hath redeemed me from all evil; the God of grace and providence, who hath fed me all my life long unto this day, and fixed the bounds of my habitation.

And now, O Lord God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great compassion, who hast in answer to prayer brought my daughter back from the gates of death, I most humbly beseech thee to accept her at my hands; and enable my faith to engage thy kind protecting care over her! Be thou her guide and guardian, her father and her friend; and let not thy blessed hand go out against her, nor suffer her name to be called Mara. O make her one of thy honourable women, and a gracious mother in Israel; guide her through all the dangers which attend the giddy in their youth, and keep her feet from being taken by any of the snares which are set to entangle souls for Satan! Are not children an inheritance that cometh of thee? and is not the fruit of the womb thy own reward? Art not thou the author of her being, and the preserver of her life? To whose care then can I commit her but to thine, who art so well known by the endearing names of a father to the fatherless, a husband to the widow, a friend to the friendless, and the aid of those who have no helper! All which characters thou art the truth of in the superlative degree, and in every sense of the words!

I will not ask temporal wealth, honour, beauty, pleasure, or long life, but beg thyself only as her

portion. Thy love shed abroad in the heart is the best inheritance; thy immensity satisfies every boundless desire that the most enlarged spirit is capable of; and thy eternity sends every thought back to the believing breast sweetly laden with infinite satisfaction. O that my daughter may live before thee, and be brought to know the God of her father; and let thy blessings on my offspring exceed the blessings of their progenitor; even to the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills! Amen and Amen.

"And now, brethren, I commend you to God, and

to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up, and to give you an inheritance among all them which are sanctified," Acts

xx, 32.

Eighthly, All the poor sheep which thou hast called by me, and those over which the Holy Ghost has made me an overseer, together with all those whom the love of Christ has constrained me to love, care for, or to feed; I do leave them, and the sole care of them all, to the chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls, Christ Jesus my Lord, to whom they belong by donation, by purchase, and by conquest; as the gift of his Father, the purchase of his blood, and the trophies of his victory.

And now, O Lord God, the Ancient of Days,

and the End of Time, Time's Alpha and Omega, our everlasting Father, who from all eternity wast set up to be a future head, and a gathering shepherd; who receivedst our names, persons, and the number of them, even before chaos was conceived, or order born; Thou great I; Thou one eternal Now, and Eternity's only Centre; whom no space can measure, and in whom the past and the future are for ever lost! O Thou, who art incomprehensible, and yet well known in Judah; though invisible, yet faith discerns thee; and though the only possessor of immortality, yet thou dwellest with mortals; I humbly entreat thee ever to appear the watchful, careful, and tender Shepherd of Israel; gather them from among the goats, bring back that which is gone astray, heal that which is sick, bind up that which is broken, and feed that which is faint; let not even an ear be lost, Amos iii. 12; or an hoof be left behind: and, as thou hast appeared unblemished in every covenant character, from age to age, and hast established thy word to a thousand generations, be pleased to strengthen, establish and settle thine elect in the strongest faith of it.

And now, O Lord, deliver them all from that God-dishonouring and dear-bought insensibility of the Deist, Ezek. viii. 12; and from the damnable. delusion of the Arian, 2 Pet. ii. 1; from the fleshly confidence too, and rash presumption of the Antinomian, 2 Cor. xiii. 2; and from the galling and

severe yoke of the self-sufficient Arminian, Acts xv. 10; from the voluntary service of wordlings, and from the woful and unexpected end of the whole tribe of Pharisees. Amen and Amen.

"As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.'

"Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of

them they shall not be ashamed, but they

shall speak with the enemies in the gate," Psal. cxxvii. 4, 5.

Ninthly, The child that is coming, and all that may come, whether many or few, males or females; I do give and bequeath all, and every one of them, to the Father of the spirits of all flesh; otherwise the Second Adam, the quickening Spirit, the Lord from heaven, the ever-blessed Immanuel, our God and God with us; to be kept by his power, governed by his sceptre, and to be only at his absolute disposal.

And now, O Lord, who didst not despise the simple sacrifices of the infant tribes, when in the temple they offered their unknown Hosannas to thee; but didst sharply rebuke and wonderfully still thy enemies by the lips of babes and sucklings, out of whose mouths thou hadst pre-ordained strength to perfect praise; O let the rising generation join in the innocent and holy acclamations of Hosanna to the son of David! or, Save, Lord, we

beseech thee! Yea, let them rise up and call thee blessed. Thou hast richly dispensed thy invaluable benedictions on various of thy chosen ones in every age of life. Some have been filled with thy Holy Spirit from their mother's womb, others from their childhood have known the Holy Scriptures; others were ordained prophets before they were conceived, or born; and two thousand infants at one time fell martyrs to thy truth, sealed it with their blood, and died in Gospel hope; others at the eleventh hour have found thee the Messiah; and the poor thief on the cross felt the convictions of sin and the pains of death, go hand in hand, and apparently keep pace; so that a spiritual travel and a lingering death met both together in one chosen vessel, and at one time: but blessed be thy name, the spiritual birth outstripped the dart of death. Surely this was a double deliverance, or an unproclaimed jubilee, to see the carcase of a thief hang on the gibbet, while the soul was singing celestial anthems in paradise! But these are some of the discriminating acts of thy sovereign grace. O Lord, grant that our offspring may see and know for themselves, many of these wonderful displays of thy unmerited and everlasting love; and let the Spirit thou hast put upon us, and the word thou hast put in our mouth, never depart out of our mouth, nor out of the mouth of our seed, nor out of the mouth of our seed's seed from henceforth and for ever! Amen and Amen,