earth, the duties, the devotions, the customs, and manners of heaven.

And yet all this goodness and all this excellence was bounded within the compass of eighteen years and as many days; for no longer was she allowed to live among us. She was snatched out of the world as soon almost as she had made her ance in it. Like a jewel of high price, just shown a little and then put up again; and we were deprived of her by that time we had learnt to value her.

appear

As her life was short, so her death was sudden : she was called away in haste, and without any warning. One day she drooped, and the next she died; nor was there the distance of many hours between her being very easy in this world and very happy in another.

However, though she was seized thus suddenly by death, yet was she not surprised; for she was ever in preparation for it, her loins girt (as the Scripture speaks), and her lamp ready trimmed, and burning. The moment almost that she was taken ill, she was just risen from her knees, and had made an end of her morning devotions. And to such an one, a sudden death could be no misfortune. We pray, indeed, against it, because few, very few, are fit for it; and the Church is to proportion her forms to the generality of Christians.

In truth, she could not be called away more hastily than she was willing to go. She had been used so much to have her conversation in heaven, and her soul had been so often upon the wing thither, that it readily left its earthly station upon the least notice from above; and took the very first opportunity of quitting her body, without lingering or expecting a second summons. She stayed no longer after she was called, than to

assure her lord of her entire resignation to the Divine will, and of her having no manner of uneasiness upon her mind; and to take her leave of him, with all the expressions of tenderness. When this was over, she had nothing more to do with her senses; she sunk immediately under her illness, and, after a short unquiet slumber, slept in peace.

She is gone to the place where all tears are wiped from her eyes; where there is no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. She is She is gone, and her works have followed, and will follow her, to her great and endless advantage. God grant that, when we also follow her, we may do it with as little surprise, and as much cheerfulness'.

REFLECTION BY BISHOP ATTERBURY.-It is better, doubtless, to go into the house of mourning, than into the house of feasting; but upon this condition, that we come better out of the one, than out of the other: that we leave our vanities and our vices behind us; that we lay aside our affections towards this world, and our indifference towards another; that we put on holy and hearty resolutions of being, even now, what we shall wish we had been hereafter when the fatal hour approaches; and of living the life of this righteous person, that we may die her death too.

2 Fourteen Sermons by Francis Atterbury, D.D., Dean of Carlisle, and Chaplain to Queen Anne, 8vo ed. 1708. Discourse on the death of Lady Cutts, p. 179, &c.

THIS pious divine was vicar and lecturer of Dedham, in Essex; and is well known by his excellent commentary on the New Testament. A seven days' conflict with a very malignant fever carried him off. He was, according to his desire, taken with his death-sickness upon a Lord's day, when he was in the service of God at church, and he went to keep his everlasting Sabbath upon the Lord's-day after, about eleven of the clock in the forenoon.

When he came to lie upon his death-bed, there was a sweet calmness and serenity upon his spirit, and expression of his glorious hopes. I will give you his words, when he took his solemn leave on the Friday night after the fit was returned that proved fatal; they were these, "I shall leave you, but may the presence of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, be with you; may the presence of the Holy Trinity be with you: I hope to see you again with joy at the resurrection of the just ;" and he added, "What you have seen in

me that is good and imitable, follow it; but what you have observed in me that is not so, let not your affection and love to me sway you to it."

When his friends about him bewailed their great loss, which they feared was coming upon them by his departure, he desired them not to be too much concerned for him; "for to him," he said, "to live would be Christ, and to die would be gain," and added, "that God would provide for them.” He blessed God that he had finished what he designed upon the New Testament, and that the way of it was prepared and ushered in with very many prayers of his ; and he hoped, through God's blessing, it would prove beneficial to many, and especially to his own people.

There were several persons by his dying bed, who having declared that under God he had been the instrument of their conversion, put him into an ecstasy of joy. So happily fruitful was his ministry. His patience in his last sickness was very exemplary. He declared that God made his sick bed easy to him, and said, “he had preached patience, and wrote of patience, and therefore was bound to practise patience." The concluding scene of his life was a continual course of prayer, thanksgiving, and cheerful resignation to the will of God. He counselled those about him to remember what he had instructed them in from the pulpit, and in private, and that they would order their lives agreeably thereunto: his natural temper was of the happiest and best sort, cheerful enough, and withal very serious. This holy man, a very little time before his expiring breath, signifying his desire to leave this life, prayed in these words, "Come, Lord Jesus."

3 Nath. Parkhurst, Vicar of Yoxford, Suffolk; Biog. Dict.

REFLECTION.-In disease, decay, and the prospect of death, great is the comfort of the Christian, resting as he does on the words of divine truth, "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God." When we

meditate on such words, we see why it may be said of this servant of God, "when he came to lie upon his death-bed, there was a sweet calmness and serenity upon his spirit, and expression of his glorious hopes."

THE celebrated author of the "Essay on the Human Understanding," &c. In 1700, Mr. Locke resigned his seat at the Board of Trade, and from this time continued altogether at Oates, in which agreeable retirement he employed the last years of his life entirely in the study of the Holy Scriptures.