sermons I heard him preach thirty years ago; and yet with this he seemed to
look on himself as so ordinary a preacher, that while he had the cure, he was
ready to employ all others, and when he was a bishop he chose to preach to
small auditories, and would never give notice before hand. He had indeed a
very low voice, and so could not be heard by a great crowd. He soon came to
see into the follies of the presbyterians, and to dislike their covenant, particularly their imposing it, and their fury against all who differed from them. He
found they were not capable of large thoughts; theirs were narrow as their
tempers were sour; so he grew weary of mixing with them. He scarce ever went
to their meetings, and lived in great retirement, minding only the care of his
own parish at Newbattle, near Edinburgh. Yet all the opposition that he made to them was, that he preached up a more exact rule of life than seemed to them consistent with human nature; but his own practice did outshine his doctrine.
"In the year 1648, he declared himself for the engagement for the king. But the earl of Lothian, who lived in his parish, had so high an esteem for him, that he persuaded the violent men not to meddle with him, though he gave occasion to great exception; for when some of his parish who had been in the engagement were ordered to make public profession of their repentance for it, he told them, they had been in an expedition in which he believed they had neglected their duty to God, and had been guilty of injustice and violence, of drunkenness, and other immoralities, and he charged them to repent of these seriously, without meddling with the quarrel or the grounds of that Avar. He entered into a great correspondence with many of the episcopal party, and with my own father in particular, and did wholly separate himself from the presbyterians. At last he left them, and withdrew from his cure, for he could not do the things imposed on him any longer. And yet he hated all contention so much, that he chose rather to leave them in a silent manner, than to engage in any disputes with them. But he had generally the reputation of a saint, and of something above human nature in him; so the mastership of the Edinburgh college falling vacant some time after, and it being in the gift of the city, he was prevailed on to accept it, because in it he was wholly separated from all church matters. He continued ten years in that post, and was a great blessing in it; for he talked so to all the youth of any capacity or distinction, that it had a great effect upon them. He preached often to them, and if crowds broke in, which they were apt to do, he would have gone on in his sermon in Latin, with a purity and life that charmed all who understood it. Thus he had lived above twenty years in Scotland, in the highest reputation that any man in my time ever had in the kingdom. He had a brother well known at court, Sir Elisha, who was very like him in face and in the vivacity of his parts; but the most unlike him in all other things that can be imagined. For though he loved to talk of great sublimities in religion, yet he was a very immoral man. He was a papist of a form of his own; but he had changed his religion to raise himself at court, for he was at that time secretary to the duke of York, and was very intimate with lord Aubigny, a brother of the duke of Richmond's, who had changed his religion, and was a priest, and had probably been a cardinal if he had lived longer. He maintained an outward decency, and had more learning and better notions than men of quality who enter into the church generally have. Yet he was a very vicious man; and that perhaps made him the more considered by the king [Charles II.], who loved and trusted him to a high degree. No man had more credit with the king; for he was in the secret as to his religion, and was more trusted with the whole designs that were then managed in order to establish it, than any man whatsoever. Sir Elisha brought his brother
