the pestilence Lath put a period to a Christian's days, then lie shall never be proud more, nor passionate more, nor unbelieving more, nor ■svorldly more, nor neglective of duty more, nor "grieve the Spirit of God more, nor wound conscience more, nor break the peace with God more, nor sad the hearts of the righteous more, nor open the mouth of blasphemy more. The death of the body shall quite destroy the body of death ; so that as sin was the midwife that brought death into the world, so death shall be the grave that shall bury sin in. When the pestilence takes away a godly man, it doth not take him away in his sins, but it takes him away from his sins ; and as death, as the pesti- lence when it kills, rids the believer of all his sins, so it Avill rid him of all his troubles. Death cures all diseases, the aching head and the mibelieving heart ; iiUimus morhormn medicus mors. At Stratford- Bow were burned in Queen Mary's days^ at one stake a lame man and a blind man ; the lame man, after he was chained, casting away his crutch, bade the blind man be of good comfort, for death would cure them both. It will cure thee, saith he, of thy blindness, and me of my lameness. The way to gloiy is by misery. In tliis world we are all Benonis, the sons of sorrow. The way to heaven is by Weeping- cross. Christ's passion-Aveck was before his ascension-day. None passes to paradise but by burning seraphims. We cannot go out of Egypt but through the Bed Sea. The children of Israel came to Jerusalem through the valley of tears, and crossed the swift river of Jordan before they came to the sweet waters of Siloam. If a godly ujan die of the pestilence, he shall never be haunted, tempted, and buffeted by Satan more ; he shall never see a cloud, a frown, a wrinkle in the face of God more. The chair of pestilence shall be to him a chair of state, by which he shall be brought into the presence of the King of kings. If the plague prove mortal to a godly man or woman, it shall do that for them wliich all ordinances could never do, and which all their duties could never do, and which all their graces could never do, and which all their experiences could never do for them, and which all the assistances, influences, and incomes of the Holy Spirit could never do for them, &c. It shall at once free them from all their sins, sorrows, tears, temptations, oppressions, oppositions, vexa- tions, and persecutions. Death will cure the believer of all his bodily diseases and distempers at once. And thus I have done with these divine maxims and conclusions : the Lord make them as so many heavenly cordials to the Christian reader !
If thou art so ingenuous as to be desirous to know what those special lessons are that thou art to learn by that severe rod, the pestilence, that hath been so long amongst us, I must refer thee to my first Epistle before my Treatise on ' Closet Prayer,' where thou wilt find twenty lessons that we are to learn by the smarting rod. 2
' [Fo.\e] Acts and Monuments, fol. 1733. ' Sec Works, Vol. II., pp. 139, seq.—G.
LEGACY OF A DYING MOTHER.
I have not been able to trace another copy besides my own of this interesting and touching little volume. It appears to be wholly unknown to bibliographers. The original title-page will be found below.* The 'Epistle Dedicatory' of Brooks forms a pungent and quickening little treatise on the duty of children to walk in the footsteps of their godly parents. The 'Legacy' or ' Experiences' itself occupies only eighteen out of the sixty-two pages; and as it is experimental, and also furnishes glimpses of 'good men' in America — e.g., Cotton, Shephard, Eliot — of whom very little is known, we have decided to reprint it along with Brooks's 'Epistle Dedicatory.'— G.
Being the EXPERIENCES
Who died March 13. 1C72.
THOMAS BROOKS Minister of the
Printed and are to be sold by John Hancock
Senior and Junior at the three Bibles in
Popes-Head Alley in Cornhill. 1673.
THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.
To his Honoured Friends, Mr T. B., I. B., S. B., I. T., Merchants, and to their Wives, and to the rest of the Children of Mrs Susanna Bell, deceased : the Author wisheth all grace, mercy, and peace.
Honoured Friends, — My design in this epistle is not to compliment you, but to benefit you ; it is not to tickle your ears, but to better your hearts ; nor it is not to blazon her name or fame to the world whose heaven-born soul is now at rest with God, and who is swallowed up in those transcendent enjoyments of that other world which are above the comprehensions of my mind and the expressions and praises of my pen ; but it is to allure and draw you to an imitation of what was praiseworthy in her. Shall I hint at a few things ?
1. First, Imitate her in that sincerity and plain-heartedness luliich luas transparent in her. Sincerity is not a single grace, but the source of all graces, and the interlineary that must run through every grace ; for what is faith, if it be not unfeigned? and what is love, if it be not without dissimulation ? and what is repentance, if it be not in truth ? Sincerity is the soul of all grace ; it is the grace of all our graces. What advantage is it to have ' the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of hope,' Eph. vi. 13-17, if they be but painted things? It is the 'girdle of sincerity' that makes all the other parts of our armour useful. Was she not a true Nathanael, John i. 47, a person in whom there was no guile — I mean no allowed hypocrisy? and was not this that which carried her through the pangs of death with a great deal of comfort, as it had done Hezekiah, Paul, and other saints before? Isa. xxxviii. 3 ; 2 Cor. i. 12. A sin- cere Christian is like the violet, which grows low, and hides itself and its own sweetness as much as may be with its own leaves ; or like Brutus' staff', gold within and thorn without ; or like the ark, gold within and goats' hair without. The very heathen loved a candid and sincere spirit, as he that wished ' that there was a glass window in his breast, that all the world might see what was in his heart. But,
2. Secondly, Imitate her in that humility ivhich was a grace she ivds clothed withal, 1 Peter v. 5. I ever found her low and little in her
438 THE EPISTLE DEDICATORY.