the church about eighteen years, and was most intense and faithful in declaring much of the counsel of God. He went through a great part of the body of divinity; made a very excellent exposition of the book of Genesis, and part of Exodus; and delivered many fruitful and profitable sermons on the four first chapters of John; and, in his monthly lectures, which were abundantly frequented, he preached of man’s misery by sin, and recovery by Christ Jesus; and died in the third part of it, namely, concerning man’s obedience in Christ; besides many other excellent truths, by him taught, upon divers occasions. In all his labours, God was wonderfully present with him. He was a person that held very near communion with God; eminent in wisdom, piety, humility, love, self-denial, and of a compassionate and tender heart; surpassing in public-spiritedness; a mighty man in prayer, and eminent at standing in the gap; he was zealous for order, and faithful in asserting the truth, against all oppugners of it. In a word, he was a man whom God had richly furnished, and eminently fitted for his work; lived desired, and died lamented, by all good Christians that knew him. It pleased God upon the 9th of July, 1668, in a hot and burning season (but much more hot in the heat of God’s anger to New England), to take him to rest and glory, about the 43d year of his age. His race was but short, but the work he did was very much. The elegies following may give the reader a further account of what esteem he was.4
Upon the death of that truly godly, reverend, and faithful servant of Christ, Mr. Jonathan Mitchell, pastor of the Church at Cambridge, who deceased July 9, 1668.
Four splendent stars extinguish’d in one year!
Two old, one young, and this of middle age;
A brightest light, most eyes who did engage,
The Lord in’s temple is, earth silence keep;
Dispute not over bold this judgment deep.
A mourning great, each eye distilling streams:
Sad sighs and sobs in most men’s mouths their themes.
And who can blame it? for this we well may,
If love, if fear, if temple-shakes bear sway.
The wife hath lost her head, four hopeful stems
A father; Cambridge too their crowning gems;
Neighbours, a useful light; elders, a brother,
Whose head and mouth made him, to most, a father.
Sad Cambridge, when thou lost thy Thomas dear,
God pitied thee, and gave a right compeer;
This Jonathan thy Mitchell, one in whom
Was much of EL, a Michael judged by some.
Right strong in school, in desk of brightest shine;
Artist, good linguist, high orthodox divine;
Of judgment deep; of memory how large!
Invention quick, grave, pleasant; who can charge
Thee, in thy theory or practic, with dark fail?
Humble, sincere, whose love cords did avail.
Much good by him, you Cambridge have received,
He gone, by you his relicts see reliev’d.
A royal quære, ’twas when Jonathan dead,
And royal act, Jonathan’s stems to feed.
—E.B.5
To the memory of that learned and reverend Mr. Jonathan Mitchell, late minister of Cambridge, in New England, interred July 10, 1668.
The country’s tears, be ye my spring; my hill,
A general grave; let groans inspire my quill,
With an heart rending sense, drawn from the cries,
Of orphan churches, and the destinies
Of a bereaved house: let children weep,
They scarce know why; and let the mothers steep
Her lifeless hopes in brine; the private friend
O’erwhelmed with grief, falter, his comforts end,
By a warm sympathy let fev’rish heat
Roam through my verse unseen; and a cold sweat
Limning despair attend me; sighs diffuse
Convulsions through my language, such as use
To type a gasping fancy; lastly shroud
Religion’s splendour in a mourning cloud,
Replete with vengeance for succeeding times,
Fertile in woes, more fertile in their crimes.
These are my muse, and these inspire the sails
Of fancy with their sighs instead of gales.
Reader, read rev’rend Mitchell’s life, and then
confess the world a Gordian knot again.
Read his tear-delug’d grave, and then decree
Our present woe and future misery;
Stars falling speak a storm. When Samuel dies,
Steel may expect Philistia’s cruelties.
So when Jehovah’s brighter glory fled
The temple, Israel was captive led.
Geneva’s triple light made one divine;
But here that vast triumvirate combine
By a blest Metempsychosis, to take
One person for their larger Zodiac.
In sacred censures, Farrel’s dreadful scroll
Of words, broke from the pulpit to the soul.
(Indulgent parents when they spare, they spoil,
Old wounds need vinegar as well as oil.
Distasteful cates with miseries do suit;
The Paschal lamb was eat with bitter fruit);
In balmy comforts, Viret’s genius came
From the wrinkled Alps to woo the western dame;
And courting Cambridge, quickly took from thence,
Her last degrees of rhetoric and sense.
Calvin’s Laconics through his doctrines spread,
And children’s children with their manna fed.
His exposition Genesis begun,
And
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