ROBERT SANDERSON.

May 6, 1619.

And not long after this resignation, he was by the then Bishop of York,[10] or the King sede vacante, made Prebend of the Collegiate Church of Southwell in that Diocese; and shortly after of Lincoln by the Bishop of that See.

[Sidenote:  Marriage]

And being now resolved to set down his rest in a quiet privacy at Boothby Pannell, and looking back with some sadness upon his removal from his general acquaintance left in Oxford, and the peculiar pleasures of a University life; he could not but think the want of society would render this of a country Parson the more uncomfortable, by reason of that want of conversation; and therefore he did put on some faint purposes to marry.  For he had considered, that though marriage be cumbered with more worldly care than a single life; yet a complying and a prudent wife changes those very cares into so mutual a content, as makes them become like the sufferings of St. Paul, Colos. i. 24, which he would not have wanted because they occasioned his rejoicing in them.  And he, having well considered this, and observed the secret unutterable joys that children beget in parents, and the mutual pleasures and contented trouble of their daily care and constant endeavours to bring up those little images of themselves, so as to make them as happy as all those cares and endeavours can make them:  he, having considered all this, the hopes of such happiness turned his faint purposes into a positive resolution to marry.  And he was so happy as to obtain Anne, the daughter of Henry Nelson, Bachelor in Divinity, then Rector of Haugham, in the County of Lincoln, a man of noted worth and learning.  And the Giver of all good things was so good to him, as to give him such a wife as was suitable to his own desires; a wife, that made his life happy by being always content when he was cheerful; that divided her joys with him, and abated of his sorrow, by bearing a part of that burden; a wife that demonstrated her affection by a cheerful obedience to all his desires, during the whole course of his life; and at his death too, for she outlived him.

[Sidenote:  A country parson]

And in this Boothby Pannell, he either found or made his parishioners peaceable, and complying with him in the decent and regular service of God.  And thus his Parish, his patron, and he lived together in a religious love and a contented quietness; he not troubling their thoughts by preaching high and useless notions, but such plain truths as were necessary to be known, believed and practised, in order to their salvation.  And their assent to what he taught was testified by such a conformity to his doctrine, as declared they believed and loved him.  For he would often say, “That, without the last, the most evident truths—­heard as from an enemy, or an evil liver—­either are not, or are at least the less effectual; and do usually rather harden than convince the hearer.”