A51833:26
Advice to mourners under the loss of dear relations in a funeral sermon long…
Advice to mourners under the loss of dear relations in a funeral sermon long since preached / by the late Reverend Dr. Thomas Manton ... And now occasionally published on the much lamented death of Mrs. Ann Terry, who died the 9th of November, 1693. With a short account of some passages of her life, and papers left under her own hand.Advice to mourners under the loss of dear relations in a funeral sermon long since preach'd / by the late Reverand Dr. Thomas Manton ... And now occasionally published on the much lamented death of Mrs. Ann Terry, who died the 9th of November, 1693. With a short account of some passages of her life, and papers left under her own hand.
London: printed by J.D. for Jonathon Robinson, 1694
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I neither do nor dare I censure all those that make such a Bustle about their Ten and Three a Clock Devotions; I hope and believe that many serious and godly Christians may in all Sincerity perform them; but I think, as they are now ordered, they come not so near that Command of our Saviour, When thou prayest, enter into thy Closet.
Besides, there's too much Ground to fear they shut out both Private and Family-Prayer too in many Places: and it's too too common a Practice in this City, to go ⟨p. xvi⟩from the Temple to the Play-house, from the House of God to the House of Belial. It's very observable that such as are most zealous this way, accompanied with the Neglect of Family and Private Prayer, are generally very loose and irregular in their Conversation.
As to her Deportment under Afflictions, which she was exercised withal, both spiritual and temporal, (for God chastens every Son whom he receives) it was accompanied with great Humility and Self judging, often expressing her Unworthiness of the least of the Mercies that God vouchsafed to her. She was far from a querulous or murmuring Temper, endeavouring after a humble submissive Frame of Spirit: and under these Afflictions that sometimes did greatly depress her sweet and tender Spirit, she would frequently express how much Comfort and Reviving she received from God's Holy Word, and not only under her Troubles, but also when freed from them, in the most quiet and sedate Frame of Spirit. She would bless God that this Life would not last always. She had frequent Illness, and was once thought by her Friends past Recovery, but when restored again (though thankful to God for his Favour to her) she did seem to bewail her Infelicity: I ⟨p. xvii⟩thought, said she, that I was going off the Stage of this evil World, to the Place where I should sin and sorrow no more; but I now see I must again be tossed on the Waves and Billows thereof. When it was told her, that according to the Course of Nature she might yet live thirty or forty Years; this was so far from pleasing her, that Nature that usually abhors the Thought of Death, did as it were shrink and recoil within her, to think of being so long kept out of Heaven. Under her last Illness, (being with Child) in which there were some more than ordinary Symptoms of her Danger, at which she was not at all dismayed, but said, As to Application of Means, I am willing to submit to any thing for the Satisfaction of my Friends; but as for my self, I am content without any. This cutting Expression she uttered to her dear Husband with great Cheerfulness. She was so far from desiring to live, that she much rather desired to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. The Night before she died she had spent some time in secret, and read one of Dr. Manton's Sermons; but such was her humble and self-condemning Temper, that she to her very last bewailed her not Improvement of her last Days Mercies, as she thought she ought. Her Death was very surprising