more secret encouragement in their ill ways, than that those who pretended to believe, lived so that they could not be thought to be in earnest, when they said it. For he was sure religion was either a mere contrivance, or the most important thing that could be; so that if be once believed, he would set himself in great earnest to live suitably to it. The aspirings that he had observed at court, of some of the clergy, with the servile ways they took to attain to preferment, and the animosities among those of several parties, about trifles, made him often think they suspected the things were not true, which in their sermons and discourses they so earnestly recommended.

Of this he had gathered many instances. I knew some of them were mistakes and calumnies; yet I could not deny but something of them might be too true. And I publish this the more freely, to put all that pretend to religion, chicfly those that are dedicated to holy functions, in mind of the great obligation that lies on them to live suitably to their profession; since otherwise a great deal of the irreligion and atheism that is among us may too justly be charged on them: for wicked men are delighted out of measure when they discover ill things in them, and conclude from thence, not only that they are hypocrites, but that religion itself is a cheat.

But I said to him on this head, that though no good man could continue in the practice

of any known sin, yet such might, by the violence or surprise of temptation, to which they are liable as much as others, be of a sudden overcome to do an ill thing, to their great grief all their life after. And then it was a very unjust inference, upon some few failings, to conclude that such men do not believe themselves. But how bad soever many are, it cannot be denied but that there are, also many, both of the clergy and laity, who give great and real demonstrations of the power which religion has over them; in their contempt of the world, the strictness of their lives, their readiness to forgive injuries, to relieve the poor, and to do good on all occa sions. And yet even these may have their failings wherein their constitutions are weak, or their temptations strong and sudden. And in all such cases we are to judge of men, rather by the course of their lives, than by the errors that they, through infirmity or surprise, may have slipt into.

These were the chief heads we discoursed on; and as far as I can remember, I have faithful ly repeated the substance of our arguments. I have not concealed the strongest things hesaid to me; but tho I have not enlarged on all the excursions of his wit in setting them off, yet 1 have given them their full strength, as he expressed them; and,as far as I could recollect have used his own words. So that I am al

fraid some may censure me for setting down these things so largely, which impious men may make an ill use of, and gather together to encourage and defend themselves in their vices. But if they will compare them with the answers made to them, and the sense that so great and refined a wit had of them afterwards, I hope they may, through the blessing of God, be not altogether ineffectual.

The issue of all our discourse was this :He told me, he saw vice and impiety were as contrary to human society, as wild beasts let loose would be; and therefore he firmly resol ved to change the whole method of his life, to become strictly just and true, to be chaste and temperate, to forbear swearing and irreligious discourse, to worship and pray to his Maker. And that though he was not arrived at a full persuasion of Christianity, he would never employ his wit any more to run it down, or to corrupt others.

Of which I have since a further assurance from a person of quality, who conversed much with him, the last year of his life; to whom he would often say, that he was happy if he did believe, and that he would never endeavour to draw him from it.

To all this I answered, that a virtuous life would be very uncasy to him, unless vicious inclinations were removed. It would otherwise be a perpetual constraint. Nor could it be effected without an inward principle to change

him; and that was only to be had by applying himself to God for it in frequent and earnest prayers. And I was sure, if his mind were once cleared of these disorders, and cured of those distempers, which vice brought on it, so great an understanding would soon see thro all those flights of wit, that do feed atheism and irreligion; which have a false glittering in them, that dazzles some weak-sighted minds, who have not capacity enough to penctrate further than the surface of things; and so they stick in these toils, which the strength of his mind would soon break through, if it were once free from those things that depressed and darkened it.

At this pass he was, when he went from London, about the beginning of April. Ho had not been long in the country, when he thought he was so well, that being to go to his estate in Somersetshire, he rode thither post. This heat and violent motion did so inflame an ulcer, that was in his bladder, that it raised a very great pain in those parts. Yet he with much difficulty came back by coach to the Lodge at Wood-stock-Park. He was then wounded both in body and mind. He understood physic and his own constitution and distemper, so well, that he concluded he could hardly recover; for the ulcer broke, and vast quantities of purulent matter passed with his urine. But now the hand of God touched hims and as he told me, it was not only a general

dark melancholy over his mind, such as he had formerly felt, but a most penetrating and cutting sorrow: So that though in his body he suffered extreme pain for some weeks, yet the agonies of his mind sometimes swallowed up the sense of what he felt in the body.

He told me, and gave it me in charge, to tell it to one for whom he was much concerned, that though there were nothing to come after this life, yet all the pleasures he had ever known in sin, were not worth that torture he had felt in his mind. He considered he had not only neglected and dishonoured, but had openly defied his Maker, and had drawn many others in to the like impieties. So that he looked on himself as one that was in great danger of being damned. He then set himself wholly to turn to God unfeignedly, and to do all that was possible in that little remainder of his life which was before him, to redeem those great portions of it, that he had formerly so illy employed.

The minister that attended constantly on him, was that good and worthy man, Mr. Parsons, his mother's chaplain, who hath since his death preached, according to the directions he received from him, his funeral sermon; in which there are so many remarkable passages, that I shall refer my reader to them, and will repeat none of them here, that I may not thereby lessen his desire to edify himself by that excellent discourse, which has given so