[Sidenote:  Death]

After his taking his bed, and about a day before his death, he desired his Chaplain, Mr. Pullin, to give him absolution:  and at his performing that office, he pulled off his cap, that Mr. Pullin might lay his hand upon his bare head.  After this desire of his was satisfied, his body seemed to be at more ease, and his mind more cheerful; and he said, “Lord, forsake me not now my strength faileth me; but continue thy mercy, and let my mouth be filled with thy praise.”  He continued the remaining night and day very patient, and thankful for any of the little offices that were performed for his ease and refreshment:  and during that time did often say the 103rd Psalm to himself, and very often these words, “My heart is fixed, O God! my heart is fixed where true joy is to be found.”  His thoughts seemed now to be wholly of death, for which he was so prepared, that the King of Terrors could not surprise him as a thief in the night:  for he had often said, he was prepared, and longed for it.  And as this desire seemed to come from Heaven, so it left him not till his soul ascended to that region of blessed spirits, whose employments are to join in concert with him, and sing praise and glory to that God, who hath brought them to that place, into which sin and sorrow cannot enter.

Thus this pattern of meekness and primitive innocence changed this for a better life.  ’Tis now too late to wish that my life may be like his; for I am in the eighty-fifth year of my age:  but I humbly beseech Almighty God, that my death may:  and do as earnestly beg of every Reader, to say—­Amen.

Blessed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile, Psal. xxxii. 2.

[Footnote 1:  This is a mistake; Bishop Sanderson was born at Sheffield on the 19th of September.]

[Footnote 2:  Thomas Scot, or Rotheram, so called after his birth-place, Fellow of King’s College, in Cambridge, was afterward Master of Pembroke Hall, and 1483 and 1484, Chancellor of the University.  He obtained great ecclesiastical preferment, being successively Provost of Beverley, Bishop of Rochester and of Lincoln, and lastly Archbishop of York.  Nor was he less adorned with civil honours, having been appointed, first, Keeper of the Privy Seal, and then Lord Chancellor of England.  The two Universities and his native town still enjoy the fruits of his bounty.  He died 29th May, 1500.]

[Footnote 3:  Dr. Gilbert Sheldon was born July 19, 1598.—­His father, Roger Sheldon, though of no obscure parentage, was a menial servant to Gilbert Earl of Shrewsbury.—­He was of Trinity College, Oxford, and took his Master’s degree in May, 1620.  He was introduced to Charles I. by Lord Coventry, and became one of His Majesty’s Chaplains.  Upon the Restoration, he was made Dean of the Chapel Royal, succeeded Dr. Juxon as Bishop of London, and after as Archbishop of Canterbury; in 1667 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford.  He died at Lambeth, Nov. 9, 1677.]