who when they heard him speak, did believe so too. Now within a few days after this, the prayers were all answered, in a return of the young man unto his father, with circumstances little short of a miracle. But indeed, the instances of surprising effects following upon the prayers of this gracious man were so many, that it was generally supposed, that the enemies of New England owed their wondrous disasters, as much to the prayers of this true Israelite, as to any other cause. Mr. Knox's prayers were sometimes more feared, than an army of ten thousand men, and Mr. Cobbet's prayers were esteemed of no little significancy to the welfare of the country, which is now therefore, bereaved of its chariots and horsemen. If New England had its Noah, Daniel, and Job to pray wonderfully for it, Cobbet was one of them."

The son of Mr. Cobbet spoken of above, was Thomas Cobbet, Jr., then a seaman at Portsmouth. He was taken by the Indians and carried to Penobscot, and was kept there nine weeks.. Meanwhile prayer was made for him without ceasing, in the church of God-in Mr. Moody's congregation in Portsmouth, in Mr. Shepard's in Charlestown, in the churches in Boston, and in many others. When Mr. Moody first sent the information to Lynn to Mr. Cobbet, he caused one of the deacons to call into his house as many praying people as could be

easily assembled. About thirty met and prayed through several hours. Mr. Cobbet began and ended the service. He had at the same time a son sick at home, and they prayed that that son might recover, and that his recovery might be to them a pledge of the deliverance of the other. Cobbet said, "I was

sweetly guided in the course of that service, and was even persuaded, that the Lord had heard our prayers, and could not but express as much to some of our godly friends." His sick son began to amend

at once.

The reader cannot fail to be the more deeply interested in Mr. Cobbet's treatise on prayer, from the knowledge of his remarkable experience in prayer. Such are the men best entitled to give us instruction on such a theme. For God has qualified them to speak, in the rare grace conferred upon them.

A brief sketch of the life of this remarkable man, will not be out of place here. Thomas Cobbet was born at Newburg, England, in 1608, of poor parents. Providence having a great work for him to do, opened the way for him to secure the needed qualifications. In nothing does God more illustrate his independence of human resources, than in the ways in which he often brings up the instruments of his most difficult and most honorable works from the humbler ranks in life; and appropriates to his use the sometimes superior energies of body and mind, that have

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been gathered in early years, in conflicts with poverty. In that way, he lifts the poor from the dunghill, that he may set him among princes. Mr. Cobbet found means to secure an education at Oxford. Being driven from thence by the plague before he had quite completed his course, he finished it under the private tuition of Dr. Twisse, afterwards the moderator of the Westminster Assembly.

Mr. Cobbet commenced preaching in England. But he was soon compelled to flee from persecution to New England. He came over in the same vessel with Mr. Davenport of New Haven, in 1637. After his arrival in Boston, Rev. Samuel Whiting, who was just before settled in Lynn, moved by a special friendship which he had for Cobbet when in England, induced his people to call him to take a part of his labors as a colleague. Mather says, 66 They continued here a sweet pair of brothers, till on the removal of Mr. Norton to Boston, and Mr. Rogers to heaven, Mr. Cobbet was translated to Ipswich. The rays with which they illumined the house of of God, sweetly united. They were almost every day together, and thought it a long time if they were not so. The one rarely travelled abroad without the other. And these two angelic men seemed willing to give one another as little jostle, as did the ascending and descending angels on Jacob's ladder." Mr. Cobbet was colleague pastor of the church in

Lynn nineteen years; when he removed on a call to become the pastor of the church in Ipswich, where he spent twenty-nine years, and died. Mr. Whiting was called the pastor of the church, and Mr. Cobbet the teacher, according to the distinction of those times.

Mr. Cobbet's work on Prayer bears on the face of it proof, that it comes from the treasures of a mind, that had large and rich experience in prayer. It has a remarkable fulness of thought, a rare unction, fervor, and force. There is a lucid and logical arrangement of materials, and a great compactness and condensation of thought. The intricate and difficult points are illumined by a mind deeply experienced in prayer, and richly stored with divine truth. The thoughts come out all warm and glowing, from a heart deeply moved by the Spirit of God. We know of no book on prayer now in the course of general reading that can compare with it.

The preface to the book, written by the author, which we have not thought it worth the while to reprint, was dated Lynn, New England, October 24, 1653, near the close of his ministry in Lynn. But the title-page of the printed book bears the date of 1657, that is, after his removal to Ipswich.

In preparing the present edition of this work, we have taken the liberty to divest it of some obsolete forms of expression, and omit most of the quotations

of chapter and verse of the Bible, which disfigured the page, and obstructed the reading, without a compensating advantage, and a few repetitions and obscure sentences. But in no instance have we omitted or altered the thought.

The book is now commended to the reader as a rare treatise, and one that should be generally read.