An account of the life and death of Mr. Philip Henry, minister of the…

After the Account we have given of his great Usefulness, it is easy to imagine what sorrow and Mourning there was among his Friends, when they heard that the Lord had. taken away their Master from their Head. One that lived so much desired, could not but dye as much lamented. The surprise of the stroke put People into a perfect astonishment; and many said, the Lord removed him so suddenly, because he would not deny the many Prayers that would have been put up for his Recovery, had it been known that he was in Peril. One thing that aggravated this severe Dispensation, and made it in the apprehension of many look the more dismal, was, that this powerful Intercessor was taken away just before a Fast-day, when he would have been Wrestling mightily with God, for Mercy for the Land. However it proved a Fast-day indeed, ⟨p. 204⟩and a day of Humiliation to that Congregation, to whom an empty Pulpit was an awakening Sermon. The Broad-Oak was then like that under which Rebekah's Nurse was buried, Gen. 35 8. Alone-bacuth Bochim, a place of Weepers. They who had many a time sitten with dry Eyes, under melting Ordinances, could not sit so under such a melting Providence, by which the Lord God called so loudly to weeping and to mourning, and to girding with Sack cloth. But because Mr. Henry had been wont to give it for a Rule, that Weeping must not hinder Sowing; a Mite was cast into the Treasury of the Nations Prayers, and a word spoken to bring the Work of the day, and the event of the day together, from 2 Kings 13. 20.

After the Account we have given of his great Usefulness, it is easie to imagine what sorrow and Mourning there was among his Friends, when they heard that the Lord had. taken away their Master from their Head. One that liv'd so much desir'd, could not but dye as much lamented. The surprize of the stroke put People into a perfect astonishment; and many said, the Lord remov'd him so suddenly, because he would not deny the many Prayers that would have been put up for his Recovery, had it been known that he was in Peril. One thing that aggravated this severe Dispensation, and made it in the apprehension of many look the more dismal, was, that this powerful Intercessor was taken away just before a Fast-day, when he would have been Wrestling mightily with God, for Mercy for the Land. However it proved a Fast-day indeed,