I have omitted many things, that might have been fit to be inserted, yet you must consider, that I had but a small portion of time allowed me to write, while I lay at an inn, and upon that day wherein I have performed those duties which I now enjoin you. Let the original be laid up safely for your brother R. and every [one] of you take copies of it, that you may thereby remember the Counsels of

YOUR LOVING FATHER.

October the 20th, 1662.

LETTER IV.

TO ONE OF HIS SONS,

RECOVERING FROM A DANGEROUS SICKNESS *.

SON

ALTHOUGH, by reason of the contagiousness of your disease, and the many dependents I have upon me, I thought it not convenient to come unto you during your sickness, yet I have not been wanting in my earnest prayers to Almighty God for you, nor in using the best means I could for your Recovery.

It hath pleased God to hear my prayers for you, and above means and hopes now to restore you to a competent degree of health; for which

* The small pox, which seized him when he was a young man, in the prime of life.

I return unto him my humble and hearty thanks: and now you are almost ready to come abroad again, therefore I have thought fit to write this little book to you for these rea

sons.

1. Because it is not yet seasonable for you to come to me, in respect of these same reasons above-mentioned, which hitherto have restrained my coming to you.

2. Because, at your coming abroad, you will be subject to temptations, by young and inconsiderate company, which, instead of serious thankfulness to God for his mercy to you, might perchance persuade you to a vain and light jollity. And I thought fit to send you these lines, to prevent such inconsiderate impressions, and to meet you just at your coming abroad, to season you with more wise and serious principles.

3. Because you are even now come out of a great and sore visitation, and therefore, in all probability, in the fittest temper, to receive the impressions of a serious epistle from your Father.

And I have chosen to put it into this little volume, because it is somewhat too long for a

letter, and may be better preserved for your future use and memory.

God Almighty hath brought you to the very gates of death, and showed you the terror and danger of it: and, after that he had shown you this spectacle of your own mortality, he hath marvellously rescued and delivered you from that danger, and given you life, even from the dead; so that you are as a man new born into the world, or returned to life again, which now you seem, as it were, to begin. You have passed through those two great dispensations of the Divine Providence, those two great experiments, that God is pleased sometimes to use towards the children of men: namely, correction and deliverance, his rod and his staff. And therefore, in all reasonable conjecture, this is the most seasonable time to give you a lecture upon both, and those admonitions which, may be, render the one and the other profitable unto you. And this I shall endeavour to do in these following lines.

You shall not need to fear that I intend to upbraid you with the errors of your youth, or to expostulate with you touching them; for I

do assure you I do from my heart forgive you all your follies and miscarriages. And I do assure myself that you have repented of them, and resolved against them for the time to come; and that thereupon, God Almighty hath also fully forgiven what is past: and this is a great assurance thereof to me, in that he hath so wonderfully restored you, and given you, as it were, a new life, wherein you may obey and serve him better than ever you yet did. And therefore, if in this letter there be any touches concerning former vanities, assure yourself they are not angry repetitions, but only necessary cautions for your future ordering of your life.

The business of these papers is principally to commend unto you two general remembrances, and certain results and collections that arise from them: they are all seasonable for your present condition, and will be of singular use and benefit to you in the whole ensuing course of your life.

First. I would have you, as long as you live, remember your late sickness in all its circumstances, and these plain and profitable in ferences and advices that arise from it.