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

August 16. 1685. Med. about, The reason I have to love God; because of what he has been to me, and what he is in himself. And I thought, Is not God the Best Good? Surely then he is worthy to be my Last End. Has he not been showing many Mercies to me? and what! shall I not resign up my self to Live unto God, because of his goodness to me? Much affected with the thoughts of these things: And, I hope, I closed with the Motion. Again, October 1. Meditated on that; If a Man does intend to be truly Religious, he must expect nothing but to save his Soul? But how can this be true? Must I lose my Body altogether? ⟨p. 36⟩Must I be willing that the Union between my Body and Soul should for evermore be loosed? Must I be willing to be for ever without a Body? No, no. All that the Lord requires of me, is, to have my Body for a few days or years (a few I say, for they cannot be many,) to be wholly at the service of my Soul, and to be willing that the Union between those two Mates, then should be dissolved; the Soul first taking its progress into everlasting Bliss; the Body being laid in the Dust, to rise at the Resurrection, accompanying the Soul into its eternal Felicity. My present Notion of this thing is this: This Dissolution of the Union between the Soul and Body, is but a Dismission of the Spirit into its happiness, after a wearisome conflict here. And as long as it shall be best for me to be here, here I shall continue. Infinite Wisdom is to be the Orderer of this; and it will be a grievous and shameful reflection thereupon, for me to say, It will be better for me to live, than to dye, at such a time when I am called thereunto. ⟨p. 37⟩With my Body I must expect to lose all the pleasant Enjoyments of this World, Liberty, Library, Study, and Relations. But yet neither shall I lose these. As for my Liberty, by True Religion, and by Dying for it too, when need requires, I shall gain the only Liberty, even from the body of sin. As for my Library, if I die for Christ, or in the Lord, I shall have no need of it. My Understanding shall be enough enlarged, and I shall not need to turn over Books for Learning. As for my Study (my Paradise) I shall have a better, a larger, and a more complete than this. As for my Relations, those of them that are truly pious, I shall only go before them;

August 16. 1685. Med. about, The reason I have to love God; because of what he has been to me, and what he is in himself. And I thought, Is not God the Best Good? Surely then he is worthy to be my Last End. Has he not been shewing many Mercies to me? and what! shall I not resign up my self to Live unto God, because of his goodness to me? Much affected with the thoughts of these things: And, I hope, I closed with the Motion. Again, October 1. Meditated on that; If a Man does intend to be truly Religious, he must expect nothing but to save his Soul? But how can this be true? Must I lose my Body altogether?