reigns everywhere. Thou knowest also how weak the Nature of Children is, and how inclinable to Evil. Therefore Strengthen them, I beseech thee, with fuch Antidotes as may preserve them from the Infection of the Times. Suffer not the Wickedness of the World to gain upon their Affections, nor Satan to prevail upon them by his Suggestions, nor evil Company to spoil their pious Education. Give them an Understanding to know thee, an Heart to love thee, and Affections to embrace thee and thy Glory. Let thy holy Angels guard them by Night and by Day. Let thy Providence defend them, thy Word instruct them, thy Promises comfort them, and thy holy Spirit regenerate them, and imprint in their Souls thy blessed Image. Give them neither Poverty nor Riches, but nourish them with Food convenient. Make them to taste of the heavenly Gift, and of the Powers of the World to come. Inflame them with thy Love and Charity, and adorn them with all Chriftian Virtues, but chiefly, fanctifie them with thy holy Spirit, and make them to become new Creatures; Since without Sanctification none shall fee thy Face in Glory. Confirm them for ever in thy holy Covenant, and give them Grace to transmit it to their Pofterity after them, as a bleffed Inheritance, that thou mayeft be glorified by them from Generation to Generation, to all Eternity. Suffer not the World, nor Hell, to pluck them out of thine Hand, that nothing may feparate them from the Love which thou haft shewed to them in Jesus Christ thine only Son. Let not Death terrifie them, but let it rather rejoice and comfort them, because that 'tis the Entrance to the glorious Dwelling of their heavenly Father, and to the Celestial Paradise. Whatsoever Change or Alteration shall happen bere below, let them always lift up their Eyes to thee, who art the fame Yesterday, and to Day, and fhalt be the same for ever. Let them never forget their Duty to thee, from whom they have received their Being and Life, that they may prefer the Glory of thy -Great Name, the Purity of thy Worship, and the Hopes of thy heavenly Kingdom, to all worldly Glory, Magnificence, Riches, Advantages, and Pleasures of the Flesh. 4 A Flesh. Merciful, and Almighty Lord, I shall not say to thee as Esau did to Ifrael, when he had blessed Jacob; My Father, haft thou but one Blessing? For I am certain that thou hast an infinite Number, and many inexhaustible Fountains of all manner of Blessings. But I beseech thee, with all the Zeal and Earnestness that I am capable of, to bless my dear Children with thy heavenly and principal Favours. Take them into thy Protection, bear them in thy Hands, embrace them with thy tender Compassion, and let them be as dear to thee as the Apple of thine Eye. I am now leaving the World and my Children, without Grief, or mistrusting thy Care of them. I am ascending with Joy up to thee, who art my God, my Father, and their Father; and I trust in thy great and eternal Mercies, that one Day we shall fee one another in thine heavenly Kingdom, when we shall be admitted to behold thy Face, which shall fill us with unspeakable Gladness and Pleasure. Amen. CHAP. XIII. The first Consolation against the Fears of Death; God will not forsake us in our most grievous Agonies. AN is MAN naturally afraid of Pain, and abhors all Sufferings and Grief. Now the most of us are perfuaded that 'tis impossible to die without enduring great Torments; therefore they abhor Death, not fo much for its own fake, as for the Evils it inflicts upon us. That we may be able to drive away this ill-grounded Fear, and strengthen our Minds against all Apprehenfions, we must first confider, that Death is not so dreadful and painful as is commonly imagin'd. The Holy Ghoft calls it a Sleep, and the Heathens themselves have said, that Sleep is Death's Coufin-german, and the Image of frozen Death. Now Sleep creeps upon us insensibly, it charms our Senses softly, and with invisible Q3 invisible Fetters it ties and stops all our most active Faculties. Though we fleep every Night, we are not able to difcover how this happens to us. 'Tis faid of Socrates, one of the most famous Men of the first Ages, having in Obedience to the Decree of the Athenian Judges drunk Poison, when he felt the Venom benumming his Senfes, and Death creeping into his Veins, he declared with a pleasant Countenance, That he had never swallowed any thing more sweet and comfortable. Nothing can be imagin'd more pleasant, than the Death of the old Patriarchs. The holy Scripture tells us, That when Jacob had made an end of commanding his Sons, he gathered up his Feet into the Bed, and yielded up the Ghost, Gen. xlix. The same is related of King David, that when he had perfuaded Solomon to fear God, and to do Justice, he slept with his Fathers, i Kings i. God is as merciful to many in these latter Days, to cause them to die in speaking and calling upon his holy Name. Their Souls are not pluck'd from them by Violence, but of their own accord they leave the Body, and fly into Heaven with an holy Chearfulness. The Separation of such Souls happens without Pain, Grief, or Suffering. Such are like to a Taper, that goes out without any Blast of Wind, of its own accord, when the Wax that keeps it alive, and nourisheth its Flame is totally fpent. If you perceive some toss'd and tortured with grievous Pangs in their Death-bed, they are not properly the Pangs of Death, but the last Strugglings and Motions of Life. For I cannot imagine, that at the Moment of the Separation of our Souls from our Bodies, we suffer any Pain, because at that Inftant, the Senses are then lulled asleep, and our Bodies have no more Strength, nor Life to hinder the Soul's departing. Death is so far from being so dreadful and painful, as we commonly imagine, that on the contrary, 'tis that very thing that puts an end to all our Pains and Miseries. And I am perfuaded that the Diseases, that bring us to our Graves, are not so grievous as the o ther 1 ther Distempers that we endure whilft we live here on Earth; fuch as are a cruel Gout, a Stone in the Kidneys, or a Cancer in the Breast; for they are Tortures that rack us continually, and a Fire that confumes us without ceasing. But when our Pains should be far more sensible, and that we should have Reason to impute them to Death, we have no Reason therefore to fly from it, or to abhor its Approaches. For we have as good cause to curse the Hour of our Birth, and weep for our Victories, for there is no Birth without Pain, nor Victory without Struggling. The most glorious and flourishing Lawrels are watered with Blood and Sweat. The most excellent Things are attain'd with the greatest Difficulties; and to speak according to the common faying, as One Nail drives another, so one Evil is a Remedy to many other Evils. We commonly seek, as a good Thing, that Evil that frees us from the violent Pains that we can scarce endure. To be healed of our Distempers, we swallow bitter Pills and Potions, to gripe and torment our Bowels. To be freed from the Stone, wesuffer a most painful Cutting. And that the Gangrene, which infects one of our Limbs, might not get to our Heart, we endure it with Patience to be cut off, whether it be Arm or Leg. Therefore though Death should be much more grievous, bitter, and more cruel than is commonly reprefented; yet we ought to embrace it willingly, because it delivers us, not only from some one Disease, or some particular Pain, but generally from all Pains, Aches, and Diftempers. Thy Phyfick expels not always the Humour that disquiets us. When we have drawn out a Stone from the Bladder, many times others grow in the Place that are worse. The Surgeon's Hand, let it be never so expert, answers not always his Patient's Expectation; instead of removing his Pain, it sometimes encreaseth it. But the Working and Cure of Death is always certain, and never fails; the Success is always happy to a Chriftian Soul. Q4 That That I may supply thee with some Comfort in the midst of thy great Pains and Sufferings, My Brother, or My Sister, remember that these things happen to thee not by chance, but God appoints them as his Wisdom judges convenient. Ascribe not thy Disease to the Influence of the Stars, to blind Fortune, &c. but lift up thine Eyes to his Appointment, who hath stretched out the Heavens, and commanded the Succeffion of the Seasons, and who is the Author and Lord of thy Life. We need not tempt God, as the Philistines of old, and require from him a Miracle, to know if it be his Hand for God afssures us, that he himself inflicts the Wound, and binds it up; that his Hand strikes, and heals again, I Sam. v. Affliction cometh not forth of the Duft, neither doth Trouble spring out of the Ground, Job.v. Who is able to say, that these things are come to pass, and the Lord hath not commanded them? Doth not Evil and Good proceed from the Appointment of the most High? There is no Evil in the City but God hath done it; that is to say, that there is no Distemper, nor Affliction, but he over-rules and governs it by his wonderful Providence. This Perfuafion will stop our murmuring in the midst of our greatest Troubles and violent Pains. It will cause us to say with David, I have held my Peace, Lord, and have not open'd my Lips, because it was thy doing. Or if we offer to speak, it shall be in the Language of a blessed Servant of God, Lord, thou troublest me but'tis fufficient for me to know, that'tis thy Hand, Job ii. As if he should have faid, this Physick is very bitter, O great Physician of my Soul and Body, but I will freely drink it up, because thou hast prescrib'd it. 'Tis not just to receive Good at the Hand of God, and refuse Evil; to complain of a Disease that he hath sent us for a few Days, instead of Blessing him for the Health which he hath continued to us many Years. In short, when our Souls shall be troubled with the Anguish of Death, when Drops of Blood shall come out of our Veins, we must in such a Case lift up our Eyes to Hea |