and those that are touched with it will endeavour to work upon others and to make them like themselves so Philip will draw Nathaniel Andrew will draw Peter and Peter when converted wil strengthen his Brethen And of this the worst times are the best Witnesses when thorough the common opposition of wicked men the affections of those that are good are the more inflamed each to other for as Roses and Garlick set near together do by extraction of contrary juices out of the Earth become both in their several kinds the stronger sented and the Roses are the more sweet and oderate by the fetide and stinking neighbourhood of the Garlick so by the contrary workings of opposite parties the Good are made very Good and the Bad very Bad and those that are good are meliorated and imbettered even by the illness of those that are bad O my Soul be wary with whom thou dost associate it may be discretion to carry a fair civility to those that are without but let thy delight be fixed upon the Saints that are in the Earth the touch of their conversion will derive vertue to thee Be not conformed to the Men of the world but let their contrary qualities serve as by a spiritual Antiperistasis to strengthen thy vertue and to make it the more compact in it self so if thou canst not amend others thou shalt be sure however to be amended thy self But alas what are all worldly comforts this good fellowship will not hold We cannot sit by it like those long lived Fathers before the flood who might meet and be merry together two or three hundred years and part with a promise to see one another againe so many hundred yeares after We are but of Yesterday and know not what to morrow may bring forth a few yeares or months or possibly a less time may determine all our jollity This were sad indeed if we had no hope but having that anchor hold we may comfort one another with this that wherever we are separated we can enjoy the Communion of one anothers praiers and meet together at the Throne of Grace And tho death may part us here for a while it will be but with a good night one to another as when we go to bed and to morrow we shall meet never to part In the mean time O my Soul think what a blessing it is to have the eternal God to be thy friend who in the defailliance of all these transitory comforts will not faile to make up all losses with himself But will God indeed dwell with men on the earth will the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity vouchsafe to humble and abase himself so low as not only to take notice of but in an infinite condescention to enter into covenant into friendship with poor mortal sinful creatures with such a despicable worme as I am to call me friend as he doth those that obey his commands what friend worme friend dust O the depth Lord what is man what am I poor no man a nothing that thou so regardest me O my God I am unworthy to be called thine in any relation unworthy to be reckoned in the number of thine hired Servants much more to be accounted in the rank of thy friends but it is thy pleasure to call things that are not as if they were and such is the influence of thy power that by vertue of that call thou canst make things to be what they were not O let the power of thy gracious vocation have a perfect work upon me to change me and I shall be changed to convert me and I shall be converted so though by nature I am enmity against thee by grace I shall be reconciled to thee I shall then fear thee and thy goodness shall fear and love thee and I shall love those that are conformable to thy goodness because I fear thee I shall not only have fellowship with thine excellent ones here upon earth but together with them enjoy society with thee O Father Son and holy spirit to all eternity in heaven MEDITAT VII Vpon the sight of a full Table LOrd do not hold it a presumption in thy poor dust and ashes that I humbly desire as thy Prophet Jeremy did to talk with thee what is man that thou takest knowledge of him thy word is mine answer that tells me it is a pittiful thing compounded and made up of sin and corruption its Father was earth and its Grand-father was nothing it walketh in a vain shew and is in its greatest estate a Lye and at its best altogether vanity which is so much less then nothing before thee But behold I have taken upon me to speak unto thee O let not my Lord be angry if I ask thee now what man is not that thou makest such account of him and so providest for him thine other creatures even those that are the cheif of thy wayes are contented with their single portions thy Behemoth is satisfied with that ordinary which the mountaines bring him forth and he lookes no further so is the Leviathan pleased with his recreation in the great and wide sea and that element is enough for him But man as if all were too little for his grandeur hath no bounds thou hast put all things under his feet Earth Sea Aire Fire pay contribution to his subsistance and comfort what couldst thou have done unto him that thou hast not done O Lord our Lord how excellent is thy name all thy workes praise thee how should man praise thee for whose service thou hast made all thy workes what a deal of labour is here for the mouth what a concurrence of art with nature to please the gluttony not only of the mouth but of the eye people affect an ingenuity in luxury as if their wits lay in their bellies and not in their braines It is not enough to have good meat if it have not a rellish of the East-Indies it must be so spiced that an Aegyptian would think it were rather imbalmed to be buried and kept for Mummy then seasoned to be eaten it must be so diversisied and so disguised in the dressing that every dish must be a riddle as if it were a special point of reputation for a man to eat he knowes not what If our Forefathers could see our hachees and olliaes and hodgpodges and such like commixtures as we make of several meats together they would take them to be no better then the discharges of full stomacks and think that like doggs we affected to eat our meat twice But to what purpose is this waste how many empty stomacks might this superfluity have filled possibly less at the table and more at the door might have done better Certainly we are not the better for it this high feeding doth but cloud the understanding with fumes and vapours and pampers lust and breeds ill humours and makes provision for wormes and ends in excrement and who would place any felicity in that
thee not to lie still but to arise and be doing to walke whilst thou hast light humbly with thy God and honestly with thy neighbour as a child of the day Up then my Soul and cast off the workes of darkness night clothes are not a fit weare for the day He whom thou lovest calleth thee do not say I have put off my coat how shall I put it on but without delay eccho that call with a lo I come to do thy will But where are my clothes O my God what a beggerly creature am I that have nothing to put on but what I am faine to borrow if it were not for the supply which I receive from a poor worme from a silly sheep I could neither be fine nor warme By right the borrower should be servant to the lender but Lord thou hast given me dominion over these serviceable creditors How should I at once be humbled under the sense of mine own indigence and thankfully exalted in the apprehension of thy goodness to me But what is man nay which is worse what am I surely I am more brutish then any man more sottish then those brute creatures unto whom I am so much indebted They are not proud of those habiliments which they impart to me I live upon their collections and yet am apt to pride my self in this beggery O my soul this glorying is not good what is it but a glorying in shame nakedness was the original bravery of our first parents in Paradise and shall be our last bravery in heaven when we shall be in the Angels mode Lord correct this depraved nature in me by thy grace that I may no longer fashion my self according to my former lusts and vanities but be conformed to that inward dress which in thy sight is of greatest price so though mine outside may be plain and bare I shall be sure to be all Glorious within But yet O my God thou knowest I have need of raiment as well as of food and other outward accommodations and thou art pleased to allow me a providential though not a sollicitous care for what I shall put on I beseech thee so to order my thoughts that in the pursuit of these things I may follow thy prescribed method of husbandry first to seek thy Kingdom and thy righteousness and then in the use of good means to trust thee for the rest But in what a new case am I when I am apparelled how warmed and comforted blessed be God that I have not that curse upon me mentioned in the Prophecy of Haggai to be cloathed and not warm those cloaths cannot but do me good that are lined with thy blessing It is the common opinion that our cloaths warm us but the truth is we warm our cloaths and they do but keep us warm with our own heat As it is in this so it is in all earthly comforts which have nothing of satisfaction in themselves but that placency which we take to be in them is but a resultance from our own minds a warmth which we give them Lord sanctifie these outward things unto me that in the fruition of them I may so use them as not to abuse them by looking for that in them which is only to be found in thee Thou art the blessing of all blessings from thee I have all in thee I enjoy all and without thee all is nothing O my God it is the desire of my Soul to be dressed and fitted to wait upon thee in the way wherein thou wouldest have me to go but I dare not think of coming into thy presence in an unseemly Garment in the nasty rags of the old man and I have no other sute of mine own but that O do thou give that happy word of command to have that filthy Garment taken away from me and say unto my Soul behold I have caused thine iniquity to pass away and I will cloath thee with change of rayment I beseech thee furnish thy poor Creature out of thy divine wardrobe with those graces that may most adorn my profession above all vouchsafe to cloath me with the Garment of mine elder Brother that is the best Robe and under that covert grant me thy blessing so what ever may befal me here I shall be sure to rise in a happy hour at the last day when being clothed with his righteousness I shall be clothed upon with his Glory MEDITATION IV. Vpon my retirement into my Closet HOw little doth the world know the happiness of a Closet But it is no wonder for this happiness is not of the world and therefore by those that can discern nothing spiritually it is esteemed as no other then a delight in a sedentary sluggish life or as no better then a melancholy discontented humour But my Soul thou art above these misapprehensions Go in shall I say into this room or rather into this other world into thy world for when thou art abroad thou art abroad thou art in a common world wherein every person hath an inter-right with thee but here within the inclosure of these Walls thou art in a particular world of thine own and all is thine own In this little Monarchy methinks I may say without offence Soul take thine ease and with quiet senses enjoy thine own company it is something for a man to be his own inmate to dwell with himself and no small happiness in that cohabitation to live quietly and without a dropping house There is a physical vertue in quietness some diseases in the body and most distempers in the mind are cured by it I may add further that there is a heavenliness in it those Regions that are highest are quietest and God himself who is higher then the highest is in the fruition of himself the most quiescent O my God whilst others affect the wings of an Eagle to fly high let it be my prayer to have the wings of a Dove to fly away and be at rest that being sequestred from the vexatious vanities of the world I may enjoy a free conversation with thee in heaven so shall my quietness be my strength and this rest a prelibution of my eternal rest But yet my Soul take heed unto thy self in this solitude it is possible for thee to be in ill company when thou art alone Be not rash but think what thou wouldst think do not affect a free will in thinking evil thoughts have an evil communication in them and may corrupt good manners slight not vain thoughts the thought of foolishness is sin and every foolish thought as well as every idle word must be accounted for bar them out as much as thou canst and though they may clamour at it and challeng a prescription for a thorough fare in thee and thou art not able altogether to hinder their way but that they will break thorough yet never let it be with thy consent and sufferance and so long the trespass will be on their side Above all be sure to
alwayes pleasing how many times have mine eyes wounded my heart when they have seen what they would not have seen nay which is worse how many times have they corrupted my heart when they have seen what they should not have seen at the best various objects are but a distraction to the mind and by raising vain desires bring it to a needless indigency inducing a want of many things which we want not There is a kind of innocency in seeing nothing It is a comfort and an inestimable one that in the want of the use of my bodily eyes I have the benefit of a spiritual eyesight so that although I cannot see as Cats and Bats and Owls do yet I can see as Saints and Angels see no interpositions can hinder an intellectual prospect Be it never so dark I can without the help of a Candle look into my self and in the sense of my wants looks up to God and find a clear lightsome passage through Jesus Christ to the throne of his grace But what do I say I can O my God pardon the presumption of that language of my self as of my self I can do nothing but sin I am darkness there is a midnight within me and I can only see that I cannot see It were not only a blindness in me but a remaining sin to boot if I should say I see Who so blind as they that are perfect It is in thy light alone that I see light Thy gracious illuminating eye is mine eye sight Lord let me ever enjoy the continuance of that aspect and then in the darkest condition though it were the shadow of death I shall not be afraid of any terrours even the night shall be light about me or if it be not it shall be light with me Sorrow may endure for a night but joy will come in the Morning and in a morning that shall never see night In the mean time O my God though I can see nothing here but darkness and obscurity it is my safety that thou seest me it is my happiness that I can see thee what can I wish for more in this world then to be safe and happy return again unto thy rest O my Soul for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee MEDITATION II. Vpon the Sun-rising TRuly the light is sweet and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the Sun look out O my Soul and see a miracle and no wonder Behold that glorious ruler of the day as a bridegroom coming out of his Chamber deckt with beauty and excellency If this great luminary had never shewed it self abroad till now and were now to be seen but as a rarity this once with what a Persian adoration should we be ready to welcome it and with what dejected countenances should we bid it farewel Now that we see it every day we scarce take notice that we see it once certain it is that we heed it nothing so much as any unusual Meteor or fiery exhalation so much more prone are we by nature to be taken with new than with worthy if ordinary objects And yet upon a just account all things considered Gods ordinary works which are established in a constant course are more wonderful than those extraordinary miracles which we most admire for the standing still of this Sun at Joshua's arrest was not in it self so stupendious as the daily progress thereof that being so vast a body as it is it should in the compass of a few hours circulate the World Lord give me a true sense and apprehension of thine eternal Power and Godhead and of thine invisible things in the things that are made even for common use and which thou hast distributed unto all Nations under the cope of Heaven that so as all those works praise thee in the determinate order of their services I may likewise constantly give thee praise for them not only because thou hast made them beautiful and excellent in their kinds for thine own glory but because thou hast made them ordinary and common for the good of all thy creatures How doth this morning light revive and cherish all things and give them as it were a resurrection from the dead and a new being But even now they were buried in obscurity and before I can well recollect my self they appear in their proper colours and stand as a garment new made up O thou Sun of Righteousness arise upon my Soul with healing in thy wings and scatter those shaddows of darkness that have so long benighted me enlighten the eyes of my understanding and so renew and quicken me by the influence of thy grace that thy light may be a new life unto me that I may live yet not I but thou that livest in me That Philosopher said truely if the Sun were wanting it would be night for all the Moon and Stars for nothing but the Sun can make it day And it is as true in a spiritual consideration if it were not for Jesus Christ the light of the world notwithstanding all the illumination we can receive from reason and sense we should be still in the dark and therefore some have observed that our Saviour was born on the fourth day of the week which was the same day of the week wherein the Sun was created as to shew that he was that Sun of Righteousness and that true light that lighteth every one that cometh into the world What a general blessing is this beneficent planet and how is the divine nature of God emblematically represented by it It is good unto all it riseth on the evil and on the good and without regard of persons shineth upon the poor mans Cottage as well as upon the Princes Pallace and nothing is hid from the influential heat thereof Lord this is a Copy of that universal Goodness which is originally in thy self but with this difference that what the Sun doth as to the fomenting and cherishing of inferiour Bodies it doth it as a natural agent necessarily and insensibly but what thou dost is voluntarily and freely done out of thine infinite love and goodness to thy Creatures Thou art the Fountain of all blessing and the God of all praise Lord work upon my corrupt nature by the influence of thy grace that I may be conformed unto thee in the extension of mine affections unto all in a way of doing good not only to my neighbors and such as love me but to mine enemies to those that curse hate and despightfully use me that so I may approve my self a true child of my father which is in heaven and be perfect even as he is perfect But yet this beneficence of the sun worketh not alike upon all those gracious beams that soften the wax do but harden the Clay and as they make the flowers smell the sweeter so they operate no further upon the Dunghill then to make that the more fetide and noysome It is a sad thing to be hardened by mercies and to
to an extasy that whether it be in the body or out of the body me thinks I can hardly say certainly there is nothing of greater use for the raising and sweetning of our affections towards God then the singing of his high praises in Psalmes and Hymmes and Spiritual Songs The primitive Christians were so taken with it that in the times of persecution at their conventicles before day they could not forbear making their melody to the Lord though many times they were discovered by it to their extream hazard It is written by a Father that in the little Town of Bethleem near unto which he lived there was nothing almost to be heard but that heavenly musick resounding in all places from the shop to the plough there was no mirth but in singing Psalms O the goodness of God who knowing our infirmity how much more we are inclined to that which delights then to that which profiteth hath so contrived it that by borrowing from melody that pleasure which toucheth our ears he doth by the smoothness and softness thereof as by a holy stealth convey a treasure of Good things into our hearts so that whilst we think we sing we learn and in doing that wherein we delight we are taught that whereby we profit It is observable that the sweetness of Musick consisteth in discords high low mean there can be no harmony in Vnisons If there be not a distinction in sounds how shall it be known what is piped or harped but then those discords must be proportionately accorded or the sound will be ingrate and odious and it is no otherwise in the point of Government there must be a distinction of degrees observed a superiority and an inferiority with a due order held between them every one retaining his proper place the treble must not be strung where the base should be nor the mean where the treble should be every one must be kept in his proper tone neither too flat nor too sharpe one pin should not be wound up too high nor another let down too low which was noted by Apollonius to have been Nero's fault in Government but every one in his peculiar station must be kept in a due harmony So we see Octaves or Diapazons though so many notes distant yet as by a secret simpathy correspond the one to the pulse and touch of the other and make the sweetest concord Parity at the best is but a kind of orderly confusion there can be no Musick in it But there be some strings which are called false ones which by reason of the inequality and unevenness of their making will never be brought to accord with the rest but will perpetually jar It were well if we had not too many Spirits of that Vneven jarring temper that nothing will ever work them to any agreement I would they were cut off that trouble the harmony But what a deal of time is spent in tuning before we can come to have any Musick and how easily and quickly is that delight of the Sons of men interrupted by the slipping or breaking of a string or the mistopping of a fret the case is alike in our most pleasing earthly enjoyments there is hardly any pleasure we take but it costs us pains to take it and when we have it every little accident is enough to discompose it If we set our hearts upon it and make it our businness we stop upon a wrong fret and if we scrue it up too high in our estimation or let it down too low to the service of base unworthy ends we run the hazard of making it break or stip or yeild no sound at all to please us There is nothing more sure then that there is nothing sure under the Sun O my Soul if there be so much pleasure to be taken in that which we call Musick hear which when all comes to all is but a sound arising from the percussion of a few guts or wire strings fastened to a concave frame or instrumet of wood moved by the fingers of men and it may be accompanied with their voices raise thy self upon the wings of faith and love to the contemplation of that truly melodious harmony whereof thou shalt by the grace of God be a partaker in the quire of Heaven without interruption to all eternity when the voices of Saints and Angells shall be conjoyned with the harpes of God in everlasting Hallellujas unto him that sitteth upon the Throne and unto the Lamb for ever and ever Lord I have had enough and enough of the scraping of this world which although it may for the time afford some pleasure to mine ear yet it is so momentary and to my Soul so unsatisfactcry that I humbly beseech thee to fit me for a better consort even that celestial one where all mouths shall be filled with thy praise and with thy honour and where my lips shall rejoyce when I sing unto thee and my Soul which thou hast redeemed Here the best of thy Servants have been weary of their crying there the meanest of them shall never be weary of their singing they shall rest from their labours but they shall never rest from their Holy Holy Holy'es to the Lord God almighty that labour shall be their rest There shall need no keeping time in that blessed Musick for none shall be out in their part and time shall be no more O my Soul what dost thou here I waite for thy Salvation O Lord but Lord how long MEDITAT XVI Vpon the sight of a pleasant Garden THere is no humane pleasure that hath so much of antiquity and of the state of innocency in it as the pleasure of a Garden The first notice and mention that we have of pleasure in the world is with reference to that garden in Eden which was of Gods own plantation and wherein he gave intertainment to our first Parents as in a room drest up on purpose to receive them and to give them delight But yet all was not made for meer delight there there was that which was good good for foood as well as that which was pleasant to the sight All the pleasures that are of Gods making are good vanity came in with sin How happy might we have been in that Primitive condition if sin had not corrupted it when without fears for to day or cares for to morrow we might have lived immortally blessed in a constant communion with God and in the affluence of all good things in him when our roses should have had no briers when our pleasures should have had nothing but an innocent sweetness in them and we might have gathered them without scratching our fingers without raveling our Consciences when the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden would have been an invitation to us to have walked with him and not a terrour to have driven us from his presence O Adam what hast thou done what a happy estate hast thou forfeited for an inconsiderable trifle How hast
meanes he takes a man whether with an ill favoured face or with a Beauty his pleasure lyes in the taking and those are welcomest to him that will be damned with the most ease It is ordinary with those that delight in fishing to bait certain places where the fish are aptest to frequent but in this point the Devil hath the advantage above all others that he hath his baits in all places Count Country Pulpit Bench fitted for all conditions all ages all complexions agreeable to all that is in the world the lust of the flesh the lust of the eyes and the Pride of life Who can escape his snares O my God when I reflect upon mine own condition how miserable do I find it to be which of all his baits that have fallen within my reach have I not bitten at and swallowed and now how many hooks have I within me where is the sweetness where is the pleasure where is the profit of those sins whereof I am now ashamed now by a sad experience I find that as I have caught the baits so the hookes have caught me Who shall deliver me Who can None can and will but that gracious ever blessed Redeemer who gave himself a ranson for me and by his own death hath made a way for me to escape who hath not only freed me but taken him that took me and that by being taken himself by him conquering him by death that had the power of death and by the advantage of that victory leading my captivity captive What shall I render To him be all glory and praise and thanks MEDITAT XXI Vpon the Sun-setting BY what insensible degrees and yet how speedily hath the Sun travelled his day's journy it was but some hour 's since that he arose and shewed himself to our Hemisphere from the uttermost end of Heaven and he hath allready finished his Circuit to the other end thereof Certainly day unto day uttereth speech and in their silent language seem to put me in remembrance that I am going or rather as Job phraseth it posting my circuit too from earth to earth From the dust out of which I was originally taken to the dust into which I must finally be resolved When I look back to the morning of my life and consider my time past methinks it is but a very little while since I came out of the Chamber of my Mothers Womb. How soon is the tale of threescore and seven years told shall I say according to the impropriety of some Languages that I have so many years nay rather I may say I have them not according to the expression of Hezekiah tho something in another sense so much of mine age is departed from me and is as dead as nothing to me None can say he is the same Yesterday and to day but he that is for ever How is my time stolen away and so much of my self gone with it before I can well take notice what a clock it is with me I find my self in the evening or rather the night of mine age It is a sad thing for a man to sleep out his best time as it was fabled of Epimenides and not to wake till he be old and then to bid the world good morrow when the world may bid him good night Lord since the time past is so fluid and transitory that it is gone before I can say what it is and the time to come so un certain that I know not what may be to morrow no not what the next moment may bring forth teach me I beseech thee so to husband my time present that in this my day or rather in this my Now which is all I can call mine I may so live to thy praise and glory as I would live mine eternity hereafter which without past or future is an everlasting present The motion of this glorious Planet is hardly to be discerned but in rising and setting of it at noon when it is at the height it seems to be at a stay as if it were there to stand still as it did upon Gibeon The like may be observed in the course and progress of our lives when we are gotten up to our middle age which is our Meridian when we are in the strength of our years we appear to be at a kind of consistency not sensible of any motion toward our appointed change but in the beginning and ending of our dayes we may without any great difficulty remark how we gradually rise and set It is apparent how our infancy grows up from a sensitive to a rational condition and how by little and little our reason comes to maturity from speaking as Children understanding as Children and thinking as Children we become in time men and put away childish things And so likewise when the evil daies overtake us and the years wherein we have no pleasure it is for the most part easie to observe by what degrees our shadow goes down Lord I am now near my Sun set and cannot but plainly see my self hastening to the place of my long home my Sun and Light and Moon and stars grow dark the Clouds return after the rain and one infirmity follows upon another O let these signs of my approaching night be as so many tolls of my passing Bell to warn me that my daies are extinct and that my grave is ready for me that accordingly I may make my self ready for my grave and not suffer my self to fall asleep when I should be fitting my self to go to bed With what a full faced glorious Aspect doth the Sun now look upon this inferior world and in his lowest condition appear greater than at another time it is no otherwise with a noble hearted Christian who though he be never so low laid in the opinion of the World yet retaineth an â—ndejected countenance and breaketh thorough all interpositions with so much the greater bravery and lustre It is a pleasing sight to see the Sun in his going down how he doth not only shew forth his own resplendency to the uttermost but many times out of his abundance irradiate the Clouds about him and guild and enamel them with his departing beams A dying Saint is a setting Sun and in his going down to the grave doth not only shew his own brightness and glory but often communicates the divine tincture thereof to all about him and gives them occasion by the light thereof to glorifie their father which is in heaven Let the foolish World adore the rising Sun God grant I may set clear and by my dying example illustrate others and thereby induce them to praise him Better is the end of a thing than the beginning and the day of death than the day of birth But let the Sun set never so clear we see it many times followed by mists and noisom vapours the ancient Persians sent their imprecations and curses after it there is no person so innocent but when he is laid in his grave
thee ready for him That person is in a sad condition that looks for death and cannot find it but he is in a sadder whom death finds before he looks for it The way to sleep well at night is to exercise well in the day the sleep of a labouring man is sweet saith the Preacher Death is but a long sleep and if we would hereafter rest with happiness from our labours we must so labour here that our works may follow us hereafter if we so sleep we shall do well We are not troubled when we lie down to take our natural rest upon the confidence we have in Gods ordinary providence that he will raise us up again why should Christians that do or should know the Scriptures and the power of God be more anxious and doubtful of their eternal then of their natural rest this is nothing but our infidelity for upon a true account there is more uncertainty of our waking out of our beds then there is of our rising out of our graves None can tell when he lies down whether he shall see any to morrow in this World or rise no more till the Heavens be no more but as to our Resurrection we are already so far raised as Christ our head is risen who is our resurrection and our life Lord increase our faith But what is it troubles us is it the thought that we shall live no longer We may as well lament that we were born no sooner it is but a measuring cast between the time when we were not and the time when we shall â—ot be one is as inconsiderable as the other if it be a matter of sorrow to think that we are mortal it may be a just cause of rejoycing to consider that we are so near being immortal it was as some hold the mercy of God after our first Parents had eaten of the forbidden fruit and thereby made themselves and their posterity miserable to prevent them that they should not eat of the tree of life for then both they and we had been everlastingly miserable Mortality is a mercy But possibly it is not death but dying that which the Philosopher calls the pomp of death that is so much apprehended the pangs and convulsions of death have a horrid Aspect certainly in those things we do many times but fright our selves with our own fancies for when we think those agonies insupportable nature is spent and often sensless But admitting the worst as our desire to sleep makes us bear with some tossings and tumblings and disquietings before we can well settle to rest so should our desire to depart and to sleep in Jesus prevail with us to endure those sufferings which are but for a moment but are followed with a quiet happy rest in the bosome of our Saviour to all eternity But it is a dismal thing to flesh and bloud to think that after death we must lie rotting and corrupting in a dark silent grave and that when we are reduced to dust as we were grass when we lived in regard of our frailty so we may come to be grass again after we are dead in a litteral sense and so pass away into several other substances this I confess might justifie some melancholy thoughts if we had no hope But when we are taught of God that after this Life ended our spirit shall return unto God who gave it and that after this World ended our dust shall be raised again and recompacted into a glorious body cloathed with immortality and honour and reunited to our Soul both to be for ever with the Lord we may bid defiance both to death and the grave O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory But what needs all this perswasion is it in our choice whether to die or not if we must die as die we must it is a perfect folly to be unwilling to do that which of necessity we must do whether we will or not take courage then O my Soul and act thy last part handsomely it is a degree toward dying well to be willing to die But I am dead what do I talk of dying or the fear of dying my whole life is but a continued death I have more reason to be apprehensive of my living then of my dying for I can never hope to live till I die that which we call death being in truth but the dying day of our death and the birth day of our everlasting life Nay I am not only dead but in a great part buried how much of my self is already laid in the dust death hath taken three of my ribs from me and so many of my limbs as I have lost children by his stroke My dearest relations are gon to bed before me to what purpose serves this fragment this remainder of me here Lord take all to thee let me not lie half in the bed and half out thy bed is not too little nor thy coverlet too narrow but thou hast room enough for me receive me I humbly beseech thee as thine I am thine O save me Lord now lettest thou thy Servant depart in peace In thy name I lay me down to rest FINIS A DAILY DIRECTORY EVery day is a life in little in the account whereof we may reckon our growth from the womb of the morning our growth from thence to noon when we are as the Sun in his strength after which like a shaddow that declineth we hasten to the evening of our age and so to our Sun set when we come to close our eyes in sleep the Image and representative of death Our whole life is but this tale of a day told over and over I would therefore so spend every day as if it were all the dayes I had to live and in pursuance of this resolution I would by the assistance of divine grace indeavour to observe this following daily practise 1. I Would awake with God as early as I could David hath a high expression for this In the morning shall my Prayer prevent thee as if he meant to be up first But to speak in a stile that may be fit such a worme as I am whensoever I awake I would willingly have my mouth prevent mine eyes and open first to shew forth his praise that so God may awake for me and make the habitation of my righteousness prosperous To this end I would be careful to ly down the night before in the peace of God who hath promised that his commandement shall keep me when I sleep and talk with me when I awake otherwise I may justly fear that those corruptions that bid me last good night may be ready to bid me first good morrow 2. I would arise as early as I could that course being most profitable both for Soul body and estate In Summer time I would be up by five in Psal 88. 13. winter by six or soon after as my health would permit and if nothing intervene of necessity to hinder me