John Shower was another of Morton’s pupils. He was born at Exeter, and was educated, first in his native city, then at a Dissenting academy at Taunton, and then at Newington Green; was encouraged, by Dr Manton, to begin preaching before he was twenty, and, at twenty-two, was ordained assistant to Vincent Alsop, at Tothill Fields; established a successful lecture against Popery, in Exchange Alley; and, some years afterwards, went abroad, and became lecturer to the English Church at Utrecht and Rotterdam. In 1690 he became assistant to the great John Howe, in Silver Street, London, and finally settled down at the new meeting-house, in Old Jewry, where he continued to preach, with great popularity, until his death in 1715. He was the author of—1. “Serious Reflections on Time and Eternity.” 2. “Practical Reflections on the great Earthquakes in Jamaica and Italy,” &c. 3. “Family Religion.” 4. “The Life of Henry Gearing.” 5. “Funeral and Sacramental Discourses.” 6. “Winter Meditations,” &c. &c. &c. He was a great favourite of John Dunton’s, who describes him as “a popular preacher, with a small shrill voice, and noted for his funeral sermons.” In his “Dissenting Doctors,” Dunton writes in extravagant and doggerel rhyme:— “Shower—thy name and nature both agree, For both, (yes both,) refreshing showers be— You’re Chrysostom, let down from beams on high, You preach like him, charm with his orat’ry: So moving are your sermons, that, ’tis clear, You’ve brought the rhetoric of angels here; So pious in your life, meek in your place, We think you brought up in the schools of grace— Your pulpit’s fragrant, for you preach in flowers, And when the bearer’s truly blest, it—Showers— Showers, indeed! for both thy tongue and pen, Have often made our graces spring again.”