66 he had seen the salvation of God, he departed in peace on the fifteenth of July 1694, in the 64th year of his age. Thus lived and died Mr. Fleming, after he had served his day and generation. His Works are, ScriptureTruth cleared and confirmed, &c. The Confirming Work of Religion. His Epistolary Discourse. His well known book, The fulfilling of the Scriptures. He left a writing behind him under this title: A Short Index of some of the great Appearances of the Lord in the Dispensations of his Providence to his poor servants, &c." Reciting many particular providences which had attended his life. PHILIP HENRY. THE account of the life and death of this very excellent man was drawn up by his no less celebrated and excellent son, the Rev. Matthew Henry, (author of the Annotations on the Bible) and was first published in the year 1698. The piece itself is written in so true a strain of evangelical piety, and so just a temper of moderation, that, were it not for its great length, we should not deny our readers the gratification of reprinting the whole; as by extracting from and abridging it, we must necessarily omit many circumstances highly useful and instructive. We will, however, give our readers as much of it, as can possibly consist with our plan. Mr. PHILIP HENRY was born at Whitehall, in Westminster, on Wednesday, August 24, 1631. His father's name was John Henry, the son of Henry Williams, of Briton's Ferry, near Swanzea, in Glamorganshire, and the father's christian name became the son's surname, according to the old Welch custom. In his youth he was brought to court by the Earl of Pembroke, and, in course of time, was made page of the back-stairs to the King's second son, James, Duke of York. He lived and died a courtier, a hearty mourner for his royal master, King Charles I. whom he did not long survive. Mr. Philip Henry's mother was a very pious woman, and took great pains with him and her other children to bring them up in the fear of the Lord. A little before she she died, in 1645, she had this saying: 'My head is in heaven, and my heart is in heaven: It is but one step more, and I shall be there too." In 1643, about the twelfth year of his age, he was admitted into Westminster school under the great Dr. Busby, of whom he became a great favourite, both for his proficiency in learning and his amiable and decent deportment. He was employed by the doctor, with some other ingenious youths, to collect, in their reading of the Greek authors, some of the materials for that excellent Greek grammar, which the doctor afterwards published. On the 17th of May 1647, he was chosen from Westminster school to Christ's Church College in Oxford, jure loci, being then in his sixteenth year, and entered there in the December following. He was admitted student in March 1646, under the famous Dr. Hammond, then subdean, who called him his god-brother, the Earl of Pembroke being god-father to both. Here he duly performed the college exercises, disputations, &c. every day, in term time; themes and verses once a-week, and declamations when it came to his turn; in which performances he frequently came off with great applause: And many of his manuscripts, which remain, shew how well he improved his time there. And yet in some reflections I find under his hand, (continues his pious son) written long after (wherein he looks back upon his early days) he chargeth it upon himself, that for a good while after he went to the university (though he was known not to be inferior to any of his standing in public exercises yet) he was too much a stranger to that hard study which afterwards he became acquainted with, and that he lost a deal of time which might have been better improved. Thus he is pleased to accuse himself of that, which (for aught I ever heard) no one else did, or could accuse him of. But the truth is, in all the secret accounts he kept of himself, he appears to have had a very quick and deep sense of his own failings and infirmities in the most minute instances, the loss of time, weakness and distractions in holy duties; not improving opportunities of doing good to others, and the like; lamentably bewailing these imperfections, and charging them upon himself, with as great expressions of shame and sorrow, and self-abhorrence; and crying out as earnestly for pardon and forgiveness in the blood of Jesus, as if he had been the greatest of sinners: For though he was a man that walked very closely, yet he walked very humbly humbly with God, and lived a life of repentance and selfdenial. At the latter end of the year 1648, he had leave given him to make a visit to his father at Whitehall, with whom he staid some time; there he was January 30th, when King Charles was beheaded, and, with a very sad heart, he saw that tragical blow given. In the year 1651, he took his bachelor of art's degree; and he hath recorded the goodness of God, in raising him up friends, who helped him out in the expences. Such kindnesses have a peculiar sweetness in them to a good man, who sees and receives them, as the kindness of GOD, and as tokens of his love. In December 1652, he proceeded master of arts, and in January following preached his first sermon at SouthHinksey, near Oxford, on John viii. 34. Whosoever committeth sin, is the servant of sin. On this occasion he writes in his Diary, what was the breathing of his heart towards GOD: "The Lord make use of me, as an instrument " of his glory, and his church's good, in this high and "holy calling !" His great parts and improvements, notwithstanding his extraordinary modesty and humility, had made him so well known in the university, that, at the following act in July 1653, he was chosen, out of all the masters of that year, to be junior of the Act, that is, to answer the philosophy-questions in vesperiis, which he did with very great applause. He noted of some pious young men, that, before they removed from the university into the country, they kept a day of fasting and humiliation for the sins they had been guilty of in that place and state. And in the visits he made afterwards to the university, he inserts into his book, as no doubt God did into his. -" A tear dropt over my university sins." To this testimony of his son, we may add that of another great divine. Mr. Henry (says Dr. Bates) was ' dedicated to the service of God by his mother in his ' tender age. His first love and desires (when he was ca ८ pable of making a judicious choice) were set upon GOD." In the year 1653, soon after he had taken his master's dégree, he was called to assist in the cure of Worthenbury parish, by the river Dee in Flintshire, under the patronage of Mr. Puleston, a serjeant at law. Mr. Henry gives a very amiable character of this gentleman and his lady, and mentions, with great gratitude, his particular obligations gations to them. Here, by his close and practical preaching, he was made exceedingly useful, and wrought under GOD a wonderful change in his parish, which before was esteemed one of the most loose and profane places in all that country. We must not omit, that, in the latter part of his time at Oxford, as one grown weary of that which, he used to say, he found" little to his purpose," he employed his time mostly in searching the Scriptures, and collecting useful Scripture-observations, which he made very familiar to him, and with which he was thoroughly furnished for this good work. He interleaved a Bible, in which he wrote short notes upon texts of Scripture as they occurred. He would often say, "I read other " books, that I may be the better able to understand the " Scripture." It was a stock of Scripture-knowledge that he set up with, and with that he traded to good advantage. He continued for some years in the family of Mr. Puleston, where he laid out himself very much for their spiritual good, and even for the meanest of the servants, by catechizing, repeating the sermons, and personal instruc tion; and he had very much comfort in the countenance and conversation of the judge and his lady. Yet he complains sometimes in his Diary of the snares and temptations that he found in his way there, especially because some of the branches of the family, who did not patrizare, [or resemble the heads of it] were uneasy at his being there, which made him willing to remove to a house of his own, which when Judge Puleston perceived, he in the year 1657, out of his great kindness to him, built him a very handsome house in Worthenbury, and settled it upon him by lease, bearing date March 6th, 1657, for threescore years, if he should so long continue minister at Worthenbury, and not accept of better preferment. In the year 1659, he was, by a writing of Judge Puleston, collated and nominated to the church of Worthenbury, and (the powers that then were, having so appointed) he had an approbation thereof from the commissioners for approbation of public preachers. Being thus settled at Worthenbury, his next care was about his ordination to the work of the ministry, to which he would see his call very clear, before he solemnly devoted himself to it. And though afterwards, on reflection, (especially when he was silenced) it was some trouble to him that he had so long deferred to be ordained, ed, yet, as the times then were, there was something of a reason for it. The way and manner of his ordination was according to the known directory of the assembly of divines, and the common usage of the presbyterians. He applied himself diligently to his work at Worthenbury. The sphere was narrow, and too narrow for such a burning and shining light: There were but forty communicants in that parish, when he first set up the ordinance of the Lord's Supper; and they were never doubled: Yet he had such low thoughts of himself, that he not only never sought for a larger sphere, but would never hearken to any overtures of that kind made to him: And withal, he had such high thoughts of his work, and of the worth of souls, that he laid out himself with as much diligence and vigour here, as if he had had the over-sight of the greatest and most considerable parish in the country. His carriage towards the people of his parish was very exemplary; condescending to the meanest, and conversing familiarly with them; bearing with the infirmities of the weak, and becoming all things to all men. He was exceeding tender of giving offence, or occasion of grief to any body, minding himself in his Diary upon such occasions, that the wisdom that is from above, is pure, and peaceable, and gentle, &c. Yet he plainly and faithfully reproved what he saw amiss in any, and would not suffer sin upon them; mourning also for that, which he could not mend. He was about eight years from first to last at Worthenbury, and his labour was not altogether in vain. He had not been long at Worthenbury, but he began to be taken notice of by the neighbouring ministers, as likely to be a considerable man. Though his extraordinary modesty and humility (which even in his youth he was remarkable for) made him to sit down with silence in the lowest room, and to say as Elihu, Days shall speak, yet his eminent gifts and graces could not long be hid. He was often called upon to preach the week-day lectures, which were set up plentifully, and diligently attended upon in those parts, and his labours were generally very acceptable and successful. The general opinion fastened upon him the epithet of Heavenly Henry, by which title he was commonly known all the country over: And his advice was sought for by many neighbouring ministers and Christians; for he was one of those that found favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man. He was noted at his first setting out (as I have been told by one who was then intimately acquainted with him, and |