It must be confessed, that the credit of religion hath much suffered, in the age we live in, through the vain pretences of many to it, who have only acted a part in it for the sake of some private interests of their own. And it is the usual logic of Atheists, Crimine ab uno, disce omnes, if there be any hypocrites, all who make shew of religion are such; on which account, the Hypocrisy of one age makes way for the Atheism of the next. BISHOP STILLINGFleet. ADVERTISEMENT. THE following Narrative is reprinted intire from Some Passages of the Life and Death of the Right Hon. John Earl of Rochester, who died the 26th of July, 1680: written by his own direction on his death-bed, by Gilbert Burnet, D.D. London, 1680; a volume, which Doctor Johnson has declared in his Lives of the Poets, that the critic ought to read for its elegance, the philosopher for its arguments, and the saint for its piety. PREFACE. THE celebrating the praises of the dead, is an argument so worn out by long and frequent use, and now becomes so nauseous, by the flattery that usually attends it, that it is no wonder if funeral orations, or panegyrics, are more considered for the elegancy of style, and fineness of wit, than for the authority they carry with them as to the truth of matters of fact. And yet I am not hereby deterred from meddling with this kind of argument, nor from handling it with all the plainness I can; delivering only what I myself heard and saw, without any borrowed ornament. I do easily foresee how many will be engaged, for the support of their impious maxims and immoral practices, to disparage what I am to write. Others will censure it, because it comes from one of my profession, too many supposing us to be induced to frame such discourses, for carrying on what they are pleased to call our trade. Some will think I dress it up too artificially, and others, that I present it too plain and naked. But being resolved to govern myself by the exact rules of truth, I shall be less concerned in the censures I may fall under. It may seem liable to great exception, that I should disclose so many things, that were discovered to me, if not under the seal of confession, yet under the confidence of friendship; but this noble lord himself not only released me from all obligation of this kind, when I waited on him in his last sickness, a few days before he died, but gave it me in charge not to spare him in any thing which I thought might be of use to the living; and was not ill pleased to be laid open, as well in the worst, as in the best and last part of his life; being so sincere in his repentance, that he was not unwilling to take shame to himself, by suffering his faults to be exposed for the benefit of others. |