THE Universalist's Miscellany For MARCH, 1798. AN ACCOUNT OF THE SICKNESS AND DEATH OF RTHUR PETER was born in the parish of Lewanick, near Launceston, in the county of Cornwall; he came to London to improve himfelf in his bulinefs, (which was that of a watchmaker) and intended returning into the country the week following that in which he was taken ill, to fet up in his bufinefs; but what. man appoints God frequently disappoints, which was the cafe here, for he had a more important bufinefs; inftead of preparing to go into the country, he had to prepare to meet his God, and to enter into the holy city of the New Jerufalem; he was taken ill on Wednesday, the 19th of April, 1797, on the Friday following he fent me word of his indifpofition, when I went to fee him, and found him in a high fever; on which I called in the affistance of an apothecary, who vifited him until Sunday, when he recommended to fend for a doctor, (which was immediately done) who pronounced his cafe very dangerous his fever continued to increafe, infomuch that he was bled four times, and had three blifters applied in the courfe of four days; during which time we confulted the care of his foul as well as his body by converfation and prayer he did not difcover any relish for exercises of that kind; but rather feemed to wish that we would not trouble him with it, and when his friends wifhed to pray with him, he feemed to comply with a degree of reluctance and merely out of refpect to them, until the next Thurfday evening, when after exhorting him to caft himself wholly on the Lord Jefus Chrift, and he would undertake for him, he appeared VOL. II. : : K in in great agonies, both of body and mind: and foon after was heard to fay in a low tone, "Now I muft yield! now I must yield! Lord Jefus do thou' undertake for me!" which appeared to be the firft real application he had ever made to his Saviour for help, trufting only in him; for until now he could never renounce self, as he afterwards confeffed: From this moment he was enabled to pour out his foul before God in humble fupplication, which he did in the following fhort, but emphatical prayers: " O Lord, I have too long neglected to pray; help me to pray aright! Lord into thy hands I recommend my fpirit! Lord give me fome token and manifestation of thy love! take away this vile heart, and give me a better! if it be thy bleffed will change it now, and take me to thy felf." And at this moment a grateful reflexion came into his mind refpecting his mother, who, having been left a widow, and being a woman that feared God, had taken fome pains to inform the minds of her children (of whom she had fix), and to bring them up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. This is an inftance that fhews the propriety of training up children (as Solomon fays) in the way they fhould go, for when they are old (or grown up) they will not depart from it: for here the fon (who perhaps had never perhaps felt a proper degree of gratitude for his kind parent's prayers and folicitude for him) when apparently at the hour of death, cannot leave the world without paying the tribute of acknowledging how often his poor mother had prayed and wept over him, and expreffing the most tender concern for her welfare; and in return for her many prayers for him, now begins to pray with his dying breath for her, and thus intercedes with the Almighty. "If it please thee to take me away O Lord! do thou be a husband to my mother, and make her more than amends for the lofs of her fon in her old age." He then faid, "I hope this will be a satisfaction to her that I am gone in peace. Amen, Amen. At this time we expected death every minute, but, recovering a little, he repeated the following lines. "O holy Lamb, do thou receive, Then alluding to a death-bed in which he thought he was, he faid, "What a place is this to do a life's work in?" After fpending fome time in prayer with him, he said to me, "I hope your friends will pray for you, and Chrift will pray for all." He then gave the following account of his former faith and practice: "I thought once if I went to church it was all very well; but now I fee there is fomething more needful." He then prayed as follows: "Ofweet Saviour! one drop of thy blood is fufficient; do thou wash me white, and I fhall be whole. O Lord, look down and pity me! prepare me for death before thou takest me hence, and enable me to leave a fhining teftimony of thy goodnefs towards me; but if it fhould please God to restore me, I truft I fhall never more fall back as I have done fince my laft illness: I made the same resolutions then, but have fhamefully broken them." Being afked if he did not make them in his own ftrength? He anfwered, "Yes; but now he would make them in God's ftrength." He again repeated, that "he once thought going to church was all that was needful; but now he saw it was going to Christ, and Christ coming to him." He then defired us to pray with him, and being asked if he had any thing particular to pray for? he answered, "Yes; that God would fhew him the way to Chrift;" which we did, and he joined in every petition with great fervency. He then requefted me to inform his uncle (who had been a careless liver), that if he continued to go on in his old way, he would fink into perdition, and that will be an awful state indeed!" He faid he wished to give this caution not only to his uncle but to all. It appears he had lately had fome difputes with a Deift concerning a book entitled the Age of Reafon, against which he bore this teftimony: "As I am a dying man, it is the worst book I ever read;" and then prayed that God would shake this Deift over the pit as terribly as he had done himself, but not let him fall into it." He then faid he hoped he fhould never more be ashamed to own Chrift, and confeffed that he had hid himself from his enemies for fear of fhame and reproach. Being asked if he felt his pains fo great fince he had found Chrift? he answered, "No, he felt no pains now, comparatively fpeaking, the pains of the body were not to be compared to the pains of the mind." He then repeated the following lines: "What though our fins to mountains rife, "And fwell above to Heav'n nj "Yet mercy is above the fkies, "Where all may be forgiv'n." K 2 He He said, "he now faw the truth of that fcripture which is to be fulfilled, when Chrift fhall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule, and all authority and power, that God may be all in all." He acknowledged great obligations to Mr. Vidler for the inftructions he had received under his miniftry, and declared," that he had understood more of the Bible within a few months that he had heard him preach, than he had learnt before in all his life," for he faid, "he could now behold the fcriptures all beautifully harmonious! but before, there were feeming contradictions that he could not understand." He expreffed feveral times an anxious defire to know if it was poffible for him to be deceived with respect to his acceptance in Chrift and his prefent views of falvation; but being afked if he thought the enemy was capable of putting good defires into his heart, and of pointing him to his Saviour? he feemed perfectly satisfied that it was no delufion. He again acknowledged the obligations he owed his mother for early impreffions of virtue, and again remembered with gratitude how often she had prayed for him, and taken him to hear fermons; and then obferved, "that he thought God was now anfwering her prayers as they respected him." He lamented his folly in not attending fooner to thefe kind admonitions, and faid, "he had lived twentythree years, and now had the work of his whole life to do in one week, amidst the racks and tortures of a death bed!" Yet, amidst all this pain and anguifh, he seemed to feel a perfect refignation to the will of God, and did not express the leaft defire to be restored to health, but faid, "he would not give a farthing for what the doctors could do for him, for he would rather die than live, as this world had now no charms for him." He then dozed a little, and waking faid, : "If to the right or left I ftray, "Be thou my guide, be thou my way, "I thank thee, O Lord, that thou haft hid these things from the wife and prudent, and haft revealed them unto babes may I keep fteadily on the way, and if I live may I live to thee more abundantly, and if I die may I die in Chrift. I blefs thee O. Lord that thou haft vouchfafed to hear the prayer of my friend in my behalf; do thou also hear him for himself; and look upon all the human race and de liver them from error; bring them to penitential grief, that they may be brought to everlasting joy." His fever ftill raging, and his pains becoming more acute, he earnestly prayed for his diffolution in these words: "See me, O Lord, at the point of death languishing in this body of clay, and fend thy meffenger, which I know thou wilt do in thy own good time, for thou doft all things well!" He then prayed "that God would bless all his friends and their families, and do for them according to all their neceffities, and that for Chrift's fake." He then repeated the following lines: "O God mine inmoft foul convert, "And deeply on my thoughtful heart "Give me to feel the folemn weight, And again prayed earnestly "that God would not fuffer him to remain in any deception, but give him a farther manifestation that he should appear with his faints in the New Jerufalem, where he might join in the fong of Mofes and the Lamb, with those who had their robes washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb! Where he should fit down with Abraham, and Ifaac, and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven, and come to the church of the first born which are written in Heaven, and to God the judge of all, and the fpirits of juft men made perfect, and to Jefus the Mediator of the new Covenant *." Speaking of his gratitude to me, he thanked me for my fervices, and faid it would never be in his power to make me amends, but God would reward me; and thanked me for being fo faithful in telling him yesterday" that he would thank me when we meet in the next world for fpeaking fo plainly to him, and pointing out the way, and the only way, to happiness. He said he now faw clearly the propriety of not disguising the truth to persons on a death bed, and asked, "what might have been the consequence if he had not had a faithful friend? he faid he might have died in a state of infenfibility." He then declared he would not but have had this affliction for the world, and bleffed God for it. He de * His ready application of Scripture is a proof that fome pains had been taken by his mother in his youth to inftruct him in the word of God; and allo of the utility of fuch inftructions. fired |