SIR ROBERT HARLEY'S FUNERAL SERMON. XXXVii Lord, give victory ! Lord, be gracious !" With these expressions he spent five or six hours ; in the morning he spake very chearfully, and said he would be laid to sleep ; and having taken quiet rest, he awaked, and said that all the sins of his life had been laid before him that night, and those things (he said) that he had long forgotten, he then remembered. He said, the tempter had been very busie, " But, blessed be God, I did not sleep until]. I had made my peace with God, through Jesus Christ." Then he chearfully said, a little while after, " God may let Satan buffet us for a time, but he shall never prevaile." After this his chearfulnesse continued without inter- ruption. Fourthly. His willingnesse to die. He was wont to say, many wish to live over their lives againe, that they might mend what had been amisse. " I would not be to live over my life again, least I should make it worse ; I would not for all the world be young again, because I would not be so far from Heaven." And he would say to his children, when he had them about him, " I have taught you how to live, and I hope I shall teach you how to die." Fifthly. His patience under his sharp sufferings. His disease was stone and palsie, and they that know these must look for tortures ; yet in his sharpest pains and torments he would mollifie them with this consideration, -that is best which God doth. He would often say, the will of the Lord be done, above all and in all, for that is best of all ; and he would support himselfe under his sharp pains with this meditation,-Heaven will make amends for all; and sometimes, when asked how he did, he would answer, " poor, but going to Heaven, as fast as I can." His lips (like an honeycombe) would drop such sweet expressions as these, "if the Lord see it best for me, that the stone in the bladder should be the way to bring me to Heaven, His will be done : it is better . to die of the stone in the bladder, than of the stone in the heart." Thus (if you observe) he fed his patience under the divine hand, with divine arguments. That place of Scripture, 1 Cor. 10, 13, " there bath no temptation taken you, but such as is common to man ; but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that you are able," he did often mention with joy ; saying, it was the first place whereby God gave him comfort ; and some few days be- fore his death, when he was in much pain, he said, " blessed be God, who
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