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their Descendants, they followed Abraham in this Custom. Solomon Chap^L’was a greater Planter of them, and had an House of Pleasure or Lodgein one of them for Recess. In such Places were the Monuments ot theirSaints, and the Bones of their Heroes deposited; for which Davidcelebrated the Humanity of the Galadites, in Nemora J abes, as mostsacred and inviolable. In such a Place did the Angel appear toGideon ; and in others, ‘Princes were inaugurated ; Ib Abimelech,

Judg. i x . And the Rabbins add a Reason why they were reputedto venerable; because more remote from Men and Company, moreapt to compose the Soul, and fit it for divine Actions, and some-times Apparitions ; for which the first Enclosures and Sacra Septawere attributed to Groves, * Mountains, Fountains of fy at er, and * ^ raePnvthe like solemn Objects, as of peculiar Sanctity, and as the old Sense ,Wof all Words denoting Sanctity did import Separateness, and uncom- fifes'mon ‘Propriety : See our Learned Mede. For though since the De- Lucian^S*-'vil’s, Intrusion into Paradise, even the most holy and devoted Places cri fwere not free from his Temptations and ugly Stratagems; yet we findour Blejsed Saviour did frequently retire into the Wilderness, as Eli-jah and St. John Baptis did before him, and divers other holy Men;particularly the whom Philo mentions; a certain religious philo«5. ^

Sect, w ho addicting themselves to Contemplation, chole the solitary Re- £«« Stt?.t cesses of Groves and fFoods ; as of old the Rechabites , Ejfenes, Pri-mitive Monks, (and other Institutions ) retired amongst the Thebaid‘Desarts : And perhaps the Air of such retired Places may be assistantand influential, for the inciting of penitential Expressions and Affecti-ons ; especially where one may have the additional Assistances of soli-tary Grotts, murmuring Streams, anddefolat e Prospects. I remem-ber that under a Tree was the Place of that admirable St. August in’ ssolemn Conversion, after all his importunate Reluctances: I have oftenthought of it, and it is a melting Paslage, as himself has recorded it,

Con. I. 8 . c. 8 . and he gives the reason, Solitudo enim mihi ad negoti -11m flendi aptior suggerebatur. And that indeed such Opportunitieswere successful for Recollection, and to the very Reformation of someingenuous Spirits, from secular Engagements to excellent and mortify-ing Purposes, we may find in that wonderful Relation of Pontianus'stwo Friends, great Courtiers of the Time, as the fame holy Fatherrelates it, previous to his own Conversion. And here I cannot omit anObservation of the learned Dr. Plot , in his (often-cited) Nat. His. ofOxfordshire ; taking notice of two eminent Religious Houses, whoseFoundations were occasion’d by Trees ; the first, Osney-Abbey ; thesecond, by reason of a certain Tree standing in the Meadows (whereafter was built the Abbey ) to which a Company of Pyes were wontto repair, as oft as Edit ha, the Wife of Robert d’Oyly, came to walkthat way to solace herself; for the clamorous Birds did so affect her,that consulting with one Radulphus ( Canon of St. Fridiswid ) what itmight signify, the subtle Man advis’d her to build a Monasery wherethat Tree stood, as if so directed by the Pyes in a miraculous manner:

Nor was it long e’er the Lady procur’d her Husband to do it, and tomake Radulphus (her Confessor) first Prior of it.

Such another Foundation was caus’d by a tripple Elm having threeTrunks issuing from one Root. Near such a Tree as this, was Sir Tho-mas White, Lord Mayor of London , warn’d by a Hr earn to erect aCollege for the Education of Youth: which he did; namely, St. John’s

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