may recover strength before they go hence and be no more seen.

Those that are chaftened with pain upon their bed and the multitude of their bones with ftrong pain, fo that their life abhorreth bread, and their foul dainty meat, fhew them thine uprightness, be gracious to them. Deliver them from going down to the pit, for thou haft found a ranfom.

Let the eternal God be their refuge, and underneath them be the everlasting arms; confider their frame, remember they are but duft.

O deliver those that are thine in the time of trouble, preferve them and keep them alive: Oftrengthen them upon their bed of languifhing, and make their bed in their fick nefs; be merciful to them, and heal their fouls, for they have finned.

O turn to them, and have mercy upon them, bring them out of their diftreffes, look upon their affliction and their pain, but especially forgive all their fin.

Make thy face to fhine upon them, fave them for thy mercies fake; the God that comforteth them that are caft down, comfort them; and let the foul dwell at ease in thee when the body lies in pain.

(If it be the beginning of a diftemper.) Lord, fet bounds to this fickness, and fay, hither shall it come, and no further; let it not prevail to extremity, but in measure when it fhooteth forth, do thou debate, and ftay thy rough wind in the day of thine east wind; and by this let iniquity be purged, and let this be all the fruit, even the taking away of fin.

(If it have continued long) Lord, let patience have its perfect work, even unto long-suffering, that those who have been long in the furnace may continue hop. ing, and quietly waiting for the falvation of the Lord : let tribulation work patience, and patience experience, and experience a hope that maketh not afhamed, and enable them to call even this affliction light, and but for a moment, seeing it to work for them a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.

(If there be any hopes of recovery.) Lord, when thou hast tryed them, let them come forth like gold; let their fouls live, and they fhall praife thee, let thy judgments help them: O deal bountifully with them, that they may live and keep thy word. In love to their fouls deliver them from the pit of corruption, and caft all their fins behind thy back. Recover them, and make them to live. Speak the word, and they shall be healed; fay unto them, live; yea, fay unto them, live, and the time thall be a time of love. Father, if it be poffible, let the cup país away; however, not as we will, but as thou wilt: The will of the Lord be done. Perfect that which concerns them; thy mercy, O Lord, endures for ever, forfake not the work of thine own hands, but whethe they live or die, let them be the Lord's.

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(If they be in appearance at the point of death.) Now the flesh and the heart are failing, Lord, be thou the strength of the heart, and an everlafting portion: In the valley of the fhadow of death, Lord, be the fent. as th the good tepnerd, with a guid ing rod and a fupporting ftaff. O do not fail them nor forfake them now; be a very prefent help. Into thy hands we commit the departing fpirit, as into the hands of a faithful creator, by the hands of him who redeemed it. Let it be carried by the angels into Abraham's bofom. Let it be prefented to thee without fpot, or wrinkle, or any fuch thing. Lord Jefus, receive this precious foul, let it come to the fpirits of just men made perfect; when it is abfent from the body, let it be prefent with the Lord! This day let it be with thee in paradife. Now let it be for ever comforted, and perfectly freed from fin; and prepare us to draw after, as there are innumerable before, that we may be together for ever with the Lord, there, where there fhall be no more death, and where all tears are wip ed away.

4. When we pray with or for those that are deprived of the use of their reason.

O look with pity upon thofe that are put out of the poffeffion of their own fouls, whofe judgment is taken away, so that their foul chufeth ftrangling and death rather than life. O restore them to themselves Deliver them from doing

and their right mind. themselves any harm. And, whatever afflictions thou layeft upon any of us in this world, preferve to us the use of our reason, and the peace of our confciènces. 5. When we pray with or for fick children.

Lord, we fee death reigning even over them that have not finned after the fimilitude of Adam's tranfgreffion; but Jefus Chrift hath abolished death, and admitted even little children into the kingdom of God. O let fick children be pitied by thee, as they are by their earthly parents. They are come forth like flowers, O let them not be cut down again : Turn from them, that they may reft till they fhall have accomplished as a hireling their day. Be gracious to us, and let the children live. However, Father, thy will be done. O let their spirits be faved in the day of the Lord Jesus.

6. When we pray with or for families where death is, especially fuch as have loft their head.

Vifit the houfes of mourning as our Saviour did, and comfort them, by affuring them that Chrift is the refurrection and the life, that their relations, which are removed from them, are not dead, but fleep; and that they fhall rife again, that they may not forrow as those that have no hope: And enable them to truft in the living God, the rock of ages, and enjoy the fountains of living waters, when creatures prove broken reeds and broken cifterns.

Be a father to the fatherlefs, and a husband to the widows, O God, in thy holy habitation. With thee 'et the fatherlefs find mercy, keep them alive, and at the widows truft in thee, that they may be wi>ws indeed, who being defolate, truft in God, and

continue inftant in prayer night and day. And where father and mother have forfaken, let the Lord take up the children, and not leave them orphans, but come to them.

7. When we pray with or for those women that are near the time of travel, or in travel.

Lord, thou haft paft this fentence upon the woman that was first in the tranfgreffion, that in forrow fhe fhall bring forth children. But let this handmaid of thine be faved in childbearing, and continue in faith, and charity, and holinefs, with fobriety. Enable her to cast her burden upon the Lord, and let the Lord fuftain her; and what time fhe is afraid, grant that she may truft in thee, and may encourage herself in the Lord her God. O let not the root be dried up from beneath, nor let the branch be withered or cut off; but let both live before thee. Be thou her ftrong habitation, her rock and her fortrefs, give commandment to fave her. And when travel comes upon her, which the cannot escape, be pleased, O Lord, to deliver her: O Lord make hafte to help her; be thou thyfelf our help and deliverer; make not tarrying, O our God: Let her be fafely delivered, and remember the anguish no more, for joy that a child is born into the world, is born unto thee.

8. When we pray with or for those that are recovered from fickness, or are delivered in child-bearing, and defire to return thanks unto God for his mercy.

We will extol thee, O Lord, upon the account of those whom thou haft lifted up, whose fouls thou hast brought up from the grave, and kept them alive, that they should not go down to the pit. Thofe that were brought low thou haft helped, haft delivered their fouls, from death, their eyes from tears, and their feet from falling. Now give them grace to walk before thee in the land of the living, to offer to thee the facrifice of thankfgiving, to call upon thy name, and to pay their vows unto the Lord.

The grave cannot thus praife thee, death cannot celebrate thee, they that go down to the pit cannot hope for thy truth; but the living, the living, they fhall praife thee, as we do this day. Lord, grant that thofe who are delivered from death may not be as the nine lepers, who did not return to give thanks, or as Hezekiah, who rendered not again according to the benefit done unto him; but that they may so offer praise, as to glorify thee, and fo order their converfation, as to fee the falvation of God.

Those whom the Lord hath chaftened fore, yet he has not delivered over unto death: O that they may therefore praise him, who is become their, falvation.

9. When we pray with or for those parents, whofe children are a grief to them, or fuch as they are in fear about.

Lord, give to parents the defire of their fouls concerning their children, which is to fee them walking in the truth, from Chrift in their fouls. O give them betimes to know the God of their fathers, and to ferve him with a perfect heart and a willing mind. Let children of the youth, that are as arrows in the hand, be directed aright, that thofe parents may have reason to think themselves happy that have their quiver full of them, and they may never be arrows

in the heart.

Let those foolish children, that are the grief of the father, and the heaviness of her that bare them, that mock at their parents, and defpife to obey them, be brought to repentance; and let thofe that have been unprofitable, now at length be made profitable. O turn the hearts of the children to their fathers, even the difobedient to the wifdom of the juft, that they may be made ready a people prepared for the Lord. O fhew them their work, and their tranfgreffion, that they have exceeded, and open their ear to discipline.

Jo. When we pray with or for those that are in prifon.

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