444 LIVES OF THE PURITANS. me, and workethpatience in me." Being desirous to be car- ried into his study, where, he observed, " his books wanted him," his friends endeavoured to help him : but finding himself unable to bear the fatigue, he said, " I see I am not able. I have not been in my study for several days. Is it not a lamentable thing that I should lose so much time ?" His son, perceiving the symptoms of death upon him, said, "If there be any thing which you would have me to'do, in case the Lord should spare me, and takeyou to heaven, I wish you to mention it." After pausing a little, with his eyes and hands lifted up to heaven, he said, " That which I would commend to you is, the care of the rising generation, that they may be brought under the government of Christ; and that, when grown up and qualified, they and their children be baptized. I must confess I have been defective in practice; yet I have publicly declared my judgment, and manifested my desires to practise that which I think ought to be attended to ; but the dissenting of some in our church discouraged me. I have thought that persons might have a right to baptism, and not to the Lord's supper ; and I see no cause to alter my judgment." His extreme pain con- tinued to the last; and he died April, 22, 1669, aged seventy-three years. According to our historian, " he was a man of most exemplary piety, an excellent scholar, and a plain, judicious, and majestic preacher, shooting the arrows of diVine truth into the hearts of his hearers.". Wood denominates him "a pious man, and a zealous and laborious preacher ;" and adds, " that he was much followed by the preciseparty," as he in contempt' styles them ; but " that he was a severe Calvinist, and no friend to the church of England."+ A copy of Mr. Mather's last will and testament, dated October 16, 1661, is still preserved ; the conclusion, which is an address to his children, is worthy of being transmitted to posterity. -" I think it not amiss," says he, " for the spiritual good of my children, to lay upon them the solemn charge of a dying father; that none of them, after my decease; may presume to walk in any way of sin, or in a careless neglect of God, and the things of God, and their own salvation by Christ. For if they shall do so, ,(which God forbid,) then, and in such case, I do hereby testify unto them, that their father who begat them, and their mother Mather's Hist. h. iii. p. 127, 129. f Athena Oxon. vol. ii. p. 305, 306.
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=