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laborious exercises with great difficulty. By extreme fatigue for many years, his constitution was worn down, and his health much impaired. He thus expressed himself in a letter to a friend: "To sustain all these travels and troubles, 1 have a very weak body, subject to many diseases; by the motions whereof, I am daily warned to remember death. My greatest grief of all is, that my memory is quite decayed: my sight faileth; my hearing faileth; with other ailments, more than I can well express." While he was thus struggling with old age and an impaired constitution, as he was one day crossing the market-place at Durham, an ox rán at him, and pushed him down with such violence, that it was thought it would have occasioned his death. Though he survived the shock and bruises he received, he was long confined to his house, and continued lame as long as he lived.

During his last sickness, he made known his apprehensions to his friends, and spoke of death with happy composure of mind. A few days previous to his departure, he requested that his friends, acquaintance, and dependents, might be called into his chamber; and being raised in his bed, he delivered to each of them the pathetic exhortation of a dying man. His remaining hours were employed in prayer, and broken conversation with select friends, speaking often of the sweet consolations of the gospel. He finished his laborious life, and entered upon his rest, March 4, 1583, aged sixty-six years.

Such was the end of Mr. Bernard Gilpin, whose learning, piety, charity, labours, and usefulness, were almost unbounded. He possessed a quick imagination, a strong memory, and a solid judgment; and greatly excelled in the knowledge of languages, history, and divinity. He was so laborious for the good of souls, that he was usually called the NORTHERN APOSTLE; and he was s universally benevolent to the necessitous, that he was commonly styled the FATHER OF THE POOR. He was a thorough puritan in principle, and a most conscientious nonçonformist in practice, but against separation. Being full of faith and good works, he was accounted a saint by his very enemies; and was at last gathered in as a shock of corn fully ripe. By his last will and testament, he left half of his property to the poor of Houghton, and the other half to a number of poor scholars at the university.*

* Wood's Athenæ Oxon. vol. i. p. 703.

Mr. Gilpin, from the earliest period, was inclined to serious thoughtfulness. This was discovered by the following circumstance. A begging friar coming on a Saturday evening to his father's house, was received, according to the custom of those times, in a very hospitable manner. The friar made too free with the bounty set before him, and became thoroughly intoxicated. The next morning, however, he ordered the bell to toll for public worship; and from the pulpit, expressed himself with great vehemence against the debauchery of the times, but particularly against drunkenness. Young Gilpin, then a child on his mother's lap, seemed for some time exceedingly affected by the friar's discourse; and at length, with the utmost indignation, cried out: "Oh, mamma, do you hear how this fellow "dares speak against drunkenness, and was drunk himself "last night!"

The disinterested pains which Mr. Gilpin took among the barbarous people in the north, and the great kindness he manifested towards them, excited in them the warmest gratitude and esteem. One instance is related, shewing how greatly he was revered. Being once on his journey to Reads-dale and Tyne-dale, by the carelessness of his servant, he had his horses stolen. The news quickly spread through the country, and every one expressed the highest indignation against it. While the thief was rejoicing over his prize, he found, by the report of the country, whose horses he had stolen; and being exceedingly terrified at what he had done, he instantly came trembling back, confessed the fact, returned the horses, and declared he believed the devil would have seized him immediately, if he had taken them off, when he found they belonged to Mr. Gilpin.

The hospitality of this excellent person was not confined in its objects. Strangers and travellers found the kindest ente tainment in his house. And even their beasts were so well taken care of, that it was humorously said, "If a horse was turned out in any part of the country, he would immediately make his way to the rectory of Houghton."-The following instance of his benevolent spirit, is preserved. As he was one day returning from a journey, he saw several persons crowding together in a field; and supposing some disaster had happened, he rode up to them, and found that one of the horses in a team had suddenly dropped down, and was dead. The owner bemoaning the greatness of his loss, Mr. Gilpin said, “Honest

man, be not discouraged; I'll let you have that horse of mine," pointing at his servant's." "Ah! master," replied the countryman, 66 my pocket will not reach such a beast as that." "Come, come," said Mr. Gilpin, "take him, take him; and when I demand the money, then shalt thou pay me;" and so gave him his horse.

The celebrated Lord Burleigh being once sent into Scotland, embraced the opportunity on his return to visit his old acquaintance at Houghton. His visit was without previous notice; yet the economy of Mr. Gilpin's house was not easily disconcerted. He received his noble guest with so much true politeness, and treated him and his whole retinue in so affluent and generous a manner, that the treasurer would often afterwards say, "he could hardly have expected more at Lambeth." During his stay, he took great pains to acquaint himself with the order and regularity of the house, which gave him uncommon pleasure and satisfaction. This noble lord, at parting, embraced his much respected friend with all the warmth of affection, and told him, he had heard great things in his commendation, but he had now seen what far exceeded all that he had heard. "If Mr. Gilpin," added he, "I can "ever be of any service to you at court or elsewhere, use "me with all freedom, as one on whom you may depend." When he had got upon Rainton-hill, which rises about a mile from Houghton, and commands the vale, he turned his horse to take one more view of the place, and having fixed his eye upon it for some time, he broke out into this exclamation: "There is the enjoyment of life indeed! "Who can blame that man for refusing a bishopric? What "doth he want, to make him greater, or happier, or more "useful to mankind ?"*

Dr. Richard Gilpin, an excellent and useful divine, ejected by the Act of Uniformity in 1662; and Mr. William Gilpin, author of "The Lives of eminent Reformers," were both descendants of Mr. Gilpin's family.+

JOHN COPPING.-This unhappy man was minister near Bury St. Edmunds, a zealous puritan of the Brownist persuasion, and a most painful sufferer for nonconformity. In the year 1576, he was brought into trouble by the commis

Biog. Britan. vol. vii. Sup. p. 75.

+ Palmer's Noncon. Mem. vol. i. p. 388.-Granger's Biog. Hist. vol. i. p. 163.

sary of the Bishop of Norwich, and committed to prison at Bury. He is said to have maintained the following opinions: "That unpreaching ministers were dumb dogs.That whoever keeps saints' days, is an idolater. That the queen, who had sworn to keep God's law, and set forth God's glory, as appointed in the scriptures, and did not perform it, was perjured." And it is added, that for the space of six months, he had refused to have his own child baptized; "because," he said, "none should baptize his child who did not preach ;" and that when it was baptized, he would have neither godfathers nor godmothers. These were the great crimes alleged against him! Mr. Copping having for these offences remained in prison two years, and still refusing to conform; December 1, 1578, he underwent an examination before Justice Andrews, when the above false and malicious opinions, as they are called, were proved against him. The good man continuing steadfast to his principles, and still refusing to sacrifice a good conscience on the altar of conformity, was sent back to prison, where he remained nearly five years longer. What shocking barbarity was this! Here Mr. Elias Thacker, another Brownist minister, was his fellow prisoner. The two prisoners having suffered this long and painful confinement, were indicted, tried, and condemned for spreading certain books, said to be seditiously penned by Robert Brown against the Book of Common Prayer. The sedition charged upon Brown's book, was, that it subverted the constitution of the established church, and acknowledged her majesty's supremacy only in civil matters, not in matters ecclesiastical. The judges took hold of this to aggravate their offence to the queen, after they had passed sentence upon them, on the statute of 23 Eliz. against seditious libels, and for refusing the oath of supremacy. Having received the sentence of death, they were both hanged at Bury, in the month of June, 1583. Such, indeed, was the resentment, and even the madness, of the persecutors of these two servants of Christ, that, previous to their death, all Brown's books that could be found, were collected together, and burnt before their eyes. Under all these barbarities, the two champions for nonconformity continued immoveable to the last, and died sound in the faith, and of holy and unblemished lives. But, to hang men for spreading a book written against the church

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only, appeared extremely hard, especially at the very time when Brown himself was pardoned and set at liberty.

THOMAS UNDERDOWN was minister of St. Mary's church in Lewes, in the county of Sussex, but was brought into trouble for nonconformity. By a special warrant from Dr. Longworth, visitor to Archbishop Whitgift, dated November 18, 1583, he was summoned to appear in the ecclesiastical court at Lewes. Upon his appearance in the court, he was immediately required to subscribe to Whitgift's three articles. He signified his readiness to subscribe to the first and third of those articles, but, hesitating about the second, he was immediately suspended. At the same time, Mr. William Hopkinson, vicar of Salehurst, Mr. Samuel Norden, minister of Hamsey, Mr. Thomas Hely, minister of Warbleton, with many others in the same county, were cited and suspended, for refusing subscription, though their refusal was not out of contempt, but because to them some things appeared doubtful.+

These ministers having received the ecclesiastical censure, ventured to lay their case at the feet of the archbishop. They appeared before his grace at Lambeth, December 5th, in the same year; when they entered upon the following conference:

Underdown. We are become suitors to your lordship, out of the diocese of Chichester, being urged thereunto by the hard dealing of Dr. Longworth; who hath suspended us from the exercise of our functions, for not subscribing to certain articles, pretended to be sent by your lordship; and to request your favour to be released from the

same.

* Dr. Longworth sent the following warrant or citation to all the ministers within the archdeaconry of Lewes, requiring them to appear before him:-"These are to command you in her majesty's name, to 66 appear personally in St. Michael's church in Lewes, the 20th day of this 66 present November, between the hours of eight and ten o'clock in the "forenoon, then and there to perform all such duties and injunctions, as I am to impose upon you, from the Archbishop's grace of Canterbury, as 66 appeareth by a special letter directed to me in that behalf. Fail you 66 not hereof, upon pain of the law which will necessarily ensue upon the "default which you shall commit in these premises. From Lewes, "November 18, 1583.

66

MS. Register, p. 396.

"Signed your loving friend,

"JOHN LONGWORTH."

Ibid. p. 395, 396.-Strype's Whitgift, p. 128, 129.

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