ner of go verning his while he He pursued the same method in the government 1708. of his family, while he was bishop, which he prac-The mantised during his confinement to a private station; his desire and endeavour was, to have it regulated family according to that excellent form recommended to us was bishop. in Scripture, by the examples of Joshua and David; and in order to introduce this, he took care, in the first place, to have them instructed in the principles of religion, and then gave them frequent and earnest exhortations to a holy life, and grave and friendly reproofs when necessary; to which he added a bright example of piety and devotion, that as by his instructions he taught them how to know their duty, so by the pattern he set before them, they might learn how to practise it. He had prayers in his family twice every day, morning and evening; and while he resided at Brecknock, he, and as many as could be spared, went constantly to public prayers at church. He continued the custom which he had always used, of having some religious exercises performed in his family upon a Sunday evening; and some part of that excellent book, called The whole Duty of Man, or of some other practical treatise in divinity, was read to them; which he designed chiefly for the benefit of the servants, who could not attend the public worship; but the bishop himself and all his family, as well as his servants, were present at it. And certainly, a day set apart, on purpose for the worship and honour of God, and the spiritual improvement of our souls, and for our preparation for eternity, ought chiefly to be employed to such religious ends; and masters of families cannot better discharge the great trust which is reposed in them upon such occasions, than by instructing their chil 1708. dren, servants, and other dependents, in the necessary knowledge of religion, and by raising their minds to a steady pursuit of those things which belong to their peace, before they are hid from their eyes. He was strict and careful in his inquiries concerning the character and behaviour of his servants, especially as it related to their absence from prayers, or to their neglect in not receiving the holy communion; even one of the last times he received the blessed sacrament, which was the Lord's day before he was confined by his last sickness, finding two of his servants to be absent, he sent for them, and severely reproved them for their neglect; and then declared, that he was fully determined, never to keep a servant in his house, that persisted in the omission of so great a duty, and therefore, if they had a mind to continue in his service, they must resolve to be constant communicants. His several methods of charity. LXXVI. As the good bishop's income increased, so did the exercise of his charity; and during the time of his sitting in that see, his hospitality and his alms were much too large for his revenues; but he never had so mean a design, as to raise an estate from the income of any church preferment, and though he brought a good patrimony into the service of the church, yet when God called him to his rest he left none behind him. He contented himself to make a very slender provision for his family, which, with God's blessing, he esteemed the best inheritance. 4 Gloria episcopi est pauperum opibus providere. Ignominia omnium sacerdotum propriis studere divitiis. S. Hierom. ad Nepotianum. His doors were always thronged with the poor and 1708. needy, who found comfort and support from his bounty; and all the time he lived at Brecknock, which is a very poor town, about sixty necessitous people, truly indigent, were fed with meat, or served with money, every Lord's day at dinner time; and he allowed very largely to widows and orphans in the same place, and sent liberally to relieve the distress of necessitous prisoners; and sad were the cries and lamentations of those destitute wretches, when the bishop was forced to leave that place for a freer air at Abermarless, which was a little more than half a year before he died. As he had made large expenses in repairing the parsonage houses of Suddington and Avening, where he had been rector for several years, which amounted at least to five hundred pounds; so now he procured the college chapel at Brecknock, part whereof was fallen down, to be put into that good repair in which it appears at present; but towards the effecting of this, he prevailed with the far greatest part of the prebendaries to allow one half year's reserved rent. He was very charitable to poor clergymen's widows or children, when they came to compound for their mortuaries. Now a mortuary is a customary duty, supposed to be due for tithes and oblations neglected to be paid by the deceased; so that it is not due by law, as my lord Coke observeth, but by custom. And it was not only customary to pay this duty, but it was usual to bring it to the church when the corpse was buried, and then to offer it as a satisfaction r r2d Instit. p. 491. 1708. for the supposed negligence in substracting tithes, and from hence, as Mr. Selden tells us, it was called a corse-present. His method upon such occasions was this when any clergyman died poor, or but in indifferent circumstances, and left many children behind him, and those unprovided for, he always remitted the mortuary, and gave them some good exhortations; and in order the better to make them effectual, he administered to them some seasonable relief, by way of present, if the difficulty of their case required it. And it is farther asserted, by those who were intimately acquainted with his lordship's proceedings, that he was very kind to all his clergy in their compositions, and to prevent any oppression from the management of his steward, he gave himself the trouble of settling these matters. And it is the opinion of some that very well understand this affair, that it would be of great importance to the welfare of that diocese, if some certain method could be fixed on to make clergymen's widows more easy in this respect. Sometimes in the dispositions of his charity the bishop had a particular regard to the good of souls; and because it is very difficult to instruct those in the necessary principles of religion, who are grown old in ignorance, he therefore enticed such by a pecuniary allowance to submit themselves to receive knowledge. It is certain, that the extremities of old age participate in some degree of the weak and helpless condition of childhood, and what makes it still much more lamentable is, when the mind, for History of Tythes, 287. Sir William Dugdale, in his Antiquities of Warwickshire, hath a learned discourse upon mortuaries, p. 679. want of due cultivation in the preceding stages of 1708. life, is altogether destitute of those Christian principles which should then support and comfort it. And therefore a charity of this nature, which endeavoured to repair the omissions of a neglected education, was of the greatest importance; because persons in that condition stood upon the brink of eternity, without having made that provision which was necessary to secure the happiness of so great a change. He allowed therefore twelve pence a week apiece to twelve old people of Brecknock, upon condition that they would submit to learn the principles of the Christian religion, and be ready and willing to give an account of them. When the bishop came to live at Brecknock, they had public prayers in that place only upon Wednesdays and Fridays, but by his care during his stay there, they have prayers now every morning and evening in the week. The method he took to establish this daily exercise of devotion was briefly this: upon his visiting the college in that town, he made the following proposal to the prebendaries, that, whereas they had each of them a certain yearly stipend under the name of a pension, out of their respective prebends, towards reading of daily prayers in the college chapel, which by reason of its distance from the body of the town, were very little frequented, and indeed hardly by any but the scholars of the free-school, which is adjoining to it; those pensions should for the future be applied to encourage the vicar of Brecknock to perform daily the morning and evening service in the town church, or chapel, as it is usually called. This proposal appeared to them so reasonable, that they all readily |