Early piety, exemplified in the life and death of Mr. Nathanael Mather, who ...…

and if there should be any of them not pious, the longer I should stay with them here (if they continue impenitent) it would but make my Grief more intolerable, to think when I leave them, that I shall have no hopes to see them again for ever. But this is not all neither.— My Body must be used as the Souls Instrument; and here all that strength and •ase which I have, must be used for the ⟨p. 38⟩Soul: And truly there is reason enough for it, that so there may be eternal happiness for both together. In Marriage, the Husband and Wife should have the same design. Would it not be inhumane, for the one to have a design which tends to the ruin of the other? Just so my Soul and Body should have the same design; and the Body being the more vile of the two, should be subordinate to the Soul. And it is a necessary disjunction, either the Body, the strength, and ease, and members of it, must be used for the good, or for the hurt of the Soul; there is no medium here. Let me then herein make my Body useful to my Soul, in accomplishing all the good-designs of it, which it is capable of being interested in. Nor is there any thing else worth speaking of that must be foregone, except health, and the momentaneousness of all bodily Torments, will make them very tolerable. My Resolutions be, That I will not expect, by devoting my self unto the Fear of God, to ⟨p. 39⟩gain any thing as to my Body in this World. That through the Grace of Christ, I will use the strength, ease, health of my Body, yea my whole Body, in Subordination to my Soul, in the Service of the Lord Jesus.

and if there should be any of them not pious, the longer I should stay with them here (if they continue impenitent) it would but make my Grief more intolerable, to think vvhen I leave them, that I shall have no hopes to see them again for ever. But this is not all neither.— My Body must be used as the Souls Instrument; and here all that strength and •ase vvhich I have, must be used for the ⟨p. 38⟩Soul: And truly there is reason enough for it, that so there may be eternal happiness for both together. In Marriage, the Husband and Wife should have the same design. Would it not be inhumane, for the one to have a design which tends to the ruine of the other? Just so my Soul and Body should have the same design; and the Body being the more vile of the two, should be subordinate to the Soul. And it is a necessary disjunction, either the Body, the strength, and ease, and members of it, must be used for the good, or for the hurt of the Soul; there is no medium here. Let me then herein make my Body useful to my Soul, in accomplishing all the good-designs of it, which it is capable of being interested in. Nor is there any thing else worth speaking of that must be foregone, except health, and the momentaneousness of all bodily Torments, will make them very tolerable. My Resolutions be, That I will not expect, by devoting my self unto the Fear of God, to