LETTER IV.

TO

ONE OF HIS GRANDSONS,

AFTER HIS RECOVERY FROM THE SMALL-POX..

SON

ALTHOUGH, by reafon of the contagiousness of your difeafe, and the many dependents I have upon me, I thought it not convenient to come unto you during your fickness, yet I have not been wanting in my earnest prayers to Almighty God for you, nor in ufing the best means I could for your recovery.

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

1. Because it is not yet feasonable for you to come to me, in respect of these fame reafons above-mentioned, which hitherto have reftrained my coming to you.

2. Because, at your coming abroad, you will be fubject to temptations, by young and inconfiderate company, which, instead of serious thankfulness to God for his mercy to you, might perchance perfuade you to a vain and light jollity. And I thought fit to fend you thefe lines to prevent fuch inconfiderate im preffions,

preffions, and to meet you just at your coming abroad, to feafon you with more wife and ferious principles.

3. Because you are even now come out of a great and fore vifitation, and therefore, in all probability, in the fitteft temper to receive the impreffions of a serious epiflle from your father.

And I have chofen to put it into this little volume, because it is fomewhat too long for a letter, and may be better preferved for your future ufe and memory.

God Amighty hath brought you to the very gates of death, and fhewed you the terror and danger of it; and, after that he had fhewn you this fpectacle of your own mortality, he hath marvellously rescued and delivered you from that danger, and given you life, even from the dead, fo that you are as a man new born into the world, or returned to life again, which now you feem, as it were, to begin. You have paffed through thofe two great difpenfations of the Divine Providence, those two great experiments, that God is pleased sometimes to ufe towards the children of men ; namely, correction and deliverance, his rod and 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 fhall endeavour to do in thefe following lines:

Firft. You fhall not need to fear that I intend to upbraid you with the errors of your youth, or to expoftulate with you touching them; for I do affure you I do from my heart forgive you all your follies and mifcarriages. And I do affure myself that you have repented of them, and refolved against them for the time to come; and that thereupon God Almighty hath allo fully forgiven what is paft: and this is a great affurance thereof to me, in that he hath fo wonderfully reftored you, and given you, as it were, a new life, wherein you may obey and ferve him better than ever you yet did. And therefore if in this letter there be any touches concerning former vanities, affure yourself

they

they are not angry repetitions, but only neceffary cautions for your future ordering of your life.

The business of these papers is principally to commend unto you two general remembrances, and certain refults and collections that arife from them; they are all seasonable for your prefent condition, and will be of fingular ufe and benefit to you in the whole enfuing courfe of your life.

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

Secondly. I would have you remember, as long as you live, your great deliverance, and the several circumftances of it, and thofe neceffary duties that are incumbent upon you in relation thereunto.

It is evident to daily experience, that while afflictions are upon us, and while deliverances are fresh, they commonly have fome good effect upon us; but as the iron is no fooner out of the fire, but it quickly returns to its old coldness and hardness, fo when the affliction or deliverance is past, we ufually forget them, count them common things, attribute them to means and fecond caufes: and fo the good that mankind fhould gather from them vanishes, and men grow quickly to be but what they were before they came; their fick-bed promises are forgot when the fickness is over.

And therefore I fhall give you an account of your fickness and of your recovery; and let them never be forgotten by you. As often as those spots and marks in your face are reflected to your view from the glafs, as often as this paper comes in your fight; nay, as often as you open your eyes from fleep, which were once clofed, and likely never to open again, fo often, and more often, remember your ficknefs and your recovery, and the admonitions that this paper lends you from the confideration of both.

VOL. I.

9

First,

First, therefore, touching your late sickness, I would have you remember thefe particulars: 1. The disease itself, in its own nature, is now become ordinarily very mortal, especially to thofe of your age. Look upon even the last year's general bill of mortality, you will find near two thousand dead of that disease the laft year; and had not God been very merciful to you, you might have been one of that number, with as great likelihood as any of them that died of that dif ease. 2. It was a contagious disease that fecluded the accefs of your nearest relations. 3. Your fickness furprized you upon a fudden, when you feemed to be in your full ftrength. 4. Your fickness rendered you noisome to yourself, and all that were about you; and a fpectacle full of deformity, by the excess of your difeafe beyond moft that are fick thereof. 5. It was a fierce and violent fickness; it did not only take away the common fupplies of nature, as digestion, fleep, ftrength, but it took away your memory, your understanding, and the very fenfe of your own condition, or of what might be conducible to your good. All that you could do, was only to make your condition more defperate, in cafe they that were about had not prevented it, and taken more care for you than you did or could for yourfelf. 6. Your fickness was defperate, infomuch that your fymptoms, and the violence of your diftemper, were without example; and you were in the very next degree to abfolute rotten, nefs, putrefaction, and death itfelf.

you

Look upon the foregoing defcription, and remember that fuch was your condition; you were as fad a picture of mortality and corruption, as any thing but death itself could make: remember it; and remember alfo these ensuing inftructions, that may make that remembrance profitable and useful to you.

Firft. Remember, that affliction cometh not forth * of the duft, nor doth trouble spring out of the ground1;" ! Job v. 6.

but

but this terrible vifitation was fent to you from the wife over-ruling providence of God: it is he that bringeth down to the grave, and bringeth up again. It is true that this disease may feem common; but you may and must know that there was more than the common hand of God in fending it upon you in fuch a manner, and fuch a measure, and at fuch a feason, when you were grown up to a competent age and degree of understanding to make a due use of it, that you might fee his juftice in afflicting you, and his goodnefs in delivering you from fuch a danger.

Secondly. Remember that Almighty God is of moft infinite wifdom, justice, and mercy; he hath excellent ends in all his difpenfations of his providence; he never fends an affliction, but it brings a meffage with it; his rod has a voice, a voice commanding us to fearch and try our ways, and to examine ourselves whether there hath not been fome great fin against him, or neglect of duty to him; a voice commanding us to repent of what is amifs, to humble ourselves under his mighty hand, to turn to him that striketh us, to feek to him by prayer for deliverance, to depend upon him by faith; in his mercy and power to amend what is amifs, to be more watchful, circumfpect, and obedient to him in the future courfe of our lives, to fear to offend him. And if a man hear this voice, God hath his end of mercy and goodness, and man hath the fruit, benefit, and advantage of his affliction, and commonly a comfortable iffue of it. Read often and attentively the 33d chapter of Job, from the beginning to the end.

Thirdly. Remember how uncertain and frail a creature man is, even in his feeming ftrongest age and conftitution of health; even then a peftilential air, fome evil humour in his blood, fome obstruction, it may be, of a little vein or artery, a little meat ill digefted, and a thoufand fmall occurrences may, upon a fudden, without any confiderable warning, plunge a man into a desperate and mortal fickness, and bring a