ers. His zeal for the glory of his Master, and his love to the souls of men, made him constant and diligent in his work, which he esteemed both his honour and pleasure. At the first appearance of a cancer in his mouth, he seemed not more concerned about it, than as it was likely to hinder his preaching; and when, after a wasting sickness, he was restored to some degree of ease and strength, he joyfully returned to his duty; nay, when his pains were tolerable, preaching was his best anodyne; and the reflection upon the divine goodness, which enabled him for it, was a great relief of his pains. His life was suitable to his holy profes sion. His sermons were printed in a fair and lively character in his conversation. He was of a staid mind, and temperate passions. In managing affairs of moment he was not vehement and confident, not imposing and overbearing, but receptive of advice, and yielding to reason. He was full of compassion, charity, and beneficence. He was a Nonconformist upon moderate principles; much rather desiring to have been comprehended in the national church, than to have separated from it. He met with trouble after his ejection from St. Martin's, but the divine providence secured him, by disposing of him into the fa mily of the honourable lady abovementioned; who, to the utmost of her power, comforted and supported pious Nonconformist ministers and people, when the stream ran so strong against them. Her respect for the Doctor was peculiar, and her favours conferred upon him extraordinary; for which he made the best return by his constant care to promote religion in her family. And as his life, so his death, adorned the Gospel, being exemplary to others, and comfortable to himself. In his last sickness his pains were very severe, the cancerous humour having spread through his joints and the tenderest membranes; but his patience was invincible, and a humble submission to the divine pleasure was the habitual frame of his soul. When an intimate friend first visited him, he said, "I am using the means, but I think my appointed time is come. If my life might be serviceable to convert or build up one soul, I should be content to live: but if God hath no more work for me to do, here I am, let him do with me as he pleaseth.” At another time he told the same person, it was a determined case, and therefore desired him to resign him to God, saying, "It will not be long before we meet in hea D 2 ven, ven, never to part more; and there we shall be perfectly happy there neither your doubts and fears, nor my pains, shall follow us; nor our sins, which is best of all." After a long languishing, without any visible alteration, being asked how he did, he replied, "I lie here, but get no ground for heaven or earth,"-" except (says one) in your preparations for heaven :"-" O yes (said he) there I sensibly get ground, I bless God." He had a substantial joy in the reflection upon his life spent in the faithful service of Christ, and the prospect of a blessed eternity. This made him long to be above; so that he said with some regrét, "Death flies from me; I make no haste to my Father's house." He died at the countess of Exeter's, March 27, 1687, leaving an incomparable library of the most valuable books in all kinds of learning, which were sold by auction for thirteen hundred pounds. Dr. Bates preached his funeral sermon, from which the above account is principally extracted. Dr. Jacomb's farewell sermon at the time of his ejectment was on John viii. 29. "He that sent me is with me the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." The whole is so excellent and sententious, that it is not easy to do justice to it by an analysis. He was author of, 1. "A Commentary, or Sermons, on Rom. viii. 1-4.”—2. “ Treatise on holy Dedication, personal and domestic."-3. "Funeral Sermon for M. Martin."-4. "Another for Mr. Vines, with an Account of his Life."-5. "Another for Mr. Case, with a Narrative of his Life and Death,"-6. "The Life of Mr. Whitaker."-7. "Two Sermons on Morning Exercises."-8. "Sermon at St. Paul's, October 26, 1656."-9. "Sermon before the Lord Mayor, &c. at the Spittle." JAMES, JOHN, was born at Bicester in Oxfordshire, in 1620. He was episcopally ordained, and first exercised his ministry at Brighthelinstone, Sussex, for about seven years, and then went to Ilsey in Berkshire, a living worth three hundred and fifty pounds per annum, where he preached about six years. He was much envied by a neighbouring conforming clergyman, who did what he could to get his living from him; but he kept it through the influence of Dr. Manton. Coming late one evening to the Doctor, after he was in bed, and acquainting him that, if something something was not done that night, he should be dispossessed, the Doctor rose and went with him to the lord chancellor Hyde, at York House; who, upon hearing his errand, called to the person who stamped the orders upon such occasions, and asked him what he was doing? He answered, that he was just going to put the stamp to an or der for the passing away Mr. James's living; upon which his lordship ordered him to stop; and upon hearing farther of the matter, bid the Doctor not trouble himself, promising that his friend should not be molested. Accordingly he enjoyed the living till 1662. He was afterwards offered several preferments, by Dr. James, then warden of All Souls, Oxford, (particularly a canonry of Windsor,) if he would come into the church; but he could not be satisfied to conform. He had six children when he quitted his living, and was harassed by the Five Mile Act in three or four places, before he could settle to his ministry, which be at length did at Staines in Middlesex, where he conti nued nine years. He came from thence to London, where he died in July, 1694, leaving behind him a good reputation both for piety and learning. JAMES, JOHN, was born in 1626, and educated at Exeter College, Oxford. He was lecturer of Newark at the Restoration; but was dispossessed from Flintham and Sutton in Nottinghamshire before the Act of Uniformity was drawn up, and hurried to Nottingham jail, where he lay seventeen months. He then petitioned Judge Atkins when on the circuit, and was released. However, he was sometime after seized again, and lay in Newark jail about six years, because he would not promise to give over preaching. His prison indeed was tolerably comfortable, through the favour of his keeper, who suffered him to enjoy the company of his friends, and to preach amongst them, both in the prison, and in other houses in the town. His confinement continued till the Indulgence in 1672. Afterwards falling again into the same sin of preaching, he was informed against, and warrants were granted to seize his goods, which was done with such rigour, that they left him not a stool to sit on. They broke open his house, stable, and barns, taking away whatever they met with; and behaved in so furious a manner as to frighten three children into fits; one of whom, about six years old, died a night a night or two after. He lost nearly five hundred pounds in goods and cattle. His chief adversary, justice Whaley, who then had an estate of fifteen hundred pounds a year, afterwards died in prison for debt at London. Some time before his death, he wrote a letter to Mr. James, acknowledging his great crime in being such an enemy to him, and owning that the hand of God was justly upon him for it. Mr. James being destitute, fled to London, and after some time became pastor of a congregation in Wapping; where he died, in 1696, aged seventy. He published a funeral sermon for Dr. John Buckley, on Prov. xiv. 32. JAMES, THOMAS, a learned English critic and divine, was born about 1571, at Newport in the Isle of Wight, and being put to Winchester School, became a scholar upon the foundation, and thence, in his course, a fellow of New College, Oxford, in 1593. He commenced master of arts in 1599, and the same year, having collated several manuscripts of the Philobiblion of Richard of Durham, he published it in quarto at Oxford, with an appendix of the Oxford manuscripts: he dedicated this piece to sir Thomas Bodley, apparently in the view of recommending himself to his librarian's place when he should have completed his design. In the interim, Mr. James proceeded in the same spirit to publish a catalogue of all the manuscripts in each college library in both universities, and in the compiling of it, having free access to the manuscripts in each college at Oxford, he perused them carefully, and, when he found any society careless of them, he borrowed and took away what he pleased, and put them into the public library. These instances of his taste and turn to books, effectually procured him the designation of the founder to be the first keeper of the public library; in which office he was confirmed by the university, in 1602. He filled this post with great applause, and commencing doctor in divinity in 1614, was promoted to the subdeanery of Wells by the bishop of that see. About the same time, the archbishop of Canter bury also presented him to the rectory of Mongeham in Kent, together with other spiritual preferments. These favours were undeniably strong evidences of his distinguished merit, being conferred upon him without any application on his part. In 1620, he was made a justice of the peace, and the same year he resigned the library keeper's keeper's place, and betook himself more intensely to his studies, and of what kind these were, we learn from himself: "I have of late (says he, in a letter dated May 23, 1624, to a friend,) given myself only to the reading of manuscripts, and in them I find so many and so pregnant testimonies, either fully for our religion, or against the papists, that it is to be wondered at." And in another letter to archbishop Usher, the same year, he assures the primate he restored three hundred citations and rescued them from corruptions, in thirty quires of paper*. He had before written to his grace upon the same subject, in a letter dated January 28, 1623, where having observed that in Sixtus Senensis, Alphonsus de Castro, and Antonius's Summæ, there were about five hundred bastard brevities, and about a thousand places in the true authors which are corrupted; that he had diligently noted, and would shortly vindicate them out of the manuscripts, being yet only conjectures of the learned, he proceeds to acquaint his grace, that he had gotten together the flower of the English divines, who would voluntarily join with him in the search. In the convocation held with the parliament at Oxford, in 1625, of which he was a member, he moved to have proper commissioners appointed to collate the manuscripts of the fathers in all the libraries in England, with the popish editions, in order to detect the forgeries in these And this project not meeting with the desired encouragement, he was so thoroughly persuaded of the great advantage it would be both to the Protestant religion and learning, that, arduous as the task was, he set about executing it himself, and had made a good progress in it, as appears from his works; and no doubt would have proceeded much farther towards completing his design, had not he been prevented by his death, which happening in August, 1629, at his house in a suburb called Holywell in Oxford, he was interred in New College Chapel. Mr. Wood informs us, that he left behind him the character of being the most industrious and indefatigable writer against the Papists that had been educated in Oxford since the Reformation; and in reality his designs were so much, and so well known to be for the public benefit of learning and the Church of England, that Camden, speaking of him • These two letters are in the collection at the end of Parr's Life of Archbishop Usher, numb. 66. and 77. in |