DR BATES.

235 it, my brethren, that your kingdom is not of this world; that here you must have tribulations; and that all is well as long as we are secured for eternity. Exhort one another daily; strive together in prayer, unite your strength therein, and pull amain. Mercy will come sooner or later; however, we will be content to wait till the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ah, how surely will He come! He will render tribulation to them that trouble us; and to us that are troubled, rest with Him. Only believe and wait.

Why the Judge is

He

What! not watch with him one hour? even at the door! And how blessed will you be if you do but continue and hold fast till He come! Watch therefore, and stand fast, quit you like men: Be zealous, and let your hearts be strong: God is your friend, and you may trust Him. is able to bear you out and bear you up. Faint not therefore, but be steadfast, unmoveable, abounding in the work of the Lord. Speak often one to another. Provoke to love, and to good works. Let the bay of opposition against godliness make the torrent of your zeal break over with the more violence. But it is time to end. I have been bold to call upon you, you see, and to stir you up by way of remembrance. May the Spirit of the Most, High God excite you, encourage you, inflame you! May these poor lines be some quickening to you! May the goodwill of Him that dwelt in the bush dwell with you! My dear loves to you all. Pray for the prisoners. Farewell, dear brethren, farewell in the Lord.-I am, yours in the bonds of the Lord Jesus, JOSEPH ALLEINE.

DR WILLIAM BATES.

Although neither the most learned scholar, nor the most fervent evangelist, nor the deepest thinker, among the Nonconformists, Dr Bates had erudition, originality, and earnestness sufficient to raise him far above mediocrity; and, turned to the

best account by his excellent judgment and good taste, they rendered him the most eloquent writer and the most popular preacher amongst his contemporaries." At the Restoration he was appointed chaplain to Charles II., but, for conscience' sake, he soon afterwards forfeited this preferment, along with the rectory of St Dunstan's in the West. In his secession from the Church of England, however, there was nothing of sectarianism. Like Baxter, he frequently attended its ministrations, and he even went so far as to take the oath required by the Oxford or Five-Mile Act-an oath to attempt no alteration in the government, whether in church or state. No trimmer or temporiser, he was at the same time of a temper too calm, and a spirit too catholic, to find pleasure in ecclesiastical strife and contention; and whilst the sacrifices he had made secured the confidence of his ejected brethren, the elevation of his character, and the charms of his society, secured for him the friendship of men like the Lord Keeper Bridgman, the Lord Chancellor Finch, and Archbishop Tillotson.

Dr Bates was born November 1625, and died July 1699.

Trust in God.

Trust and reliance on God is our duty and privilege. Every being has a necessary dependence on Him for its subsistence;

* One of Dr Bates's best known works is "The Four Last Things: namely, Death, Judgment, Heaven, Hell." Our copy of this is the second edition, 1691. Its title-page is surrounded by a black border, and it is "recommended as proper to be given at funerals." In an advertisement, the publisher, Brabazon Aylmer, suggests that such books be given “at funerals as a funeral legacy, when, according to the observation of the wise preacher, The living lay to heart their own frailty,' and are more receptive of holy counsels to prepare for their great change from time to eternity, and would affect their minds with the present instance of mortality much better than wine, sweetmeats, gloves, or rings, or unprofitable talk, as is too usual at such solemnities." He adds, that " some memorables of the life of the deceased, if desired, may be printed on a leaf or more, and bound with it." For some time it seems to have been a frequent practice to give away such books.

DEPENDENCE ON GOD.

237

but man, of all the visible creatures, is only capable of affiance in Him, by reflecting upon his own impotence, and by considering the perfections of the Creator, that render Him the proper object of trust. It is the incommunicable honour of the Deity to be acknowledged and regarded as the supporter of all things. To put confidence in ourselves, in the advantages of body, or mind, or estate, as if we were the architects of our own felicity, is a sacrilegious usurpation. Yet vain man foments a secret pride and high opinion of himself, as if by his own prudence and conduct he might acquire an happiness, till experience confutes his pleasing but pernicious error. The truth is, were there no God, whose powerful providence governs all things, and has a special care and respect of man, he were of all creatures the most miserable. So that, besides the wickedness, we may clearly discover the folly, of atheism, that deprives man of his chiefest comfort at all times, and his only comfort in the greatest exigencies. For in this mutable state he is liable to so many disasters and wretched accidents, that none can have an assurance of prosperity one day. How frail and uncertain is life, the foundation of all temporal enjoyments! It depends upon so many things, that it is admirable it subsists for a little time. The least vessel in the body that breaks or is stopped, interrupting the course of the blood and humours, ruins its economy. Sometimes in its vigorous consistence, when most distant from sickness, it is nearest to death. A little eruption of blood in the brain is sufficient to stop the passages of the spirits, and deprive it of motion and life. And the changes of things without us are so various and frequent, so great and sudden, that it is an excess of folly, a dangerous rest, to be secure in the enjoyment of them. The same person sometimes affords an example of the greatest prosperity, and of greater misery, in the space of a few hours. Henry the Fourth of France, in the midst of the triumphs of peace, was, by a blow from a sacrilegious hand, despatched in his coach, and his

bloody corpse forsaken by his servants, exposed to the view of
all l; so that, as the historian observes, there was but a moment
between the adorations and oblivion of that great prince.
"All
flesh is grass, and the glory of it as the flower of the grass."
Whatever disguises its imperfections, and gives it lustre, is but
superficial, like the colour and ornament of a flower, whose
matter is only a little dust and water, and is as weak and
fading. Who, then, can possess these things without a just
jealousy, lest they should slip away, or be ravished from him
by violence? And in this respect man is most unhappy; for
besides the affliction of present evils, reason, that separates him
from other creatures, and exalts him above them, is the fatal
instrument of his trouble by the prevision of future evils.
Ignorance of future miseries is a privilege, when knowledge is
ineffectual to prevent them. Unseen evils are swallowed whole,
but by an apprehensive imagination are tasted in all their
bitterness. By forethoughts we run to meet them before they
are come, and feel them before they are truly sensible. This
was the reason of that complaint in the poet, seeing the prog-
nostics of misery many years before it arrived-

Sit subitum quodcunque paras, sit cæca futuri
Mens hominis fati, liceat sperare timenti.

Let the evils thou preparest surprise us; let us not be tormented by an unhappy expectation of them; let the success of future things be concealed from our sight; let it be permitted to us to hope in the midst of our fears.

Indeed, God has mercifully hid the most of future events from human curiosity. For as on the one side, by the view of great prosperity, man would be tempted to an excess of pride and joy, so on the other (as we are more sensibly touched with pain than pleasure), if, when he begins to use his reason and apprehensive faculty, by a secret of optics he should have in one sight presented all the afflictions that should befall him in

the world, how languishing would his life be! This would keep him on a perpetual rack, and make him suffer together and at all times, what shall be endured separately and but once. But though the most of future things lie in obscurity, yet often we have sad intimations of approaching evils that awaken our fears. Nay, how many tempests and shipwrecks do men suffer in terra firma, from the suspicion of calamities that shall never be? Imaginary evils operate as if real, and produce substantial griefs. Now, how can such an infirm and jealous creature, in the midst of things that are every minute subject to the laws of mutability, be without inward trouble? What can give him repose and tranquillity in his best condition, but an assurance that nothing can befall him but according to the wise counsel and gracious will of God? And in extreme afflictions, in the last agonies, when no human things can afford relief, when our dearest friends are not able to comfort us, but are miserable in our miseries, what can bear up our fainting hope but the Divine power-a foundation that never fails? what can allay our sorrows but the Divine goodness tenderly inclined to succour us? "Our help is in the Lord who made heaven and earth.” The creation is a visible monument of His perfections. "The Lord is a sun, and a shield." He is all-sufficient to supply our wants, and satisfy our desires. As the sun gives life and joy to all the world, and if there were millions of more kinds of beings and of individuals in it, his light and heat are sufficient for them all; so the Divine goodness can supply us with all good things, and ten thousand worlds more, And His power can secure to us His favours, and prevent troubles; or, which is more admirable, make them beneficial and subservient to our felicity. He is a sure refuge, an inviolable sanctuary to which we may retire in all our straits. His omnipotence is directed by unerring wisdom, and excited by infinite love, for the good of those who faithfully obey Him. An humble confidence in Him, frees us from anxieties, preserves a firm, peace