Man;* but his great modesty would not permit him publicly to say that he was the author of that benefit to his Drocess, though it was attained solely by his indefatigable pains and application,

This year was also remarkable for the Ecclesiastical Constitutions, which were read by the Bishop to the Clergy, and agreed to in full convocation; and meeting with the approbation of the Lord, Deemsters, and Keys, passed into a law.

These constitutions, planned and framed by his Lordship, afford and exhibit to the world a specimen of that primitive discipline which existed in this Diocess during his Lordship's episcopate, and long after; superseding, virtually, the preface to the com

mination-office.

On the 5th of September, 1704, the Bishop accompanied Mrs. Wilson, who had been for some time in a declining state of health, to Warrington, for the benefit of her native air, and continued with her, praying for and comforting her, till the 7th of March following; when she resigned her soul, full of hope of a blessed immortality, into the hands of her Creator.

In this severe trial, his prayers abound with religious sentiment and Christian resignation; pronouncing, with a feeling emphasis, "Thy will be done, O God." He felt like a man, but not like a man without hope. He had lost a comfort; but the happiness she had gained overcame his sorrow, and gave him that serenity of mind which none but good men can feel like him in the hour of affliction.

On the 3d of March, 1707, he was made Doctor in Divinity in full convocation at Oxford; and on the 11th of June following, the same honour

was decreed him by the University of Cambridge.

About the same time he was admitted a member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.

In the same year, he had the Church Catechism translated, and printed in Manks and English.

On the 21st of September, 1708, he consecrated a new built Chapel at Douglas, to which he was a considerable benefactor.

On the 2d of April, 1710, the library of Castle-Town was finished; the greater part of the expense, which amounted to eighty-three pounds five shillings and six-pence, he subscribed himself.

This year, some business calling him to England, and quarantine being ordered to all vessels which came from the Isle of Man to England, he went (accompanied by Mr. Murray, a merchant of Douglas) in an open boat to Scotland, and landed in Kircudbright, intending to have proceeded directly to London; but in this design he was prevented by the Earl of Galway, who knew him, and with some other gentlemen, contrary to his own inclination, prevailed on him to go to Edinburgh; where he was waited on and highly esteemed by the Clergy and nobility, many of whom, on his departure, attended him as far as Carlisle.

The year following he went to London, to settle some business relating to the excise for the lord and people of the Island; when he was taken great notice of by Queen Anne, before whom he preached a sermon on Holy Thursday. Her majesty offered him an English bishopric, but he begged to be excused, saying, that with the blessing of God, he could do some good in the little spot that he then resided on; whereas, if he were removed into a larger sphere, he might be lost, and forget his duty to his flock

and to his God.

He could never be induced to sit in the House of Lords, though there is a seat for the Bishop of Man, detached from the other Bishops, and within the bar; saying, "That the Church should have nothing to do with the

State. Christ's kingdom is not of this world."

On his return to his Diocess, the Vicarage-house at Kirk Arbory being in ruins, he subscribed and collected money enough to build a new one.

At a convocation, held the 20th day of May, 1714, he delivered a Charge to the Clergy, to observe their own duty, for the edification and example of their flock; strictly requiring them to censure offenders, and regulate the discipline of the Church with proper authority.

In the year 1719, Mrs. Horne, wife of Captain Horne, Governor of the Island, accused Mrs. Puller, a widow woman of fair character, of fornication with Sir James Pool; and from this story, Archdeacon Horribin, to please Mrs. Horne, refused Mrs. Puller the sacrament. Uneasy under this restriction, she had recourse to the mode pointed out by the constitutions of the Church, to prove her innocence; namely, by oath, which she and Sir James Pool took before the Bishop, with compurgators of the best character; and no evidence being produced to prove their guilt, they were, by the Bishop, cleared of the charge, and Mrs. Horne was sentenced to ask pardon of the parties whom she had so unjustly traduced. This she refused to do; and treated the Bishop and his authority, as well as the ecclesiastical constitutions of the Island, with contempt.

For this indecent disrespect to the laws of the Church, the ecclesiastical censure was pronounced, which banished her from the sacrament till atonement was made. The Archdeacon, who was chaplain to the Governor, out of pique to the Bishop, or from some unworthy motive, received her at the communion, contrary to the custom and the orders of the Church. An insult to himself the Bishop would have forgiven, but disobedience to the Church and its laws, he could not allow of: he considered it as the oblation of wrath, rather than the bond of peace, and at last suspended the Archdeacon.

The Archdeacon, in a rage, instead of applying to the Archbishop of York,

as Metropolitan, and consequently the proper judge to appeal to in mattersrelating to the Church, threw himself on the civil power; and the Governor, under pretence that the Bishop had acted illegally and extra-judicially, fined him fifty pounds, and his two Vicars-general, who had been officially concerned in the suspension, twenty pounds each. This fine they all refused to pay, as an arbitrary and unjust imposition; upon which the Governor sent a party of soldiers, and they were, on the 29th of June, 1722, committed to the prison of Castle Rushin, where they were kept closely confined, and no persons admitted within the walls to see or converse with them.

The concern of the people was so great when they heard of this insult offered to their beloved instructor, pastor, and friend, that they assembled in crowds, and it was with difficulty they were restrained from pulling down the Governor's house, by the mild behaviour and persuasion of the Bishop, who was permitted to speak to them only through a grated window, or address them from the walls of the prison, whence he blessed and exhorted hundreds of them daily, telling the people that he meant " to appeal to Cæsar," meaning the King; and he did not doubt but that his Majesty would vindicate his cause if he had acted right. He sent a circular letter to his Clergy, to be publicly read in the Churches throughout the Island, which comforted and appeased the people, who had so much reason to reverence and love the Bishop.

The horrors of a prison were aggravated by the unexampled severity of the Governor, not permitting the Bishop's housekeeper, who was the daughter of a former Governor, to

see him, or any of his servants to attend upon him during his whole confinement; nor was any friend admitted to either the Bishop or his Vicarsgeneral. They were not treated as common prisoners, but with all the strictness of persons confined for high treason. They had no attendants but common jailors, and these instructed to use their prisoners ill.

A strange return this for a long course of favours and hospitality which the Governor and his wife had received from the Bishop at his house, where they frequently resided for days and weeks together!

Governor Horne was not naturally a bad man, and yet in this instance he treated the Bishop with more cruelty than any Protestant Bishop has experienced since the reformation; yet did he not revile again. In his Diary he says,

"St. Peter's Day, 1722.-I and my two Vicars-general were fined ninety pounds, and imprisoned in Castle Rushin, for censuring and refusing to take off the censure of certain of fenders; which punishment and contempt I desire to receive from God as a means of humbling me," &c.

Thus did he turn all his misfortunes to advantage, and to the glory of God.

He was confined in this prison for two months, and released at the end of that time upon his petition to the King and Council, before whom his cause was afterwards heard and determined.

On the 4th of July, 1724, the King and Council reversed all the proceedings of the officers of the Island, declaring them to be oppressive, arbitrary, and unjust; but they could grant no costs; and the expenses of the trial fell very heavy on the Bishop, although he was assisted by a subscription to the amount of near three hundred pounds. But this was not a sixth part of what it cost him for lawyers and witnesses, which he was obliged to bring from the Isle of Man, and maintain in London several months before the trial was finished.

The Bishop was advised, by his solicitor, to prosecute the Governor, &c.

in the English courts of law, to recover damages, as a compensation for his great expenses; but to this he would not be persuaded. He had established the discipline of the Church, and he sincerely and charitably forgave his persecutors. Nay, one of the most inveterate, Mr. Rowe, the comptroller, being afterwards confined in a spunging-house for debt, the Bishop went to see him, and administered to his relief.

The Bishop always used to say, that he never governed his Diocess so well as when he was in prison; and for his own share, if he could have borne the confinement consistently with his health, he would have been content to have abode there all his life for the good of his flock, who were then more pious and devout than at any other time.

From the dampness of the prison, the Bishop contracted a disorder in his right-hand, which disabled him from the free use of his fingers, and he ever after wrote with his whole hand grasping the pen.

The King offered him the Bishopric of Exeter, vacant by the translation of Dr. Blackburn to the See of York, to reimburse him; but he could not be prevailed on to quit his own Diocess. His Majesty, therefore, promised to defray his expenses out of the privy purse, and gave it in charge to Lord Townsend, Lord Carleton, and Sir Robert Walpole, to put it into his remembrance; but the King going soon afterwards to Hanover, and dying before his return, this promise never was fulfilled.

In the year 1734, the Bishop published "A short and plain Instruction for the better understanding the Lord's Supper;" which has since passed through several numerous impres sions, and has been universally esteemed for the elegant simplicity of its language, and its unaffected piety.

The year following he came to England, for the last time, to visit his son and daughter, when he was introduced to King George the second and his Queen, who took particular notice of him. On his return, he visited the province of York, at the earnest re

Considerations on the Circumstances

of St. John's Death.

We have now accompanied St. John throught the several stages of his life. We have rejoiced with his parents and kinsfolk at his birth, and spent some time in contempla

tion with him in the deserts; we have stood by him, as a preacher and a Baptist, at the river Jordan, and have been made acquainted with the repeated testimonies borne by him, at different times, to the Mes

siahship of Jesus; we have heard him, like another Elijah, reproving

another Ahab, and have visited him in prison, where the glory of his Master, and the salvation of

colours fade, the bow vanishes, and "the place thereof knoweth it no

more.

Of prophets, as well as of kings, it may be observed, that there is generally but a short interval between their imprisonment and their death; the enmity which occasioned one, seldom leaving them till it have accomplished the other. And "more bitter even than death itself is the woman whose heart is snares and

nets, and her hands bands."* Неrod had thrown John into prison; but this would not satisfy Herodias. Even there she heard him still preaching upon the old text, and reproaching her with her crimes. "She had a quarrel against him; ενειχεν αυτω, she fastened upon him, and would have killed him, but," for some time, she "could not."† For

though Herodhad notreligion enough to produce in him the fear of God, he had policy enough to produce the fear of the Jews, among whom John's reputation, as a prophet, ran very

continued to be the objects of his attention. It remains only, that we behold him paying that debt to na

heart, had determined to effect her purpose, by procuring, sooner or later, the execution of him whom she

them that are born of women are not exempted. And here our acquaintance with him must end, till

God. Thus do scenes of real life pass swiftly away, and, when looked back upon, appear like those which are described within the compass of a small volume like this. In the course of a few years, the child, at

whose birth we made merry, is become a man; he sickens and dies, and we mourn at his funeral. Some

gleams of success and prosperity, perhaps, brighten and adorn certain parts of his life, as the sun gilds the edges of a dark cloud, or imprints upon it the still more beautiful colours of the rainbow. But while we gaze, the sun sets, the

or the head of the prophet could enter the palace without reproving the adultery of the tetrarch. But an imperious lust, in the height of its career, can brook no obstruction; and, were it possible, as well as ne

cessary, the world itself would be blown up to make way for it.

Sin being once resolved on in the heart, an opportunity of committing it is seldom long wanting; and the mind is upon the watch, to embrace the very first that offers. " When a convenient day was come, that Herod's birth-day should be kept,

1

he made a great supper to his lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee." It is certainly no sin in a prince to keep his birth-day, or to make a great supper upon it. But how much it behooveth a man, at such times of rejoicing, to be upon his guard, lest, unawares, he be induced to sacrifice truth and conscience to mirth and gaiety, the melancholy catastrophe of this banquet may serve to show us; since neither Herod, nor any of his guests imagined, when they sat down to table on that fatal evening, how horribly their great supper would conclude. But so it happened, that, before the night was out, a deed was done, which displayed to all succeeding generations the malice and cruelty of Herodias, with the weakness, and wickedness of Herod; teaching us, at the same time, that the greatest of prophets and the best of men are not more secure from violence, than from natural death, but rather more exposed to it than the rest of mankind, if, with fidelity and fortitude, they execute the trust committed to them.

Herodias, by her lawful husband Philip, had a daughter named Salome, who condescended to grace the festivity by dancing before the company, in a manner which "pleased Herod, and them that sat with him." A pious prelate of our church, in his contemplations on this occurrence, observes, that "dancing, in itself, as it is a set, regular, harmonious, graceful motion of the body, cannot be unlawful, any more than walking or running." We may add, that it hath, in all ages and nations, been one way, and that a natural one, of expressing an uncommon degree of joy and gladness; on which account it was adopted into the number of religious ceremonies formerly enjoined to be observed by the people of God. But for a young lady to appear, as a dan

cer, before Herod and his "lords, high captains, and chief estates of Galilee," probably, when they were well warmed with wine, became only the daughter of an Herodias, educated by her own mother.

Herod, quite overcome, and thrown off his guard by Salome's performance, makes her a foolish promise; and, as if that was not enough, confirms it with a rash oath; "Whatsoever thou shalt ask of me, I will give it thee, to the half of my kingdom." A very handsome recompense, one would think, for a dance! But it will appear presently, that the king had not offered enough. Half of his kingdom would not do. Something was required more valuable than the whole of it, had it extended from Judea, quite round the globe. Nothing would satisfy, but his honour, his conscience, his soul; the price which sin never fails to ask! The glorious golden opportunity of revenge was not to be lost. Herodias is consulted by her daughter, and lo, the soft, tender, delicate Salome re-enters, all athirst for blood" Give me in a charger the head of John the Baptist;" of a prophet; of a person whom thou knowest to be innocent, holy, upright. Make me this sacrifice, and I am content. such eagerness and sagacity does "the adultress hunt for the precious life!"

With

Bad as Herod was, the petition of Salome at first shocked him. "The king was sorry." He thought of John's character, the atrociousness of the murder, and the opinion which the world would entertain of the murderer. But the tide which had ebbed, soon flowed again, and obliterated, in a moment, what had been written on the sand, during its recess. The love of Herodias, the address of Salome, the festivity of the season, and the presence of the "lords and high captains," who had