God calls, lay aside thy papers, and first dress thy soul, and then dress thy hearse." On the 3rd of August, in the year 1667, at the age of fifty-six, he was attacked by a fever, which, after continuing ten days, put a period to his exemplary life, and deprived the world of one of the brightest ornaments it then possessed. He died at Lisburn, on the thirteenth of the same month. The following are some of Bishop Taylor's REFLECTIONS On Death, selected from his writings: 1. To a good man there are very many more reasons to be afraid of life than of death: this having less of evil, and more of advantage. 2. It is certain that he that is afraid of death, I mean with a violent and transporting fear, with a fear apt to discompose his duty or his patience, that man either loves this world too much, or dares not trust God for the next. 3. It remains that we who are alive should so live, and by the actions of religion attend to the coming of the day of the Lord, that we neither be surprised, nor leave our duties imperfect, nor our sins uncancelled, nor our persons unreconciled, nor God unappeased; but that when we descend to our graves, we may rest in the bosom of the Lord, till the mansions be prepared, "not made with hands, eternal in the heavens." A Prayer, by Jeremy Taylor, for Submission to the will of God in the hour of Sickness. O Thou who art the God of patience and consolation, strengthen me in the inner man, that I may bear the yoke and burthen of the Lord, 5 Bonney's Life of Jeremy Taylor; Chalmers's Biog. Dict. without any uneasy and useless murmurs and ineffective unwillingness. O holy Jesus! be Thou pleased to ease this load, by fortifying my spirit, that I may be strongest when I am weakest, and may be able to do and suffer every thing Thou pleasest. And at last I will lie down and die, and by Thy mercies, and intercession of the holy Jesus, and the conduct of Thy Blessed Spirit, and the ministry of angels, pass into those mansions, where holy souls rest and weep no more. SIR MATTHEW HALE, lord chief-justice of England, was not more eminent for his station than for his learning and piety. He resigned his office the 15th February, 1675-6, and lived till the Christmas following. But all the while he was in so ill a state of health, that there was no hope of his recovery, he still continued to retire often, both for his devotions and studies; and, as long as he could go, went constantly to his closet; and when his infirmities increased, so that he was not able to go thither himself, he made his servants carry him thither in a chair. At last, as the winter came on, he saw with great joy his deliverance approaching; for besides his being weary of the world, and his longings for the blessedness of another state, his pains increased so on him, that no patience inferior to his could have borne them without a great uneasiness of mind; yet he expressed to the last such submission to the will of God, and so equal a temper under them, that it was visible then what mighty effects his philosophy and Christianity had on him, in supporting him under such a heavy load. He could not lie down in bed above a year before his death, by reason of the asthma, but sat rather than lay in it. He was attended in his sickness by a pious and worthy divine, Mr. Evan Griffith, Minister of the parish; and it was observed, that in all the extremities of his pain, whenever he prayed by him, he forbore all complaints or groans, but with his hands and eyes lifted up, was fixed in his devotions. Not long before his death the Minister told him, "there was to be a sacrament next day at church, but he believed he could not come and partake with the rest, therefore he would give it him in his own house." But he answered, "No; his heavenly Father had prepared a feast for him, and he would go to his Father's house and partake of it." So he made himself be carried thither in his chair, where he received the sacrament of the Lord's Supper on his knees with great devotion; which it may be supposed was the greater, because he apprehended it was to be his last. He had some secret unaccountable presages of his death; for he said, that "if he did not die on such a day, (which fell to be the 25th of November,) he believed he should live a month longer;" and he died that very day month, on Christmas-day. On the anniversary of Christ's advent, this good man usually wrote some verses of joy, in commemoration of so great an event, as a kind of tribute to his Saviour. The one which Bishop Burnet supposes was the last Sir Matthew wrote, contains, singularly, these words of Simeon. And now thou hast fulfilled it, blessed Lord, For I have liv'd enough, mine eyes have seen Let this sight close mine eyes; 'tis loss to see He continued to enjoy the free use of his reason and senses to the last moment, which he had often and earnestly prayed for during his sickness and when his voice was so sunk that he could not be heard, they perceived by the almost constant lifting up of his eyes and hands, that he was still aspiring towards that blessed state, of which he was now speedily to be possessed. Between two and three in the afternoon of Christmas-day, he breathed out his righteous and pious soul.-His end was peace. Instead of a Precept I will here add a useful Narrative. Bishop Burnet tells us that Sir Matthew Hale, having lost one of his sons, the manner of whose death had some grievous circumstances in it, to one coming to see him and condole, he said, "Those were the effects of living long; such • Bishop Burnet's Life of Sir Matthew Hale, in Wordsworth's Eccl. Biog., vol. iv. must look to see many sad and unacceptable things," and having said that, he went to other discourses, with his ordinary freedom of mind; for though he had a temper so tender, that sad things were apt enough to make deep impressions upon him, yet the regard he had to the wisdom and providence of God, and the just estimate he made of external things, did to admiration maintain the tranquillity of his mind, and he gave no occasion, by idleness, to melancholy, to corrupt his spirit, but by the perpetual bent of his thoughts, he knew well how to divert them from being oppressed with the excesses of sorrow. REV BENJAMIN WHICHCOTE, D.D. DR. WHICHCOTE was provost of King's College, Cambridge, and afterwards incumbent of St. Lawrence Jewry, London. A little before Easter, in 1683, he went down to Cambridge; where, upon taking a severe cold, he fell into a distemper, which |