rector of Peopleton, which was nineteen years and some months. His first wife was Anne Green, the eldest daugher of Armael Green, of Coldsden, in the parish of Upton-Snodbury aforesaid, gentleman, a man both of good estate and reputation. By her he had a son named Richard: she died of the small-pox, the 4th of the Eighth Month, 1676, and her son of the same distemper the next day. They were both buried, on the 7th of the same month, in one grave, at Upton-Snodbury aforesaid.

His second wife was Mary Draper, the daughter of John Draper, of Brewern Grange, in Oxfordshire, a man of considerable estate, and good estimation among men. By her he had issue a daughter, named Anne, who lived to woman's estate, was married, and is since deceased, having left behind her two sons, yet living. His second wife died at Peopleton, of a fever, on the 7th of the Seventh Month, 1687; and was, according to her own desire, buried at Warrington, in Warwickshire, that being the place of her father's nativity.

The character himself has left of both these his wives, is, that they were sober and virtuous women, and faithful in their measures to what they had received; and that he hoped the Lord had shown mercy to them, in and through his Son Jesus Christ, in whom they believed, according to the dispensation they were under.

His life, while he continued a parish priest, was, as his own manuscripts describe it, a mixture of virtue and vice. Sometimes he would be very strict and severe in his conversation, and at other times very indifferent and remiss. Sometimes

seeming to have a great zeal for God, and concern for his soul; and again, to abate so much of that, as to be altogether regardless of either. He was very industrious in performing the customary exercises of his office. He studied hard for his sermons; and what he collected, or composed for that end, he delivered with a show of fervency and affection, which was very taking with his auditory. He preached up repentance and regeneration, and set them forth, and recommended them to others, in Scripture words and phrases, while he himself was a stranger to both, and an enemy to God by wicked works. He took the words of Christ and his apostles, and put them into a method and form of his own devising. This satisfied the people, and was pleasing enough to them, because they were in the same state with himself, like priest, like people, making some outward show of religion, but little or nothing of it in reality: for both were become vain in their imaginations, and their foolish hearts were darkened; for while they professed to know God, in their actions they denied him, bringing forth works of the flesh, instead of the fruits of the Spirit, and contenting themselves with a name, without the nature of Christianity. Such was their state, a state of death and darkness, a state of alienation from, and enmity against God: and such, as Richard Claridge has written from his own experience and observation, was the condition of the parish priests and their people generally, in those parts. Sin abounded in towns and villages, in families and private persons; multitudes of all places, ages, sexes, and orders, were infected, more or less, with the contagion; so that that confession,

which they used in their public service, We have erred and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, &c. as it suited exactly with their state, and was easy to be said over, being made ready for the mouths of swearers, drunkards, adulterers, liars, the proud and covetous, &c. so the following absolution, as cheap a thing as the confession, did contribute not a little to the emboldening of them in their sins. For they took encouragement from thence, either to repeat their old, or run into new transgressions; because confession and absolution were so nigh at hand, and so easily to be had; that is, without leaving off their beloved sins, and parting with their darling lusts for mere verbal confession was a very easy thing, especially in such a general form, as any one that could read or say after the priest might make it and that being made, the next thing was absolution, the priest pronouncing them absolved as penitents, within a few breaths after their customary confession. And thus, as often as they confessed, they were absolved, even without bringing forth the fruits of repentance, which are, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well; and every absolution being thought to discharge their former debts, these mistaken people boldly contracted more, upon a vain presumption of this easy way of payment. Thus man was wont, as he conceived, to make his composition with his Maker, confess his sins in gross or general terms, from time to time, but the heart not changed, the will and affections unrenewed; no lust mortified, nor passion subdued, but the man and the woman still the same, sinning and confessing, confessing

and sinning, without forsaking and amending, as many, it is to be feared, do, to their dying hour.

In this deplorable state and condition Richard Claridge continued for many years; but the Lord suffered him not to continue in that dark and unbelieving state, without the reproofs of his Holy Spirit; which though he did not understand nor mind, as he ought to have done, yet, many a time had he rebuke and trouble for his disobedience, and for that false worship which he was then in the performance of. He was often visited by the day-spring from on high, and his candle was often lighted, though he through transgression did often put it out; but, notwithstanding his repeated disobedience, the Lord did not cease striving with him, but lengthened out the day of his visitation, until he prevailed upon him by his mercies and judgments, to incline his ear to hear, and to hearken, that his soul might live.

Being now, through the operation of divine grace upon his spirit, brought to a serious consideration of his ways, his soul became deeply exercised under a sense of his manifold sins, and offences; and he was day and night in great perplexity and horror, for fear of the justice of God, whose most holy laws he had transgressed, and thereby rendered himself an object of his wrath. Now began sin to appear exceeding sinful to him, and his soul to be bowed down under the load and burden of it. In this afflicted state, seeking rest and finding none, he took a journey to London, on the 17th of the month called April, 1689, hoping to receive consolation from the ministry of some preachers there of great account.

Having heard much talk of Richard Baxter, an

eminent preacher among the London Presbyterians, and being desirous to hear him, he went to his public meeting in Charter-House-Yard, on the 21st of the month aforesaid, where he preached on this text, 2 Sam. xxiii. 6, 7. “But the sons of Belial shall be all of them as thorns thrust away, because they cannot be taken with hands; but the man that shall touch them must be fenced with iron, and the staff of a spear; and they shall be utterly burnt with fire in the same place." The old man, by reason of his great age and bodily infirmities, unable to stand long, sat down and preached. No sooner had he repeated the words of his text, but Richard Claridge applied them home, esteeming himself one of those sons of Belial, namely, the thorns not to be taken with hands, but burnt with fire. Now was he seized with greater horror of mind than before, and so exceeding heavy was the anguish and distress upon his spirit, that he must have sunk under it, had not the Lord by his secret arm and power graciously supported him.

Seeking still to calm his troubled mind, he frequented the sermons of several episcopal ministers, but to no purpose; he found them miserable comforters, unprofitable physicians, that had no balm to cure his wounded spirit. They spake words to his outward ears, but wanted inward life and energy. They seemed to him insipid talkers, ignorant of God and Christ, and altogether unskilful to speak a word in season to the refreshing of weary souls.

On the 1st of the month called May, 1689, he went to hear one of this set of men at St. Peter's, Cornhill, (so called,) who preached upon Isaiah, xxvi. 12. “ Lord, thou wilt ordain peace for us,