04 MEMOIR OF 



and affectionate friend, Mr Ray, was with him, 

 and speaks in strong, though merely general, 

 terms, of his " patience and submission to the 

 Divine will, which did eminently appear in the 

 time of his sickness, when he professed himself 

 contented to leave the world if it pleased God to 

 have it so, though then in the height of his 

 strength and parts, and in the hot pursuit of use- 

 ful studies and designs, and in such circumstances 

 as to his concerns in this world as rendered some 

 continuance of life very desirable to him, and 

 would have tempted a man of ordinary vertue to 

 express some anger at the sentence and expecta- 

 tion of death." * 



The following prayer, composed by Mr Ray 

 on the occasion, and which, from its language, 

 seems to have been offered in the midst of Mr 

 Willughby's assembled family, breathes sentiments 

 appropriate to the Christian and the friend. It 

 is copied from Dr Derham's Life of Ray. 



" O Lord ! Thou hast been pleased to make a 

 sad breach among us, to deprive us of our most 

 dear friend and relation, a person that was to 

 some of us as the very light of our eyes, the joy 

 of our hearts, the greatest outward comfort of our 

 lives. Give us a sanctified use of this heavy 

 affliction ; and when our hearts are moved and 

 affected with a sense of our loss, give us to con- 

 sider our sins, and to spend some part of our 

 tears in lamenting them. Give us to consider 

 the vanity and uncertainty of our lives, and the 

 * Ray's Preface. 



