great moment and importance, and whereon their children's temporal and spiritual comfort so much depends. Children are the parent's best and chiefest temporal goods, wherein they have a special and peculiar right, interest, and property.

"And therefore from these premises, it is highly reasonable to conclude, that children ought not, for the gratifying their own fancies or imaginations, to contract or marry themselves; nay, not so much as to make or give way to any overtures or addresses, whether by word or writing, without first acquainting their parents, either of themselves, or by some other hand, of the persons proposed, or that they may have in their eye, and asking their direction therein, and obtaining their consent thereunto.

"And as this is manifestly the children's duty, so parents must not impose upon their children, but be tender towards them, and readily give them their counsel and consent in the case of marriage, when they have well and duly considered the matter, and do find no just or lawful cause to the contrary. As Solomon saith,Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman that feareth the Lord she shall be praised,' Prov. xxxi. 30. So saith the son of Sirach, Marry thy daughter, and so shalt thou have performed a weighty matter; but give her to a man of understanding,' Ecclesiasticus, vii. 25.

"And that both parents and children may take right steps in this great and weighty affair, let them wait in humility and self-denial upon the Lord, that he may choose husbands and wives for their children, persons that fear the Lord, and walk in his holy truth. He is nigh unto those that humbly wait upon him, and will be found of those who truly seek him. Marriages of his making will undoubtedly have his blessing, if the parties live in sincere love to him, and cordial affection to one another: what happy couples were Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel! The Lord brought them together by his singular providence, and they living and abiding in his fear, he surrounded them with his favour, and crowned them with the blessings of heaven and earth. They had not the blessings only of the lower springs, but also of the upper. That their example may be our children's copy, who by walking in their steps, may also come to partake of the same felicity, is the fervent breathing of my soul, to the God of Isaac and Jacob, who is the same that ever he was, merciful and gracious, and keepeth his covenant with his people, from generation to generation.”

On the 6th of the Third Month, 1711, he was taken with a fever, but by the blessing of God upon the use of means, recovered in about ten day's time. And on the 2d of the First Month following, he was again visited with the same distemper. His patience and resignation of mind under these visitations; as well as his grateful sense of the goodness of God in restoring him again to health, cannot be better expressed, than in his own account of the latter of those sicknesses, which we therefore here subjoin in his own words.

"The 2d of the First Month, it pleased the Lord, my heavenly Father, to chastise me in his tender love, with a fever; under which I was enabled, by his grace and Holy Spirit, to give up, in resignation to his holy will and pleasure, whether it was for life or for death. He was graciously pleased to visit me with his salvation, and to give me a lively sense and evidence of his love to my soul in Christ Jesus, assuring me, by the testimony of his good Spirit in my heart, that all my past transgressions were fully and freely pardoned, for the sake of his beloved Son Christ Jesus, through a true and unfeigned repentance, and sincere faith in Christ, the only propitiatory sacrifice for sin, and one Mediator, Advocate, and Intercessor, through whom alone access is had to, and acceptance with God. My soul,-blessed for ever be his excellent name!—was in a heavenly frame, I felt his life-giving presence, and had a hope towards God, that when it should please him to remove my soul out of this earthly tabernacle, being washed, sanctified, and justified freely by his grace, it should be received into his everlasting kingdom of glorious bliss and immortality. But he was graciously pleased to bless means for my recovery, and to restore me to such a measure and degree of health,--for ever magnified be his name!-that on the 8th day I was enabled to go down into the parlour. Dr. Freemen was my physician, the instrument, but the Lord alone was the author of my recovery. And therefore unto him alone, and not to man or means, I

humbly, heartily, and thankfully ascribe the mercy of my deliverance from this sickness.

"Grant, Lord! I earnestly beseech thee, that the sense of this, and all other thy mercies to me, may remain with me; and that I may, as long as life shall last, give diligence, through thy Holy Spirit's influence and assistance, to improve the few days I have to live, to thy honour and glory; waiting for thy salvation, according to thy word; expecting every day to be my last, always looking unto Jesus, that as he has been the author, so he would be the finisher of my faith, and perfect the good work of righteousness and holiness, which he has graciously begun, and is carrying on in me.

Amen.

"In the 63d year of my age."

Amen.

"RICHARD CLARIDGE."

CHAPTER XI.

In the year 1712, Richard Claridge published "An Apology for John Bocket's Gentile Divinity and Morality, and those People who neither in former Ages had, nor at this Day, have the Holy Scriptures afforded to them;" wherein he proves the universality of the divine light; and that the faithful, even among the heathen, have been accepted according to their obedience thereunto.

In the latter end of the year 1713, being the 64th of his age, beginning to be sensible of a decay of his wonted strength and vigour, and finding the fatigue of his employment disagreeable to the infirmities of age; and having, through the blessing of God, a competent estate for his subsistence, he left off keeping school, and removed from Tottenham to George's Court, near Hicks's

Hall, London, where he dwelt the remainder of his days.

In the year, 1714, a Bill depending before the parliament, to prevent the growth of schism, intended to suppress the schools of all dissenters; he published on that occasion the several papers following,

"Reasons against the Bill to prevent the Growth of Schism."

"If ever the practice of moderation were seasonable, it may be supposed now, when, for aught we know, the lasting happiness of the kingdom and the church, may depend immediately upon this rare and desirable temper, acknowledged of all most excellent.'-Dr. Fuller's Moderation of the Church of England, in his preface to the reader, p. 1.

"Moderation is a virtue, and one of the peculiar ornaments and advantages of the excellent constitution of our church, and must at last be the temper of her members, especially the clergy, if ever we seriously intend the firm establishment of the church, and do not industriously design, by cherishing heats and divisions among ourselves, to let in Popery at these breaches.'Archbishop's Tillotson's Preface to Bishop Wilkins's Sermons, p. 2, 3.

"Ammianus Marcellinus informs us, that the Emperor Valentinian, became renowned by the moderation of his government, In that he interposed not in the diversities of opinions, so as to disturb or punish any of his people; laying no injunctions on their belief, nor with threatening edicts, made his subjects bow their necks to the worship that himself espoused; but left all things of that kind, in the same posture as he found them.'-Stubb's Essay, in Defence of the Good Old Cause, p. 67. "It was the prayer of King Charles I. That men might be kept in a pious moderation of their judgments in matters of religion.-Eik. Basil. Sect. 16. And that among all parties pious ambition, might be stirred up, to overcome each other, with reason, moderation, and such self-denial, as becomes those who consider that our mutual divisions are our common distractions, and the union of all is every man's chiefest interest,—Ibid. Sect. 19.

"Heresy and schism, as they are in common use, are two theological scarecrows, which they who uphold a party in religion use to fright away such as, making inquiry into it, are ready to relinquish or oppose it, if it appear either erroneous or suspicious,'-John Hales of Schism, p. 1.

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Brief Notes, by Way of Query, upon the Bill to prevent the Growth of Schism," &c.

"I. Whether it be agreeable to the law of God, to deprive parents of the liberty of educating their children, according to their own persuasion ?

"II. Whether parents, if not capable to instruct them themselves, are not the most proper persons to choose such masters or tutors, as they think best, since their love and affection to them must need exceed that of others?

"III. Whether this is not most consonant to the law of nature, the dictates of right reason, and the universal consent and practice of mankind?

"IV. Whether the schism, as mentioned in the bill, lies in teaching Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and other languages; or rather, in not conforming to the Church of England?

"V. If the schism lies in not conforming to the Church of England; then whether this bill, if passed into a law, will not deprive Protestant dissenters of the liberty granted by the Act of Exemption or Toleration, and subject them to such penalties, as by the said act they are exempted from?

"VI. Whether the imposing or inflicting penalties upon Protestant dissenters, for not conforming to the Church of England, is not a force upon their consciences, and consequently plain persecution?

"VII. If Julian the Apostate (to his perpetual infamy) was the first that prohibited Christians the choice of schoolmasters for their children; will it be commendable for a Christian legislature to write after his copy?

"VIII. Whether it is not as natural for men to have different opinions, as to have different complexions; and as impossible, by laws or penalties, to alter the one as the other?

"IX. Whether the passing of this bill will not make more dissenters than conformists, since it is natural for men to hate persecution?

"X. Whether the mutual exercise of love and forbearance