of many And seeing they that sow plentifully shall reap plentifully 2 Cor. 9.6.7 8 9 10 therefore put it not off till your last Will or til your recovery from travell but while you have opportunity do good to all but especially to the houshold of faith Doe something for the poore according as God hath blessed you in your estate and as you can obtain your husbands consent unlesse you have a considerable allowance at your own disposal I say do some such eminent work of charity 2 Cor. 8.24 as may give a proof of the truth of your love to Christ and though it cannot expiate any former sins Christ onely can do that yet may in a sense recompence what hath been defective in this kind and may cause the poore while you live to give you a disciples reward Mat. 10.41 42. and to blesse you in the name of the Lord and may also enable you the better when after the resurrection you shal be examined whether you have cloathed the naked fed the hungrey Mat. 25.35 36 37 c visited the prisoners c. to give up your account with joy and not with grief In the next place alienate your heart and affections from all things below heaven Heb. 1â— â— cast off every weight of worldly desires and begin to part with that in your affections which you may shortly part with in person Look upon all your comforts as dying comforts upon your body as a dying body upon your house and estate as fading vanities which you must shortly forsake Let not your care about any of these take up that time Lamen 1.9 and those thoughts which you had need at this season to imploy otherwise And that you may the more clearly rid your hands of these things let me advise you whenever your are with child if you have any thing considerable of your own to dispose to make your Will betimes Isa 50.4 Gal. 6.10 set your house in order and then commit your Relations to the blessing of God all other things to the pleasure of his providence And if there be any thing in your mind to speake to any whom you love by way of exhortation advice admonition or reproof doe it speedily and with all your might Leave as strict a charge as you can upon all that belong to you to live soberly righteously and godlily Your last words to them if seriously and heartily uttered with prayer to God for his Blessing may stick more in their minds then many a Sermon which they have carelesly heard When the Patriarchs drew near their end they gave many grave and pious instructions to their Relations which are therefore left upon record that those that fear God might imitate them that so they may die the death of those righteous persons Num. 23.10 See the 14 15 16 and 17. cap. of John and their latter end be like theirs Our Saviour Himself when he saw the hour of his sufferings to approach spent his time wholly in comforting teaching and establishing disciples in instituting and administring the Sacrament of his Supper and in prayer for them and all his people to the end of the world Yea thus the Saints and Martyrs in all ages have left us innumerable examples of their pious and mooving Speeches when they were going hence Thus a Candle when t is at the last point and ready to go out gives a sudden flash and a clearer shine So you should endeavour that your last words may be your best words Rev. 2.19 and your last works your best works Having thus eased your heart as much as may be from all other cares and made this faire progresse in your preparation what remains but that you look Death in the face suffering no day to passe without serious thoughts upon your latter end that so by frequent meditation you may make death more familiar and lesse terrible to you Yea that by a right understanding of the nature of death you may be willing to be dissolved with Paul and ready to say with old Simeon Luk. 2.29 Now Lord let thy servant depart in peace for mine eyes have seen thy salvation Wherefore look upon Death not as represented to a Sinner by blind and fearful Nature but as represented in the Scriptures to a Believer sweetned conquered and altered by the Death of Christ Well then Death hath its harbingers sickness and pain which are commonly more troublesome then Death it self It brings a dissolution of the frame of Nature a putrefaction of the Body in a land of darkness Job 10.22 a departure of the soul into an unknown estate in another world But what is there in all this hurtful All the messengers and forerunners of death which torment and destroy our bodies cannot hinder a Believer from rejoycing and saying with David Ps 119.54 Thy statutes are my songs in the house of my pilgrimage And well may they sing on their sick beds yea on their death-beds whom the Lord himself doth attend Gen. 49.18 to make their beds in their sickness Old Jacob fainting under a three-fold burthen of sickness of age the care of his posterity refresheth himself by turning to the Lord and waiting for his salvation As for the dissolution of the frame of Nature it impairs not your blessedness nor can cause a disunion from Christ Nor life nor death nor any other thing can separate us from the love of God which is in Jesus Christ our Lord. Rom. 8 39 As when Christ died though the comforting influences of his Divine Nature were suspended or less visible yet the hypostatical Union remained inseparable So in our death the local separation between body and soul is not a final disunion much less can there be a cutting off the mystical Union of our persons with Christ Therefore though wicked men die in themselves and die without Christ as they lived out of him yet the servants of God die in Christ Rev. 14.13 1 Thes 4.14 Rom. 14. â— 7 8. Phil. 1.23 they die to the Lord yea into the Lord viz. so as to be more nearly joyned to him then before There is in every member of Christ a divine Nature not subject to death or dissolution Therefore though as the children of Men they die yet as the children of God they live Though as the children of Adam they return to the earth yet as the members of Christ they return to God And though their bodies die because severed from their soul yet it liveth in death because it is still joyned to the Lord. God is the God of Abraham yet not the God of the dead Every Atome and unknown scattered parcel of a believers dust are deposited in the hands of a faithful Creator So that though they be dead yet their life is hid with Christ in God And as for the darkness and putrefaction of the Grave it matters not its putrefaction must be that the garments of
the Scriptures peruse your Charter read the last Will and Testament of Jesus Christ and pick out and observe such promises as will sufficiently reach you in this or any condition imaginable In so great variety as the storehouse of Scripture affords I shall set only some few before your eyes Promises of pardon of sin Let the wicked forsake his way Isa 57.7 and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him return unto the Lord for he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he will abundantly pardon I will cleanse them from all their iniquities Ezek. 37 23. and I will pardon all their iniquities whereby they have transgressed and whereby they have sinned against me I even I Isa 43 25. am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for my own sake and I will not remember thy sins Who is a God like unto thee Micah 7.18 that pardoneth iniquity and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage I will be mercifull to their unrighteousnesse Heb. 8.12 and their sins and iniquities will I remember no more Be it known unto you all Act. 13.38 men and brethren that through this man is preached unto you forgivenesse of sins Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavie laden Mat. 11.28 and I will give you rest Surely he hath born our griefs Isa 53.4.5 and carried our sorrows He was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities the chastisement of our peace was upon him and with his stripes we are healed All we like sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all He was numbred with the transgressors and he bare the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors To him give all the prophets witness Act 10.43 that through his name whosoever believeth in him shall receive remission of sins And Act. 13.39 by him all that believe are justified from all things from which ye could not be justified by the Law of Moses We are justified freely by his grace Rom. 3.25 through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood to declare his righteousness for remission of sins that are past Many other places of this nature you may turn to at your leisure As Isa 33.24 Mat. 12.31 James 5.15 Psal 130.4 Dan. 9.9 Exod. 34.7 Luke 1.77 Luke 24.47 Mat. 26.28 John 20.23 Rom. 4.25 Rom. 5.16 18. Rom 8.33 And if you think your sinns greater then ordinary yet be not so weak as to count that any bar or impediment to saving grace To Omnipotency there is nothing great nothing difficult to infinite love nothing is troublesome or can be a hinderance God who commands us to forgive till seventy times seven can as easily forgive a thousand talents as a hundred pence What is our Bucket to his Ocean If you give your hope and your soul for lost Luk. 19.10 yet he came to seek and to save that which is lost He delighted to cure the most desperate diseases when he was upon earth And he usually healed body and soul together and told them that their sinnes were forgiven them as well as that they should arise and walk Many of those sinners that Christ shewed mercy to were most infamous and to mens seeming as unlikely to have been saved as any of that generation What think you of Mary Magdalene out of whom our Saviour cast seven devils and of that woman that washed his feet with her teares Luke 8.2 who though a notorious known sinner an harlot yet had all her sins forgiven her Luk. 7.37 38 39 c. our Saviour largely defending and explaining the freeness of his grace to her What of the woman taken in adultery whom our Saviour did not condemn but with charge to sin no more dismissed her in peace John 8.10 11. â— Titus 3.3 4 5 7. What think you of the Apostle himself who thus speaks For we our selves were sometime foolish and disobedient deceived serving divers lusts and pleasure living in malice and envy hateful and hating one another But after that the kindness and love of God our Saviour toward man appeared not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us That being justified by his grace we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life 1 Pet. 4 3. What of Peter and the converted Jewes who had walked in lasciviousness lusts excess of wine revellings banquettings and abominable idolatries and in the former lusts in their ignorance 1 Pet. 1.3 4 c. yet of such sinners he sayes Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Christ from the dead It were endless to heap up all examples in this kind You shall doe well to see what the Colossians were when they lived and walked in fornication Col. 3.5 6 7. 1 Cor. 5.9 10 11. uncleanness covetousness c. The Corithians when they were Fornicators Idolaters Sodomites Thieves Drunkards c. yet now are washed sanctified justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God And was it for their sakes onely that God shewed mercy to them No but also to encourage us when heavy laden with sin to expect the like For so the Apostle more then once doth assure us Eph. 2.1 2 3 4 5 c. As when he speaks of the Ephesians and himself and all believers that in times past they were over-ruled by the Devil and the world and their own lusts fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind But God who is rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickned us together with Christ by grace ye are saved and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness towards us through Jesus Christ To the same purpose is that other excellent passage of his This is a faithfull saying 1 Tim. 1.25 16. and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners whereof I am chief Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all long-suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting Mr. Love his Zealous Christian To conclude this I shall onely adde the observation of a blessed Author In the Genealogie of Christ there are but four women mentioned and they are all branded with a mark of infamy in Scripture-story The first is Thamar Mat. 1.3 she was incestuous for she lay
take out the sting of sin by repentance and then afflictions cannot hurt you In you health remember your sin and God will in judgement remember mercy And I therefore subjoyn this duty of repentance next after prayer because Ps 66.18 Hab. 1.13 if we regard iniquity in our hearts he heareth us not but is of purer eyes then to behold iniquity So that if we pray without repenting hearts we do but mock God and deceive our selves We cannot draw nigh to him in truth nor will he draw nigh to us in mercy unless we withdraw our selves from iniquity and be at the greatest elongation from sinne that can be But this repentance must be universal for all sin (a) Spencers things new and old p. 298 1117. For one leak will sink a ship one wound strikes Geliah dead as well as three and twenty did Caesar one Dalilah will do Sampson as much mischief as all the Philistines one wheel broken disorders a whole clock one vein's bleeding if not stanched will let out the life one flie will spoil a whole box of ointment by eating one apple Adam lost Paradise one Achan was a trouble to all Israel one Jonah if faulty is a lading too heavy for one ship So one sin causes too much injury to God and brings too much guilt and burthen upon the conscience b (b) Vliss-Aldrov Ornithol l. 14. If seven thieves enter the house (a) Tho Stapletoni prompt morale six of them being overcome and the seventh lie lurking in some corner the Master of that house is still in danger If the bird or the mouse be held in the snare though but by one leg their whole body is in danger Thus all sin and the least sin must be repented of Pharaoh would let the people go after he had endured many plagues Exo. 1026. so as they would leave their sheep and their cattel behind them So Sathan would keep something of sin in us which may be as a pledge of our returning to him again And we would willingly when we are convinced of the necessity of repentance yet roll some sweet morsel under our tongues and be excused in one or two of our incurable sins but if we will in earnest forsake the Egyptian bondage of sin we must resolve with Moses that not a hoof shall be left behind us but all iniquity put away out of our hands and all our ungodly words left off and all our wicked thoughts forsaken and all imaginable wickedness mourned for and by degrees relinquished (c) Hyer Drexelii Gymnas paen As the Dove feares every feather of the Eagle and the skin of a Lion stuffed with straw will make the lesser beasts to keep a distance so all the circumstances occasions reliques and appearances of sin must be bewailed suspected and avoided For as a woman delivered of her child is not out of danger while the after-birth remains so a repenting soul discovering confessing and forsaking some sins is not yet safe if there be a reserve of other sins And while your body is yet in any strength you should set about this necessary work of repentance without delay For the bitternesse and weight of sin must be tasted and felt one time or other d so that as a Landlord takes a greater fine of his Tenant at first and the lesse rent afterwards So the more time care and tears you spend in repentance at first the less it will cost you to renew it afterwards But if you still put it off till your travel comes suddenly upon you at best you run a great hazard and lade your self with such a burthen and incur your soul into such danger from which it will be more difficult to be delivered then from the peril it self of child-bearing So that if your body and soul should both miscarry and die together God is just Ezek. 33 4. and your blood will be on your own head for your former neglect of the time and space of repentance Besides this which chiefly concerns your self the consideration of the child which you carry in your womb should quicken you to repentance as soon as you feel it quick within in you For as the fancy and longing of a woman with child doth sometimes make such strange impressions on the child in the womb that it carries some sign thereof after its birth and as the hurt bruise or fall of a woman in that condition makes her child sometimes imperfect monstrous cripled or deformed to the day of its death so you should fear lest the sin of your soul by nature transmit some like foul disposition and leave some such spot on your child as shall be a stain to his name and a blemish to your family Lest your corruptions prove innate qualities in him lest you have eaten sowre grapes Ezek 18.2 and your childrens teeth be set on edge You should also take care to prevent the curse of God on your child for your sake Think with your self if God should say to me as to Hagar Gen. 16.11 12. Behold thou art with child and shalt bear a son and he shall be a wild man his hand will be against every man and every mans band against him Would you not count your self unhappy in being the mother of so desperate a child Have you not also read what God sayes of Ephraim Hos 9.11 12 13. Their glory shall flee away as a bird from the birth and from the womb and from the conception though they bring forth children yet I will bereave them they shall bring forth children to the murtherer The meaning is that the judgements of God should light on their posterity in a most severe and dreadful manner his curse should be upon them in the womb and appear in their destruction as soon as they were born Insomuch that the Prophet being exceedingly troubled at the thought thereof prays in the next words Hos 9.14 Give them O Lord what wilt thou give them give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts That is seeing of two evils unavoidable the least is most eligible let it please the Lord if he will not remove yet to alter or mitigate his curse If I may not pray for good to this people let me intreat for a more tolerable evil Let them therefore O Lord rather not conceive or bring forth then to see them butchered and slain by their merciless enemies or exposed to such heavy calamities as might make them to wish that they had never been or that our wombs had been their graves Now seeing this is threatned them for their sins and is written for your admonition fear therefore lest God do so to you Hos 14.1 2. and more also And for the prevention of these miseries on your unborn infants take with you words and turn to the Lord that bee may take away all iniquity and receive you graciously But in this practice of repentance you must take heed and beware of
â—â—perbissiâ—oruÌ„ origo Plin. nat â—ist l. 7. c. 7. The child in my womb is made of the like substance as I was And though I now have growth strength beauty or comelinesse yet I was once imperfect enough when I was newly begotten of man and conceived in the womans womb Alas how vile are those materials of which my body was made Scripture draws a veyl of modest and metaphorical expressions over this unsightly act of generation And when I consider oh my soul the poor original of my body Alas what preheminence have I herein above a beast what cause to abhorre all thoughts of pride and to walk humbly all my dayes If the Peacock let fall his plumes when he beholds his black feet have not I cause to be cast down with a less esteem of my self Phil. 3.21 when I consider my vile body In nothing more vile then in its first coagulation of ignoble matter MEDITATION 5. Thou hast cloathed me with skin and flesh Job 10.11 thou hast fenced me with bones and sinews Though in regard of the matter and manner of my generation my body is no better then a bag of flegm a lump of blood a moistened clod of earth yet when I raise my mind to the work of my Creator who fashioned me round about covered me in my mothers womb and formed me in the lowest parts of the earth I have then no cause to say to my Father what hast thou begotten or to my Creator why hast thou made me thus If I may in every creature see some prints and footsteps of the wisdome power and goodnesse of God in their formation production and conservation of their kind in a continual succession for the use of man how much more cause have I to search out this work of God in which there is as much of excellency curiosity and exactnesse of skill as in all the creation besides Much is said by Philosophers Physicians Anatomists c. concerning this great secret of Nature the Child in the Womb. They speak with much probability and rational conjecture of the manner and matter of generation conceptions of the very day when the womb by its natural heat begins to operate towards it when it receives its first change into a fleshy substance what day the brain heart and liver begin to be distinguished and when it receives a humane shape in other parts though the whole be no bigger then a small flie Also how it is nourished and in what place and posture it lies if male and in what if female What day it receives by the gift of God a living soul and when it begins to stir and calcitrate in the womb c. But the further I dive and search into this matter the more I am at a loss still new questions do arise which I cannot resolve Ps 139.6 Even this knowledge is too wonderfull for me Solomon hath put a question which I think himself could hardly answer Knowest thou how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child Eccls 11.5 Therefore oh my soul let mesing that song of David and if possible with Davids heart I will praise thee Psal 139.14 15 16 17. for I am fearfully and wonderfully made marvellous are thy works and that my soul knoweth right well My substance was not hid from thee when I was made in secret and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth Thine eyes did see my substance yet being imperfect and in thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned when as yet there were none of them How precious also are thy thoughts unto me O God how great is the summe of them But I must not I cannot here leave off this delightful Meditation but must again praise the Lord for that he hath not executed the curse of Adam to the uttermost upon us Though sin hath robbed us of many most desirable perfections yet there is that left with which and for which we may glorifie God If we survey the frame and building of this earthly tabernacle we shall find that rare fitness of every part and that symmetry of the whole that we cannot but say its builder and maker is God What shall I say of the several members and particles of our bodies of the scituation of the more noble parts and subordination of the rest of the influences of the higher parts on those that are less noble of the many channels of conveyance whereby the inner parts transmit bloud strength and spirits to the exteriour and most remote What of the beauty strength tenderness majesty and singular faculties of some parts of the contiguities and artificial connexion of all parts what of the sagacity of the five senses the mixture of the four elements the correspondence our bodies have with all creatures the resemblance of the three regions yea of the three heavens c. For which causes Man is called a little world the measure of all things the pattern of the Vniverse the miracle of miracles c. Yea mans body is yet in regard of its majesty strength beauty and noble faculties of its several parts in some measure after the image of God (a) 2 Chr. 16.9 Dan. 9.18 Psal 34.16 Job 40 9. Psal 74.3 Isa 49.16 c. And God himself is pleased to represent his perfections and operations by several parts of the body of man If therefore the serious prying into any one part take up the time and study of the learned insomuch that Galen was turned from Atheism in studying the secrets of mans body and presently praised and acknowledged our Creatour then oh my soul let that which made him a Christian make me a more thankful Christian that I may more zealously glorifie God with my body and may hereafter have all its primitive perfections restored at the Resurrection when God shall raise it in honour and incorruption and make it like the glorious body of Jesus Christ MEDITATION 6. Anatomists themselves are utterly to seek what reason to give for the opening and shutting of the womb But though I know not the natural causes hereof yet I find by the effects that the child is quick within me And oh that I could say with like certainty that though I know not the way of the Spirit or how grace comes in and sin goes out how Christ enters and Satan is dispossessed yet I feel by the effects that whereas lust did once conceive and bring forth sin yet now grace conceives holy motions and brings forth religious actions that whereas my heart was a cage of unclean spirits and barren of goodness yet now Christ is formed within me now I feel by happy effects that grace is quick within me and quickens me to every good work Psal 103.1 Wherefore blesse the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me blesse his holy name Luk. 1.43.49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great
things and holy is his name And whence is this to me that the grace of Christ should come to me MEDITATION 7. Rebecca conceived Gen. 25.22 23. and the children strugled within her and she said If it be so why am I thus that is if I am heard of God in my request and am with child by his blessing whence is this strugling this painful conflict and strange unquietness of the fruit of my womb And she went to enquire of the Lord and the Lord said unto her Two nations are in thy womb c. So when I look into my self and observe the commotions that are in the womb of my heart I conclude Surely there are two nations within me the flesh with all its motions lucting against the spirit and its grace Gal. 5.17 and the Spirit with its gracious influences alway striving against the sinfulness of my carnal part Now blessed be God that seeing sin will yet keep possession that it hath no quiet abode within me but meets with reluctancy and opposition from my spirituall part But oh wretched creature that I am how often is evil present and prevalent with me how many are those pangs of sorrow those sighs and grones that my mischievous and restless corruptions cause within me But if it be so that the power of the most High hath overshadowed me and true grace be implanted in my soule then I shall seek to the Lord that he would cause the better part in me to be the more prevailing part that he would water and give encrease to these tender beginnings and give me at last a safe and happy deliverance from this body of death MEDITATION 8. If men strive and hurt a woman with child Exod. 21.22 23. so that her fruit depart from her and yet 〈◊〉 mischief follow he shall be surely punished c. Women with child are liable to many dangers A fall a bruise an accidentall stroke a fright a strain the taking somewhat that proves expulsive or the disappointment of somewhat they longed for these and such other contingencies are noxious to them and often-times cause abortion or the mischance of her fruit departing from her Such was the case of the Church when it was with child with many Converts Rev. 12.2 3. the great red Dragon watched the destruction of her and of her fruit And thus is with every repenting soul What security soever there be among those careless women that are at ease Isa 32.9 10 11. how little inward care or sorrow they feel while they forget God how unacquainted soever with the hurt and smart of sin or Satans striving with them before they are acquainted with God yet no sooner do they espouse themselves to Christ and conceive purposes of holy living and begin to be fruitful in any grace but they shall have many adversaries in the world and especially the god of this world striving against them to afright them to tempt them to receive such principles company suggestions as may quench their graces or to deprive them of that Spiritual food they long for or to intice them to straine their consciences or some way or other to cause them to fall that they may be wounded bruised c. and the fruit of grace depart from them But oh my soul hath God such care of the unborn infant as to provide a speciall law in its behalfe and will he not much more take care of that grace which he hath begotten in my Soul Oh my God keep me that the Evill One touch me not MEDITATION 9. In sorrow shalt thou bring forth Children As the first general curse Gen. 3.16 In dying thou shalt dy brought not onely the pains of death but intended also all the miseries of our life so this particular curse upon women brings not only pain in travel but comprehends all the infirmities of Child-bearing I find that the child in my womb brings many weaknesses and aches upon me but oh how sad and deplorable are those deeper sicknesses and maladies which I have brought upon it It s body partaking of my substance partakes unavoidably of my natural pollution It s Soul though it come immediately from the Father of Spirits yet I know not how is upon its infusion into this tender infant subjected to the common misery of the Children of Adam who having lost the image and likenesse of God sinne and corruption must needs follow I am an unclearne vessel Psal 58.3 sa 48.8 and how can any clean thing come out of me Oh my soul what need have I to be sanctified throughout both in Body and Soul and Spirit And Oh my God repair by thy grace what sin hath made so defective in me and mine MEDITATION 10 Our blessed Saviour and Great Prophet Jesus Christ foretelling the miseries that should shortly come on Judea Jerusalem sayes Wo unto them that are with Child Mat. 24.19 Lu. 23.29 and to them that give suck in those days And in another Evangelist Behold the dayes are coming in the which they shall say Blessed are the barren and the wombs that never have and the paps that never gave suck And indeed of all persons none more miserable in the time of War than women with child or women that give suck because their care is double and their persons uncapable of flying and shifting for their lives as those who are single may and do And of all murthers none more horrible in all its circumstances 2 Kin. 8.12 Lam. 5.11 then to rip up women with child Wherefore oh my soul let me be thankfull to my God that there is peace in our borders and any quietness and safety in my habitation and that I am free from those terrours and affrights with which many others in a time of common calamity are undone Oh how many Women with their unborn infants have been butchered in many places in ages past and martyred by blood-thirsty Papists in these later ages of which histories are too plentiful And if there be now any in my condition in any place especially among Christians that is exposed daily to the rage of a devouring Sword the Lord be pleased either to restrain the Enemy and the Avenger Psal 8.2 Rev. 6.10 or to avenge the cause of the murthered that according to thy own Law they may not go unpunished but may give life for life Yea Lord hear the crie of the oppressed and give their adversaries blood to drink for they are worthy MEDITATION 11. My little children of whom I travel in birth again till Christ be formed whithin you Where any place is blest with a painfull Minister and Pastour after Gods own heart Gal. 4.19 they have in them much of the Apostle's temper For when I consider their painfull studies their sighes and teares their spending their spirits in ardent Prayers and laborious Preaching their compassionate exhortations passionate supplications and their giving themselves wholly to these things 1
Tim. 4.15 Coloss 2.1 I conclude that surely they have many agonies and conflicts in their hearts for us Wherefore Oh my soul while I carefully expect the hour of my own travell how much am I to blame that I so little so seldom or never consider the travell of my Ministers soul often have I been pricked in conscience by his goad and nails Eccl. 12.11 often wounded by the sword of the Spirit bruised and smitten down by the hammer of the word and surely his stimulating reproofs his keen admonitions and knocking terrours proceeded from his longing desire of my conversion But when he hath after long striving been in hopes of my returne how have I by relapses and fresh miscarriages vext his righteous soul and quencht his new conceived hopes of me yea like those inconstant Galatians I have caused him again and again to travell with me in birth How just were it with God to plague me with a tedious painfull and fruitlesse travell and to make me read my sin and feel its bitternesse in so suceable a punishment But Oh my God remit the evills I have committed work in me what thou hast required and compleat in me what thy grace hath begun Let not the guide of my soul labour in vain but let him see of the travell of his soul and let me be among those children of whom my pious teacher shall hereafter say Lord here am I and the children which thou hast given me Then also shall I with more confidence expect to have benefit by his prayers for me when my body is in travell if God shall thus blesse and answer him in his prayers and travell for the new birth of my soul MEDITATION 12. I find it frequent in Scripture that the most dreadful judgements on the wicked are thus exprest Psal 48.6 Isa 23.4 Jer. 48.41 c. 49.42 c. 50.43 that Anguish shall take hold of them as of a woman in travel and that sudden destruction shall come upon them as upon a woman in travel and they shall not escape Wherefore oh my soul as Abraham when he had promise of a child Gen. 18.14.22 did presently intercede as far as he durst in behalf of wicked Sodom so let me ever remember to pray for the worst of men though perhaps they scorn and despise me and my Prayers Oh my God deale not with them after their sins but cause the wickednesse of the wicked to come to an end Psal 7.9 that the wicked themselves may not come to a sad end So persecute them with thy tempest make them afraid with thy storm that they may seeke thy face Oh Lord. Psal 83.15 And in whatever place or nation thy judgments shall enter yet if there be but a few righteous persons among them spare them from totall destruction and let not thy wrath come upon them to the uttermost MEDITATION 13. I find also that the sorrows of the people of God when God seemes to forsake them John 16 21.22 Jer. 6.24 c. 22.23 c. 30.6 Isa 26.17 18. c. 37. 3 the calamities of the church when God is pleased to correct them and the miserable disappointment of a Church hoping for reformation and endeavouring in vain for a deliverance from idolatry and oppression are also expressed by the pain and misery of women in travell Now Oh my soul how can I but observe two things from hence The one is that 't is surely the will of God that I should not confine my care to the concernments of my private condition but should labour for a publick Spirit such as was in that good woman 1 Sam. 4.19 20 21. the wife of Phinebas who was with child and near to be delivered and when she heard the tidings that the Ark of God was taken and that her father in law and her husband were dead she bowed her selfe and travelied for her pains came upon her And about the time of her death the women that stood by her said fear not for thou hast born a son but she answered not neither did she regard it And she named the child Jchabod saying the glory is departed from Israel because the Ark of God was taken and because of her father in law and her husband And she said the glory is departed from Israel for the Ark of God is taken Blessed woman worthy of everlasting fame and imitation She took no comfort in her deliverance though she had a son while the Church of God was not delivered Oh that the same mind might be in me that I might learn also to be more affected with the affairs of the Church That if women may not be common actors of publick affairs yet we may be specially mourners for publick miseries Alas what is my danger to the universall danger my travell to the travell of the Church what comfort to me to have many children except I might see the good of Gods chosen Psal 106. â— what content have I in being delivered from my pains unlesse God deliver Israel from all its troubles Psal 37.40 what delight had Abraham in all his mercies while he went childlesse or I in all my children if the children of God be comfortlesse Oh my God blesse me out of Zion and thus let me be blessed as those are that feare the Lord Psal 128 3 4 5 6. let me not onely be a fruitfull vine but let me see the good of Jerusalem all my dayes Let me not only see my childrens children but peace upon Israel But from the manner of holy Writ to compare almost all miseries whether inward or outward whether of good men or of bad to the pains of women in travell as the fittest embleme of extreme conflicts and agonies I must needs conclude that there is no sorrow like unto that sorrow and no evill like that sin that caused it no danger like that danger and therefore no Saviour like him who can deliver from it Wherefore while my life hangs in suspense my soul is distracted between fear and hope my mind is appall'd my heart melts and is even faint when I consider that hour of torment approaching Let me yet further inquire Oh my soul what duties are yet behind in order to making my peace with God and let nothing hinder or divert my present religious and heavenly imployment till I have brought my mind into some setled posture ready to abide whatever shall happen So much for the duty of Meditation now to the rest CHAP. VI. Resignation to the will of God the duty of Women with child TO submit and resign our wills to the will of God in all things is a most desirable and comfortable temper in any man or woman T is indeed the sum of most duties and a compendium of many virtues He that can thus receive the Kingdome of God as a little child Mark 10.15 with Selfe denyal and humble dependance on our Father in heaven he shall in time by thus subjecting himself
trouble Give not way to immoderate passion the vehemency whereof may much distemper and endanger you in that condition For if by these or any other follies there happen a mischance or the death of both the mother and the child unborn as too often it hath happened surely the bloud of the child shall be required at their hands their own bloud also shall be upon their own heads Now judge how much guilt and danger lies upon careless wanton women who will not observe that moderation and prudential care their condition calls for I say how much sin and misery lies upon them if they perish by their own negligence and heedless irregularity Hos 4.2 Psal 9.12 Jer. 26.15 Ps 51.14 Of all sins none more crying then Murther of all murthers none more desperate then Self-murther and of all self-murthers none more detestable then to murther her self and child at once this I say they are inexcusably guilty of who by any of the courses above-mentioned or any other course do hasten their own death and render the birth of their child difficult or impossible CHAP. IX Preparation for death the duty of those women with child who never yet repented THat this must not be delayed I have already shewed in the Epistle to the Reader I shall now shew you how it must be performed not to insist largely upon this common Theme which every Funeral Sermon and devotional Treatise do present us with considering very briefly the heads of such principal duties as may not safely be omitted by them that would be at any certainty concerning their future estate If you be unconverted and have lived in pleasure been ignorant carelesse and impenitent then consider that it is now high time to awake out of sleep Rom. 13 1â— Ps 90.12 Deut. 32.29 and to number your dayes and consider your latter end You have no peculiar priviledge that can exempt you from the lot of many others Be you never so great and rich strong and healthy have you been the mother of never so many children have you abundance of all things for your conveniency together with the most skilful and famous Midwife yet neither these nor any other helps can deliver you from going down to the pit Therefore seeing it must needs be proper to expect death let me ask you how are you provided for immortality What earnest have you of any inheritance in Heaven If you hope that God will pardon you and accept you yet what reason can you render of the hope that is in you 1 Pet. 3.15 if because he is merciful then how have you applied your self to him for mercy have you constantly sought him diligently pleased him c For if the righteous shall scarcely be saved 1 Pet. 4.18 where shall the ungodly appear Luk. 13.24 If many who strive to enter shall not be able how impossible then must salvation needs be to the negligent In a word if Pharisees Hypocrites Votaries and those that have done many good and mighty works shall be shut out how much more shall they be excluded that never had either the form or power of godliness that lived in gross ignorance and prophaneness so that their sins are open before hand 1 Tim. 5.24 Well you will say What shall we do to be saved and to inherit eternal life I answer You should first look over the ten Commandements and consider what sins are there forbidden and what duties are there required For by the law comes the knowledge of sin Ro. 3.20 1 Joh 3.4 If you have some brief expositor by you it will much help I knew one that when he was at the Vniversity and had serious thoughts of his ways took M. Bifield his 6. Treatises a little book of small Price but of excellent use wherein there is such an enumeration of sins against the several commandments 2 Cor. â—â— 5 6. as descends to all particulars fit to be expressed in print and having in several sheets of paper transcribed it and all along inserted what particular sins he could remember And he found that it brought many sins to his remembrance which otherwise he had well-nigh forgotten set apart a day of fasting in secret on purpose and there spread them before the Lord with mourning and with supplication and found very much comfort therein Now though I prescribe not this particular course to every one yet I say a serious comparing our lives with the rule of holinesse is the one thing necessary to lay a right foundation of repentance Well when you thus have spent some good time in searching and trying your ways and have discovered greater and greater abominations in your heart and life Then spend also some thoughts about the unreasonablenesse unprofitablenesse unthankfulnesse and iniquity of every sin Consider what wrong sin does to the honour of Gods Attributes and of his Law His Holiness requires nothing but what is good his Wisdome what is fit and his Mercy what is comely and beneficial for us Shall we break such a Law wherein Holiness Wisdome and Mercy appears If any thing be difficult he offers the help of his Grace to all that bewail their weaknesse And whatever his Law be yet surely he is our Creator and therefore by all bonds of Reason and Nature we owe obedience to him whose we are Again consider the injury done to Christ by piercing him with our Sins by despising his Bloud that onely and costly remedy and dishonouring his Name as if he were not sufficient to save or as if his Grace gave liberty to Sinne. Also consider the perjury every sinner is guilty of in violating our Baptismal engagement and making slight account of all other renewed stipulations we have made to God since What shall I say of the shame and mischief sin brings upon us in this life It deprives of Gods Image Favour and gracious Presence robs us of that primitive innocency righteousness with which the humane Nature was at first dignified above all sublunary creatures and degrades us to a condition in many respects worse then that of the beasts that perish Psal 49.12 20. Eccles 3.18 yea it makes us children of the Devil and children of wrath it fills the creature with vanity under which it groans and travels in pain it fills our life with crosses our family with troubles our bodies with diseases our consciences with disquiet Sin makes travel painful death dreadful and hell intolerable so that it is a boundless and endless evil And should not such considerations as these awaken you May it not trouble you to consider with your self thus If I die with all this load of sin upon me it will surely sink me deep enough into the burning lake And alas if I live till the full time of my travel come which is very uncertain yet how little a while is it before that fatal hour may sever my soul from my body My soul which is invisible and
therefore lesse minded while my vile body hath been pampered and delicately kept and then I must appear before an impartial Judge whose eyes are as flames of fire and how shall I shall escape or endure his sentence of condemnation who have neglected so great salvation Oh Eternity that amazing word Heb. 2.3 that astonishing thing who can number the millions of years contained in Eternity Who can spie either bank or bottom in the Ocean of eternity Well if I were not certain but had onely a suspicion that my soul shall have eternal recompences according to its works yet why should I adventure upon sin If there were neither Hell nor Heaven yet sin is hatefull and filthy in it self and holiness and righteousnesse is most eligible and amiable for it self So that were I never so much an infidel yet reason will tell me that onely piety can beget in my minde true tranquillity But surely my Creator is true and therefore will in another world bring every work into judgement Eccles 12.14 and by rewards and punishments vindicate for ever that honour of his holiness which is so little regarded upon earth Having with such things as these brought your mind to consider of the nature and danger of your sins endeavour in the next place to set your self to weeping supplication and fasting but still as your weakness will beare for God will have mercy and not sacrifice and therefore an unseasonable or intolerable measure of religious melancholly which may endanger your body is from the devil that murtherer acknowledge your offences and seek the face of God And be not slight or weary in this work but the more your heart draws back and the sooner it would give over as if you had now done enough the more suspect your self and stir up your self to call upon God Do not this work by halves but bring it to some good issue and while your heart is in any serious temper and conscience begins to accuse listen to it lest God give you over to final impenitency and unbelief and then seven worse devils will enter and you will soon be ripe for Hell Wherefore I tell you again you must upon the sight of your sins bend your knees to the Father of Mercies flying to Christ for refuge and laying hold upon the horns of the Altar plead the all-sufficiency of that sacrifice that Christ offered condemning your self again and again and casting your selfe upon the rich and free grace of God in Jesus Christ Resolve with seriousness and sincerity to live in newness of life Gal. 5.16 and to walk not in the flesh but in the spirit And seeing of your self you can do nothing exactly and acceptably good yet let me tell you by the way you may doe more then you doe by your own strength and the help of that common assistance God hath already given you and you may forbear many sins if you will A as appears by the different carriage of rude sinners when they are in civil or religious company they can then keep in their oaths and curses if they list and therefore do the best you may and blame God of backwardness to help you if you can seeing I say your own strength will not reach so far as to change your heart and life and bring you to be truly holy therefore improve the Covenant of grace wherein God doth promise to put a new heart within us Ezek. 36.25 26 27. and to cause us to walk in his statutes beg of him daily to work in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure If you thus do let your travel come when it will and whatever become of your body your soul cannot miscarry If also you have wronged any by slander or unrighteous dealing resolve to make them speedy satisfaction If you have malice against any person or party whatever lay it wholly aside If you have been wronged by any in your name or otherwise forgive them Mat. 6.14.15 and so will your heavenly Father forgive you But if in any thing there happen a difficulty about restitution reconcilation c. which you are perplexed about take the advice of some pious and skilful Pastor an interpreter one of a thousand Job 33.23 24. who may shew to man his righteousness and who may guide your feet into the way of peace and obey their advice speedily Also if you be yet puzled about the right performance of your secret duties and doubt you have not taken the right way or that any doubts oppress your mind concerning the pardon of your sinnes then cast your eyes upon such as fear the Lord how much soever you despised or hated them before such as have mourned in secret for your pride and have earnestly longed for your conversion and are themselves practitioners in religious retirements With them are the secrets of the Lord. Ps 25.14 1 Cor. 2.15 Gal. 6.1 And therefore unbosome your self to them of such things as are meet to be revealed and hearken rather to their counsel then to the discouragements of Satan and get them to entertain you into their company and to remember you in their ordinary and daily prayers or in some more solemn address to God in your behalf And it is much to be hoped that the interest of these favourites in the Court of Heaven may facilitate your reconciliation and hasten from God an answer of peace However if after the use of these and such other meanes inward fears do still remain yet resolve in despight of the Tempter to continue in a way of duty and patiently wait upon that God for the joy of his salvation (a) Psal 40.1 1 Pet. 3.20 Ps 33.20 Hos 12.6 Isa 30.18 Lam. 3.25 26. who so long a time waited for your conversion The returning Prodigal though he might take many weary steps in his journey home yet when he draws near his journeys end his father meets him receives him and entertains him with joy So though you cannot in reason expect that God should presently upon your repentance give you assurance of pardon yet let it satisfie you that his Word doth assure you and if you expect any sensible joy he commonly reserves that best wine till the last when you draw nearer to your home in heaven you shall have a clearer fight of his reconciled face Wherefore to end this Mat. 22 11. Heb. 12.14 1 Tim. 2.15 Rom. 6.22 be you careful to put on the wedding garment of Holiness and whenever you die you shall have undoubted welcome to that perpetual Banquet in the Kingdome of Glory Thus I have given a short draught of what I should more largely have insisted upon for the conviction direction and consolation of them who have as yet done nothing or little to purpose in their turning to God But the intended brevity of this Treatise will not permit me to exspatiate on every point CHAP. V. Preparation for death the duty of
our polluted flesh may be changed into one without spot This Tabernacle which our sins have defiled like the Lepers house must be pulled down 1 Cor. 5.1 that at the day of the restitution of all things it may be made a more glorious body Untill which day it rests in the Grave as in a bed of sleep and finds darkness in a dormitory not inconvenient And though the soul depart from all the delights and society of men and no eye can see whither it flies and into what habitations it enters though the state of departed souls be a mysterie which reason may talk of but never fully discover yet by Faith we look at the things that are not seen even the things that are eternal We know saith the Apostle that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved we have a building of God a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens Whither I go ye know Joh. 14.4 saith Christ and the way ye know We know that there is a perfecting of the spirits of just men that there is an Abrahams Bosome a Paradice a Right hand of God and many mansions in our Fathers house where they who have believed do enter into rest R. Bolton General Direction c. p. 54. 'T is therefore our idleness of spirit our slowness of heart to consider that makes the state of the dead unknown and undesirable and the joyes of the world to come to be in a manner fabulous and incredible But surely it would much adde to your peace and joy in believing Rom. 5.13 if you would oftener lift up the eyes of your minde to the Heaven of Heavens and by Faith enter into the Holy of Holies and by the Scituation Mansions Treasures and Delights of the heavenly Jerusalem and you shall soon see that the present state of Glory which you enter into at death not to speak of that far greater measure at the Resurrection is such as may abundantly cure all sad apprehensions concerning your departure What shall I say of your immunities from all temporall evils from that vanity and vexation of spirit which doth perpetually elude and discruciate the mind Present evils are innumerable and future evils are unavoidable Sufficient to every day is the evil thereof and yet we know not but the morrow may bring forth greater What a comfort is it to be in a perpetual Ark of safety wherein we may swim above all waters To be taken up out of this miry pit and to be taken away from the evil to come to be out of the reach of hellish tongues and bloudy hands for the dead know nothing at all that is their senseless bodies and glorified souls know no misery from all the world can do against them though the Papists accurse and burn their bones for Hereticks yet they are not touched with the feeling of any infirmity the dead neither know nor care any thing at all what men do for them or against them here upon earth Also what a blessedness is it to be delivered from the temptation of ill company 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Alludit ad pomaputrida male olentia quae faetore nos turbant c. Zanch. in Eph. 4.29 and the contagion of the a rotten breath of wicked men and the vexation that is caused to every righteous Lot in seeing and hearing them Wo is me saith David that I sojourn in Mesech Also to be free of Satans importunate suggestions to escape him who is in these last dayes come down with great wrath because his time is but short Verily if one knew what opposition the host of evil angels that fill the regions of the aire do make against the free ascent of a gracious soul to Heaven it must needs be that the joy they conceive of their safe arrival by the conduct of good Angels must be very great this last instance of Satans mad and malicious endeavours being fresh in their memories But content must it needs adde to see the Daughter to destroy the Mother of Mischief I mean that whereas Sin is the first Parent of Death Death onely puts an end to all our sins Sampson slew many Philistines in his life but at his death he slew the Lords themselves So we may mortifie some sins in our life but at death we triumph over our Master sinns yea all our sins Yea let me yet adde that it is no small part of our gain by Death to be freed from all laborious Graces and Duties such as Fear Hope Repentance Watchfulness Self-denial c. Confession Humiliation Praying Hearing Receiving Sacraments c. For all these argue Imperfections Wants and Corruptions abounding in us In short after death they come to judgement have their absolution from God himself and shall see all debts crossed out of his book of remembrance are admitted to sit down with Abraham Isaac and Jacob have fellowship with the innumerable company of Angels understand the mysteries they now believe â— Pet. 1.8 whom having before not seen yet they loved but now rejoyce in him with joy unspeakable and full of glory But all this contains but that present state of Glory which they immediately possess after death But at the Resurrection when body and soul are reunited the sentence of Absolution more publickly pronounced the wicked condemned time finished and their whole persons admitted to fulness of glory and happiness then I say there is a great addition made to their felicity then their souls shall no longer cry How long Lord holy and true as they did before while their bodies were under corruption the Church under persecution but shall be fully satisfied with the perpetuity of that blessedness and perfection God hath crowned them with But I list not here to enter into so large a field as the state of Glory after the Resurrection Many others have written largely of it and what I have before spoken of the state of departed Souls presently after their going hence does I think more properly belong to such considerations as may help to prepare you for death that you may not be in bondage with the fear thereof but having rightly understood it as now represented may say with more assured confidence then wicked Agag Surely the bitterness of death is past CHAP. XI To resolve upon some special return of thank fulnesse after their deliverance is also the duty of Women with child HEre you must rightly understand what I do not mean in this direction as well as what I do mean Know therefore that I do not desire to draw you into rash vowes no nor indeed to any vows at all I observe it too comon among afflicted persons perhaps 't is so also among women with child to make many vowes that if ever God deliver them they wâ—â—l leave such a sin abound in such a duty decline such and such temptations read so much and so often c. But I have also observed that such vowes seldome end
bearing it was burned quick I have set down these memorable instances in the very words of the Historian and I say the pains there mentioned are such as do well night equal the pangs of travel But those blessed women suffered for God Object and therefore had both his assistance acceptance But my pains are the meer fruit of sin of the curse And therefore what are these instances to the purpose What do they concerne women in travel All afflictions of whatever kind are the fruit of sin Answ T is sin that caused the emnity in the seed of the Serpent against the seed of the Woman 'T is by sin that we are born to trouble are of few dayes and full of evil 'T is sin that fills the creature with vanity under which the whole Creation grones and travells in pain together untill now Sin is the Mother and Nurse of our miseries So that if it be a sufficient reason for you to be dejected and impatient under your pains because they are the fruit of sin then there is the like reason for every afflicted person to complain and desponde and refuse to be comforted even Martyrs themselves for no crosse could befall us in life nor any violent death have been inflicted upon us if sin had not made so wide a gape at which all calamities do enter upon us Hence it is that the Church did alway acknowledge Gods justice in all the evils that came upon them And the Emperour Mauricious when bloody Villianes came and kil'd his wife and children before his face and then came to murther him also uttered no other words but these Righteous art thou O Lord and just are thy judgements But the main thing you speak of wherein they had the advantage is this that they suffered for God and so do not you But let me tell you that neither the punishment be it never so bitter nor the cause be it never so good do make a compleat Martyr without Patience If this patience be wanting that they be unquiet murmuring and clamorous under the hand of God I doubt they shall not be soon cannonized in Heaven as here upon Earth Their sufferings are not accepted if not patiently endured They do not dy to the Lord unlesse they lay down their lives and offer themselves a wiling sacrifice dying out of love to God not out of unwilling subjection to the violence of Man Want of Patience shewes want both of Faith and Love And if want these we are but as sounding brasse and rinckling Cymballs If there be any thing we keep from God and resign not up all readily and intirely to him we give him nothing but we love something more then him But if we part with a little willingly if we be chearfull givers of our money to the needy and honour the Lord with our substance this is thank worthy with God because 't is supposed that the mortified mind is alike ready when God requires it to part with the whole for Christ The same principle if a right principle act us that inclines us to give a penny must prompt us also to yield up all even life it self when God requires it And were there is this habitual forsaking of all in affection out of acknowledgement of Gods right to all we have this mental resolution is with God interpretative Martyrdom So then observe that in all our Actions or Sufferings for God we must not lay so much stresse on the thing it self as the principle and end aimed at by the doer or suffererer God alwayes accepts the will for the deed when impossibilites are the only bars to our per formance but he never accepts the most costly actions or sufferings without a willing minde The upshot of all is this that if we are sick with any naturall or adventitious malady pained with any hurtful or accidental casualty when we suffer any loss in our Estates or torments in our flesh if then our patience have its perfect work if we submit to the will of God and ly down under his hand as Isaac under the hand of Abraham trusting in his name and saying with Job though he kill me yet will I trust in him if we bear all cheerfully out of obedience to him who disposes and sanctifies all to his people this is acceptable with God this is suffering for God this is glorifying God in the fires and the Spirit of God and of glory shall rest upon such Therefore lift up the hands that hang down and the feeble knees and be not wearied nor faint in your minds remembring that if you thus suffer in obedience to him you suffer for him and may lay hold therefore of Gods promises to the afflicted which do equally concern you with any other sufferers Again you have strange examples among the Papists what the women of that sect will inflict on their own tender bodies in their times of pennance Take but one instance Elizabeth Dutches of Turaine was wont at certain times Spalath 〈◊〉 lib. 3. c. 10.129 to provide most cruell scourges and taking three or four of her maids with her shut her self into her closet and gave to each of them a scourge in their hands and stripping her selfe naked commanded them to lay her on with lusty stripes and this she endured with such willing patience that she would never groan or cry under their lashes Now if those delicate Ladies can so patiently bear any the most unmercifull chastisements they lay upon themselves how much more should you bear the chastisement of your heavenly Father who is not insensible of the smart he puts you to and will not be unmindfull to give you an expected end Consider further how gracious our God is in his readinesse to support his people under all afflictions I have read of one a Theodorus a Martyr put to extreme torments Socr. Schol. lib. 3. c. 16. by Julian the Apostate and dimissed again by him when they saw him so invincible The historian sayes (b) Ruffin hist Eccles lib. 1. cap. 36. he met with this Martyr a long time after and asked him how he could bear such unsufferable pains he answered that at first it was grievous but after a while there seemed to stand by him a young man in white who with a soft handkercheif wiped off the sweat from his body and bad him be of good cheer insomuch that it was a punishment rather then a pleasure to be taken of from the rack sith when the tormentors had done the Angel was gone Thus when our friends can do little for us God can send his Angells who excell in strength to suggest comfort and minister help to us But however he himself will alwayes be with us to make our beds in our sicknesse to support our tyred bodies with his everlasting Arms and to uphold our souls with his free Spirit Thus our Saviour promises to all his people in whatever condition they be I will not leave you