaint style) I rather believe gives his Saints sometimes warning to put their house in order before they are to leave it, either by visions in the night, as he forewarned Cyprian and Bradford of their Martyrdome; the one by fire, the other by the sword; or els by supernaturall illumination, as it seems hee assured Bishop Ridley, who crossing the Thames, when on a sudden at the arising of the Tempest, all were astonished, looking for nothing but to be drowned: Take heart,' saith he,

for this boat carrieth a Bishop that must be burnt, and not drowned.' And Jewell long before his sicknesse foretold the approaching, and in his sicknesse, the precise day of his death."-Fuller's Life of Jewell prefixed to his Works. fol. Ed. London. 1609.

oftener*. And by these increasing labours and watchful cares he reduced his feeble Body to so low a state, that as he rode to preach at Lacock, in Wiltshire, which he had promised to do, a gentleman in a very friendly and very pressing manner admonished him to return home for the sake of his health, saying; That such straining his Body in riding and preaching, being so exceedingly weak and ill affected, might bring him in danger of his Life; assuring him, that it was better the people should want one sermon, than be altogether deprived of such a Preacher.' To

* Hee governed with wonderfull care and vigilancy, not onely feeding the soules of his people, but also at all times distributing food to the bodies of the poore and distressed.— Lupton's Lives of the Modern Protestant Divines, p. 260. Lond. 1637.

Bishop Jewell in his Diocese of Sarum shined most brightly for eleven years, and after his extinction by death left a most sweet smell behind him, the savour of a good name, much more precious than oyntment, for his Apostolick doctrine and Saint-like life, and prudent government, and incorrupt integrity, unspotted chastity, and bountiful hospitality, so that many were brought to have a reverend opinion of Bishops for Jewell's sake.-Abel Redivivus, p. 306.

whom he replied; "It becometh best a Bishop to die preaching in the Pulpit:" Alluding perhaps to the Apophthegm of Vespasian,

66

Oportet imperatorem stantem mori*:" and seriously thinking upon the comfortable Assurance of his master, Happy art thou my servant, if when I come I find thee doing. Wherefore, that he might not deceive the People's expectation, he ascended the Pulpit; and now nothing but spirit (his flesh being pined away and exhausted) read his Text out of the fifth of Galatians, "Walk in the Spirit," and with much pain made an end of his discourse. Presently after the conclusion, his disease grew more violent; forced him to take to his bed, and to conclude that his dissolution was not far off. In the beginning of his extreme fits he made his Will, considering therein his brother, I. Jewell, and his friends with some kind remembrances; bestowing the rest with his accustomed liberality on his Servants, Scholars,

* Suet. in Vesp.