A69538:147
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.
And here I shall make so great a transition as shall retain my discourse in the narrow compass of the Time in which she lived near me and under my care, and in my familiar acquaintance, omitting all the rest of her life, that none may say I speak but by hear-say of things which I am uncertain of: and I will confine it also to those special gifts and graces in which she was eminent, that I may not take you up with a description of a Christian as such, and tell you only of that good which she held but in common with all other Christians. And if any thing that I shall say were unknown to any Reader that knew her, let them know that it is because they knew her but distantly, imperfectly, or by reports; ⟨p. 63⟩and that my advantage of near acquaintance did give me a just assurance of what I say.
The Graces. which I discerned to be eminent in her, were these. 1. She was eminent in her contempt of the Pride, and Pomp, and Pleasure, and Vanity of the World, and in her great averseness to all these. She had an honest impatience of the life which is common among the rich and vain-glorious in the world: Voluptuousness and Sensuality, Excess of Drinking, Cards and Dice, she could not endure, what ever names of good house-keeping or seemly deportment they borrowed for a mask: In her Apparel she went below the garb of others of her rank; indeed in such plainness as did not notify her degree: but yet in such a grave and decent habit, as notified her Sobriety and humility: She was a Stranger to Pastimes, and no Companion for Time-wasters, as knowing, that Persons so near eternity, that have so short a life and so great a work, have no time to spare. Accordingly in her latter days, she did (as those that grow wise by experience of the vanity of the world) retire from it, and cast it off before it cast off her: She betook her self to the society of a people that were low in the world, of humble, serious, upright lives, though such as had been wholly strangers to her: And among these poor inferior strangers she lived in contentment and quietness; desiring rather to converse with those that would help her to redeem the time, in prayer and edifying conference, than with those that would grieve her by consuming it on their lusts.