shall now lose the sent the grave shall be my burrough in it I shall be quiet I shall then be out of the reach of lust care trouble sorrow sickness temptation and persecution I shall now no more be heard to grieve or groan I will therefore be willing to cease to be that I may cease to be the subject of so bad so sinful qualities SECT XVI DEath will destroy my body Death destroyeth the body but not the soul be it so that is all it can do it hath nothing to do with my soul that remaineth immortal it shall be saved and set in Abrahams bosom â—n eternal happiness as soon as it is out of my body it shall be associated to the spirits of just men made perfect What need I care how it goeth with my worser whilst I have secured and it goeth so well with my better part my soul is an immortal being out of the reach of humane rage and the stroke of death What if men and death kill my body if God will not cast my soul into hell I escape well and much better then I deserve for sin had shipwracked me both soul and body I had forfeited both to divine Justice my soul being saved I live in death O blessed paradox oh happy state I not to dye in dying My body is but an earthen vessel I need not be much troubled if this be broken so that my heavenly treasure be secured and preserved my body is onely the cabinet I see no great cause to be troubled if that be lost whilst the jewel of my soul is safe Paul might well call on the Marriners to be of good chear in the tempest which tare their tackling and sunk their ship being able to assure them Acts 27. no mans life should be lost but the ship onely I travel with my soul through briars and thorns shall I wonder that I am pricked and that my cloaths are rent off me My soul is of such value that all is to be adventured and thrown over-board for its salvation What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul Matth 16.26 my body is dear to me I will do what I can to preserve it but my soul is much dearer this must be defended by exposing my body to danger and destruction skin for skin riches honours pleasures peace all my natural comforts and outward blessings I would give for my life but these and life and all will I give for my soul 1 Pet. 1.18 My soul is redeemed not with corruptible things as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Jesus Christ Christ laid down his life to redeem my soul and shall not I willingly lay down my life to keep my redeemed soul O thou the Shepherd and Bishop of my soul keep it within thy sheepfold untill thou shalt lead it unto thy glory I will not then be solicitous what may befall or become of my body seeing I am under a necessity of suffering loss I will rejoyce that my loss is not greater such as might have undone me for ever welcome death to my body temporal death which consisteth with the life and immortality of my soul and passeth it into the fruition of eternal life my soul may be saved by and under the loss of my body but my body could not be saved if my soul were lost Oh strange Oh blessed trade the loss I am like to sustain is mine infinite gain this loss of my body shall save my soul for in the cause of Christ and his Church he who would save his life must lose it Mat. 16.25 SECT XVII DEath will seperate my soul from my body Death seperateth soul and body but not me and God it will so but it cannot seperate me from God and that was the design of death it cannot seperate either the one or the other from the love of God in Christ Jesus I am perswaded neither life nor death nor Angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present Rom. 8.38 39. nor things to come nor any other creature shall be able to seperate us from the love of God which is in Chrict Jesus our Lord shall not this inseperable love to me meet with an answerable return of love from me and make me with confidence and resolution conclude tribulation nor distress nor persecution nor famine nor nakedness nor peril nor sword shall not seperate Christ from me as it is written for thy sake are we killed all the day long and accounted as sheep to the slaughter love is a principle of union it cleaveth to and looketh after its object in its most low estate and lost condition Death shall not make me to be despised or forsaken by my God This God is my God Psa 48.14 my God for ever and ever and he will be my guide unto death yea in and through the vail of the shadow of death his rod and his staff shall comfort me and 23.4 the Lord his esteem of and relation to my soul and body abideth as well and as much though not by the same acts and expressions of affection now they are seperated from as whilst they were united each unto other God doth triumphantly observe the faith and patience by which I endure the tearing of them each from other for the testimony of his truth he doth dispatch his Angels to attend my death and to conveigh my soul into Abrahams bosome to the immediate enjoyment of himself nor doth he disregard my body when divided from my soul or disesteem the dust thereof he causeth it to be mourned over by my friends and natural relations and to be buried with the greatest solemnity poor they can observe yea he loveth it and looketh on it as united to Christ though laid in the grave or dispersed on the earth all my members are written in Gods book Ps 139.16 not one of them must be lost or miscarrie they shall not be neglected my dust is precious in Gods sight not a grain of it shall be lost after it is sown in the earth it shall most certainly spring up as precious seed watered with the dew of heaven the word of the Lord to Zion and all her sons doth assure them and me that her dead men shall live together with his dead body they shall arise awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust Isa 26.19 for thy dew is as the dew of herbs and the earth shall cast out the dead My body remaineth Gods Jewel when it hath lost that lustre the soul did give it God locketh it up in the grave as in his cabinet God well knoweth my body is liable to danger in the day of his wrath against the inhabitants of the earth the grave is the receptacle from distress whereinto he doth gather it know my soul and body you when divided do abide objects of Gods compassion complacency and care enter into your chambers
well and what then Such is the Stat. of Ed. 3. the only law declaring Treason if I do thus dye my guilt is real or reputed Suppose my guilt were real for Lord thou knowest mine innocency wherein I stand defamed to die a malefactor is not inconsistent with eternal salvation I may die for my sin and not dye in my sin I may be most justly punished by men that others may hear and fear Deut. 13.11 and do no more so wickedly for that sin which may be pardoned by the Lord I may be condemned in the world for that crime which shall never be charged on me by my God my present punishment may provoke my repentance and my repentance will most certainly procure me Gods if not the Kings mercy Divine grace is not barred by humane justice the theif crucified with Christ received and confessed so much the due reward of his evil Luk. 23.41 43. yet this hindred not his souls being that night in Paradise with his Saviour and fellow-sufferer The crime not the condition must divide between God and the soul as it doth divide the soul from the body but repentance is the spunge of guilt where God giveth repentance he denieth not remission of the most egregious crime to the most heinous offendor The hand of humane justice may be the help of the sinners repentance and then Tyburn or Tower-hill may be as near as good yea a much better way to Heaven then any other Happy is the stroke of justice 2 Chron. 33.12 which may save the soul from hell Manasseh's fetters made him see confess and abandon his sin the Elect of God are not exempt from the greatest crimes they may fall into and commit them But this is their happiness they are sure to repent thereof and therefore they shall not be eternally condemned for them I envy not some late condemned executed malefactors The murtherous Judges of his late Majesty K. C. first their confidence of salvation and eternal life but I heartily wish that for the glory of God the honour of Christian martyrdom credit of true Religion the real comfort of their friends as well as their own salvation they had more freely and more openly owned their guilt most odious in the light of nature much more of Scripture confessed their sin and justified God and man by their contrition and due confusion under the just sentence of a most righteous law I cannot but think repentance had been more proper matter for their professions then their insultation and rejoycing in their sufferings as if in and for the Lord and their peace joy and courage whereof their surviving friends boast not observing the same abstracted from that humiliation and pensive demeanour most Christianly suitable to so just and sad sufferings If there be in me any real guilt for which I have deserved to dye I pray God convince me of it for I yet see it not and affect me with it if in any thing I have violated the Law though through error or ignorance God give me grace to justifie the righteousness of that law by which I may be condemned and then if my suffering the sentence of the law work in me a sence of guilt unto a penitential submission under the hand of God through faith in Christ my Saviour I shall see cause to confess Gods abundant goodness in saving my soul by the condemnation execution and loss of my boby But O Lord thou knowest the crime by which I stand defamed for which I may be unjustly condemned is reputed and not real for my heart never yet admitted or entertained the least evil thought against the King the Lords anointed if then I dye in mine innocency and as a malefactor my death may administer to me more joy then greif more comfort then contrition more confidence then confusion for howsoever men may condemn me God and mine own conscience will acquit and justifie me Nor am I the first the only one that hath been oppressed in judgement this is one of the common evils under the sun belonging to Gods immediate peculiar vengeance Eccles 7.15 and 5.8 there is a just man that perisheth in his righteousness if thou seest the oppression of the poor and the violent perverting of justice and judgement in a Provinces marvail not at the matter for he that is higher then the highest regardeth it and he is higher then they I pray God prevent Englands King and Kingdom from slaying poor In this God hath graciously answered my desire envied and despised me for mine innocent blood will hurt them more then their stroak can possibly hurt me they can but kill my body work for me the glory of a martyr send me to my place and state of rest but this will hazard their souls gall their consciences cast them under the guilt and odium of violence persecution and murther by the sword of justice stain the land with blood which will cry for Gods vengeance and their repentance As for me I am in your hands do with me as seemeth good and meet unto you But know ye for certain that if ye put me to death ye shall surely bring innocent blood upon your selves upon this City and upon the inhabitants thereof for of a truth the Lord hath sent me and stirred me up to speak and write all the words which I have sounded in your ears The reproach of my suffering as a malefactor will indeed and for a time cloud my credit darken my sufferings and deprive God of the honour of them making them a stone of stumbling to many a rock of offence to the weak and wicked but they shall not in the least eclipse the glory of my sufferings and innocency in the sight of God and good men or in the sence of mine own conscience As for me let all men know I wait for a resurrection of names as well as certainly as a resurrection of bodies when the great Judge of all the Gods on earth shall appear to call over the process take cognizance of the error and reverse the false judgement passed by the sons of the mighty Whilst my God and my conscience witness true Religion enforced by right reason to be whole the onely and the real cause of my suffering why should I be troubled at the clamour and seeming black charge of Treason whilst the fulfilling my ministry and the faithful dischardge of my duty is the real ground and only cause of mens wrath and my death Shall I be dismayed that I am Arraigned Condemned and executed so as to be reputed a Malefactor have not all Gods Prophets and Apostles been presented to the World as evil doers and as such exposed unto and derided in their sufferings was not Jeremiah charged with Treason Jer. 37.13 15. Act. 24.5 and Paul with Sedition and both as such imprisoned and afflicted Elijah was the troubler of Israel was not Amos expelled the Court as a Dangerous
Preacher against the King was not Michaiah carged by the King to be one that bare ill will to the King was not this the very lot of Christ himself suffered not that righteous one as a Blasphemer and as an enemy to Caesar shall I be deterred from following my Master from drinking of the cup whereof my deer redeemer hath begun from travelling in the beaten road of all Gods Prophets the very way prescribed by the Lord himself hath not the Lord Christ declared humane rage and reproach to attend all who faithfully reveal his will and mens sins is not unjust reproach in my death part of Christs cross and my Crown why then do I dread and decline it if I be reproached for the name of Christ I am happy 1 Pet. 4.14 the spirit of glory and of Christ resteth on me It is the cause not the pain maketh the Martyr or Malefactor my soul be not troubled at the kind or clamoured cause of my death were I indeed really guilty did I receive the due reward of my sin I must then have laid my mouth in the dust confessed my sin given glory to God accepted the punishment of mine iniquitie and by an humble act of faith applied the blood of Christ to my soul then I might rest assured that I was condemned in and by the world that I might not be judged of the Lord. But whilst if I dye as I now dread I dye innocently for a good conscience and for the Testimony of the truth Let me rejoyce that God hath accounted me worthy to be reputed the off-scowring of this world and enemy of mankind for my judgement is of the Lord who judgeth most righteous judgement and though my brethren cast me out Isa 66.5 and cry Let the Lord be glorified yet he will appear to my joy and they shall be ashamed when Jesus Christ shall come to judge clear and crown me as his Martyr it shall not repent me that men condemned and cut me off as a Malefactor SECT VII IN death I shall feel pain Death is painful but puts an end to pain It is like I may yet God can make it easie I feel more pain in the precursors then I can feel in the stroak of death the pain and extremity of a killing disease is often and ordinarily more then the pain of death it is usually such as maketh life a burden and death defireable how many in the burnings of a Feavor a fit of the Stone or Collique have wished for death to ease them of their pain my fear of pain in death is much greater then what I shall feel in the stroak thereof the pomp and passage unto death doth and will more perplex my soul then the pain thereof can possibly pinch my sence but suppose the worst yet The greatest pains of death are tolerable and pass away in a moment with how much ease did the Lord Jesus give up the Ghost in that dying act the dreadful expectation of which made him sweat blood and water how many of the Martyrs have with most calm and composed spirits lien under the most cruel and exquisite torments and as Lambs before the Shearer breathed out their last breath in the greatest pains of death that envy could devise or enraged malice could inflict Haukes that holy Martyr in our Marian Persecution in the midst of the flames did not forget to lift up his hands towards Heaven before he gave up the Ghost as a token to his Friends that the raging pain of that siery death was tolerable All Gods Saints have lien on this rack and sitten down on this little ease and shall I give back because of a little tolerable pain Be the pains of death never so peircing sharp and intolerable yet they are short soon pass away and are the Period of all pain in respect of this nature hath conceived and Scripture hath expresly concluded Eccles 7.2 better is the day of a mans death then the day of his birth all my life hath been nothing else but sorrow and pain my days have hitherto passed in anguish affliction and anxiety yea my resting time place and state hath scared me with Dreams Job â— 13 14. and terrified me with Visions in the night so that strangling death any kind of death hath been more desireable then life Shall I now fear that one stroak which though it cut me to the heart will at once cut off all my pain and greif doth not nature teach men to chuse the pain of cutting off an Arm or Leg rather then to lye continually under a festring burning and incurable wound Plotinus the Philosopher accounted mens mortallity Gods special mercy as the expiration of their misery Cato Major that wise Roman reflecting the pains he had endured professed if he might be rendred young again and renew his age he would not desire it he would refuse it Did the pain of life take away the pain of death to Heathens and shall it not much more do so unto Christians who have other and better hopes of future happiness then they ever knew or expected My soul stir up thy self make out a little faith and patience to endure this one pinch and stroak of pain which shall presently cease and be the period of all thy misery the cure of all thy maladies and will heal thee of all thy fears griefs cares diseases and distempers the afflictions of my body and anguish of my mind though I walk through the vale of the shadow of death I will fear none ill for Lord thou art with me be with me O my God that I may not over-passionately fear that little short pain I must feel make thou a lively faith in me to bear up under prevail against and triumph over a lively sence that so my last little pain being past I may possess eternal health and ease and therein rejoyce for that although the stroak of death did for present cut it did for ever cure my soul SECT VIII DEath will deprive me of all sensible pleasure it will so Death depriveth of pleasures but they are sensible and it is no matter for this pleasure was at best but sensible my soul found no pleasure in it nor did it satisfie my very sences these were tired in the possession and use of these Eccles 1.8 The eye is not satisfied in seeing nor the ear in hearing The necessary novelty is an undeniable evidence of the vanity of these delights Sinful It were well if I could say these pleasures were only sensible my soul hath on woful experience found them the pleasures of sin Heb. 11.25 not onely the reward but also the cause of sin I never could possess them without sin I have in this respect paid full dear for all the pleasures I have enjoyed under the sun they have stoln too much of mine heart and affections they have eaten into and eaten up too much of my precious time they have
it cannot hinder my graces from going with me to Heaven though I must at death leave my outward comforts this is mine advantage I may retain and carry with me mine integrity My soul death shall not meddle with thy best treasure be therefore content to part with thy worst enjoyments thine outward comforts whilst thy tottering tabernacle must fall thine earthly cottage must be burnt rejoyce and bless God that thou canst save any thing much more that thy best goods thy substance is escaped and secured for being herewith stored thou shalt possess an estate much more plentiful and pleasant then what thou hadst in this life and world Death cuts me off from my relations but casteth them on God SECT X. DEath will cut me off from my dear Relations whose dependance hath been on my care for them but it will then dispose them under the more immediate care protection Psal 68.5 Hos 14.3 and providence of God who is judge of the Widows case and with whom the Fatherless find mercy It peirceth my soul to hear the Wife of my bosom cry Oh Husband What shall become of me when thou the covering of mine eyes art taken from me and to hear my Children cry What shall become of us when our careful compassionate Father is gone be still my soul submit yeild unto my God even so father for so it seemeth good unto thee Is it not my duty by an act of faith to cast my fatherless Children on the Lord have I not taught and often assured my Widow she must trust in God was it not the Lord who provided for them by me in vain had I risen early gone to bed late eaten the bread of carefulness if God had not built my house Shall I think the same God cannot or shall I fear he will not provide for them without me they may be put upon some more sensible straits to exert some more special acts of faith more eminently to exercise some graces but they have the same assurance and some better security that they shall enjoy food convenient the Fountain abideth full and flowing though not by the same pipe and conduit which is cut off it is Gods property and promise to take care of the Widow and Fatherless especially of such who are so made for the testimony of his truth Why do I disquiet my self for the sadness of that condition which setteth my dear Relations in a more special dependance on God and secureth to them the more peculiar providence of God I love them I have looked after them whilst I lived I will now leave the care of them to him who expressed it by me who can and will express the same without me who is charged with them by his own property and promise who is more immediately more eminently bound to look after them by taking thus taking me from them O my God! give my Wife and Children a fear of thee submission to thee and faith in thee be thou the Husband of my Widow and the Father of my fatherless Children that to the praise of thee who failest not they may tell the world the unbeleiving world they lost nothing by loosing thus loosing me they traded to good advantage by freely willingly cheerfully contentedly giving up a most loving Husband and tender Father to the pleasure of a gracious faithful never failing God who stayeth with them and careth for them when he by death doth take me from them SECT XI AFter death Death hindreth me from knowing what is done under the sun and so I shall know no evil I must lie down in the pit I shall be covered with darkness I shall not know what is done under the Sun This will indeed be my state but yet whilst I lie down in the pit I shall abide in safety and be delivered from my brethrens rage and fury My Brother Reuben proveth most faithful and affectionate by letting me down into the pit he thereby secureth not onely my life but also my liberty against my brethrens malice their hands cannot then reach me to do me hurt they cannot draw me thence to sell and enslave me to any Ishmaelite their envy may enquire for me but they shall not find me I shall be preserved in safety and preferred to glory when their entangled state shall affect their hearts and make them with bitterness to remember and confess they are verily guilty concerning their brother in that they saw the anguish of his soul Gen. 42.21 when he besought them and they would not hear him my being put into the pit is the passage to glory God hath determined for his beloved Josephs If darkness cover me it doth the better suit my sleeping state and capacitate me thereunto light is indeed pleasant to the eye but it is perturbing preventing when men desire to sleep my gracious God layeth me in the grave as in an house of darkness and as on a bed of silence that my wearied body may the better sleep and take its rest until it shall be awakened by his last trumpet which shall summon me to meet my Lord in glory I have no great cause to be troubled for that Nothing but evil under the sun to be known I shall not know what is done under the Sun for there can be little done against me after I am dead nothing that can hurt me suppose mens foolish envy should digg up my stinking carcass to burn or bury it under the Gallows they may annoy themselves they cannot afflict me sure I am they can do nothing under the Sun which shall concerne me when I am dead why shall I be so curious as to covet the knowledge of other mens affairs I might possibly know some good by my life but that will be but very little but I were therein sure to know very much evil and such evil as would and must afflict me whilst I know nothing under the Sun I shall not know the prophaness blasphemies impieties injustice oppressions violence superstitions perfidies perjuries and persecutions which are done under the Sun all which would call for and constrain greif in my soul and tears from my eyes seeing I could not know a little good without knowing so much evil shall I not be content to be freed from a so vexatious burden as is the knowledge of things under the Sun I hate life Eccles 2.17 because the work which is wrought under the Sun is greivous unto me for it is vanity and vexation of spirit What if I do not know what is done under the Sun After death I shall know much good I shall know much better things my soul the seat and subject of mine understanding shall be acquainted with and fully apprehend the glories which are above the Sun I shall then know the depths of divine mercy the mysteries of mans salvation 1 Cor. 13.12 I shall then know as I am known I shall perfectly know God and Christ shall I stick to
they be such things is not eternity the very formality of them is not eternity that massie substance affixed to the exceeding weight of glory which counterpoiseth weigheth down and witnesseth the levity of those afflictions which we now suffer for a moment Eternity is the sting of sorrow but the strength of joy the horror of damnation but the honour of salvation the dread the dolor of the reprobate but the desire delight of the Elect the plague the sting of the gnawing worm and tormenting not consuming fire but the pleasure the lustre of the wedding garment and of the cooling refreshing streams of the waters of life My soul Christ my Savior hath redeemed me from the one and sealed me to the other of these conditions fear not therefore to go out of this body to pass through this red Sea this dark dreadful dismaying gulf into the Ocean of thine Eternity remember consider thy Lord long since declared strait is the gate and narow is the way which leadeth unto life I will by Gods grace stoop at this strait gate I will press through this narrow way seeing life so rich so glorious so blessed life is the end thereof to be enjoyed for ever The Conclusion § MOst blessed Jesus thou art the Lord of life and glory of thine own good will in compassion and pity to lost man thou didst leave the delights of Heaven and of thy fathers bosome and wast cloathed with mans mortal nature Thou hast subjected thy self to death to the most violent shameful and cursed death that thou mightest sweeten and sanctifie this cup in which all thine elect and Saints must pledge thee thou hast tasted death for all men Thou having felt the sting and encountred the strength of death didst conquer and triumph over the grave thou hast gotten thou hast given all that beleive in thee the victory over death thou art in thy Church and to thy Saints the first fruits from the dead thy glorious resurrection is our pledge and assurance that we shall not be always held under the power and dominion of death but that we shall be raised up to raign with thee for ever § I thy weak and worthless servant am under the expectation of death and if thou restrain not the wrath that is in man it may be a violent and shameful death under the dread hereof I look unto and desire to encourage my self in thee the captain of my salvation Be not far from me my God and my Saviour in this hour of my temptation but let thy grace support me under the stroak and save me from the sting of death strengthen my faith unto the full apprehension due application of thy death and resurrection to the curbing of my passions and check of my fears that I may willingly cheerfully follow thee through the vale of the shadow of death O be my God! my God and my Guide unto under death § Death is natural to man common to all men but its nature is changed unto some and but to some of the sons of men this dreadful Executioner of thy vengeance on the wicked is but a grim messenger to fetch thy children home this thy Sheriff executing Malectours putteth the heirs of salvation into the possession of that inheritance thou hast purchased for them and appointed to them the wicked dye when thy friends do but sleep and rest in their beds Be pleased O my Redeemer to know me and make me know my self to be one of that number to whom the nature of death is changed to whom it may not it cannot be apprehended or appear so dreadful evidence and cleer up to my soul and conscience that real supernatural change of quality in my self which may convince me of and secure unto me the contranatural change of the nature and quality of death to and upon me § Union with thy glorious self can only secure against the sting and encourage under against the terrifying apprehension of the stroak of death unite me O Lord unto thy self communicate to me thy grace that only evidence of my union with thee that assurance that only that full assurance that death shall not divide between thee and me death shall not seperate my soul from thee death shall not seperate my body from thee but my dust shall be regarded by thee my death shall be precious in thy sight make O my God the graces of thine holy spirit so legible in me that I may thereby make my calling and election sure and read readily that name that none can read but he who hath it and that I may be certainly resolved in my self that my name was written in thy book of life before the foundations of the world was laid § Thy grace O Lord hath been extended to me make me to see it teach me seriously to reflect it unto thy praise and the encouragement of my soul under and against the terrors of the dread of death I am through thy grace and abundant mercy called by the name I have been born within the pale of thy Church and under the Covenant of thy salvation I was dedicated to thee and thy service as soon as I was born thy covenant was then set on my flesh by baptism and I now bear it on my flesh I dare not with prophane Esau despise this my birth-right but must and by thy grace I will rejoyce that I pertake of the fatness of the Olive and that I am a branch from an holy root sanctified by and unto God Thou didst bless me O Lord with Christian nurture and education I have known thy word from my childhood thou hast seasoned me with and sanctified me by thy truth thy word is truth it hath been the delight of my soul and the direction of my life and faith Thy spirit hath been and is in me the spirit of conviction and of burning by it I see the finfulness of sin and possess with grief shame the iniquities of my youth and the evil of my ways and doings it lusteth against my flesh and draweth disposeth my mind to serve the Law of God when my flesh is forced to serve the Law of sin Thy glorious Gospel thy gracious spirit O Lord hath convinced me of and affected my soul with mine own guilt thy fathers wrath and justice and the salvation wrought out by thee and by thee alone I do beleive there is no name by which men can be saved but thy name most blessed Jesus thou art the true Messiah the only Mediator between God and man the all-sufficient Saviour of all that come unto thee unto thee O Lord I come weary and heavy loaden with my sin Oh give me easie pressed with a dread of thy fathers wrath plead my cause satisfie for me his offended justice be the propitiation for my sins oppressed with my lusts Oh save me from my sin subdue corruptions in me change my nature be to me a perfect Saviour for to thee I run on
thee I relye thee I embrace with all my soul to be my Lord and my King refuse reject me not O God of my salvation I have resigned up my whole man to thy most holy word and will and desire to walk in thy most holy ways thy love shed abroad in my heart hath enflamed me with a love to thy name to thine ordinances thy people and thine house the zeal of thy house hath consumed me I have through thy spirit embraced esteemed thy truth in the love thereof and thy people for the truths sake which is in them For thy sake I have denied all outward comforts I have taken up my cross and followed thee Consider remember O Lord my present bonds for thy sake I am killed all the day long I am accounted as a Sheep for the slaughter the reproaches of them who reproach thee are fallen upon me all this is come upon me yet have I not departed from thee nor dealt falsly in the Covenant in which thy glory is concerned § These things O Lord I do reflect not as matters of merit in me or as engagements on thy justice to do me good for I well know they are not mine own and if they were and were perfect yet I must when I have done the best I can acknowledge I am an unprofitable servant all I can do is due to thee the best of my actions are but the debt I ow thee but alas my best actions are full of sin my righteousness is as a filthy rag a menstruous garment which needeth thy propitiation and thy fathers pardon and must be perfumed by the incense which is on the censer in the right hand of thee my high Priest Yet O my Savour I reveiw these things in me as the effects of thy grace to me of thy spirit in me and as infallible evidences of thine union to me for flesh and blood could not reveal nor work these things in me by thy grace sanctifying my nature my soul is and shall be saved ô refuse me not deny me not to be thine O let thy spirit of adoption seal up my relation to thee and mine interest in thee let me not remain in the dark or be deceived in a matter of so great concernment to me clear up to me by certain premises the truth the realty of mine inseperable union with thee else I am undon have said nothing to my soul in all that I have said against the dread of death § Grant unto me O Lord the remission of all my sins the sence of the guilt thereof doth sting my soul under the apprehensions of mine approaching death Whatsoever doth befall me in this life I beseech thee suffer me not to dye in my sin Oh convince me of humble me for and turn me from all iniquity and every reigning lust but graciously cast it behind thy back blot it out of thy remembrance that in the day it is sought for it may not be found against me sin hath passed on me and death by sin but deliver me O my Saviour from falling by under the second death from which there is no possibility of redemption Secure unto my soul thy sufferings as the full ransom of my soul and the satisfaction to thy fathers law and justice for mine offences and for my many great trangressions so shall I be able to meet death with boldness I shall then insult over that King of terrors with on O death where is thy sting O grave where is thy victory I shall then triumph over death and him who hath the power of death the Devil If my heart deceive me not I would not sin that grace â—hould abound but now blessed Saviour that I have sinned I do I dare not but earnestly beg thy grace may abound that I may in my death through the pardon of sin sing unto thy praise thanks be unto God who hath given met he victory through Jesus Christ our Lord. § O thou the only high Priest of my profession thou canst be touched with mine infirmities thou knowest the power the prevalency of my natural passions under the apprehensions of mine approaching death thou ever livest to make intercession for me graciously rebuke my passions restrain my fears revive my faith renew my hope and establish my heart under and against all those amazing affrighting apprehenfions of death which nature dotâ— conceive sence doth dictate or Satan doth suggest unto my dread Compassionately grant me the comfortable supports of thy presence grace and spirit whilst I walk in the vale of the shadow of death that I may with all patience and meekness lie down and receive that stroak of death which I cannot avoid and yet cannot be willing to receive That I may with submission drink that bitter cup thou puttest into my hand concerning which my nature not corrupted with sin could not but pray Father if it be possible let this cup pass from me give me an heart groaning to be clothed on with my house from heaven whilst I cannot desire to be uncloathed of this earthly tabernacle and seeing my presence in the flesh is mine absence from thee O Lord perswade me to be willing to be dissolved that I may be with thee which is best of all § As a man I cannot desire I cannot but fear to die be pleased O my Savior to convince me of and afflict me with the happy sequels of my death that the sence thereof may make me contrary to the power property of my nature desirous to die let not the dread of death drive me to accept on sinful terms the deliverance from the most violent and shameful stroak thereof enable me to live the last breath of this my dying life in the ways of thy truth and holiness to the praise of thy grace and in this last act to play the man couragiously evidencing my self affected with a clear sence that all the evils of death are discharged and assured that I am united to thee who art the resurrection and the life through whom though I die I shall live again and having fought the good fight of faith and finished my course of nature I shall escape the curse of death and be received into eternal life and glory with thy self thy blessed Saints and Angels for ever guide me all my days by thy counsel and at last receive me into thy glory Into thy hands I commit my spirit it is thine own thou hast redeemed it and thou wilt keep it until thy glorious appearance blessed Jesus my Lord and my Redeemer Amen Amen Amen FINIS