A69538:109
The last work of a believer his passing prayer recommending his departing spirit to…
The last work of a believer his passing prayer recommending his departing spirit to Christ to be received by Him / prepared for the funerals of Mary the widow first of Francis Charlton Esq. and after of Thomas Hanmer, Esq., and partly preached at St. Mary Magdalens Church in Milk-Street, London, and now, at the desire of her daughter, reprinted by Richard Baxter.
London: printed by B. Griffin for B. Simmons, 1682
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.
Say therefore to him, [Lord I am thine much more than my own; Receive thine own; Take care of thine own! Thou drewest me to consent to thy gracious Covenant, and I resigned my self and all I had to thee! and thou swarest to me, and I became thine, (Ezek. 16. 8.): and I stand to the Covenant that I made, though I have offended thee! I am sinful, but I am thine, and would not forsake thee! and change my Lord and Master for a world: O know thine own, and own my Soul that hath owned thee, though it hath sinned against thee: Thy sheep know thy voice, and follow not a stranger: Now know thy poor sheep, and leave them not to the devourer: Thy Lambs have been preserved ⟨p. 40⟩by thee among Wolves in the world: Preserve me now from the enemy of souls. I am thine, O save me, (Psalm 119. 94.) and lose not that which is thine own.
2. Consider that thou art his upon so dear a purchase, as that he is the more engaged to receive thee. Hath he bought thee by the price of his most precious blood, and will he cast thee off: Hath he come down on earth to seek and save thee, and will he now forsake thee? Hath he lived in flesh a life of poverty, and suffered reproach, and scorn, and buffetings, and been nailed to the Cross, and put to cry out, [My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me!] And will he now forget his love, and sufferings, and himself forsake thee after this? Did he himself on the Cross, commend his spirit into his Father's hands, and will he not receive thy spirit when thou at death commendest it to him? He hath known himself what it is to have a humane soul separated from the body, and the body buried in a grave, and there lamented by surviving friends: And why did he this, but that he might be fit to receive and relieve thee in the like condition? O who would not be encouraged to encounter death, and lie down in a grave, that believeth that Christ did so before him, and considereth why he went that way, and what a Conquest he hath made.