The Best University

Arthur Dent, The Plain Main's Pathway to Heaven, pp. 90-91:

...All things considered, God's children are no losers by their afflictions, but gainers. It is better for them to have them, than to be without them; they are very good for them. For when God's children are chastised, it is as it should be. For to them, the cross is mercy, and loss is gain. Afflictions are their best schooling, and adversity their best university. "It is good for me, saith the holy man of God, that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes." By his afflictions thereby, he learned much, and became a good scholar in God's book, and well seen in his statutes and laws. He grew to great wisdom and judgment by his chastisements. All things turned about, in God's merciful providence, to his everlasting comfort. For I say again and again, that all things tend to the good of God's chosen people. And therefore, that estate, which God will have his children to be in, is always best for them. Because he, who can best discern what is best, seeth it to be best for them: whether it be sickness or health, poverty or plenty, prison or liberty, prosperity or adversity. For sometimes sickness is better for us than health, and poverty then plenty. Are therefore the children of God sick? it is best for them. Are they poor? it is best for them. Are they in trouble? it is best for them; because their good Father will turn it to the best. H will oftentimes cut us short of our lusts and desires; because he seeth we will bane ourselves with them. He, in fatherly care, will take the knife from us; because he seeth we will hurt ourselves with it. He will keep us short of health and wealth, because he knoweth we will be the worse for them. He will not give us too much ease and prosperity in this world; for he knoweth it will poison us. He will not allow us continual rest, like standing ponds; for then he knoweth we will gather scum and filth. He dealeth fatherly and mercifully with us in all things, even then seeking our greatest good, when we think he doth us most harm. And, to speak all in a word, he bringeth us into troubles and straits, to this end especially, that he may hear of us. For he right well knoweth our nature; he is well acquainted with our disposition. He knoweth we will not come at him, but when we stand in need of him: we care not for him so long as all goeth well with us. But if we come into distress, or want any thing that we would fain have, then he is sure to hear of us. As he saith by the prophet, "In their affliction, they will seek me early," Hosea v. 15. And another prophet saith, "Lord, in trouble have they visited thee. They poured out a prayer, when thy chastisement was upon them," Isa. xxvi. 16. So then now, I hope, you do plainly see the cause why the Lord bringeth his children into so many troubles and necessities.

Palmer's Collection of Family Prayers

Those interested in the important subject of family prayer may find this to be an old gem worth dusting off the shelf: Samuel Palmer (1741-1813) compiled selected prayers for use in family worship from a variety of sources, and included as well his own written prayers for particular occasions in A Collection of Family Prayers. The extracts from other authors include Matthew Henry, from his Method of Prayer; Richard Baxter, from his Poor Man's Family-Book (which is an abridgment of Arthur Dent's The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven); Isaac Watts, from his Guide to Prayer; Philip Doddridge, from his Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, and his Address to the Master of a Family; and Henry Grove, from his Discourse Concerning the Nature and Design of the Lord's Supper. Though an advocate of extemporaneous prayer, Palmer aimed to help those who stand in need of such assistance by assembling the combined wisdom of other prayer warriors for the benefit of promoting family devotions, and it is very much worthwhile in our own day to be able to consult with so many useful authors in one volume on this important topic.

The Other Arthur Dent

Whenever the Puritan Arthur Dent (d. 1607) is mentioned in contemporary conversation, comparison is often made to a fictional character by that name in atheist Douglas Adams' science-fiction classic The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. That Arthur Dent traveled through time and space wearing his robe somehow solving galactic problems. Although the latter is by far the most famous of the two Arthur Dents in our modern culture (there are other Arthur Dents in other dimensions of Adams' multiverse), the former Arthur Dent once was well known as the author of that book which was influential in the conversion of John Bunyan, that is, The Plain Man's Pathway to Heaven (1601) and which was reprinted later by Richard Baxter as The Poor Man's Family Book (1674). Interestingly, Adams claimed that he had never heard of the Puritan Arthur Dent, but his biographer has shown that in fact Adams "had seen an original seventeenth-century edition of [The Plain Man's Pathway] less than a year before he wrote the first outline of the Hitchhiker's Guide." Later, upon the death of Douglas Adams in 2001, an asteroid was named after the fictional Arthur Dent, although there is some reason to think that the footprint of a Puritan whose book influenced the "Immortal Dreamer" has indeed reached outer space.

Come Lord Jesus

He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus. Rev. 22.20

James Durham, Sermon II on the latter portion of Rev. 22.20, appended to Arthur Dent, The Ruin of Rome (1798 ed.) (modernized typeface):

That which we are now to speak of, is the latter part of the verse, which whether John's words or the bride's, or particular believers, it is all one. If they be John's words, it is spoken in name o believers. If the bride's words, it takes in John and all believers. If particular believers words, it is as they are a part of the bride, who will give a hearty Amen to this truth, and what he promiseth, they turn it over into a prayer, and will not be long in doing of it, but will take the opportunity, and as they are desirous to have it, they will wrestle and long for it.
...
The words hold out a lively frame in believers, a frame they should be in: and would God we were all in such a frame to hear and speak of him. This being the sum and scope of all religion, to bring us to a comfortable meeting with Christ, they give us these three doctrines. 1. That Christ's second coming is a most desirable thing to believers, nothing they welcome sooner, no tidings so glad to them. 2. When believers are in a good frame, there is nothing they more long and pray for. 3. This petition hath more than ordinary seriousness in it, and wrestling in believers to be at it: for though the petition be short, the two words prefixed shew their seriousness that present it.