A treatise on comforting afflicted consciences - The Digital Puritan

xxviiiMEMOIR OF THEyears old, when he obtained a fellowship. He at the sametime proceeded to the degree of master of arts, and bythe exercises he pei'formed on the occasion obtainedso much celebrity as to be appointed reader of lecturesin logic and moral and natural philosophy in his owncollege. He is said to have discharged the duties ofhis office with such skill and diligence as to have obtainedthe admiration of all who approved the conscientiousfulfilment of engagements, as well as thedislike of certain contemporary lecturers, who werecompelled, say my authorities, to " a more frequent andpainful reading of their lectures, which were seldomand slightly performed before." As another proof ofthe estimation in which he was held, he was chosen tobe one of the disputants before King James, in naturalphilosophy, when that learned monarch first visited theUniversity of Oxford.To his other attainments it is said that he addedeminence in metaphysics, mathematics, and the divinityof the schoolmen.Yet during this career of literary eminence, he remainedunaflFected by the truths of revealed religion.He exhibited in his disposition and habits a convincingproof of the utter inadequacy of human attainmentsto aflfect the corrupt bias of the human heart.He appears to have even added to the number of instancesin which the greatest mental attainmentsareassociated with the greater inclination to sin ; asif the Creator would demonstrate by such cases, thatthe only source of rectitude is the influence of hisHoly Spirit, and that moral weakness and degradationmay exist in inverse proportion to intellectualstrength.