A Prayer and Meditation upon the continual Expectation of Death.

Gracious God, in whofe Power alone, and at whofe Pleafure are the Times and the Seafons; I know it is appointed for all Men once to die, and that the Grave is the Dwelling which thou bast prepared to receive all Mankind. We understand fufficiently by the Experience of former Ages, that none is able to say, I fhall live, and shall not fee Death. Thou, O Almighty God, our fupreme Judge, bast pronounced our irrevocable Sentence in the earthly Paradife, that we must die; fo that I fhould be guilty of the greatest Folly, if I did not firmly believe that I must die as others, and follow at my turn in the way of all Flesh. But, Lord, thou hast been pleafed to hide from us the Iffues of thy Providence, and doft not suffer us to fee the Hand that marks out the laft Hours of our Life. We can perceive no Shadow to difcover to us with Certainty, what shall be the going down of our Sun; we know not at what Hour of the Day or of the Night thou wilt call us to appear before thy great Tribunal. Give me therefore Grace, Omerciful God, to be always ready to answer to thy Call, and to obey thy boly Commands; that may be as a Ship at Anchor, that stays only for a Wind to fet fail; or as a Soldier who waits only for the Signal to march to the Encounter. Give me Grace, Ogood Lord,that I may be like the good and faithful Servant, who expects his Mafter's coming, and bears his Voice as foon as he calls; or like the wife Virgins, who are ready to meet the Bridegroom, and to follow him to the Marriage Chamber. Since I am not to know either the Time or the Place when Death will come to me, O that I may expect and wait for it every Moment, and at every Place! O that I might live in fuch a Manner, that I may be always ready to die! That my Soulwere always upon my Lips, prepared to fly away! That I were continually in Readiness to commit it into thy Hands, O my God, my faithful and merciful Creator! By this Means I fhall receive Death with Joy, when it

I

comes

comes as thy Servant and Messenger; and I fhall follow it willingly, being certainly perfuaded that it will lead me into eternal Life, and tranfport me into thy glorious and immortal Palace. Amen.

CHA P. IX.

The Third Remedy against the Fears of Death, is, to confider that GOD hath appointed the Time and Manner of our Death.

W

E are either Hypocrites who draw near unto God with our Lips, and honour him with our Tongues, whilft our Heart is far from him, Mat. xiv. or we muft defire the Accomplishment of the Will of God, and refign ourselves wholly to it; for every Day we fay unto him in our Prayers, ThyWill be done in Earth, as it is in Heaven; therefore we cannot abhor nor fly from Death fo cowardly, if we be rightly perfuaded as we ought, that God hath limited the time and appointed the Manner of our Death. That which caufes us to complain of this laft Enemy, is a continual Eye that we have fixed upon the Power of the Flesh, and a too great Confidence upon fecond Caufes. We are like the Dog that bites at the Stone that strikes him, for we commonly curfe the Means that God employs to call and withdraw us out of the World.

It will eafily appear that God hath numbred our Days, and that by his wonderful and eternal Wisdom, he hath decreed the Hour and Moment of every Man's Death. For befides what our Saviour Chrift faith in general, That God hath referved the Times and the Seafons in his own Power, A&tsi. Job tells us exprefsly, The Days of Man are determined, the Number of his Months are with thee, thou hast appointed his Bounds that he cannot pass, Job xiv. The Royal Prophet speaks to the fame Purpose in the xxxift Pfalm, I trust in thee, O Lord, I

faid thou art my God, my times are in thy Hand. He is of the fame Judgment in the xixth Pfalm, Behold thou haft made my Days as anHand-breadth. And in the 68th Pfalm, Unto God the Lord belong the Iffues of Death. He alfo teacheth us the fame Leffon in his divine Hymn, Pfal. xc. for when he had reprefented how that it is God who reduceth Man to Afhes, and maketh him return to his firft Subftance, he tells us, fpeaking unto God, Thou turnest Man to Destruction, and fayeft, return again, ye Children of Men.

King Hezekiah's Comparison is very notable; he compareth the Life of Man to a Thread that God hath twifted, and that he cuts off at his Pleasure, Ifa. xxxviii. Mine Age is departed, and removed from me as a Shepberd's Tent; I have cut off, like a Weaver, my Life, be will cut me off with pining Sickness, from Day even to Night wilt thou make an End of me. Hannah, Samuel's Mother, removes all Difficulty, and confirms this Truth fufficiently, 2 Sam. ii. It is God, faith fhe, who killeth and maketh alive, he bringeth down to the Grave, and bringeth up. There is nothing more fignificant to the fame Purpose, than our Lord and Saviour's Words, I am be that liveth and was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, Amen, and have the Keys of Hell and Death, Revel. This great God and Saviour clofeth the Gates of the Grave when he pleafeth, and it is not poffible to open them against his Will; In short, Whether we live, we live to the Lord, whether we die, we die to the Lord, whether therefore we live or die, we are the Lord's, Rom. xiv.

And our Reason being enlightned with divine Revelation, teacheth us this good and profitable Leffon; for if God hath a Hand in our Conception and Birth, and if he appoints the Time of our Entrance into the World, wherefore fhould not he also have an Hand in our Death, and mark out the Time of our Departure? David fpeaks thus to God in the 139th Pfal. My Subftance was not bid from thee, when Iwas made in fecret, and curiously wrought, in the loweft Parts of the Earth: Thine

Eyes

my

Eyes did fee my Subftance yet being imperfect, and in thy Book all Members are written, which in Continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them. We may therefore fpeak unto God in the fameLanguage; my Subftance fhall not be hid from thee, when this miferable Body fhall fall to pieces, as rotten Wood, and as a Moth-eaten Garment; thine Eyes fhall fee me, when Death shall cut off the Thread of my Life, and separate what thou haft joined together fo wonderfully by thy Power and Wisdom: Thy Providence fhall difpofe of me at my Departure, and nothing shall happen to me but that which thou haft fore-ordained in thine unfearchable Decrees.

If God appoints the time of our Resurrection, and if it be certain, that without his exprefs Commiffion, the Holy Spirit will not breathe upon our dry Bones to cause them to revive; it is not probable that our Breath thould depart out of our Noftrils, and our Bodies fhould fall into the Bed of Corruption, without the Orders of the great and living God, Ezek. xxxvii. He hath appointed the Sun its Course, and to the Stars that shine in the Heavens, their feveral Motions and Stations, Ifa. xl. And fhould he not also appoint to his Children their Motions, fince they are to fhine for ever in the Heaven of Heavens, where Righteoufnefs dwells as fo many immortal Stars; He hath measured the Water in his Hand; he hath compaffed the Heavens with his Span; he hath weighed the Mountains inScales, and the Hills with a Balance; he hath fashioned the Earth with his Hands, and given Bounds to the roaring Sea; and is it poffible that he hath not measured the time of our Life, and that he hath not mark'd out with his Finger the laft Moment? He who hath numbered the Kingdom of the Heathen Princes, hath he not alfo numbered the Days in the which he intends to reign in our Hearts by his Holy Spirit? Hath he not appointed the time for us to afcend up into the highest Heavens, where we are to reign with him in the Kingdom of his Glory?

If it be certain that God hath numbered the Hairs of our Head, Mat. x. it is not to be doubted but that he hath also numbred the Days of our Life And if a Sparrow fall not to the Ground without his Order, how can it be that a Man can take his Flight up to Heaven without his exprefs Commiffion? He bottles up our Tears, he keeps a Record of all our Afflictions, and takes an Account of our Sorrows, Pfal. 1. and can we imagine that he doth not keep an Account of the Life and Death of Men, and that he minds not the Time that we are to spend in the Valley of Tears? He takes notice of our up-rifing, and of our down-fitting, he compaffeth thee round about whither thou doft stop or go, Pfal. lix. And can it be conceived but that he obferves thy rifing at thy Birth, the feveral Paffages of thy Life, and thy going down at thy Death?

In fhort, If God hath appointed in his eternal Counfel, the Continuance of the greatWorld; he hath also, without doubt, limited the Life of Man, the little World, and the Image and Compendium of the great, as our Lord and Saviour teaches us. Man is not able by his folicitous Care to add one Cubit to his Stature, and our Experience fufficiently demonstrates that we cannot add a Year, a Day, or a Moment, by all our Labour and Industry, to the Continuance of our Life.

;

If Life and Death were not in God's Hand, there would be nothing fettled, or conftant, either in the Kingdoms of the World, or in the Church of Chrift. The Prophets would be often found in grievous Errors, and the eternal Election would be totally abolished for the moft weighty Affairs of a Common-wealth depend upon the Life of Princes. The Death of one Man is able to turn an Empire upfide down, and to change the State of the Kingdom. If Alexander the Great had been ftifled in his Cradle, what would become of the Prophecy of Daniel, who declared the glorious Victories that this Prince fhould obtain against King Darius, the Perfian Monarch, under the Emblem of an HeGoat that should run at a Ram with all his Might?

that