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rescue is from above; and what intercourse have we with heaven but by our prayers? Your prayers can and will deliver you from dangers, avert judgments, prevent mischiefs, and procure blessings. Your prayers can and will furnish you with strength against temptations, mitigate the extremity of your sufferings, sustain your infirmities, raise up your dejected spirits, increase your graces, abate your complaints, sanctify all good things to you, sweeten the bitterness of your afflictions, open the windows of heaven, shut up the bars of death, and vanquish the powers of hell. Pray therefore, and be safe and happy.

AN HYMN,

Which was composed for the consolation of a penitent Christian; more suitable perhaps than many of those printed on these occasions*. It may properly be used (if committed to memory) at any time of the day or night, as a profitable amusement and meditation; especially when rest cannot be obtained, sleepless, wearisome nights being appointed to the poor sufferer.

My God, my grateful heart I'll raise,
A daily altar to thy praise:

Thy friendly hand my course directs,
Thy watchful eye my bed protects.

2.

When tempests, woes, and death are nigh,
Past mercies teach me where to fly :

The same almighty arm can aid,

Now sickness grieves and pains invade.

3.

To all the various helps of art

Kindly thy healing power impart;

See Stonhouse's Spiritual Directions, p. 30, of the fifteenth edition.

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All med'cines act by thy decree,
Receive commission all from thee;

And not a plant which spreads the plains,
But teems with health when heav'n ordains.

5.

Clay and Siloam's pool + we find

At heav'n's command restore the blind;
Hence Jordan's waters once were seen
To wash a Syrian leper ‡ clean.

6.

But grant me greater favours still,
Grant me to know and do thy will;
Purge my foul soul from ev'ry stain,
And save me from eternal pain.

7.

Can such a wretch for pardon sue!
My sins, my sins, arise to view!
Arrest my trembling tongue in pray'r,
And pour the horrors of despair;

8.

But oh! regard my contrite sighs,
My tortur'd breast, my streaming eyes;
To me thy boundless love extend,
My God, my Father, and my Friend.

9.

These tender names I ne'er could plead,
Had not thy Son vouchsaf'd to bleed;
His blood procures for Adam's race
Admittance to the throne of grace.

See John v. 4.

+ John ix. 7.

2 Kings v. 10.

10.

When vice has shot its poison'd dart,
And conscious guilt corrodes the heart,
His blood is all-sufficient found

To draw the shaft, and heal the wound.
11.

What arrows pierce so deep as sin?
What venom gives such pain within?
Thou great Physician of the soul!
Rebuke my pangs, and make me whole.

12.

Oh! if I trust thy sov'reign skill,
With due submission to thy will,
Sickness and Death shall both agree
To bring me, Lord, at last to thee.

A Letter of consolation from Archbishop Tillotson to Mr. Hunt of Canterbury, who had a cancer, of which he died in 1687.

SIR, I am sorry to understand by Mr. Janeway's letter to my son-in-law, Mr. Chadwicke, that your distemper grows upon you, and that you seem to decline so fast: I am very sensible how much easier it is to give advice against trouble in the case of another, than to take it in our own.

It hath pleased God to exercise me of late with a very sore trial, in the loss of my dear and only child*, in which I perfectly submit to his good pleasure, firmly believing, that he always does that which is best: and yet though reason be satisfied, our passion is not so soon appeased; and when nature hath received a wound, time must be allowed for the healing of it. Since that God hath thought fit to give me a nearer summons of a closer warning of my own mortality, in the danger of an apo

" * Archbishop Tillotson never had a son; he had only two daughters; Mary, married to Mr. Chadwicke, and Elizabeth, who died before her.

plexy; which yet, I thank God for it, hath occasioned no very melancholy reflections: but this perhaps is more owing to natural temper, than philosophy and wise consideration.

Your case, I know, is very different, who are of ja temper naturally melancholy, and under a distemper apt to increase it; for both which great allowances ought to be made and yet, methinks, both reason and religion offer us considerations of that solidity and strength, as may very well support our spirits under all frailties and infirmities of the flesh; such as these:

That God is perfect love and goodness; that we are not only his creatures, but his children, and are as dear to him as to ourselves; redeemed by that precious Son, who is the prince and pattern of sufferers; that he does not afflict willingly, nor grieve. the children of men; and that all evils and afflictions which befal us are intended for the cure and prevention of greater evils, of sin and punishment; and therefore we ought not only to submit to them with patience, as being deserved by us, but to receive them with thankfulness, as being designed by him to do us that good, and to bring us to that sense of him and ourselves, which perhaps nothing else would have done; that the sufferings of this present life are but short and slight, compared with that extreme and endless misery which we have deserved, and with that exceeding eternal weight of glory which we hope for in the other world; that if we be careful to make the best preparation we can for death and eternity, whatever brings us nearer to our end, brings us nearer our happiness; and how rugged soever the way be, the comfort is, that it leads to our Father's house, where we shall want nothing that we can wish for. When we labour under a dangerous distemper that threatens our life, what would we not be contented to bear, in order to a perfect recovery, could we but be as

sured of it? And should we not be willing to endure much more in order to happiness, and that eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, hath promised? Nature, I know, is fond of life, and apt to be still lingering after a longer continuance here; and yet a long life, with the usual burthens and infirmities of it, is seldom desirable; it is but the same thing over again, or worse; so many more nights and days, summers and winters; a repetition of the same pleasures, but with less pleasure and relish every day; a return of the same or greater pains and trouble, but with less strength and patience to bear them.

These and the like considerations I use to entertain myself withal, not only with contentment, but comfort; though with great inequality of temper at several times, and with much mixture of human frailty, which will always stick to us whilst we are in this world: however, by thoughts of this kind death becomes more familiar to us, and we shall be able by degrees to bring our minds close up to it, without starting at it. The greatest tenderness I find in myself is with regard to some near relations; especially the dear and constant companion of my life; which I must confess very sensibly touches me: but, when I consider (and so I hope will they also) that this separation will be but for a little while; and that though I shall leave them in a bad world, yet under the care and protection of a good God, who can be more and better to them than all other relations, and will certainly be so to those that love him, and hope in his mercy, I receive comfort.

I shall not need to advise you what to do, and what use to make of this time of your visitation: I have reason to believe that you have been careful in the time of your health to prepare for this evil day; and have been conversant in those books, which give the best directions for this purpose; and

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