an Ecclipse of the light of his Fathers Countenance at what time He cried out to the astonishment of Heaven and Earth My God my God why hast thou forsaken me But much more in vouchsafing her some immediate irradiations of his face and favour on the evening before she died at what time a gracious intimate friend sitting at a little distance from her Bed-side forbearing to speak to her knowing her to be very much spent and supposing her to be in a slumber at length she opened her eyes as if it had bin out of a sleep and seeing her friend whom she loved sitting by she bespake her thus Oh my dear friend are you there I have had a full answer of all my prayers God hath not denyed me any of the requests of my soul but hath fully satisfied my desires Hathe he so said her friend Then I hope he hath heard you in that you feared meaning the fear of death To your God and my God to your Father my Father These Words she often used which formerly had held her in some bondage Heb. 2.14 She replyed He hath He hath I know whom I have believed and I am now going to him and I shall see him shortly with these very eyes You that have prayed to God for me I desire you would joyn with me in giving him praise for this gratious answer of peace vouchsafed me poor me She added moreover she did not desire prayer for the Continuance of life but that she might he resigned up to God in prayer Eph. 1.6 and might be accepted in the beloved And resigned up she was in a solemn manner first by several godly Ministers then present and last of all by that hand which by the power of the Holy Ghost had Midwived her into Christ in her Regeneration during all which time her spirit accompanied that solemn transaction with strong and vigorous affections to the extream expence of her natural spirits and when all was finished being asked whether she had gone along with the Petition which had bin lifted up to God for her She answered Yes I bless God I have they were very sweet and precious The Lord return your kindness and love into your bosom a thousand fold Whereupon leaving her to try what rest she could take being very much wasted in her spirits we had not bin long in our Beds ere we were call'd out in hast to take our last leave of her but her precious soul impatient of longer distance from her Beloved did upon her Lords day in the morning as early as the light might serve to denominate it day take its flight to the mountains of spices there to celebrate an eternal Sabbath in the bosom and embraces of her Heavenly-Bridegroom A Second thing she did upon her Dying-Bed was before the Lord Jesus Christ his Elect Angels and those Christians which were about her to make a full and clear Profession of her Faith Wherein though she took the Creed commonly called Apostolical for her Text Yet she did not content her self to do it in that steril verbal way of a literal repetion as the mode of most ignorant people is but upon evey Article and Clause as she went enlarged her self in so spiritual and savory a Paraphrase of her own as did marvelloufly affect the hearers in so much that they afterward accused themselves of robbery against their own souls that they had not taken the paines to make that legible to their eyes which she had made audible to their eares Her third and last dying work was to give Counsels and Instructions to her surviving Relations that were about her which were so full serious and suitable that she seemed as indeed she vvas to be acted above her self her spiritual and Heavenly self acting the weak Organ of her body as long as there was any passive capacity left in it In a word she hath left as many Mourners behind her as knew her whether good or bad The worst in the place where she lived have given her this Testimony That if she be not gone to Heaven never any went thither which puts us to find out a new exposition of our Lords Text Woe unto you Luk. 6.20 when all men shall speak well of you c. As for you Beloved remember the Text and make it your work to be her followers to imitate her in her Graces and gracious Conversation vvhose Faith follow Heb. 13.7 It is time to conclude But though I have given you divers Motives in the Grounds and Reasons of the Doctrine yet for your special provocation and encouragement who are of her Family and dear Relations give me leave to add some special Incentives and Considerations to quicken you to a vigorous imitation of so excellent a Pattern It were a fruitless sorrow to go to the Sepulchre with Mary to weep there Joh. 11.13 It is a more profitable work to enquire how vve may recruit our loss how we may expound Sampsons Riddle to get meat out of the Eater and out of the strong sweetness hovv to make a gain of our great affliction and that is the thing I would gladly press upon you in a fevv Motives and Considerations First Without a serious imitation of her pious example that which was our mercy and priviledge in the enjoying of her will turn to our sin and the aggravation of our loss Heb. 11.7 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is said of Noah He cocondemned the World c. How his Preaching and his Pattern being not followed should rise up in judgement against that Reprobaâ—e generation Mat. 12 21 22. and condemn them so likewise our Lord tells the impenitent Jews that the Men of Niniveh and the Queen of the South should rise up in judgement with that generation and condemn them i.e. The example of those poor Infidels not prevailing with them to move them to repentance and timely and serious diligence in the great concerments of salvation having Christ himself a greater then Jonas or Solomon to be their Preacher should in the day of judgement rise up as a witness and an aggravation of their obstinate impenitency Dear Sirs We have had the light of this most excellent pattern shining within our Walls for diverse years last past some of us more some fewer give me leave to tell you even weeping 〈…〉 it leave no bettering influence upon us 〈◊〉 will give in a judicial testimony against 〈◊〉 in the great day She hath bin a witness from God to us if by a practical improvement of what we have seen divine and excellent in her we receive not her testimony she will be a witness for God against us when our Lord shall come to call us to an account And O how terrible will that be What a dreadful addition to our misery when to the loss of such a blessing shall be added the Curse of our non-improvement of it Friends it had been better never to have been Mother to
admire God in his Saints as David did in the workmanship of the Creation and cry out in that admiration Psal 8.3 4. Lord what is man that thou art so mindfull of him they should Praise and glorifie God which giveth such gifts and graces unto men And by daily comparing themselves with these Patterns strive to correct their errors and to come up to further degrees of holiness and perfection 2. To be sure this was one great Reason 2 Ground Gods desiceing siaung the lives of the Saints to be Recorded why God took such order by the Pen-men of the Holy Ghost to have the lives and Graces of the Saints so exactly Regigistred in the Scriptures and kept upon publick record That they might be for Patterns and Presidents to future Generations So Octavius Augustus erected the Statues of the Roman Hero's triumphali effigie That illorum veluti ad exemplar Ipse dum viveret in sequentium aetatum principes exigerentur à Civibus Rom. 15.4 Rom. 15.4 Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope Even the sins and failings of the Saints are recorded in Scripture upon this very account 1 Cor. 106 11. to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Types and ensamples not indeed for our imitation but for our caution They be our Take-heeds not our Patterns to the intent we should not lust after evill things as they also lusted v. 6. But now their Gracious and Holy Gonversations they are properly Registred for our imitation to the intent we should tread in their steps 1 Cor. 4.17 For this cause have I sent unto you Timotheus c. who shall bring you into remembrance of my waies which be in Christ and might be taught by Pattern as well as by Precept Thus Abraham stands in Scripture as a pattern for our faith and self-denyal David for a pattern of our sincerity a man after Gods own heart Encch of our walking with God c. VVhy now if we mind them not and care not to imitate them we sin against the design of the Scripture and bid God as it were keep his Copies to himself we need them not or we desire not to fâ—llow them 3. Reason Patterns make any worke more easie 3. Reason To be followers of the Saints is a marvelous help and furtherance in our work His work is half done that hath a president before him the precept possibly may be dark and obscure but precept exemplified into a pattern and example is plain and facile he that runs may read Patterns are the commands of God made legible in the lives of the Saints Holiness made exemplary by which we may see how the Saints believed how the Saints denyed â—hemselves how they loved God and how they contemned the world c. If you would know what such graces are look upon the Saints and they will serve as so many Coments and Interpreters to you Besides Presidents do put 〈◊〉 kind of life into men the very bruit creatures are animated and quickned by their fellow-creatures their companions in labours and travel 4. Reason To prevent mistake 4. Reason It is a notable means to prevent mistakes of our own estates and to undeceive us of false opinions of our selves We are very prone to think well of our selves till we bring our selves and our wayes to the pattern and exemplar of the Saints and servants of God then we begin to say to our selves Are we like the Saints in Scripture or the Saints living Do I live as they lived Do I deny my self as they did Doth my zeal for God eat me up Is my faith and patience like theirs that have inherited the Promises Have I a Pauls spirit Oh how unlike what Dwarfs and Pigmies are we in comparison of them Surely either these were more then Saints or we are none by comparing we come to see a wide and manifest difference between them and us 5 Ground God is successively glorified in the world 5. Reason By imitating the Saints God is successively glorified in the world Abraham glorified God in his Generation and they that walk in the steps of faithful Abraham they glorifie him successively in their Generations Though Abraham be gone and the Saints be not Imitation makes them live still Imitation is the multiplication of the Saints As the Kings Picture is multiplied by taking Copies so that when the King is dead his Effigies will be known in future Generations This is the Generation of them that seek thy face O Jacob. The followers of Jacob are his Geceration he begot them by his example and Imitation makes them his Genuine Posterity They stand up as wrestlers with God as he was And thus Bâ—lievers the Children of Abraham his spiritual seed his lively Pictures and Effigies in the world Et sic in caet 6 Ground Imitation is the way to prevent slothfulnesse 6. Reason Imitation is the way to cure us of sluggishness and torpor which is in out natures that ye be nâ—t slothful but followers of them c. so in the text The slothfulness here disswaded is directly contrary to the forementioned diligence And mention is therefore made of it to shew us that for the more prosperous flourishing of any Grace the contrary sin is very carefully to be shunned The Trophie of Miltiades awaâ—lâ—â—â—ed Tâ—â—â—â— stoâ—les Plâ—â—arch If we would be diligent we must take heed of sloth and if we would take heed of the sluggishness to which our corrupt natures are so marvellously propense we must eye the Saints imitate them follow them and be slothfull if you can Consider what pains the Saints have taken in their several Generations Jacob wrestled with the Angel till break of day Christ prayed till he sweat again All he Saints in the Old and New-Testament â—hey did much and endured much take the â—reat Apostle it would even tire one of â—s to read the Catalogue of his active and â—assive travells in the Gospel 2 Cor. 11. â—3 to the end Oh what have the Saints 〈◊〉 one and suffered in their several ages How may such Presidents both shame â—nd quicken us Oh their labour of love â—heir work of faith their patience of hope How steadfast How unmoveable How aboundant in the work of the â—ord The keeping of such patterns still in â—ur eyes will marvellously quicken us to â—se all diligence in our Christian raceâ—â— Did they run after the rate that we do Did they pray after the same rate that â—â—ve pray Did they please themselves O â—ny sluggish heart this pace will never â—ring thee to heaven 7. Reason Imitation will prevent Apostacy 7. Reason The close following of the â—aints will prevent Apostacy Joash did â—ell all the dayes of Jehoiadâ—h Christians look about you ye are in great â—anger of falling away from your own â—tedfastness Your temptations are many â—nd great and the danger is dreadfull
theirs as Gods That 's not Rebellion against Rulers and Superiours vvherein not the will so much of the Inferiour gives sin a Negative vote as the Conscience and Conscience rightly informed by the word of God Yoke-fellows Love ye one another souls Love one another to heaven Let not the flesh go away with all your time and strength and affections nor the elder serve the younger Live together as heirs of the grace of life that your prayers be not hindred 1 Pet. 3.7 3. Look upon her as a Mistris in her Family 3. A Governess She was an excellent Governess her government was oâ— a Scripture constitution It was made up of sweetness and gravity sweetness without levity or remisness gravity without bitterness and severity There was no severity in her discipline save what was in the Pattern she proposed to them her own Conversation Indeed she was severely good her government was made up of Intreaties rather then Commands or Reproâ—fâ— She knew not how to be angry unless it were against sin and even that she exprest rather in grief then in passion Her great Care was that her family might know God and Jesus Christ Joh. 17.3 whom to know his life eternal She was of a Joshuah-like resolution Jos 24.13 As for me and my house we will serve the Lord. She thought it not enough to go to heaven alone but laboured to carry as many as she could with her especially them of her own Family To that end she was very exact and constant in Family-duties Her exactness in family-duties sc Reading the Scripture Prayer Catechising as deeply sensible how gainfull God had made that Domestick duty to her own soul in the Family of her education I say being conscious what good she had got by being diligently instructed in the principles of Religion she was conscientious in the discharge of that duty towards those whom God had committed to her trust not only in a way of exercising their memories in a bare verbal repetition of words but according to her faculty which verily was not ordinary in her sex in a way of helping them to understand the sence and meaning and by impressing upon conscience what was imprinted in their memeries In the absence of her dear Husband she constantly performed the duty of prayer in her own person save only when she could call in the assistance of her own pious Pastour or other faithful Ministers whom the present Providence had cast into her neighbourhood all which her Christian obliging converse had so marvellously endeared that she had as many Chaplains as if she had bin one of the greatest Ladies in the Land A true Gospel-Sabbatarian she was and thought it no Judaism to keep the Christian Sabbath as an holy Rest rather envying her body that it should have six dayes to her souls one then sacrilegiously filching out of that precious one any parcells of time for the uses and purposes of the flesh truth is she counted every moment of Sabbath-time too good for any time but Sabbath-work unless it were vvhere divine indulgence had made allowance for vvorks of Mercy and Necessity In reference to both vvhich notvvithstanding she vvell knevv how to spiritualize even them also into Sabbath-exercises Further then these two she durst not exact any of her servants labour As knovving 1. That the Sabbath vvas the servants priviledge as vvell as her ovvn Thou and thy servant c. 2. That her Servants souls were as precious to God as her own and cost Jesus Christ as much blood to redeem Therefore she vvas careful that every one in her Family should not only attend the publick Ordinances but that they should improve the whole overplus of Sabbath time in the holy exercises of Religion And as God had given her an excellent faculty in taking Sermons so she made it her vvork constantly to repeat both the former and latter Sermon to her Family vvhich she did vvith such a judicious accurateness that the hearer could hardly miss in the repetition vvhat he had heard from the Pulpit at least not any head or material enlargment of the Sermon The other void spaces of the day she commended to her Family as Gods and their own time for divine uses calling upon them to redeem it accordingly You that are Governours of Families imitate this blessed Saint herein also The Sabbath is exceedingly fallen amongst us not in our Publike Assemblies streets only but even vvithin our private vvalls The spirit of Ignatius dyed with him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let every one that loves the Lord sanctify the Lords-day Ignat. ep ad Magn. Hovv art thou fallen Thou Morning-Starr Thou Queen of days thou golden spot of the week Thou Map of Heaven Thou birth-day of immortality Hovv art thou fallen You that love the Lord Jesus and his Resurrection I charge you by all that right and interest you claim in either help to lift up the head of this glorious day of Jehovah for the love of God do not put avvay the Pillovv from under the head of this dying day as you vvould not be found guilty of the blood of Christ and of his Resurrection Christians stirr up your selves for the recovery of the life and honour of this Holy-day 4. As a Friend and Neighbour 4. As a Friend She vvas of a most sweet and obliging converse As many loved her as knew her as ambitious she vvas to do good offices to the poorest as others are to those that can requite them But that vvhich vvas eminent in her converse vvas her profitable improvement of it she was not one of those professors that with the holy could shew her self holy and with the prophane could shew her self prophane that could talk religiously in one company and vainely and frothily with others She was not one of them that could shape themselves into any form and garb of the present Company but she was gracious and uniform in every Company which providence cast her upon spending the time in Christian and profitable Communication alwayes either doing good or receiving good as opportunity served But if the Company were such as admitted neither her silence should argue her dissent and her withdrawment as far as might consist with civility should at once ease â—hem and her self of a burden Christians Oh that every one would herein become her followers Oh what a deal of pretious time is wasted in idle alk and foolish jestings which are not convenient how many precious hours are pent in vain and unprofitable complehents Yea in carnal mirth foolish talkâ—g and jesting which might be improved to spiritual soul-edifying conferences as if Christians had forgotten there were such a word in the Bible Let your speech be alwayes with grâ—ce seasoned with salt Col. 4.6 or that other Redeem the time for the dayes are evil Eph. 5.1 15 16. The Lord make you wise to salvation I might easily enlarge in these her Relative excellencies but I must