any Defigns, but against the Kingdom of Darkness. Thus it is you fteer your Course with Safety and Pleasure in dangerous Seas; thus it is, that in Job's Phrafe, you are hid from the Scourge of the Tongue, when its Arrows fly thick from every Quarter. For the Wisdom of the Serpent, and the Innocence of the Dove, are fo happily united, that where you cannot please, you never offend. And who is he that will harm you, while you are fo prudent a Follower of that which is good? Who is he, that can find in his Heart to harm you, while are in Pursuit only how to cloath the Naked, to feed the Hungry, to inftru& the Ignorant, and to be a Father to the Miferable of all Parties? you , The Trouble of Self-denial, which fome efteem fo harsh, and hard a part of the Chriftian Law of Religion, has been over with you for many Years and by long Custom is become now your fecond Nature, the most easy and delightful Service in the World. For b 4 the , the Pleasure that the Proud and Revengeful take in facrificing to their Refentments, you take in commanding those Paffions to be quiet. The Dogs and Horfes, the Houfes and Gardens and Pools of Water, with Men-fingers, and Women-fingers, and other Gratifications of Flesh and Blood, which the Animal Man fo much dotes on, are strange infipid things to you, and rather your Pity, than your Pleasure. The Game you hunt after, is to do good to the Bodies and Souls of Men, to plant Nurseries of Religion, and to water them with your own Inftructions, to raise up a Righteous Seed for future Generations, and to encrease the Kingdom of Heaven; and none can think the Pleasure of fuch a Life, but those who live it: For there is Light and Gladness sown for the Righteous, which they reap at prefent from every vertuous Action, and which encreases with Time, and improves upon Enjoyment, and leaves no ungrateful Relish behind it. But O! the Profpect of that Day, when the Sick and Needy, the Hungry Hungry and Naked, and the many you have turn'd to Righteousness, shall stand all about you at the Judgment-Seat, and be telling of your Works of Mercy, and pleading for your exceeding great Reward in Heaven to that King, who shall then fay, Come ye bleffed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepar'd for you from the Foundation of the World: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me Meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me Drink; I was a Stranger, and ye took me in: For inaf much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my Brethren, ye have done it unto me. Who, I fay, upon fecond Thoughts, would not chufe to enjoy your prefent Complacency, and ravishing Profpect, rather than to glitter a while, and become the Gaze and Talk of the People; rather than to be fowing Wind, and reaping Vanity, and inftead of doing Juftice and Charity, to be treasuring up the Cries of the Oppreffed against the Day of Wrath? But I muft no longer follow my Inclination, and therefore throw away my Pen, as the Painter in Plutarch Plutarch did his Pencil, in despair of finishing what I have but rudely begun. The bare Relation of your Life, wou'd be the greatest Panegyrick. May your Light thus fbine long before Men, that they may fee your good Works, and glorify your Father which is in Heaven. May you come to the Grave in a full Age, like as a Shock of Corn cometh in, in his Seafon; and give me leave to do my self the Honour of fubfcribing, HONOUR'D SIR, Your moft Humble and moft Obliged Servant, Craneford, the 22o of June, 1709. WIL. REEVES. THE THE HE Ufefulness of the Fathers in our Mother- What fort of Perfection is in the Scriptures, what The Senfe and Practice of the Fathers the beft Deter- mination of controverted Texts and Do&rines Inftanc'd in frequent Communion, Infant-Bap- |