A Prayer upon the News of another's Death LORD, the ever-living and all-disposing God, in whose hand our breath is, and at whose call we must all be gone out of this world, and our place here will be no more found! O, what is man, every man living, even at his best estate, but altogether vanity! What man is he that liveth, and shall not see death? The great and the mean, the wise and the foolish, good and bad, all yield up the ghost, and go down to the grave. Thou art pleased, O my God, to give me the advantage of seeing many, my neighbours and acquaintance, taken away to their long home before me, and leavest me yet standing the living monument of thy goodness, with these opportunities to appear before thee, in that day of grace, which, through the forbearance of my God, is yet over me. O what am I better than all my fathers and brethren, that I should be exempted from the common portion of all men living, when it is appointed to all men once to die; and I am as sure of my own dying as if I were already dead! O let me not be as the brutes that have no understanding, without mindfulness of my mortality, or consideration of my latter end; but in the death of others let me see, as in a glass, my own frail and uncertain state in the present world; how slippery is my standing, and how soon I must follow all the vast multitudes that are gone before me out of this land of the living. O let me make full account of it, and so live as one that surely expects to die; that when my own. turn shall come, I may not go off with a heavy heart, but depart in peace, and sleep in Jesus, having my soul safe in thy hands, and my body resting in hopes of gloriously rising at the last day through him who is the resurrection and the life, our blessed Saviour and Redeemer, JESUS CHRIST. Amen. : A Prayer upon the Death of our dear Friends. GRE REAT God, the Lord of all, thou dost whatsoever thou pleasest in heaven and in earth; and who may call in question any thing which thou dost! Thou givest and takest away, raisest and dashest our hopes, lendest and destroyest our comforts, and thou art wise and righteous, and good in all. It is just we should be deprived of the enjoyments which we nothing but slight and abuse; yea, it is good for us to have those things taken from us, which our abuses make hurtful to us. Blessed be thy name, then, even when thou takest away, as well as when thou givest: yet, O Lord, who art justly displeased for our sins, in mercy turn these losses to the advantage of my soul, and so repair the breaches out of thy own infinite fulness, that I may find thy own blessed Self unto me more and better than many, (even such) friends and comforters. They were but the instruments and means of conveyance; thou the eternal spring and fountain of all good, who art still the same, and amidst all these changes, never changes at all; and what thou didst demand from me by such means, thou canst more than make out to me another way. O my heavenly Father, take my eyes, and heart, and hope, of such poor dying comforts, and fix them upon the only satisfying good; in the enjoyment of which consists all my true life, and peace, and bliss. And let the great emptiness, and frequent disappointments that I find in all the comforts of creatures, and all the enjoyments of the world, teach me more wisdom than to place my affections and dependence upon them; and help to disengage and loosen my heart from them, and raise up my desires and hopes to the glorious permanent objects so infinitely to be preferred before them. Olet me be more crucified to the world, where is nothing but emptiness and frustration, vanity and vexation of spirit! and may I have my conversation more in heaven, where is my blessed Lord, and all his happy followers, of whom the world was not worthy, and every thing that the soul of man can want or wish. O God of the spirits of all flesh, especially of the just made perfect, help me so to follow thy servants, my friends departed in the Lord, that I, with them, may attain at last to live in the sight and presence, in the love and praises, and in the fellowship and enjoyment of thee, my God, blessed for ever. Amen. A Prayer for Patience. MY God! thou knowest what an evil world we live in, which I help to make still worse by my sins; and I that have done so little good, and so much evil, must not look for all good, and no evil at the hands of God. In the world, thou hast told us, we shall have tribulation: and, O that my tribulation may work patience, that I may go away contented with the load thou art pleased to lay upon me, and still possess my soul in patience, however tried by corrections from thy hand, or by injuries from the hands of men; to blame the instrument, or complain of thy providence, under the pressures lying upon me, will but torment and break myself to pieces, and still add to that which I count so grievous to endure.--O let me better provide for my own ease, as well as duty, than so to disquset myself in vain; and whatever thou dost with me, O Lord, let me be dumb, and not open my mouth to reply or murmer, because it is thy doing. Make nie to acquiesce and rest satisfied, even in the bitterest dispensations of thy good providence; contented with such things as I have, and patient in the want of such comforts as I have not: and when nothing but trouble and sorrow is my portion, had I what my sins deserve, O let me not be querulous and forward, forasmuch as thou dealest not with me after my sins, nor rewardest me according to my iniquities; but may I patiently encounter all difficulties and grievances in my passage through this weary, troublesome world, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in my brethren that are in the world; and it is but the common lot of all poor sinful mortals here upon earth. O make me patient to the coming of the Lord; enduring all grievous things with a meek and quiet spirit, seeing they are happy that endure : and such as endure to the end shall be saved. O my Lord, let no pains or sufferings ever drive me from thee, but rather be a means to bring me nearer to thee; and let the remembrance of the great day of the Lord, and the eternal state of the world to come, work in me a contempt of this world, a mortification of my lusts, and patient abiding of the cross; seeing it is of so little consideration what we do enjoy or endure here for a short season, so that we be delivered from the wrath to come, that it may go well with us for ever. O let me, by patient continuance in well - doing, seek for glory, and honour, and immortality; and count nothing in this world either dear to possess, or intollerable to suffer, that I may so finish my course with joy, and at the last rest from all my labours and troubles, with the redeemedand blessed of the Lord; which I wait and beg for at thy good hands, O my gracious Father, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen. A Prayer for Preparation and Readiness to die. ORD, what is our life but a vapour that appears for a little time, and then vanisheth away! Even at the longest, how short; and at the strongest, how frail! And when we think ourselves most secure, yet we know not what a day may bring forth, to turn us out of all; nor how soon thou mayest come, before we are aware, to call us to our last accounţ. |