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of prayer, and it is now or never that you must pray and beg mercy for them. When their life is gone, they go from the land of prayer, and are fixed in that place, whence they fhall never remove: then all your prayers and cries for them will be in vain. If your friend be a ftranger to Chrift, he is on the brink of hell, and knows it not; and will you not cry to God to open his eyes, and fave him from falling into that devouring pit out of which there is no redemption? You would Be willing to fit up a whole night for the relief of his body; and will you not spend a part of a night for the good of his foul, that is a thousand times more valuable! Now the question is, whether this precious foul fhall be Chrift's or the devil's for ever? And when will you wreftle for your friend, if you do it not now? If the fick perfon be a child of God, you may pray for him with the more comfort, and expectation to be heard. You may, in that cafe, fend the fame meffage by prayer to Chrift, that the fifter of fick Lazarus did, John xi. 3. "Lord, behold he whom thou loveft is fick." Lord, pity him, comfort him, abate his distemper, and relieve him from it, if it be thy will: if not, grant him thy gracious prefence and fafe conduct through the Jordan of death, and a happy landing in the Canaan of glory.

We are told, that the prayers of the righteous, in fuch cafes, do avail much, James v. 16. and this, to encourage us to pray one for another. Whatever be the fick perfons condition, fuch confeffions and petitions as thefe following may be made use of in prayer for him.

PETITIONS FOR THE SICK.

LORD, thou firft breathedft into man the breath of life; and, when thou takeft away that breath, he dies, and returns again to his duft. May we be duly fenfible of our dependance on thee for all that we enjoy. We acknowledge, that our great abuse of the many days of health and welfare thou affordeft us doth justly deferve the vifitation of ficknefs and difeafes. Wo is us, we lie

down

under a burden of fin, both original and actual; we are all children of wrath by nature, and under the curfe of a broken law and all other miferies, temporal and foiritual, diftempers, pains, death and hell itfelf, are the iffues thereof. Be merciful to the fick perfon under thy hand; difcover to him his fins, and the caufe why thou contendeft with him. Make him to fee that he is loft in himself, and wholly unable to fatisfy the demands of offended juftice; and do thou reveal Chrift to his foul for righteoufnefs and life. O give him thy holy Spiri to create and strengthen faith, that he may lay hold on Chrift as offered in the gospel. work in him the grace of true repentance. Enable him to fearch his heart aud try his ways, fo as he may difcover every accurfed thing, every Achan in the camp, that hath provoked the Lord against him. When thou putteft him in the furnace, be pleased to stand by, and overfee the metal while it is melting in it. Try him as filver is tried, and bring him. out purified, and let him lofe nothing in this furnace but his drofs. Remove his fins from thy prefence, as far as eaft is from west, that, they may never trouble his confcience, nor rife in judgment against his foul. However bitter the cup may be, let it be medicinal to cure all the difeafes of his foul. O that these afflictions, which are but for a moment, may work for him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory through Jefus Chrift the purchaser !

Look down from heaven, the habitation of thy holinefs, behold his affliction and his pain, and forgive all his fin. Shew fuch pity to him as a father doth to his child, and lay no more upon him than he is able to

bear. Lord, give patience and ftrength answerable to the burden of trouble thou haft laid on him. In time of his weakness uphold him by thy strength. Relieve his wants out of thy infinite fulness. Lord, thou knowelt his frame, and remembereft that he is duft; save him from extremity of trouble, either abate his pain, or increafe his patience to endure what thou measurest out to him. Give him the evidences of all the graces of thy Spirit. Arm and defend him againft all the fuggef tions and temptations of Satan. Take his heart wholly

off

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off the world, and fet his affections on things above. Lord, make ufe of this chaftifement of his body as a medicine to cure his foul, by drawing his foul, that is fick of fin, to thyfelf. O enable him, in a penitent believing manner, to come by repentance to Chrift, his foul phyfician, to get it healed of all its maladies. Sanctify his fickness, and let the fruit of it be to purge away

his fin.

If God fhall be pleased to add to his days, blefs all means of his recovery. Remove the disease ; renew his ftrength, both outward and inward; heal his foul as well as his body. And enable him to walk tenderly before God, and carefully to remember and perform fuch vows and promises of obedience as men are apt to make in time of fickness.

If God hath determined to finish his days by the prefent vifitation; let him find fuch evidence of the pardon of his fins, of his intereft in Chrift, and eternal life, as may cause his inward man to be renewed, while his outward man decayeth; that he may meet death without fear, caft himfelf wholly on Chrift without doubting, and defire to be diffolved, that he may for ever be with Jefus Chrift. Lord, make his laft works better than his first, and the day of his death better than the day of his birth. Make his laft words his best words, his laft thoughts his beft thoughts, and his last hour his beft hour. O let him die the death of the righteous, and let his laft end be like his. Let the eyes of his foul be opened to fee his fins and his Saviour, before the eyes of his body be fhut by death. Take away the fting of death, the guilt of fin, that he may walk through the valley of the fhadow of death and fear no evil. Open thou his lips, that his mouth may fhow forth thy praife, before he go to the place of filence. And when his ftrength doth fail, and his tongue is not able to utter words, let the blood of Chrift fpeak for him in heaven. And let thy holy Spirit within him, make requests for him with fighs and groans that cannot be uttered. When the fight of his eyes doth fail him, let the eyes of his faith be ftrengthened, that his foul (with Stephen at his death) may behold Jefus

Chrift in heaven ready to receive him. Lord, ftand by him in his laft conflict with his enemies, Satan and death, that he may overcome both, and be more than a conqueror through Chrift that hath loved him. Into thy hands we commend his fpirit.

Lord, teach us, who do furvive, by this and other like daily fpectacles of our mortality, to fee how frail and ⚫ uncertain our condition is, and fo to number our days, that we may seriously apply our hearts to heavenly wif dom, through Jefus Chrift. Amen.

DIRECT. V. Be careful to furnish your Friends with fuitable Company, and fpiritual converfe, when they are Sick or Dying.

AS worldly company and converse are great hindrances, fo fpiritual company and converfe are fpecial helps to the fick and dying, Now, that the friends of the fick may prevent the one, and provide for the other, let the following advices be remembered.

1. Mind your friends timeously to make their wills, and dispatch the fettlement of their worldly affairs, that fo they may not be disturbed at the laft, nor any wife diverted from their main work, by thoughts or difcourfe about the world. A mind abftracted from the world is a moft fuitable dipofition for a-dying man. You cannot carry the things of this world with you when you go hence; and it is not fit you should carry the thoughts of them.

2. Keep carnal company from them as much as poffible, and all thofe that would divert them by idle or worldly difcourfe. It is both impertinent and cruel, to throw in fuch impediments in the way of thofe that are going fpeedily to their endless state.

3. Do what you can to get faithful minifters and godly Chriftians to be much about them, who are fit to inftruct and counsel them about their fouls matters, and allo to pray with them and for them.

4. Be often minding your fick friends of their chief work, and thofe things which belong unto their VOL. 1.

Ff

peace.

peace. Whatever be their state, whether gracious or graceless, it is proper to be minding them, 1. Of the vanity and emptinefs of the world, that can neither give eafe to the body, nor comfort to the foul, when either of them is in trouble. 2. Of the finfulness of fin, which is the fpring of all difeafes and miferies whatfoever. 3. Of the preciousness and usefulness of Chrift to a finner in all cafes, and efpecially at a dying hour. 4. Of the inexpreffible felicity of believers in Chrift after death, &c.

Laftly, It you think yourfelves not able to inftruct or advise your fick friends as they ftand in need, then red fome good book to them, that may be fuitable to the condition of their fouls; and, if you have not a fitter at hand, read fome chapters or directions of this book. to them, as you may see most proper for them. But, above all books, read to the fick the holy fcriptures, and fome particular chapters and pfalms there; fuch as the laft three chapters of Genefis; the laft chapter of Deuteronomy; the 17th chapter of the 1ft book of Kings; -the 2d chapter of the 2d book of Kings;-the 14th and 19th chapters of Job ;-the Pfalms of David, and particularly the 6th, the 23d, 25th, 30th, 38th, 41ft, 42d, 49th, 51ft, 71ft, 73d, 77th, 88th, 89th, 90th, 103d, 116th, 118th, 120th, 142d, 143d, and several other Pfalms;-the 12th chapter of Ecclefiaftes ;-the 38th, 53d, 54th, and 55th chapters of Ifaiah ;-the three laft chapters of Luke ;-the 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th, and 20th chapters of John ;-the 8th chapter of the Romans; the 15th chapter of the 1ft Corinthians; -the 5th chapter of the 2d Corinthians; the 4th of the ft Theffalonians the 11th and 12th of the Heb. the three laft chapters of the Revelation, and the like.

DIRECT. VI. Be likewife fuitably concerned for the Bodies of our Friends, when they are Sick.

If you would evidence a fuitable concern for them, then you must deal tenderly and compaffionately with them in their ficknefs, bear with their impatience and

fretting,

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