is my life, health, and strength; and I know I shall have another kind of life when I leave this. I tell you it would incomparably more please me, if you should say to me, You are no man of this world: you cannot possibly hold out long: before to-morrow you will be in eternity. I tell you I do so long to be with Christ, that I could be content to be cut in pieces, and to be put to the most exquisite torments, so I might but die and be with Christ. Oh, how sweet is Jesus! Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Death, do thy worst! Death hath lost its terribleness. Death; it is nothing. I say, death is nothing, through grace, to me. I can as easily die as shut my eyes, or turn my head and sleep: I long to be with Christ: 1 long to die.'

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"I verily believe that it exceeds the highest rhetoric to set out to the life what this heavenly creature did then deliver. I say again, I want words to speak, and so did he, for he said things unutterable; but yet, so much he spake, as justly drew the admiration of all that saw him; and I heard an old experienced Christian minister say it again and again, that he never saw, nor read, nor heard, the like. Neither could we ever expect to see the glories of heaven more demonstrated to sense in this world. He talked as if he had been in the third heavens."

After introducing several impassioned expressions and sentences, the biographer proceeds:— "About eight-and-forty hours before his death, his eyes were dimn, and his sight much failed; his jaws shook and trembled, and his feet were cold, and all the symptoms of death were upon him, and his extreme parts were already almost dead and senseless; and yet, even then, his joys were, if possible, greater still. He had so many fits of joy unspeakable, that he seemed to be in one continued act of seraphic love and praise. He spake like one that was just entering into the gates of the new Jerusalem; the greatest part of him was now in heaven; not a word dropped trom his mouth but it breathed Christ and heaven. O what encouragements did he give to them which did stand by, to follow hard after God, and to follow Christ in a humble, believing, zealous course of life, and adding all diligence to make their calling and election sure, and that when they also should find that they should have a glorious passage into a blessed eternity!

"One rare passage I cannot omit, which was this: that when ministers or Christians came to him, he would beg of them to spend all the time they had with him in praise. 'O help me to praise God; I have now nothing else to do, from this time to eternity, but to praise and love God. I have what my soul desires upon earth. I cannot tell what to pray for, but what I have graciously given in. The wants that are capable of supplying in this world are supplied. I want but one thing, and that is, a speedy lift to heaven. I expect no more here, I cannot desire more, I cannot hear more. Oh, praise, praise, praise that infinite, boundless love, that hath, to a wonder, looked upon my soul, and done more for me than thousands of his dear children. Oh, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Oh, help me, help me, O my friends, to praise and admire him that hath done such astonishing wonders for my soul; he hath pardoned all my sins, he hath filled me with his goodness, he hath given me grace and glory, and no good thing hath he withheld from me.'

"Come, help me with praises, all that's little; come, help me, O ye glorious and mighty angels, who are so well skilled in this heavenly work of praise! Praise him, all ye creatures upon the earth; let everything that hath being help me to praise him! Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah! Praise is now my work, and I shall be engaged in that sweet employment for ever. Bring the Bible; turn to David's Psalms, and let us sing a psalm of praise. Come, let us lift up our voice in the praise of the Most High; I with you as long as my breath doth last, and when I have none, I shall do it better.'"

He took leave of the several members of his family, one by one, in affectionate addresses. "Then," adds his brother and biographer, "that godly minister came to give him his last visit, and to do the office of an inferior angel—to help to convey his blessed soul to glory, who was now even upon Mount Pisgah, and had a full sight of that goodly land at a little distance. When this minister spoke to him, his heart was in a mighty flame of love and joy, which drew tears of joy from that precious minister, being almost amazed to hear a man just a-dying talk as if he had been with Jesus, and come from the immediate presence of God. Oh, the smiles that were then

in his face, and the unspeakable joy that was in his heart! One might have read grace and glory in such a man's countenance. Oh, the praise, the triumphant praises, that he put up! And every one must speak praise about him, or else they did make some jar in his harmony. And indeed most did, as well as they could, help him in praise; so that I never heard nor knew any more praise given to God in one room than in his

chamber.

"A little before he died, in the prayer, or rather praises, he was so wrapt up with admiration and joy, that he could scarce forbear shouting for joy. In the conclusion of the duty, with abundance of faith and fervency, he said aloud, Amen, amen!"

After contemplating such a scene of elevation and rapture, it is not easy at once to descend to the commonplaces of chronological detail, or a scanty memorial of kindred worth; but the next brother, James, the recorder of these affecting scenes, was himself a large partaker of the character of him on whose excellence he expatiates, and greatly assimilated in the joys and triumphs of his departure. Passing his name for a moment, we will refer to the next in order, Abraham Janeway. He was a preacher in London, previous to the period of the plague; but being of a contemplative turn of mind, which somewhat unfitted him for very active or public exertions, he retired with his wife to live with his mother or mother-in-law at Buntingford, in Huntingdonshire. His Presbyterian principles, however, being notorious, he was seized by Justice Crouch, under a pretence of friendship; but having made his escape from the grasp of the persecutor, he sunk under the family complaint of consumption, in September 1665. “Though he died that very week in which the plague was at the highest, (there being no fewer than 7165 persons who died of the sickness in that one week,) yet he did not die of that distemper, for which his brother and other relations were very thankful. Mr. Vincent says of him, ' He was a righteous person, a righteous minister, a dear brother, taken away in the flower of his years. He was a merciful man, and shor.ed great pity and compassion to souls; was earnest with them to leave their sins and close with Christ. He spent himself, and hastened his own death, to keep others from perishing everlastingly.

He was an upright man, a true-hearted Nathanael, and one of very promising hopes for very considerable usefulness.'"*

Joseph Janeway was the youngest of the fraternal band, and a Conformist. In this only, we believe, did he essentially differ from the rest. It is a striking fact that all of them were consumptive, all died under the age of forty, and all were pious men.

James Janeway, to whom we cursorily referred as next in chronological order to John, and an account of whom we reserved, as being more especially connected with the present publication, was born at Lilley. He became a student in Christ-church, Oxford, in 1655, where he took the degrees in arts in due time. At the close of his pursuits in the university, he went to reside in his mother's house at Windsor, and devoted himself to private tuition. It is probable he had no benefice, but, as a Nonconformist, was silenced by the act of 1662. During the plague he was indefatigable in preaching the gospel, but escaped the contagion. As soon as he supposed the persecuting spirit of the age allowed, a chapel, or meeting-house as it was then termed, was erected for him in Jamaica Row, Rotherhithe. It was, however, pulled down by the soldiers; but the people built another on the same spot upon a larger scale. He had numerous and respectable

audiences, and was the honoured instrument of effecting a great reformation in the neighbourhood.+

The high party, being exceedingly exasperated at his popularity and success, made several attempts on his life. On one occasion, as he was walking along the wall at Rotherhithe, he had a narrow escape from a shot. The bullet went through his hat, but inflicted no personal injury. At another time, the soldiers broke into his meeting-house, exclaiming, as they pressed through the crowd, "Down with him! down with him!" They jumped upon a form or bench, with the view of pulling him out of the pulpit, but providentially the bench

* Calamy's continuation of his account of Ejected Ministers. The Rev. Nathanael Vincent referred to, preached his funeral sermon, which is published at the end of a tract, entitled, "God's Terrible Voice in the City."

+ This congregation gradually declined during many years, till scarcely any hearers were left. This induced the new pastor, Dr. Flaxman, to resign in 1783, when the people dispersed. See Wilson's Hist. and Antiq. of Dissenting Churches, vol. 4.

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gave way. The confusion which ensued afforded an opportunity of escape; for some of his friends threw a coloured coat over him, and put a white hat on his head. The mob, however, probably misled as to his person by the clever deception, seized upon one of his people, Mr. Kentish, and carried him away to the Marshalsea prison, where he was confined for a considerable time. It is supposed this was Mr. Richard Kentish, who had been ejected from St. Katherine's, in the Tower.* A farther attempt was made to secure him when engaged in preaching at a gardener's house. The troopers, having dismounted, rushed into the premises, but he had time to throw himself upon the ground, where his friends, intercepting the soldiers, concealed him so effectually from them, by covering him with cabbage-leaves, that he again escaped. He died in the prime of life, on March 16th, 1674, in the thirtyeighth year of his age, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Aldermanbury, near his father.t

The Rev. Nathanael Vincent, before mentioned, who appears to have been intimately acquainted with the Janeway family, preached a funeral sermon for him, entitled, "The Saint's Triumph over the last Enemy;" to which he prefixed an address to the congregation, expressive of the highest estimate of his character. "Oh," he exclaims, "what a friend did you lose when your pastor was snatched from you! You were as dear as his own soul! How did he pray, and weep, and preach, and labour, and all to this end, that you might be sincere converts, and work out your own salvation. Very few could match my brother Janeway in zeal, in compassion, in holy activity, in affection, in sincerity. He sought not yours, but you, and desired ten thousand times more to gain souls than ought beside. He endeavoured to debase the world in your esteem, and it was low in his own; he strived to raise your affections heavenward, and there was his heart and treasure. Christ he loved, in Christ he believed; Christ he preach

• Palmer's Noncon. Memorial.

↑ It is perhaps scarcely worth while, even in a note, to cite the characteristic scurrility of Anthony Wood; yet it is instructive. "He set up a conventicle," says he, "at Redrift, near London, where, to the time of his death, he was much resorted to by those of his persuasion, and admired as a forward and precious young man, especially by those of the female sex." Wood's Ath. Oxon.