Death the King of Terrors.

A holy man, in speaking of death, styles it, with a great deal of elegance and propriety, THE KING OF TERRORS, Job xviii. 14; that is to say, the most terrible thing in the world. Nor indeed is there anything that presents itself to our imagination, which bears a more formidable aspect. It is possible to escape the edge of the sword, to stop the mouths of lions, and to quench the rage of fire; but when death once shoots at us the envenomed arrows, of which his quiver is full, when it opens its infernal throat, and vomits forth its devouring flames, it is utterly impossible for us to guard against its fury.

There are a number of warlike inventions wherewith to oppose the attempts of the most powerful and implacable enemy; but neither the stratagems of the greatest captains, the most regular fortifications, nor the most victorious and triumphant armies, can withstand a single moment the approaches of death. It pierces, in an instant, through the strongest bulwarks, the thickest walls, and the most solid towers. It leaps over the widest ditches, the highest forts, and the most inaccessible rocks. It blows down the strongest barricadoes, and laughs at all our military intrenchments; everywhere it finds the weakness of our armor, and, through the best tempered breast-plate,


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strikes the proudest heart. In the most solitary retirement it comes upon us, and snatches us from the midst of the most faithful and vigilant guards. In short, there is nothing either in nature or art, which can protect us from its cruel and insatiable hands.

There are none so barbarous but are sometimes overcome by the prayers and tears of such as prostrate themselves to implore mercy and compassion; and even those who have the least sense of humanity commonly spare the weakest sex and age. But unmerciful death has no more respect to such as humble themselves, than to those who resist. It regards not the tears of infants sucking at the breast, but plucks them from the bosoms of their tender mothers, and dashes them in pieces before their eyes. It mocks at the lamentations of the fair and lovely, and delights to trample upon their enchanting beauties. It stops its ears to the supplications of trembling old age, and takes a pride in casting to the ground those venerable oaks which have been so long rooted in the world.

In the day of battle, when princes or generals of an army are taken prisoners, they are treated in a different manner from common soldiers; but inexorable death, who is blind to all distinctions, treads under foot, with the same haughtiness, the prince and the subject, the master and the servant, the nobleman and the vassal, the rich Dives and the beggar Lazarus. It blows out with the same blast, the most shining luminaries, and the most obscure lamps. It has no more respect for the crowns of kings, the pope's triple crown, and the cardinal's hat, than for the shepherd's crook, or the slave's chains. Sooner or later it heaps them all together in the same dark and


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loathsome prison, and in the same mortar reduces them to dust.

There is no war so furious and cruel, but what admits of some days, or at least some hours of truce, and even the most inhuman minds are at last weary of their conquests, and cloyed with shedding blood. But insatiable death never cries, It is enough. At every hour and moment it mows down whole nations and kindreds. The flesh of all the animals that have lived and died during the space of more than six thousand years, hath not been able to glut the ravenous hunger of this devouring monster.

The Terrors of Death.

The terrors of death may be reduced to three main points: first, it is accompanied, in general, with extreme pain;--secondly, it separates the dearest friends and connections;--thirdly, it carries the soul to be sentenced by an Almighty Judge, and devotes it to exist thenceforth in an unknown and inconceivable state of being. It is on account of one or other, or of all these things, that death is to be dreaded; and the great object of preparation is, first, to prevent the soul from sinking under the trial to which it will be exposed; and, secondly, to save it from the danger to which death leads after it has wrought its work upon the sinking frame.

To live in fear of death is a species of bondage from which every wise man would wish to free himself. It weakens resolutions; it destroys tranquillity; it prevents the growth of hope; it mocks at happiness, and it abases


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thought. He who shakes at the idea of death, has no mastery over either his feelings or his determinations; and thus, the first step to be taken in the pursuit of wisdom, in the acquisition of virtuous habits, is to overcome the dread of death. And how is this to be done? Can the body learn to despise pain? Are the nerves to be deprived of their susceptibility of agony? Are the limbs, writhing with the anguish of acute suffering, to be told not to ache? No! we must leave death, with its pains and agonies, in possession of the body. The gospel does not teach us to propound idle promises; we must say nothing on this subject which we might have to contradict, when we come to try the value and the truth of it on the bed of final suffering. Then again, will it not be hard to feel ourselves sinking from the fond embrace of friends and dear relations? To know that the effort will be soon vain, to keep our eyes open to the watchful glance of love--to the tearful smiles that remind the heart of all past days and scenes of tenderness? Will it not wring from the bosom all its strength, to bid farewell: to press the outstretched hand for the last time; and with thoughts striving at composure, to contemplate those who are dearest to us left in the world, perhaps unfriended, but at all events unloved as by us? What say you to these questions? exclaims human nature--and human nature, in the exercise of its best attributes. Is not death an unbinding of the holiest ties? Does it not separate the parent from the child, the child from its parent? Are not the brightest, the purest hopes, blighted at its approach? And is not the heart which has many affections, to look for its arrival as an evil to which no other can be compared, and


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which admits of no counteraction--no alleviation? We wish not, as we said before, to give a varnished, or flattering view of the subject we are upon. Death is the blight of human affections: it does separate the dearest friends; and the hour of parting is more trying to the spirit of man than the season of direst suffering.

Then, in the next place, death conveys the soul into the presence of the Almighty Father of spirits, and consigns it to a new, to an untried, and undescribable state of being. This is a source of fear which every hour almost of human existence serves to augment; and when the last arrives, the soul has the whole sum of their evidence against it; the same witnesses, and the same evidence serving the double purpose of proving to it the certain existence and justice of God, and the terrible extent of its own sinfulness. Darkness becomes visible to the eye of death: futurity, with its vast heights and depths, grows into being before it: the despised calls of heaven; the covenant with the world and with hell, subscribed, but forgotten, presses upon the quickening apprehension. A doubt respecting eternity and judgment would be worth an empire now; but doubt never visits the soul conscious of its sin: confidence in the system which satisfied it in life is sought for, but reason and conscience mock the effort: the fine discourse respecting the tolerance of God--the exquisite arguments by which the neglect of Christ's own ordinances and commands were excused, are brought back to the memory, and by whom? Why, by Satan himself, who loves to see the dying man writhe with bitter sorrow at his discovered folly. But dragged by the strength of death to the very brink of eternity; and becoming


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every moment more conscious that it will soon feel the eye of God--the awful eye of God, the light of heaven,--in its terror bent upon it, the soul at last finds all its growing apprehensions realized; and before its dreadful plunge into the boundless ocean of futurity, owns to itself the justice of the divine proceedings. It is the possibility that such may be his fate that fills every human being with a deeper dread of death than that derived from any other consideration. The soul left to itself is full of this fear; and were it not for the distractions of the world, it would be constrained, by inward terror, either to seek its final fate at once, or to flee for refuge from its sufferings into the sanctuary of the gospel. But men, aided by Satan, continue to keep down the rising complaints of their souls: they cannot help their beginning the warning; they refuse to hear it out, and thus the inward voice of conscience,--that sense of the soul by which it hold communication with heaven, is habitually despised. With the slightest thought, however, of death, it regains the full sense of its responsibility, and becomes aware, as if by a distinct revelation, of the certainty of judgment, and of the circle within circle of manifold mysteries in which it will be involved.

Assaults of Death.

The taper of our life is no sooner lighted, but Satan sends forth his blasts from every quarter to extinguish it. This poor dwelling is scarcely built, but death labors to


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destroy it, and besiege it on every side; we perceive not its approaches, though by the help of time, it undermines us, and batters us to pieces with a variety of diseases, and a train of unforeseen accidents. Every day it makes some breach, and displaces some part of this building. But if death on one hand labors to demolish, we, on the other, labor to repair; and as those who built the walls of Jerusalem, held in one hand the trowel, and in the other a sword, to defend themselves, Neh. iv. 17, in the same manner we guard ourselves, as well as we are able, against the assaults of death; and not only endeavour to preserve this earthly tenement, that God hath set us for a term, and to keep that in repair, but also in the very face of death, when it calls us to the combat, we advance our spiritual building, and labor to bring it to perfection; so that we say with the apostle St. Paul, Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, 2 Cor. iv. 16.

To speak properly, death attacks nothing but the outward man; for as to our principal fort and chief bulwark, it fears neither mine, nor assault; for it is raised above the heavens, and built upon the rock of eternity: it cannot be battered; for as neither thunder, hail, nor tempest can prejudice the sun-beams, because they are of a celestial nature, so all the fury of the world, all the powers of hell, and the rage of death, can never hurt the soul, which is of a spiritual and immortal nature. This fortress can never be famished; for God rains upon it manna from heaven; and from the rock upon which it is built, there flows a stream of living waters, that rise to everlasting life. In a word, as the serpent creeps only upon the dust,


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so death has no power but upon the earthly part of God's children; whence our Lord Jesus Christ admonishes his apostles, Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, Matt. x. 28.

At the moment of the soul's separation from the body, death seems to have a great advantage over us; but all things considered, we shall find, that he triumphs without a cause, and that he hath no reason to boast of the victory. When a valiant captain marches, with his sword in hand, out of a town that is almost destroyed, to throw himself into another that is more secure and better fortified, we say, that he has abandoned the place, and not that he is overcome. Thus when the wretched body falls in ruins, and our soul departs, well armed with faith and hope, to possess herself of a more secure abode in the highest heavens, no one can say, to speak properly, that the Christian is overcome. As it fares with those who sail upon the sea, when a violent tempest threatens them with shipwreck, they think themselves happy, if, by leaving their vessels to the mercy of the waves, they can escape with their lives and riches. Thus it is with us who sail upon the tempestuous sea of this world; when death raises his most cruel storms, we think ourselves happy if we can leave this miserable body, which is, as it were, a ship to the soul, and escape with our spiritual life and heavenly treasures. Therefore we may say to the faithful, that are affrighted when death threatens to drown them in its depths, as St. Paul to the ship's company, who trembled for fear, in the midst of the waves of an enraged sea: Now, I exhort you to be of good cheer; for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the


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ship, Acts xxvii. 22. Nay, we can furnish them with yet stronger comforts; for these poor mariners lost their ship, without any hopes of ever recovering it; but we know that God will one day gather together all the pieces of the broken vessels of our bodies, and restore them to us in a much more perfect state.

The physical pains of Death overrated.

Man is by nature sensible of pain, and abhors suffering. Now, most persons are persuaded, that it is impossible to die without enduring great torment; therefore they are afraid of death, not so much for its own sake as for the evils that accompany it.

To banish out of the mind these ill-grounded fears and panic terrors, let us consider in the first place, that death is not so frightful and full of pain as is commonly imagined. The Holy Ghost calls it a sleep, and the Heathens themselves have styled sleep, death's cousin-german, and the image of frozen death. Now, sleep steals insensibly upon us; it gently charms our senses, and, with invisible fetters, softly binds and puts a stop to our most active faculties; so that, although we fall asleep every night, we know not how this happens to us. It is recorded of Socrates, one of the most famous of the ancient Heathens, that having drank poison, in obedience to the decree of the Athenian judges, when he felt the venom benumbing his senses, and death creeping into his veins, he declared, with a pleased and composed countenance, That he had never swallowed anything more delicious in his life. No


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sleep can be imagined more sweet than the death of the ancient patriarchs. The Holy Scripture tells us, That when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, Gen. xlix. 33. To the same purpose, it is said of king David, that when he had exhorted his son Solomon to fear God, and to do justice, he slept with his fathers, 1 Kings ii. 10. God extends the same mercy to many in these latter days, who die in discoursing of him, and calling upon his holy name. Their souls are not plucked from them by violence, but bid a willing adieu to the earth, and fly into heaven with a holy cheerfulness. The separation of such souls happens without pain, grief or bitterness. They are like a taper, that, without being disturbed by any blast of wind, expires of its own accord, when the wax that kept it alive, and nourished its flame, is totally spent. If you see some racked and tortured upon their death bed with sharp and exquisite pains, these are not properly the pains of death, but the last struggles and convulsions of life; for I cannot believe, that the moment of the separation of the soul from the body we feel any pain; because at that instant the senses are lulled asleep, and our body has no more strength or vigor to oppose the soul's departure.

Death is so far from being so frightful and full of pain as we commonly imagine, that, on the contrary, it is the very thing that puts an end to all our pain, and stops the course of our miseries; and I am persuaded, that the diseases that usually bring us to our graves, are not so grievous and full of pain, as many others that we endure whilst we live; such as the gout, for example, the stone in the


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kidneys, or a cancer in the breast. For these are a rack on which we are hourly tortured, a wild beast that gnaws us continually, and a fire that consumes us without intermission.

Sources of the fear of Death.

In the first place, we think too seldom upon death, and meditate too little upon the misery and frailty of our poor decaying nature. We confess indeed with our lips, that our life is but a breath in our nostrils, a vapor that soon passes away, a shadow that quickly vanishes; but we flatter ourselves at the bottom of our hearts, and, with Herod, take a pleasure that men should look upon us as so many little gods, Acts xii. Because death approaches us, having its feet shod with wool, and without noise, we foolishly imagine, that it will never come near us: like that wicked servant mentioned in the gospel, who, because the Lord delayed his coming, concluded that he would not come at all, Matt. xxiv. We suffer ourselves to be deluded by the flattering suggestions of our own corrupted flesh, and by the deceitful insinuations of the old serpent, that whispers to us, as to our first parents, Ye shall not die, Gen. iii. 4.

We all say, that death is inexorable, and that it is deaf, and hath no ears; nevertheless we live, for the most part, as if we had made a covenant with death, and were at agreement with the grave, Isa. xxviii; as if we were well assured that death was afar off, and that it would not


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come of a long season. We trust in our youth, our vigor and our health, and persuade ourselves that we shall see all our acquaintance go before us, and when we follow them it would be at a great distance. We have in abhorrence everything that represents death unto us, or calls it to our remembrance; and if at any time its image comes in our way, we turn from it our eyes, and banish it from our thoughts, as a hideous dream, and a deceitful illusion. Death seizes upon us before we have so much as seriously reflected that we are mortal; therefore we tremble with horror, and are dismayed at the approaches of death; and are become like the Israelites, who trembled and fled before the face of the giant Goliah, because they were not accustomed to behold him.

3. We lay too much stress upon second causes; we look upon death as accidental, as a thing that happens by chance, and confine our considerations to the means that produce it; whereas we should be fully persuaded, that God hath not only determined and appointed death itself, but also all the causes and means which usually attend it. Hence we are perplexed and disquieted with a thousand vain and useless anxieties, and even tempted to murmur and repine against God. We curse the dart that pierces us, instead of adoring, in all humility, the hand from whence it came. In a word, whenever death comes upon us, we are ready to say to it, as the devils did to our blessed Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Art thou come hither to torment us before the time? Matt. viii. 29.

4. We are too deeply rooted here below; we are so fastened and attached to this world, that we would willingly abide here forever, and cannot bear the thought


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that death will remove us. Our lusts have no bounds, and we often kill ourselves in pursuing the most worthless vanities. When we draw near the end of our mortal race, and our voyage of life is almost finished, we are the most solicitous to make large provisions of worldly vanities. We build stately houses and magnificent palaces when we should think of nothing but of building our tomb, and preparing our winding sheet. In short, we have so strong a passion for all the things of this life, that to separate us from them, is to pull out our hearts, and to tear in pieces our bowels. When death approaches our pillow, and offers to pull us from it, we are ready to say with the sluggard mentioned in the book of Proverbs, Yet a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to sleep, ch. vi. 10. When our heavenly bridegroom knocks at the gate, we cannot persuade ourselves to leave our repose, any more than the spouse spoken of in the Canticles, ch. v. What, says the worldling, must I forever abandon my sumptuous palaces, my houses of pleasure, and my magnificent gardens? Must I leave this fine tapestry; these costly movables, and all these rare and precious ornaments, with which my halls, my chambers, and my closets are enriched? Must this cruel death degrade me so soon from all my offices and honors, and deprive me of the enjoyment of all these possessions and treasures? Must it snatch me in a moment from all my pleasures and delights? Must I be torn from the embraces of my beloved wife, the sight of my dear children, and the sweet society of my friends? And must I forever renounce the flattering services of my domestics? When we are in this wretched, unprepared state, it is no wonder


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if death seems terrible to us, and if it causes us to feel all the sharpness of its sting. For as, when Absalom was hanged by the hair of the head on an oak in the forest, Joab took three darts, and thrust them through his heart, 2 Sam. xviii.; so, when our affections are too much entangled with the world, and with vain expectations of earthly contentment, we are exposed, in the most miserable manner, to all the darts and violences of death.

5. Another principal cause of the fear of death, is, a sinful life. We abandon ourselves to all the vice and debauchery of a dissolute age. We suffer ourselves to be seduced by bad company, and carried away by a torrent of pernicious customs. It is therefore no wonder if death appears terrible to us, because it comes against us armed with our own sins, and has for its harbingers the stings of our own consciences. Whence, do ye think, proceeded that horrible dismay which seized upon king Belshazzar, when he saw the hand writing upon the wall of his palace? Dan. v. It was because he had profaned the holy vessels of God's house, and was rioting in the company of lacivious women. Why did Felix tremble, when he heard St. Paul reason of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come? Acts xxiv. It was because he was a wicked man, given over to all manner of uncleanness and unjust living. Thus, because we profane the members of our body, which are, as it were, the vessels of God's sanctuary, and because our lives are wicked and disorderly, we cannot endure to hear the mention of death; and when it comes upon us, we are ready to say to it, as Felix did to St. Paul, Go thy way for this time; when I have a convenient season, I will call for thee. The love of sin and


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the fear of death are like two sisters, who hold one another by the hand; or rather they are twins, that are born and die together. As the prophet Amos said to the Israelites of old, You put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near, Amos vi. 3. So we may say of the greatest part of the men of this age: you put as far from you as possibly you can, the day of death, and cause to come near unto you all manner of uncleanness, covetousness, ambition, pride, vanity, usury, rapine, violence, envy, hatred, and such like plagues of the soul. You not only cause these abominable vices to come near unto you; but, what is worse, you root them in your hearts, and foster them in your bowels. Certainly we may very well apply to all vicious and profane people, what the prophet Jeremiah said heretofore of the city of Jerusalem, Her filthiness is in her skirts, she remembereth not her last end, Lam. i. 9.

6. I have also remarked another defect; and that is, we distrust the providence of God, and know not how to place our confidence in His fatherly care; we have too good an opinion of ourselves, and of our own abilities; we cannot resolve to die, because we fancy ourselves to be of very great importance to the world, and that our death would make an irreparable breach in the church of God, the state, or our family.

7. Because the soul and body are joined together in so strict a union, we cannot imagine how they can be separated without the greatest and most exquisite pains. Nay, so great is our infidelity, that we cannot rely upon the promise which God hath given, That he will succor us in our distress, and deliver us from all our troubles.


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Jacob's ladder that reaches up to the heaven may ravish us with admiration; but it seems very difficult to ascend. Paradise is rich, glorious, and abounds with the sweetest delights; but the gate too, it is straight, and all choked up with thorns.

8. I also conclude, that one of the chief reasons why we fear death, is, because we look upon God as a most severe judge, inflamed with anger and indignation, and armed with vengeance against us: whereas we should consider Him as a merciful father, full of the bowels of compassion and kindness. Every slave trembles at the sight of his lord; and there is no malefactor but is afraid when he appears before his judge, to be examined upon the rack. Then how can I, who am polluted with sin, and blackened with crimes, appear before that glorious throne, before which the seraphims cover their faces with their wings? Isa. vi. How shall I, that am but stubble, be able to endure the presence of that great avenging God, who is a consuming fire, Heb. xii. 29.

9. Another visible defect is, we do not embrace with a true and lively faith, the death and passion of our Lord and Savior. We all talk of Jesus Christ crucified; but we do not comprehend the divine virtue of his passion, nor feel its efficacy. We do not consider that his death hath rent asunder the veil that kept us from the heavenly sanctuary, and that his blood hath marked out for us the way to Paradise, and procured us an entrance into it.

10. To avoid the horror which thinking on the grave is apt to give us, we do not reflect, as we ought, that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ hath himself lain in the grave, and that he hath sanctified it with his holy and divine


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presence. We do not engrave upon our minds, that it is just and reasonable that we should be conformable to Christ in his abasement, if we will have any part with him in his glory and exaltation.

11. Another cause, which nourishes in our souls the fear of death, is this, we look upon it as if it was in its full strength and vigor; whereas we should remember, that Jesus Christ hath overcome and disarmed it by his resurrection, and that we have nothing to do but to follow the glorious track of his victorious wheels, and fasten that furious beast to his triumphant chariot.

12. We do not consider enough, with a serious and religious attention, that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, is not only risen from the grave victorious and triumphant, but that he is also ascended into the highest heavens, as our forerunner, to prepare a place for us; and that by departing out of our miserable bodies, we follow the footsteps of our glorious Redeemer, to go and reap with him, the immortal fruits of his ineffable victories.

13. We confine ourselves too much to the contemplation of our frail, corrupt and mortal nature; and we seldom enter into this most necessary meditation, that by the Holy Spirit we are nearly and inseparably united to Jesus Christ, the Prince of Life, and the Fountain of Light; and that we have already in us the seeds of blessedness, of glory and immortality.

14. As the children of Israel murmured in the desert against Moses, and longed to be again in Egypt, forgetting the bitter slavery under which they had groaned, their making of bricks, and the heat of the furnaces; and minding only the pleasures which they had lost, they dreamed


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of nothing but the abundance of bread, the flesh-pots cucumbers, onions, and other dainties with which they had so often satisfied their hunger: so we repine at death because we do not reflect upon the evils from which it delivers us; we only think upon the vain delights and seeming advantages of which it deprives us.

15. We foolishly imagine that death destroys and reduces us to nothing; and do not consider, that, without touching our essential part, it only takes from us sin, in which we were entangled, and breaks the rest of the chains of our spiritual bondage; so that death is rather the death of sin, than of the faithful.

16. Another great error in us is, we do not lift up our minds to contemplate the glory prepared for us as soon as our souls shall have left our languishing bodies. Whatever face we may set upon the matter, we do not heartily believe in the felicities which God hath promised to all those that shall come into his presence. Sometimes, indeed, we think upon the joys of paradise; but then it is a transient thought, that quickly passes through our souls, and takes no root; insomuch, that many, if mere shame did not restrain them, would be apt to cry out with the emperor Adrian, "My dearest soul, my little darling, the guest and companion of my body, whither art thou going?"

17. Add to this, that we fix our attention, and dwell too much upon the rottenness and corruption that threatens the body; whereas we should, by faith, extend our views to the glorious resurrection that shall soon follow. Charming abode, the delightful host of my soul, must death snatch me from thee with so much violence? Must I


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part from thy loved and sweet society? Must I leave thee upon such hard and lamentable terms? That of so many honors which have been heaped upon thee, not so much as the shadow shall follow thee to the grave? That of all thy rich furniture and treasures, thou shalt bear away nothing but a winding sheet, a few boards, or at the most, some pounds of lead. After thou hast been clothed with so much magnificence, must thy covering at last be the worms? After thou hast lived so proudly in palaces gilded with gold, and perfumed with the sweetest odors, must thy abode be at last a stinking and loathsome sepulcher? Must these beautiful eyes lose their luster? These coral lips become pale? This golden mouth be stopped? And must this flesh, sustained with so much delicacy, rot, and become an abhorrence in the eyes of the world?

18. In the last place, we do not meditate as we ought, upon that fullness of bliss and glory which is prepared for us from the foundation of the world, and of which we shall have the full and perfect enjoyment, when Christ Jesus shall come from heaven, with his holy angels, to judge the quick and the dead. He shall then re-unite our souls and bodies, for all eternity, "That he may be glorified in his saints, and his wonders made manifest in all the faithful."

Death made familiar.

The most dreadful things are made familiar to us by custom. Soldiers who are raw and unexperienced, commonly


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tremble at the sight of the enemy, turn pale at the noise of the muskets, and fall to the ground half dead at the roaring of the cannon; but when their courage hath been once hardened by a long exercise, they will march to seek the enemy, even up to his entrenchment, and will go to the battle with as much gayety as to a feast or a triumph. Neither the tempestuous vollies of the small shot, nor the thunder and lightning of the ordnance, can make them wink their eyes, or cover their heads, and they themselves laugh at their former apprehensions. So the first notions of death commonly scare and terrify us; but when we have seriously meditated upon it, and take a nearer view of it, we not only cease to fear it, but boldly march up to its very intrenchments, and with an undaunted countenance behold it launch all its thunders, and let fly all its arrows. As they who are not accustomed to the sight of savage beasts dare not go near them, and can hardly look upon them without horror; but such as are used to live with, and caress them, can touch them without apprehension, and freely play with them: so they who never had the confidence to look death in the face, tremble, and are dismayed, as soon as they see it approach; but they who often meditate upon it, make it familiar to them, and can, without fear, put their hands into its mouth. Moses fled from before his rod, the first time it was turned into a serpent; but when he had taken courage to lay hold of it, and saw that it returned to its former shape, he was so far from flying from before it, or being afraid of it, that he employed it to a very happy use, and, by God's command, wrought with it many miracles. Thus it is with death; it frightens us at first, but if we once lay hold of


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it with the hands of a true and lively faith, it will be so far from frightening us, that it will discover to us a new world of most excellent wonders.

Death, therefore, is so far from terrifying such as have made it familiar to them, that it fills them full of joy and comfort. As a child that looks upon his father, who is masked, is frightened, and begins to cry; but if he hath but the courage to pull off the vizard, and sees the loved countenance of his parent hid under that deformity, he not only ceases from weeping, and puts away his fears, but also leaps for joy, and embraces him: so, if we look with a timorous eye upon death's outward visage only, we are struck with horror at its hideous appearance; but if we take but the courage to lift up the deceitful vizard, we shall soon discover our heavenly Father, and leap with tears of joy to embrace him. As the apostles, when they saw at a distance, and in the night, Jesus Christ walking upon the sea, cried out for fear, supposing it had been a spirit; but when he drew nigh to them, and they heard his voice, they perceived him to be their Lord and Savior; and having received him into their ship, the tempest immediately ceased.--Thus if we look upon death at a distance, the blindness and ignorance with which we are surrounded will represent it to us as a frightful spirit; but if we take a nearer view of it, by the light of the gospel, we shall find it to be our salvation and our deliverance that approaches. All our fears will then be hushed, and our souls will return to our former calmness. In a word, as he that flies before his enemy increases his courage, and makes him the more eager and resolved in the pursuit; so, when death sees us tremble and turn pale at its


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approach, it becomes the more insolent, and makes the more haste to devour us.

The penal character of Death.

Adam's sin brought death into the world, and man did die the same day in which he sinned, according as God had threatened. He did not die, as death is taken for a separation of soul and body; that is not death properly, but the ending of the last act of death; just as a man is said to be born, when he ceases any longer to be borne in his mother's womb: but whereas no man was intended a life long and happy, without sickness, sorrow or infelicity, and this life should be lived here or in a better place, and the passage from one to the other should have been easy, safe, and pleasant, now that man had sinned, he fell from that state, to a contrary.

If Adam had stood, he should not always have lived in this world; for this world was not a place capable of giving a dwelling to all those myriads of men and women which should have been born in all the generations of infinite and eternal ages: for so it must have been, if man had not died at all, nor yet have removed hence at all. Neither is it likely that man's innocence should have lost to him all possibility of going thither, where the duration is better, measured by a better time, subject to fewer changes, and which is now the reward of a returning virtue, which in all natural senses is less than innocence, save that it is heightened by Christ to an equality of acceptation with the state of innocence: but so it must have


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been, that his innocence should have been punished with an eternal confinement to this state, which in all reason is the less perfect, the state of a traveler, not of one possessed of his inheritance. It is therefore certain, man should have changed his abode: for so did Enoch, and so did Elias, and so shall all the world, that shall be alive at the day of judgement; they shall not die, but they shall change their place and their abode, their duration and their state, and all this without death.

That death therefore, which God threatened to Adam, and which passed upon his posterity, is not the going out of this world, but the manner of going. If he had stayed in innocence, he should have gone hence placidly and fairly, without vexatious and afflictive circumstances; he should not have died by sickness, misfortune, defect, or unwillingness: but when he fell, then he began to die; the same day (so said God:) and that must needs be true; and therefore it must mean, that upon that very day, he fell into an evil and dangerous condition, a state of change and affliction; then death began, that is, the man began to die by a natural diminution, and aptness to disease and misery. His first state was, and should have been (so long as it lasted) a happy duration; his second was a daily and miserable change; and this was the dying properly.

This appears in the great instance of damnation, which, in the style of Scripture, is called eternal death: not because it kills, or ends the duration; it hath not so much good in it; but because it is a perpetual infelicity. Change or separation of soul and body is but accidental to death; death may be with or without either: but the formality,


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the curse, and the sting of death, that is, misery, sorrow, fear, diminution, defect, anguish, dishonor, and whatsoever is miserable and afflictive in nature, that is death. Death is not an action, but a whole state and condition; and this was first brought in upon us by the offence of one man.

But this went no farther than thus to subject us to temporal infelicity. If it had proceeded so far as was supposed, man had been much more miserable; for man had more than one original sin in this sense: and though this death entered first upon us by Adam's fault, yet it came nearer unto us and increased upon us by the sins of more of our forefathers. For Adam's sin left us in strength enough to contend with human calamities for almost a thousand years together. But the sins of his children, our forefathers, took off from us half the strength about the time of the flood; and then from five hundred to two hundred and fifty, and from thence to one hundred and twenty, and from thence to threescore and ten; so often halving it till it is almost come to nothing. But by the sins of men in the several generations of the world, death, that is, misery and disease is hastened so upon us, that we are of a contemptible age: and because we are to die by suffering evils, and by the daily lessening of our strength and health; this death is so long a doing, that it makes so great a part of our short life useless and unservicable, that we have not time enough to get the perfection of a single manufacture, but ten or twelve generations of the world must go to the making up of one wise man, or one excellent art: and in the succession of those ages there happen so many changes and interruptions, so many wars


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and violences, that seven years' fighting sets a whole kingdom back in learning and virtue, to which they were creeping, it may be, a whole age.

And thus also we do evil to our posterity, as Adam did to his, and Cham to his, and Eli to his, and all they to theirs, who by sins caused God to shorten the life and multiply the evils of mankind: and for this reason it is, the world grows worse and worse, because so many original sins are multiplied, and so many evils from parents descend upon the succeeding generations of men, that they derive nothing from us but original misery.

But he who restored the law of nature, did also restore us to the condition of nature: which, being violated by the introduction of death, Christ then repaired, when he suffered and overcame death for us; that is, he hath taken away the unhappiness of sickness, and the sting of death, and the dishonors of the grave, of dissolution and weakness, of decay and change, and hath turned them into acts of favor, into instances of comfort, into opportunities of virtue; Christ hath now knit them into rosaries and coronets; he hath put them into promises and rewards; he hath made them part of the portion of his elect: they are instruments, and earnests, and securities, and passages, to the greatest perfection of human nature, and the divine promises. So that it is possible for us now to be reconciled to sickness; it came by sin, and therefore it is cured when it is turned into virtue; and although it may have in it the uneasiness of labor, yet it will not be uneasy as sin, or the restlessness of a decomposed conscience. If, therefore, we can well manage our state of sickness, that


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we may not fall by pain, as we usually do by pleasure, we need not fear; for no evil shall happen to us.

God determines the time and manner of our Death.

As it is certain, therefore, that God hath numbered and set bounds to our days; so it is as certain, that he hath appointed, in his infinite wisdom, the means that shall convey us out of the world. If one dies in peace, and another is slain in war; if one expires in his bed, and another on the scaffold; if one perishes by famine, and another is cut off by the pestilence; if one is struck with thunder, and another torn to pieces by wild beasts; if one is drowned in water, and another consumed with fire; in short, whatever way the separation of the soul and body is effected, it is not without the express leave of our heavenly Father. Therefore, when we see the strangest accidents come to pass, and the most unexpected and tragic deaths before our eyes, we should call to mind the saying of the prophet Jeremiah, when he beheld the plundering and burning of Jerusalem, "Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? Out of the mouth of the Most High proceedeth not evil and good?" Lam. iii. 37, 38. We must remember with Isaiah, "That it is God that forms the light, and creates darkness; that makes peace, and creates evil," ch. xlv. 7.; and this exclamation of the prophet Amos should echo to the very bottom of our hearts, Shall there be evil in a city and the Lord hath not done it? ch. iii. 6; that is to


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say, shall there be any kind of affliction or death in that place, which God hath not ordained, and directed by his wise providence? If the devil could not destroy Job's flock of sheep, Job i., nor hurry headlong into the sea the herd of swine, without His leave who holds him fast in chains, Matt. viii. 32; let us persuade ourselves, that all the powers of hell and the world cannot cause us to die by a violent death, if God hath not so appointed in the counsel of his wisdom. So that if at any time a prince or magistrate should say to us, in Pilate's language, "Knowest thou not, that I have power to crucify thee, and have power to release thee?" John xix. 10; being armed with a holy confidence, let us answer him with our Savior, "Thou couldst have no power at all against me, except it were given thee from above. Without the permission and will of God thou canst not take from me a hair of my head."

There are others who argue against this opinion still more grossly. If God, say they, hath numbered our days, and set bounds to our life, we labor in vain when we take so much pains about the sick, administer remedies to them, and pray to God for their recovery. In like manner, such may affirm, that it is in vain for us to eat or drink; and that it is foolish care to hinder mad people from casting themselves out of windows, or from swallowing down poison; because, let them act as they will, they shall live neither a longer nor a shorter time than God has ordained from all eternity. But however plausible this objection may appear, it is most absurd and ridiculous, and can only proceed from the extremest ignorance, or the most propense malice; for it is self-evident, that when a man proposes to himself any end, he does not exclude the means


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by which he is to attain it; on the contrary, he pre-supposes them, and connects them together by a necessary succession.

God had determined, in the counsel of his wisdom, to preserve the patriarch Jacob, and his children, during the grievous famine that prevailed for the space of seven years; but, to accomplish this gracious purpose, he sent Joseph into Egypt to gather together all the food of the seven years of plenty, Gen. xli. The prophet Isaiah had told Hezekiah, from God, that he should live yet fifteen years; nevertheless he commanded, that they should take a lump of dried figs, and lay it on the bile of that prince, 2 Kings xx. 7. It had been revealed to David, that he should reign over the house of Israel; and to confirm this oracle, he had been anointed by the hand of the prophet Samuel, 1 Sam. xvi. 13; but this hinders him not from seeking, by all possible means, to preserve himself from Saul's unjust persecution. And when the prophet Nathan assures him, that God will establish his posterity on the throne, and confirm them in it forever; this puts no stop to his prayers, nor abates the ardor of his devotion; on the contrary, it quickens and inflames it: therefore he thus poureth out his heart to God, O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, thou hast revealed to thy servant, saying, I will build thee an house, therefore hath thy servant found in his heart to pray this prayer unto thee, &c., 2 Sam. vii. 27.

Our Lord Jesus Christ knew for certain all that should befall him; nevertheless we find him spending the greatest part of his nights in prayer; and when his life was in danger, he neglected not his lawful and innocent means


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of preserving it. He said to his apostles Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered, Matt. x. 29, 30. Yet this hinders him not from recommending to them this lesson, When they persecute you in one city, flee ye into another, ver. 23.

God had determined to save St. Paul's life, and the lives of all those that sailed with him; and this was revealed to the apostle by an angel from heaven; nevertheless, when he saw the ship-men about to flee out of the ship, he said to the centurion, and to all the soldiers, Except these abide in the ship, ye cannot be saved, Acts xxvii. 31. In short, the means are subordinate to the end, in such a manner, that to offer to divide them, as to suppose them contrary, is the height of folly and extravangance.

Hast thou lived a great many years in the world? Ascribe it not to the constitution of thy body, thy manner of living, nor to the skill of thy physicians; but remember that it is God who hath lengthened out thy days, and go and humbly bow at his feet thy hoary head; which the scripture styles, a crown of glory, Prov. xvi. 31.

Art thou threatened with death in the flower of thy youth? Be not afflicted at it, and let not the least word proceed out of thy mouth, but what is seasoned with the salt of true piety. Remember that it is God himself who thus cuts short the thread of thy life, and puts a period to thy mortal race. Thou hast as much reason to grieve that thou wast born so late, as that thou diest so soon. Instead of wasting thyself in useless complaints, and dashing an earthen vessel, newly formed, against the rock of


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eternity, adore thy Creator, and return him thy hearty thanks, that he is graciously pleased to crown thee in the midst of thy course, and so bountiful as to bestow upon thee, the wages of the whole day, when thou hast labored but a few hours. He is very merciful to thee to transplant thee before thou hast felt the heat of the day and the scorching of the sun. It is the gale of his divine favor that drives thee thus swiftly into the haven of salvation. Think not, therefore, that God's calling thee away in the bloom of thy youth, is a testimony of his displeasure and hatred; for to hasten to make a person happy is no token of ill will. It may be, that God calls thee because he hath found some good thing in thee, as in Abijah, the son of Jeroboam, king of Israel, 1 Kings xiv. 13. Because he loves thee tenderly, and thou art greatly in his favor, he will remove thee from the approaching evils, as he did Josiah, one of the holiest and most religious princes that ever reigned, 2 Kings xxii. 20. Because thou walkest before him, and seekest to please him, by conforming thyself to his holy will, he will take thee up into his heavenly paradise, as he did Enoch, Gen. v. 24; for fear the temptations of the world should corrupt thy godly disposition, and thou shouldst be turned from the way of righteousness by the wicked artifices and suggestions of the enemy of thy salvation.

Life short and vain.

A man is a bubble (said the Greek proverb), which Lucian represents with advantages and its proper circumstances,


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to this purpose; saying, all the world is a storm, and men rise up in their several generations, like bubbles descending a Jove pluvio, from God and the dew of Heaven, from a tear and a drop of rain, from nature and Providence: and some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent, and are hidden in a sheet of water, having had no other business in the world, but to be born that they may be able to die: others float up and down two or three turns, and suddenly disappear, and give their place to others: and they that live longest upon the face of the waters, are in perpetual motion, restless and uneasy: and, being crushed with the great drop of a cloud, sink into flatness and a froth: the change not being great it being hardly possible it should be more a nothing than it was before. So is every man: he is born in vanity and sin; he comes into the world like morning mush-rooms, soon thrusting up their heads into the air, and conversing with their kindred of the same production, and as soon they turn into dust and forgetfulness: some of them without any other interest in the affairs of the world, but that they made their parents a little glad and very sorrowful: others ride longer in the storm; it may be until seven years of vanity be expired and then peradventure the sun shines hot upon their heads, and they fall into the shades below, into the cover of death and darkness of the grave to hide them. But if the bubble stands the shock of a bigger drop, and outlives the chances of a child, then the young man dances like a bubble, empty and gay, and shines like a dove's neck, or the image of a rainbow, which hath no substance, and whose very imagery and colors are fantastical; and so he dances out the


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gayety of his youth, and is all the while in a storm, and endures, only because he is not knocked on the head by a drop of bigger rain, or crushed by the pressure of a load of indigested meat, or quenched by the disorder of an ill placed humor: and to preserve a man alive in the midst of so many chances and hostilities, is as great a miracle as to create him; to preserve him from rushing into nothing, and at first to draw him up from nothing, were equally the issues of an Almighty power. And therefore the wise men of the world have contended, who shall best fit man's condition with words signifying his vanity and short abode. Homer calls a man "a leaf," the smallest, the weakest piece of a short-lived, unsteady plant. Pindar calls him "the dream of a shadow:" another "the dream of the shadow of smoke." But St. James spake by a more excellent Spirit, saying, "our life is but a vapor," viz. drawn from the earth by a celestial influence; made of smoke or the lighter parts of water, tossed with every wind, moved by the motion of a superior body, without virtue in itself, lifted up on high, or left below, according as it pleases the sun its foster father. But it is lighter yet. It is but appearing; a fantastic vapor, an apparition, nothing real; it is not so much as a mist, not the matter of a shower, nor substantial enough to make a cloud; but it is like Cassiopeia's chair. or Pelops' shoulder, or the circles of heaven phainomena, [transliterated] for which you cannot have a word, that can signify a verier nothing. And yet the expression is one degree more made diminutive; a vapor, and fantastical, or a mere appearance, and this but for a little while neither; the


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very dream, the phantasm disappears in a small time, "like the shadow that departeth; or like a tale, that is told; or as a dream, when one awaketh." A man is so vain, so unfixed, so perishing a creature, that he cannot long last in the scene of fancy: a man goes off, and is forgotten, like the dream of a distracted person. The sum of all is this: thou art a man, than whom there is not in the world any greater instance of heights and declensions, of lights and shadows, of misery and folly, of laughter and tears, of groans and death.

Life long and valuable.

If we would have our life lengthened, let us begin betimes to live in the accounts of reason and sober councils, of religion and the spirit, and then we shall have no reason to complain that our abode on earth is so short: many men find it long enough, and indeed it is so to all senses. But when we spend in waste what God hath given us in plenty, when we sacrifice our youth to folly, our manhood to lust and rage, our old age to covetousness and irreligion, not beginning to live till we are to die, designing that time to virtue which indeed is infirm to everything and profitable to nothing; then we make our lives short, and lust runs away with all the vigorous and healthful part of it, and pride and animosity steal the manly portion, and craftiness and interest possess old age; we spend as if we had too much time, and knew not


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what to do with it: we fear everything, like weak and silly mortals; and desire strangely and greedily, as if we were immortal: we complain our life is short, and yet we throw away much of it, and are weary of many of its parts: we complain the day is long, and the night is long, and we want company, and seek out arts to drive the time away, and then weep, because it is gone too soon. But so the treasure of the capital is but a small estate, when Cæsar comes to finger it, and pay with it all his legions: and the revenues of all Egypt and the eastern provinces was but a little sum, when they were to support the luxury of Mark Antony, and feed the riot of Cleopatra; but a thousand crowns is a vast proportion to be spent in the cottage of a frugal person, or to feed a hermit. Just so is our life: it is to short too serve the ambition of a haughty prince, or an usurping rebel; too little time to purchase great wealth, to satisfy the pride of a vainglorious fool, to trample upon all the enemies of our just or unjust interest: but for the obtaining virtue, for the purchase of sobriety and modesty, for the actions of religion, God gave us time sufficient, if we make the "outgoings of the morning and evening," that is, our infancy and old age, to be taken into the computations of a man.

Mutability of Society.

Though we live too short a time to see the great changes which are carrying on in the universe, we live long enough to see many of its changes--and such changes


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too as are best fitted to warn and teach us; even the changes which take place in society, made up of human beings as frail and as fugitive as ourselves. Death moves us away from many of those objects which are seen and temporal--but we live long enough to see many of these objects moved away from us--to see acquaintances falling every year--to see families broken up by the rough and unsparing hand of death--to see houses and neighborhoods shifting their inhabitants--to see a new race, and a new generation--and, whether in church or in market, to see unceasing changes in the faces of the people who repair to them. We know well, that there is a poetic melancholy inspired by such a picture as this, which is altogether unfruitful--and that totally apart from religion, a man may give way to the luxury of tears, when he thinks how friends drop away from him--how every year brings along with it some sad addition to the registers of death--how the kind and hospitable mansion is left without a tenant--and how, when you knock at a neighbor's door, you find that he who welcomed you, and made you happy, is no longer there. O that we could impress by all this, a salutary direction on the fears and on the consciences of individuals--that we could give them a living impression of that coming day, when they shall severally share in the general wreck of the species--when each of you shall be one of the many whom the men of the next generation may remember to have lived in yonder street, or labored in yonder manufactory--when they shall speak of you, just as you speak of the men of the former generation--who, when they died, had a few tears dropped over their memory, and for a few years will still continue


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to be talked of. O could we succeed in giving you a real and living impression of all this; and then may we hope to carry the lesson of John the Baptist with energy to your fears, "Flee from the coming wrath." But there is something so very deceiving in the progress of time. Its progress is so gradual. To-day is so like yesterday that we are not sensible of its departure. We should make head against this delusion. We should turn to personal account every example of change or of mortality. When the clock strikes, it should remind you of the dying hour. When you hear the sound of the funeral bell, you should think, that in a little time it will perform for you the same office. When you wake in the morning, you should think that there has been the addition of another day to the life that is past, and the subtraction of another day from the remainder of your journey. When the shades of the evening fall around you, you should think of the steady and invariable progress of time--how the sun moves and moves till it will see you out--and how it will continue to move after you die, and see out your children's children to the latest generations. Every thing around us should impress the mutability of human affairs. An acquaintance dies--you will soon follow him. A family moves from the neighborhood--learn that the works of man are given to change. New families succeed--sit loose to the world, and withdraw your affections from its unstable and fluctuating interests. Time is rapid though we observe not its rapidity. The days that are past appear like the twinkling of a vision. The days that are to come will soon have a period, and will appear to have performed their course with equal rapidity.


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We talk of our fathers and our grandfathers, who figured their day in the theater of the world. In a little time, we will be the ancestors of a future age. Posterity will talk of us as of the men that are gone--and our remembrance will soon depart from the face of the country. When we attend the burial of an acquaintance, we see the bones of the men of other times--in a few years, our bodies will be mangled by the power of corruption, and be thrown up in loose and scattered fragments among the earth of the new made grave. When we wander among the tombstones of the church-yard, we can scarcely follow the mutilated letters that compose the simple story of the inhabitant below. In a little time, and the tomb that covers us will molder by the power of the seasons--and the letters will be eaten away--and the story that was to perpetuate our remembrance, will elude the gaze of some future inquirer.

The Cup of Death sweetened.

The effect of this consideration is this, that the sadnesses of this life help to sweeten the bitter cup of death. For let our life be ever so long, if our strength were great as that of oxen and camels, if our sinews were strong as the cordage at the foot of an oak, if we were as fighting and prosperous people as Siccius Dentatus, who was on the prevailing side in a hundred and twenty battles, who had three hundred and twelve public rewards assigned him by his generals and princes for his valor and conduct in sieges and sharp encounters, and, besides all this, had


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his share in nine triumphs; yet still the period shall be, that all this shall end in death, and all the people shall talk of us awhile, good or bad, according as we deserve, or as they please, and once they shall come to pass, that concerning every one of us it shall be told in the neighborhood that we are dead. This we are apt to think a sad story; but therefore let us help it with a sadder; for we therefore need not be much troubled, that we shall die, because we are not here in ease, nor do we dwell in a fair condition; but our days are full of sorrow and anguish, dishonored, and made unhappy with many sins, with a frail and foolish spirit, entangled with difficult cases of conscience, ensnared with passions, amazed with fears, full of cares, divided with curiosities and contradictory interests, made airy and impertinent with vanities, abused with ignorance and prodigious errors, made ridiculous with a thousand weaknesses, worn away with labors, loaded with diseases, daily vexed with dangers and temptations, and in love with misery; we are weakened with delights, afflicted with want, with the evils of myself and of all my family, and with the sadnesses of my friends, and of all good men, even of the whole church; and therefore methinks we need not be troubled, that God is pleased to put an end to all these troubles, and to let them sit down in a natural period, which, if we please, may be to us the beginning of a better life. When the Prince of Persia wept because his army should all die in the revolution of an age, Artabanus told him, that they should all meet with evils so many and so great, that every man of them should wish himself dead long before that. Indeed it were a sad thing to be cut of the stone, and we


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that are in health, tremble to think of it; but the man that is wearied with the disease, looks upon that sharpness as upon his cure and remedy: and as none need to have a tooth drawn, so none could well endure it, but he that hath felt the pain of it in his head: so is our life full of evils, that therefore death is no evil to them, that have felt the smart of this, or hope for the joys of a better.

Death desirable because it delivers us from suffering.

Would you not laugh at a workman that should grieve at his task being finished, and the painful labor of the day over? Or at a traveler that should lament to see the end of his journey, after having traveled all day through briers and brambles, scorched by the burning heat of the sun, or pinched by the cold of a severe winter? Or at one that, having been tossed by the waves of a tempestuous sea, should weep at coming into the port, to see himself safe from the danger of shipwreck? Wretched man! who art afflicted and terrified at the approach of death, thou art far more foolish and extravagant than those of whom we speak; for the most painful labors of the workman, the grievous fatigues of the most wearisome journey, and the swelling waves of the most troubled sea, are nothing in comparison of the labors, misery and troubles of this languishing life.

You would not only think it folly and extravagance, but the very height of madness, in a prisoner that should sorrow for being delivered out of his noisome dungeon;


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or in a galley slave that should be angry at being freed from his chains; or in an offender that should mourn when he is taken from the rack. What think ye? Is there less madness and extravagance in yourselves, when ye sorrow to see death deliver your souls from this miserable body, wherein it is imprisoned, dismissing it from the slavish employments of this unhappy age, more grievous and intolerable than that of the gallies, and freeing your souls from those bitter agonies, which are far more painful and racking than the most cruel tortures.

The patriarch Noah, when he went out of the ark that rested upon the mountains of Ararat, had not so much reason to praise God, and to offer up unto him the sacrifice of thanksgiving, as we have, when he is pleased to put an end to this deluge of evils and calamities, and to cause this floating life, or rather this living death, to rest upon Mount Sion.

The children of Israel sang songs of thanksgiving when they came out of Egypt, and saw themselves delivered from a bitter and cruel bondage, wherein they had been employed in gathering of stubble, and burning of brick, Exod. xv.; but we have much more reason to rejoice, and to sing songs of triumph, when death takes us out of the world, where we suffer a kind of bondage, laboring in a thousand vanities, and enduring the scorching heat of ten thousand afflictions that consume us.

Thou burnest with indignation, because some of those inconstant people murmured to return again into Egypt, when they were on the borders of the promised land: but rather burn with indignation against thy own flesh, if it murmurs to return into the world when thou art at the


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entrance of thy celestial Canaan. Joseph rejoiced when the king of Egypt sent to fetch him out of prison, Gen. xli.; and have we not far greater cause to be joyful when God sends for our souls out of the prison of this world, and causeth them to leave the body, which to them is a kind of dungeon?

If, therefore, it be without impatience or murmuring, I conceive we have a much stronger reason than the prophet Jonah to cry out, O Lord, take, I beseech thee, my life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live, Jonah iv. 3; or to say with the prophet Elijah, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, 1 Kings xix. 4. Such a soul may, in a holy transport, safely breathe forth the prayer of David, the man after God's own heart, Bring my soul out of prison, that I may praise thy name: the righteous shall compass me about; for thou shalt deal bountifully with me, Psal. cxlii. 7.

Death desirable because it delivers us from sin.

Let us therefore conclude from hence, believing souls, that death is not to be feared as an evil, or a calamity, but that it is rather desirable as an advantage, and a blessing. For seeing that it is to be longed for, because it frees us from all the mischiefs and sufferings of the world; we are rather to seek it with God's good leave, because it closeth our eyes, and conveys out of our sight all the sins and abominations that are in the world; and because it stops our ears, and hinders us from hearing the impieties,


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and the filthy discourses that infect the air. Since death is to be embraced with joy, because it delivers our bodies from the diseases that torment them, and our minds from the cares and displeasures that vex and afflict them, it deserves to be welcomed with greater expressions of gladness, because it delivers us from all remains of sin, and puts a period to our natural corruption: so that it is to be esteemed and looked upon, as the death and destruction of the old man, rather than the death of a true believer.

Sampson rejoiced in his death, because he knew, that in dying his mortal enemies should die also, and be destroyed with him. We have more cause to rejoice at our death, and to give God thanks at that time since in our dying, or rather in passing from death to life, we may see the destruction of all the dangerous enemies of our salvation, who are more dreadful to us than the Philistines were to Sampson. All the most cruel and barbarous men of the world are not so much to be feared, as the lusts of our filthy flesh, that put out the eyes of our understanding, that cause us to be the devil's sport, and to worship many false gods.

We commonly run out with haste from a place infected with the plague: and should we not make as much speed by our vows and prayers, to get out of the world, since vice is so infectious and universal all over it, that so many thousand souls are therewith miserably spoiled; since the world is a Babylon, where all manner of debauchery, vice and folly are mixed together: where injustice and impiety reign? Have you not greater cause to be transported with joy, when God delivers us from our woeful captivity, than the children of Israel had when it pleased him to call


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them out of Babylon? Should they not sing to him, when the Lord brought them back, and restored them to Sion, who came from their captivity, we were as those that dream; then our mouths were full of laughter, and our tongues with songs of triumph?

In short, as the Lord Jesus, when he had restored Lazarus to life, and taken him out of his grave, had compassion on him, and could not see him any longer wrapped up in his winding sheet, and tied with a napkin; therefore he commanded, Loose him, and let him go: Thus this merciful Lord, who hath made us to be partakers of the first resurrection, and called our souls out of the noisome grave of our lusts, is moved with compassion for us, when he sees these wretched souls drag about them the relics of sin, and some remains of that corruption in which they were wrapped. Therefore he will cause them to hear his sweet and comfortable voice, Loose them and let them go. Let them go to the eternal mansions, to the city of the living God, to the heavenly Jerusalem, to the glorious companies of angels, and to the church and congregation of the first-born, whose names are written in heaven.

Christians should meet death with courage and joy.

My Christian friends, shall the poor Pagans, who never tasted of the heavenly gift, who were never partakers of the Holy Ghost, the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come; shall the Heathen, I say, who had no such hope, and were without God in the


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world, meet death with courage; and will you with all your superior advantages about you, the foretastes of happiness, and the foreseen beams of glory breaking forth, still hesitate concerning your departure from this world? Shall a Seneca, who had no other light to direct him than that of nature, and nothing better to support him than his own philosophy, cheerfully submit to death, and comfort his friends weeping around him; and shall Christians, who have been trained up under the tuition of eternal wisdom, shudder at the thought of their departure! Is it possible that such, who embrace by faith the glories and felicities prepared for them in a future life, should not be able to look upon death with courage and resolution; yea to leave the world with expressions of joy?

Shall a Socrates cheerfully drink up the poisonous portion which was prepared for him? And shall the Christian, animated by the Spirit of God, interested in the precious promises, and who has received the earnest of the heavenly inheritance, shrink under the apprehensions of sufferings and death? If there be anything bitter and distasteful in thy cup, O Christian, consider, it bears no comparison with that which Christ drank for thee; nay, suppose it were poisoned, yet thou hast proper and powerful antidotes prepared. Remember, thou art going to drink forever, of the water of life in the heavenly kingdom, where the first taste of the pure stream will remove all thy maladies, and make thee forget all past complaints. When death enters into the houses of Christians, it meanly becomes such to abandon themselves to sorrow, since they have an interest in Christ, who was crucified, but is now reigning and triumphing in heaven, and will there receive his redeemed ones to himself.

Moreover, since so many persons of different ages, sexes and circumstances in life, have desired death, only to be free from earthly evils and calamities; hath not the Christian infinitely greater reason to desire death (when it shall please the Almighty,) that he may enjoy the happy advantages of the heavenly life? How excellent is thy loving kindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of they house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures, for with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light shall we see light, Psalm xxxvi. 7, 8, 9.

The Conqueror of Death.

We read in the fifth chapter of the Revelations of St. John, that he wept bitterly, because no being in heaven and earth, nor under the earth, was able to open the book sealed with seven seals, that was in God's right hand. At that instant one of the twenty-four elders spake to him: "Weep not, behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals." Thus we have until now wept bitterly, because we could find nobody in the armies of Israel to encounter with that powerful monster, Death. But let us wipe our tears, and take good courage, my beloved; for this same Lion of the tribe of Judah is appointed to fight with this dreadful enemy: our victorious and triumphing David, who has torn in pieces the infernal Lion, bruised the ancient


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serpent's head, and spoiled principalities and powers, triumphing over them in his cross, vol. ii. 14: it is he that has undertaken this glorious combat; it was for that purpose that he left for awhile the throne of God the Father, and the company of his holy angels, 1 Sam. xvii. It was for that intent that he came into the camp and confusion of Israel. He hath not borrowed the weapons and assistance of the world, Heb. ii. All that he hath taken from us is our frail nature. But, "he hath armed himself with righteousness, as with a breast-plate, and hath put on the helmet of salvation. He hath clothed himself with vengeance as with a cloak; he hath trodden the wine-press and nobody hath assisted him," Isa. lix. lxiii. But his arm hath saved him, and his hand hath upheld him; as David cut off Goliah's head with his own sword, Jesus Christ hath overcome death by death. Like unto the strong Sampson, he hath destroyed all the enemies of his glory by his death, 1 Sam. xvii. He hath overcome, in dying, him who had the empire of death, that is, the devil, Heb. ii., and hath delivered them, "who through the fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Then was fulfilled the saying of Hosea, "O death, I will be thy plague; O grave, I will be thy destruction," Hos. xiii. And that of Isaiah, "He will swallow death up in victory, and the Lord God will wipe away all tears from their faces, and the rebuke of his people shall be taken away from all the earth," Isa. xxv. 1 Tim. vi. This blessed prince, King of Kings and Lord of Lords, who only hath immortality, and dwelleth in inaccessible light, hath destroyed death, and brought to light life and immortality by the gospel, 1 Tim. i.


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"O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law; but thanks be to God who hath given us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ," 1 Cor. xv.

This great God and Savior has perfectly redeemed us from eternal death as he himself teaches us in the gospel of St. John: "He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but is passed from death unto life," ch. v. 24. "I am the living bread, which came down from Heaven; if any man eat of this bread he shall live forever," ch. vi. 51. ver. 49. "Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead; this is the bread which cometh down from heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die," ch. xiii. "Verily, verily I say unto you, if a man keep my word he shall never taste of death. I am the resurrection and the life; he that liveth and believeth in me shall never die; and he that believeth in me, although he were dead yet shall he live," ch. xi.

Detaching the Affections from the World.

Some miserable beggars are more loth to leave their rags, than sovereign princes to lay aside their purple. Such are more enslaved to their filth and indigence, than the greatest monarchs to the glory and splendor of their empires. Death takes as much pains to free men from a prison, and to set them at liberty from a dungeon, as to


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drive them from a palace, or to pluck them down from a throne. The poor and necessitous who lodge upon the hard earth, make as much resistance as the rich, who are stretched upon the softest down. The unhappy slaves that row in the gallies, are as unwilling that death should loose them from their misery, as the most potent kings and emperors are to leave their scepters and their crowns; and I am persuaded, that David was more ready to quit his kingdom, and all its treasures, than many poor wretches are to depart from their dunghills and their poverty. Some persons are tormented with the gout, the stone, and other grievous and acute diseases; nevertheless they more passionately desire to live than many who enjoy a perfect and vigorous health. Carnal and earthly souls are so much wedded to the world, that they feel a horrible regret, and an unspeakable anguish, when they are to depart from a body rotten and falling to pieces with old age; whereas others who are more spiritualized, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and the powers of the world to come, Heb. vi. 4, 5, depart most joyfully out of young and vigorous bodies, flourishing in their full beauty and strength.

We must not, therefore, remove our arms and legs out of the world, but our passions and affections. If God bestows his earthly blessings upon us, we are not to imitate the example of that extravagant philosopher, who cast into the sea his gold and precious stones, that he might not have the trouble to keep them, and who willfully threw them away, that he might not be any longer in the fear of losing them. But we must take heed that they cause us not to make shipwreck of our faith; and that we preserve


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them not at the expense of our consciences. For the soul is far more precious than the body, and life is far more valuable than raiment, Matt. vi. 25. Since God giveth us richly all things to enjoy, 1 Tim. vi. 17, we should not show ourselves ungrateful to his goodness, rebels to his wise providence, and unjust and cruel to ourselves, churlishly to refuse the means of using and employing those blessings; For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving; for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer, 1 Tim. iv. 4, 2.

The honors and riches derived to us from our birth, or that we obtain by lawful and just methods, are to be numbered among the blessings of God; therefore Esther, who was but a poor stranger, received with joy as a favor from heaven, the imperial crown that was put on her head, and refused not to be the bride of the greatest monarch then living. Joseph readily embraced the power and dignity with which king Pharaoh invested him; and the prophet Daniel, not only accepted the honorable commands which were bestowed upon him by the king of Babylon, but likewise employed all his power and credit to raise his companions to places of trust, and the principal governments of that empire. God indeed put scepters into the hands of cruel and profane persons, such as Pharaoh, Ahab, Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar and Herod, to teach us, that dominion is not the chief good of man, and that we must aim at a more excellent kingdom, and at a more lasting and solid happiness: but then he also places upon the throne men after his own heart, whom he cherishes as the apple of his eye, such as David, Solomon, Jehoshaphat,


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Hezekiah and Josiah, to teach us, that the fear of God and the expectation of an immortal crown, are not incompatible with the honors of this life, nor with worldly glory; for Godliness hath the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come, 1 Tim. iv. 8.

The riches of the earth are no more hurtful than its honors, unless it be by accident: they are highly useful and advantageous to such as employ them well, and dispose of them with a religious prudence: they are powerful helps to true piety, and excellent means to glorify God, and to exercise a virtuous compassion; nay, I may venture to call them the beauty and lustre of the zeal and charity of God's children. Riches, it is true, turn to evils, and are ill situated in the hands of a brutal and sordid wretch, such as Nabal; of a merciless and voluptuous person, such as the rich glutton in the gospel; of a treacherous and perfidious thief, such as Judas; of a thoughtless and debauched young man, such as the prodigal son. But then they are blessed both of heaven and earth, when they fall into the hands of a Joseph. who nourisheth therewith his father and all his kindred; of a David who employs them in offerings to Almighty God, in the sight of all the people; of a Solomon who builds therewith a magnificent temple; and of a Mary Magdalen, who bestows them, not in luxury and vanity, nor in curious trinkets, but to buy a box of precious ointment, which she pours on the head of the Savior of the world. They are blessings indeed, when such a one enjoys them as Cornelius the Centurion, who employs them in alms, the perfume whereof ascendeth up to the throne


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of the God of mercies. In short, our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the eternal wisdom of the Father, hath pronounced with his sacred lips, that it is more blessed to give than to receive, Acts xx. 35.

Saladin, the renowned Sultan of Egypt, hath left to posterity an illustrious testimony of the vanity of riches and worldly grandeur. For when he lay upon his death bed, he commanded that the winding sheet in which he was to be buried, should be carried publicly at the end of a lance, by a herald, who proclaimed with a loud voice, "Behold here is all that this great monarch carries away of all the treasures, glory, principalities and lordships which he possessed in the world."

What is still more afflicting, we know not who shall inherit the fruits of all our labors, which we possess with so much fear and restless avarice. Perhaps our greatest enemies, or, which is still worse, the enemies of God, shall clothe themselves with our spoils; and that which we have been gathering together for many years shall be squandered in a moment. Of this vanity and evil the royal Prophet complains in the 39th Psalm. Surely every man walketh in a vain show: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them.

We must not forget that death is a kind of sleep; wherefore, in holy scripture, to die and to fall asleep are frequently to be understood in the same sense. Now as we find by experience, that we cannot fall asleep, unless we first banish from our pillow all thoughts of our worldly affairs; so it is altogether impossible for us to die comfortably,


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and in peace, unless we banish betimes from our hearts and affections all the foolish thoughts that disquiet us, and all the corroding cares that undermine and prey upon us.

To this purpose, we read in profane history, that when Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, had prepared a powerful army to march against the Romans, one of his counselors, named Cyneas, spake to him in the following manner: Sir, if it please God to grant us the victory over the Romans, what use shall we make of it? The king answered, we will endeavor to conquer the rest of Italy; and when we shall have conquered Italy, replied Cyneas, how shall we employ ourselves next? We will then subdue Sicily, said the king. The prudent Cyneas continued to demand: And when we shall have subdued Sicily, what shall we do? Pyrrhus answered, We will pass over into Africa and take Carthage; and after that we may recover Macedonia, and give law to all Greece, without control. But, sir, replied Cyneas, when we shall get all into our possession, what shall we do then? The king answered with a smile, my friend, we will then repose ourselves, and spend our days in ease and pleasure. And what hinders us now, sir, from reposing ourselves, and taking our ease and pleasure, said this faithful minister to his prince, since we have already in our hands that which we are going to seek so far, with so much bloodshed and danger? We may apply this to ourselves; for we have, most of us, a long series of dependent designs, which cannot be accomplished during the lives of several men. We tremble, as if death had already caught us by the throat; and yet we


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have as many desires to fulfil, as if we were immortal. We build and adorn our dwellings, as if we were never to leave them; and we may make as much provision as if we had command of a royal army. Let us therefore imitate the wise and prudent Cyneas; let us ask ourselves for what purpose are these mighty designs? What end we propose to ourselves of all our labors, cares and watchings? What we aim at when we run through so many dangers, and endure so many inconveniences? Our souls without doubt, will answer us, that it is with an intent to repose ourselves at last, to live at ease, and enjoy the fruits of our labor. If so let us seize the present hour to enjoy that happiness and satisfaction, and not stay till death shall stretch us in our graves. Let us be contented with the goods that God has already bestowed upon us, and use them with thanksgiving. Miserable wretches that we are! why do we labor and torment ourselves for so many things, seeing there is only one thing needful, and that is piety, the fear of God, and the expectation of his eternal joys! Let us therefore choose that good part, which shall never be taken away from us, Luke x. 42.

To conclude this discourse, since we have here no continuing city, but that we seek for one to come, Heb. xiii. 14; since we know not the hour when God will please to take us out of the world, to introduce us into his holy Jerusalem, let us take heed to ourselves, lest at any time our hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and the cares of this life, and so that day comes upon us unawares, Luke xxi. 34. And as the apostles left their nets to follow Jesus Christ, Matt. iv.; so let us leave the


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vain cares, the groundless fears, and the deceitful hopes, that entangle our souls, that when it shall please God to call us, we may be ready to answer his heavenly call. Let us accustom ourselves betimes to will what God willeth, and to obey him without reluctance. Let us cast all our cares upon God, 2 Pet. v. 8, and rely upon his wise and Fatherly providence. Let us look with contempt upon the world, its vain pomps, and perishable riches; and esteem nothing upon the earth, nor aught that man is able to procure for us, in comparison of the blessed hope which we have in heaven, Tit. ii. 13; and the precious gift which God hath reserved for us, 2 Tim. ii. Let us prefer Job's dunghill and ashes to the proud throne and vast empire of Nebuchadnezzar. Let us esteem the beggary of poor Lazarus, more happy than the wanton abundance of the rich glutton; and let us engrave in our hearts this blessed saying of the Son of God, What is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away? Luke ix. 25. Let us have always before our eyes the image of that rich worldling, who had heaped up many goods for himself, but was not rich in the sight of God. Let us remember what he said unto his soul, Soul, thou hast goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry, Luke xii. 19; and let what God said unto him sound always in our ears, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? Instead of contriving how to enlarge our barns and granaries, and to increase our revenues and treasures, let us endeavor to set bounds to our desires, and be content with such things as we have, Heb. xiii. 5. Seeing we


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have but a breath in our nostrils, and that we are clothed with a mortal body, let us not entertain such distant designs, nor suffer our covetings to be immortal. Let us always, and in every place, be ready to put an end to our labors, and to lay the last stone on our building; or rather, let us be always in a disposition to loose the bands of this earthly tabernacle. Let us willingly break all the ties that attach us to this miserable world, that when death comes, it may have nothing to do but cut the last string, by which our soul is naturally united to this languishing body. Let our affections take root in heaven, that where our treasure is, our hearts may be there also, Matt. vi. 21. Let us not slumber with the foolish virgins, Matt. xxv; but having our loins girded about, and our lights burning, Luke xii. 35, let us be prepared at every moment, to go to meet our heavenly Spouse, and follow him into the marriage-chamber. Let us be like a ship at anchor, ready to sail with the first fair wind; or as a soldier, completely armed, that only waits for the day of battle, and holds himself always in readiness to mount his horse, that he may march into the field at the first sound of the trumpet. Let us send betimes all our most precious jewels into the most glorious palace of eternity, that our baggage being already gone, we may have nothing to do but to take our last farewell. If any consideration of flesh and blood stops us, let us break asunder all these bands by the strength of Christ, the Captain of our salvation; that is to say, by the virtue of God's Holy Spirit, which he hath been graciously pleased to vouchsafe us. And if the persons whom we love and cherish the most tenderly, or even those whom we esteem


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the most, or those to whom we owe the greatest reverence and honor, should labor to estrange our affections, and deliver us from our holy resolution, by mean and earthly considerations, let us say to them, in the words of our Savior to Mary Magdalen, Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father, John xx. 17. Stop not my course, for I have already hold of the prize, the promised crown. In short as the father of the faithful loosed the ram, whose horns were caught in the thicket, and offered it up for a burnt-offering unto God, Gen xxii; so let us free our minds from all worldly cares and carnal affections; let us offer them up to God as a burnt-offering of a sweet smelling savor, as a holy and living sacrifice, Rom. xii. 1; which burns in the ardent flames of zeal and charity, yet is never consumed.

When the Christian is thus prepared he will not fear death, but will say to it with an assured countenance,--Come when thou wilt, O death, I desire no delay, for it is a long time since I have settled all my affairs, and have waited for thee with intrepidity. The principal part of myself is not here below; my heart is already ravished into heaven, where God expects me with open arms. Therefore, notwithstanding the fearful darkness that surrounds me, and the design that thou hast to destroy me, I will follow thee as courageously, and with as much joy, as St. Peter did the angel of light that threw open before him the gates of his prison, Acts xii.

God will take care of surviving dependents and friends.

You also who are afraid to leave behind you an afflicted


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and desolate widow, come and learn this lesson, to rely upon the goodness and tender compassions of the Father of Mercies, who comforteth us in all our tribulations, 2 Cor. i. 4; and is nigh unto all them that call upon him, Psalm cxlv. 18. He favors the widow in such an especial manner, that he calls himself the judge of the widows, Psalm lxviii. 5; that is, the guardian of their innocence, the protector of their right, the severe revenger of the wrongs that are offered them. Therefore, in another place, he expressly tells us, that he established the border of the widow, Prov. xv. 25. If Job caused the widow's heart to sing for joy, Job xxix. 13; how much more shall God fill her heart with ravishing delights, with the sweet and effectual consolations of his Holy Spirit? I speak not of those foolish widows who mind nothing but worldly pleasures and carnal pastimes, who run into all the fopperies of the age, and are dead whilst they live, 1 Tim. v. 6; but I speak of those wise widows, who being left desolate, trust in God, and continue in supplications and prayer night and day.

Our great God and merciful Lord, hath not only declared in general, that he is the judge, protector and comforter of widows, but he hath also been pleased to extend unto some his most signal favors and extraordinary blessings. In the reign of king Ahab, while a cruel famine prevailed in the land, God sent the prophet Elijah to a poor widow of Zarephath, who was preparing herself to die with her son, as soon as they had eat up a handful of meal, and a little oil that was left. But the holy prophet comforted her with these words: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, the barrel of meal shall not waste, neither


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shall the cruise of oil fail, until the day the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth, 1 Kings xvii. 14. Many poor widows have experienced the like miracle; for, by a secret benediction, God hath caused their provisions not to fail. Though they have not enjoyed any extraordinary plenty this all-wise purveyor hath furnished them with the necessaries of life; so that not only they and their children have subsisted in times of the greatest scarcity, but they have also had the honor of assisting God's prophets. Like the poor widow mentioned in the gospel, out of their penury they have given alms, Luke xxi. 4; and their mites have been more pleasing unto God than the treasures of the rich. Moreover, when the Son of God was in the world, he was pleased to manifest the care and tender concern he hath for widows; for when he met nigh the gate of the city of Nain, a poor widow that wept bitterly for her only son, who was carried out to be buried, he had compassion on her, raised the young man to life again, and delivered him to his mother, Luke vii. It was also at the request of some devout widows that St. Peter raised Dorcas, Acts ix.

I must not forget in this place a noble providence, proper to comfort every faithful servant of God. The widow of one of the sons of the prophets, in the bitterness of her soul, cried out unto Elisha: Thy servant my husband is dead, and thou knowest that thy servant did fear the Lord; and the creditor is come to take unto him my two sons to be bondmen, 2 Kings iv. 1. God, who hears the cry of the afflicted, had compassion on this poor widow, and by the means of Elisha, miraculously gave her where-with to pay her debts, and to support her family. By this


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glorious example, God assures his prophets of the tender care he will take of their widows, provided they walk in his fear, and continue in his holy covenant.

The strongest passion, and that which seems the most capable to detain a Christian soul, is the affection which fathers and mothers bear to their children, especially if they leave them in an age unable to help themselves. But lest this natural passion should transport you beyond the bounds of reason and piety, consider well the promise that God made to Abraham: I will be a God unto thee and unto thy seed after thee, Gen. xvii. 7; and what St. Peter told the Jews: The promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off: even as many as the Lord our God shall call, Acts ii. 39. Above all, hear attentively, and engrave in the bottom of your hearts, that which God speaks to you from heaven by the prophet Jeremiah: leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive; and let thy widows trust in me, chap. xlix. 11.

God is the father of us all, but more especially he is the father of the fatherless, Psalm cxlvi. He hath compassion on them, and provides for all their wants. Thy children are nearer to him than to thee; for thou art but a feeble instrument which he made use of to bring them into the world, but he is the Creator of their souls, the Maker of their bodies, and the Redeemer of both. He loves them with a greater and more lasting love than the best of fathers, and the most tender-hearted mothers; therefore he assures us by his holy prophet, that though a woman forget her suckling child, that she should not have


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compassion on the son of her womb; yet he will not forget us, Isa. xlix. 15. So that all those children that fear God, and worship him, may say with David: When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up, Psalm xxvii. 10.

We can do nothing without God; but he can do all things without us. A great many children, who are brought up at home, under the eye of their parents, grow debauched, and are ruined; whereas many, that are forced out while young or left orphans, become shining patterns of piety and goodness. For example, in Isaac's house, in the presence of this holy person, Esau became profane, and a glutton, Gen. xxv.; whereas Jacob, who was sent to a great distance, in all his flights and wanderings, had always before his eyes the fear of his father Isaac, Gen. xxxi.; that is, the God whom his father feared. In Jacob's house, Reuben defiled his father's bed, Gen. xxxv. 25; whereas Joseph, who was sold into Egypt to Potiphar, chose rather to expose himself to a cruel punishment, and even to death, than to touch his master's wife, Gen. xxxix. David had the unhappiness to see some of his children guilty of murder and incest; whereas Joash and Josiah, who were left orphans in their infancy, became wise and virtuous princes, burning with zeal for the service of God. How many children are there, who, notwithstanding all the care and pains of their fathers, fall into extreme misery? How many are dragged from their parent's embraces to an ignominious death? Whereas others, who are left without parents, friends, or any human assistance, not only escape the greatest dangers, but rise to the highest honors and dignities; as Joseph in


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Egypt, and Daniel in Babylon. Likewise Esther a poor captive orphan, became a queen, and God made use of her and her credit, to deliver his people from Haman's conspiracy, Esther vii. We see every day orphans blessed by God in an extraordinary manner. Cast your eyes upon the children of the blessed martyrs, and you shall find many whom God hath made noble instances of his especial favor, and that mercy which he hath promised to show unto thousands that love him, and keep his commandments. Thou shalt meet with many that are a thousand times more prosperous than the children of persecutors. Nay thou shalt behold them with astonishment giving alms to the very children of them that have plundered their houses.

Motives for desiring release from this world.

Willingly submit then, O my soul: it is not thou, but this flesh that must be dissolved; this troublesome, vile, and corruptible flesh: it is but the other half, thy meat and drink, which thy presence kept longer uncorrupted, going after the excremental part. Thou diest not when man (the compositum ) dieth, by thy departure. And as thou livest not to thyself, I die not to myself; whether I live or die, I am the Lord's: he that set up the candle, knoweth how long he hath use for the light of it. Study thy duty, and work while it is day, and let God choose thy time, and willingly stand to his disposal. The gospel dieth not when I die; the church dieth not; the praises of God die not; the world dieth not; and perhaps it


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shall grow better, and those prayers shall grow better, and those prayers shall be answered which seemed lost; yea, and it may be some of the seed that I have sown, shall spring up to some benefit of the dark unpeaceable world when I am dead. And is not this much of the end of life; and is not that life good which attaineth its end? If my end was to do good and glorify God, if good be done, and God be glorified when I am dead, yea, though I were annihilated, is not my end attained. Feign not thyself to be God, whose interest (that is the pleasing of his will) is the end of all things; and whose will is the measure of all created good: feign not thyself to be all the world: God hath not lost his work; the world is not dissolved when I am dissolved. O how strong and unreasonable a disease is this inordinate selfishness! Is not God's will infinitely better than mine, and fitter to be fulfilled? Choose the fulfilling of his will, and thou shalt always have thy choice. If a man be well that can always have his will, let this always be thy will, that God's will may be done, and thou shalt always have it.

Willingly depart, O lingering soul! It is from a Sodom, though in it there be righteous Lots, who yet are not without their woeful blemishes! Hast thou so often groaned for the general blindness and wickedness of the world, and art thou loath to leave it for a better? How oft wouldst thou have rejoiced to have seen but the dawning of a day of universal peace and reformation? And wouldst thou not see it, where it shineth forth in fullest glory? Would a light at midnight have pleased thee so well? Hast thou prayed and labored for it so hard, and wouldst thou not see the sun? Will the things of heaven


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please thee no where but on the earth, where they come in the least and weakest influences, and are terminated in gross, terrene, obscure, and unkind recipients? Away, away, the vindictive flames are ready to consume this wicked world. Sinners that blindly rage in sin, must quickly rage in the effects of sin, and of God's justice: the pangs of lust prepared for these pangs! They are treasuring up wrath against this day. Look not then behind thee: away from this unhappy world! Press on to the mark,' "Looking towards, and hastening to the coming of the day of God."

But, alas! how deaf is flesh to reason? Faith hath the reason which easily may shame all contrary reasoning; but sense is unreasonable, and especially this inordinate tenacious love of present life. I have reason enough to be willing to depart, even much more willing than I am. O that I could be as willing as I am convinced that I have reason to be! Could I love God as much as I know that I should love him, then I should desire to depart and be with Christ as much as I know that I should desire it. But God in nature hath here laid upon me some necessity of aversation, though the inordinateness came from sin, else Christ had not so feared and deprecated the cup. Death must be a penalty, even where it is a gain; and therefore it must meet with some unwillingness: because we willingly sinned, we must unwillingly suffer: the gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself, but the happy consequents of it. All the faith and reason in the world will not make death to be no penalty, and therefore will not take away all unwillingness. No man ever yet reasoned or believed himself into a love of pain and death as such:


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but seeing that the gain is unspeakably greater than the pain and loss, faith and holy reason may make our willingness to be greater than our unwillingness, and our hope and joy, than our fear and sorrow. And it is the deep and effectual notice of goodness, which is God's way in nature and grace, to change and draw the will of man. Come then, my soul, and think believingly what is best for thee; and wilt thou not love and desire most that which is certainly the best?

Better to depart.

Many a time the wise and good will of God, hath crossed my foolish rebellious will on earth; and afterward I have still perceived that it was best; usually for myself, but always for a higher good than mine. It is not an enemy, nor a tyrant that made me, that hath preserved me, and that calls me hence. He hath not used me as an enemy; the more I have tried him, the better I have found him. Had I better obeyed his ruling will, how happy had I been! and is not his disposing and rewarding will as good? Man's work is like man, and evil corrupteth it; but God's work is like God, and uncorrupted. If I should not die until my dearest friend would have it, much more till I myself would choose it, not constrained by misery, I should rejoice, and think my life were safe! O foolish sinful soul, if I take it not to be far better to be at God's choice, than at my own or any man's! and if I had not rather that he choose the time than I!

Be of good cheer, then, O my soul; it is thy Father's


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voice that calls thee hence; his voice that called thee into the world, and bade thee live; that called thee out of a state of sin and death, and bade thee live hereafter unto him; that called thee so oft from the grave, and forgiving thy sins, renewed thy strength, restored thee to the comforts of his house and service, and hath so graciously led thee through this howling wilderness, and brought thee almost to the sight of the promised land. And wilt thou not willingly go, when infinite, fatherly love doth call thee? Art thou not desirous of his presence? Art thou afraid to go to him who is the only cure of thy fears? What was it but this glory to which he did, finally, elect thee? Where dost thou read that he elected thee to the riches and honors of this world, or to the pleasures of the flesh? But he elected us in Christ to the heavenly inheritance, Eph. i. 3, 4, &c. Indeed, he elected thee also to bear the cross, and to manifold sufferings here. But is it that which thou preferrest before the crown? That was but as a means unto the kingdom, that thou mightest be conformed to Christ, and reign with him when thou hast suffered with him. If God choose thee to blessedness, refuse it not thyself, nor behave thyself like a refuser.

2. And surely that state is my best, which my Savior purchased and promised me as best: as he bought me not with silver and gold, so neither to silver and gold. Did he live and die to make me rich, or advanced in the world? Surely his incarnation, merits, sacrifice, and intercession had a low design if that were all. And who hath more of these than they that have least of Christ? But he purchased us to an incorruptible crown, to an inheritance


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undefiled, that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us that are kept by God's power through faith unto salvation, 1 Pet. i. And is it heaven that cost so dear a price for me, and is the end of so wonderful a design of grace, and shall I be unwilling now to receive the gift?

3. That sure is best for me for which God's Holy Spirit is preparing me; that for which he is given to believers; and that which is the end of all his holy operations on my soul. But it is not to love this world that he is persuading me from day to day; but to come off from such love, and to set my heart on the things above. Is it to love this life and fleshly interest, this vanity and vexation, or rather to love the invisible perfection, that this blessed Spirit hath done so much to work my heart? And would I now undo all, or cross and frustrate all his operations? Hath grace been so long preparing me for glory, and shall I be loath to take possession of it? If I am not willing, I am not yet sufficiently prepared.

4. If heaven be not better for me than earth, God's word and ordinances have been all in vain. Surely that is my best which is the gift of the better covenant, and which is secured to me by so many sealed promises, and which I am directed to by so many sacred precepts, doctrines, and examples; and for which I have been called to hear, and read, and meditate, and pray, and watch so long. Was it the interest of the flesh on earth, or a longer life of worldly prosperity, which the gospel covenant secured to me, which the sacraments and Spirit sealed to me, which the bible was written to direct me to, which ministers preached to me, which my books


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were written for, for which I prayed, and for which I served God? Or was it not for his grace on earth, and glory in heaven? and is it not better for me to have the end of all these means, than lose them all, and lose my hopes? Why have I used them, if I would not attain their end?

5. That is my best state which all the course of God's fatherly providences tend to. All his sweeter mercies, and all his sharper corrections, are to make me partaker of his holiness, and to lead me to glory in the way that my Savior and all his saints have gone before me. All things work together for the best to me, by preparing me for that which is best indeed. Both calms and storms are to bring me to this harbor; if I take them but for themselves and this present life, I mistake them and understand them not, but unthankfully vilify them, and lose their end, and life, and sweetness. Every word and work of God, every day's mercies, and changes, and usages do look at heaven, and intend eternity. God leadeth me no other way; if I follow him not, I forsake my hope in forsaking him; if I follow him, shall I be unwilling to be at home, and come to the end of all this way?

Separation from worldly Knowledge.

When I die, I must depart not only from sensual delights, but from the more manly pleasures of my studies, knowledge, and converse with many wise and godly men, and from all my pleasures in reading, hearing,


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public and private exercises of religion, &c. I must leave my library, and turn over those pleasant books no more: I must no more come among the living, nor see the faces of my faithful friends, nor be seen of man: houses, and cities, and fields, and countries, gardens, and walks, will be nothing as to me. I shall no more hear of the affairs of the world, of man, or wars, or other news, nor see what becomes of that beloved interest of wisdom, piety, and peace, which I desire may prosper, &c.

I answer, 1. Though these delights are far above those of sensual sinners, yet, alas! how low and little are they! How small is our knowledge in comparison of our ignorance! And how little doth the knowledge of learned doctors differ from the thoughts of a silly child! For from our childhood we take it in but by drops; and as trifles are the matter of childish knowledge, so words and notions, and artificial forms do make up more of the learning of the world, than is commonly understood; and many such learned men know little more of any great and excellent things themselves, than rustics that are condemned by them for their ignorance. God and the life to come are little better known by them, if not much less than by many of the unlearned. What is it but a child-game that many logicians, rhetoricians, grammarians, yea, metaphysicians, and other philosophers in their eagerest studies and disputes are exercised in? Of how little use is it to know what is contained in many hundreds of the volumes that fill our libraries! Yea, or to know many of the most glorious speculations in physics, mathematics, &c. which have given some the title of virtuosi and ingeniosi, in these times, who have little the more wit or


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virtue to live to God, or overcome temptations from the flesh and the world, and to secure their everlasting hopes: what pleasure or quiet doth it give to a dying man, to know almost any of their trifles?

2. Yea, it were well if much of our reading and learning did us no harm, and more than good. I fear lest books are to some but a more honorable kind of temptation than cards and dice; lest many a precious hour be lost in them, that should be employed on much higher matters; and lest many make such knowledge but an unholy, natural, yea, carnal pleasure, as worldlings do the thoughts of their lands and honors; and lest they be the more dangerous by how much the less suspected; but the best is, it is a pleasure so fenced from the slothful with thorny labor of hard and long studies, that laziness saveth more from it than grace and holy wisdom doth. But doubtless fancy and the natural intellect may with as little sanctity live in the pleasure of reading, knowing, disputing, and writing, as others spend their time at a game at chess, or other ingenious sport.

For my own part, I know that the knowledge of natural things is valuable and may be sanctified; much more theological theory; and when it is so, it is of good use; and I have little knowledge which I find not some way useful to my highest ends. And if wishing or money would procure more, I would wish and empty my purse for it; but yet if many score or hundred books which I have read, had been all unread, and I had that time now to lay out upon higher things, I should think myself much richer than now I am. And I must earnestly pray, the Lord forgive me the hours that I have spent in reading


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things less profitable, for the pleasing of a mind that would fain know all, which I should have spent for the increase of holiness in myself and others.

3. But the chief answer is yet behind. No knowledge is lost, but perfected, and changed for much nobler, sweeter, greater knowledge. Let men be never so uncertain in particular de modo, whether acquired habits of intellect and memory die with us, as being dependent on the body; yet, by what manner soever, that a far clearer knowledge we shall have than is here attainable, is not to be doubted of. And the cessation of our present mode of knowing is but the cessation of our ignorance and imperfection; as our wakening endeth a dreaming knowledge, and our maturity endeth the trifling knowledge of a child; for so saith the Holy Ghost, "Love never faileth," (and we can love no more than we know;) but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; (that is, cease;) whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, (notional and abstractive, such as we have now,) it shall vanish away.

Death relieves us from hearing the news of human woes and wickedness.

To know or hear of the poor in famine, the rich in folly, the church distracted, the kingdom discontented; the godly scandalous by the effects of their errors, imperfections, and divisions; the wicked outrageous and waxing worse; the falseness, or miscarriages, or sufferings of


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friends; the fury or success of enemies,--is this an intelligence which I cannot spare? What is the the [sic] daily tidings that I hear, but of bloody wars, the undone countries, the persecuted churches; the silenced, banished, or imprisoned preachers, of the best removed in judgment from an unworthy world by death, and the worse succeeding in their rooms; of the renewed designs and endeavors of the church's enemies; the implacable rage of the worldly and unquiet clergy, and the new divisions of self-conceited sectaries, and the obloquy and backbitings of each party against the other? How oft hear I the sad tidings of this friend's sickness or death, and that friend's discontent, and of another's fall, and of many, very many's sufferings? My ears are daily filled with the cries of the poor, whom I cannot relieve; with the endless complaints of fearful, melancholy, despairing persons; with the wranglings of the ignorant and proud professors, and contentious divines, who censure most boldly where they are most erroneous or dark; or with the troublesome discontents of those that I converse with. And should I be afraid of the ending of so sad a tragedy, or of awaking out of such an unpleasant dream? Have I not many times thought of the privilege of the deaf, that hear not these troublesome and provoking things; and of the blind, that see not the vanities and temptations of this world? It is one part of the benefit of solitude, or a private life and habitation, to free me from many of these unpleasing objects; and a great part of the benefit of sleep, that with my clothes I may lay by these troublous thoughts.

Doubts and fears reasoned down.

Every place that I have lived in was a place of divine love, which there set up its obliging monuments. Every year and hour of my life hath been a time of love. Every friend, and every neighbor, yea, every enemy have been the messengers and instruments of love. Every state and change of my life, notwithstanding my sin, hath opened to me treasures and mysteries of love. And after such a life of love, shall I doubt whether the same God do love me? Is he the God of the mountains and not of the valleys? Did he love me in my youth and health? And doth he not love me in my age, and pain, and sickness? Did he love all the faithful better in their life than at their death? If our hope be not chiefly in this life, neither is our state of love, which is principally the heavenly endless grace. My groans grieve my friends, but abate not their love. Did he love me for my strength, my weakness might be my fear: as they that love for beauty, loathe them that are deformed; and they that love for riches, despise the poor; but God loved me when I was his enemy, to make me a friend; when I was bad, to make me better: whatever, he taketh pleasure in his own gift. Who made me to differ? And what have I that I have not received? And God will finish the work, the building, the warfare that is his own. O the multitude of mercies to my soul and body, in peace and war, in youth and age, to myself and friends; the many great and gracious deliverances which have testified to me the love of God! Have I lived in the experience of it, and shall I die in the


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doubts of it? Had it been love only to my body, it would have died with me, and not have accompanied my departing soul.

Behold then, O my soul, with what love the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit have loved thee; that thou shouldst be made and called a Son of God, redeemed, regenerate, adopted into that covenant state of grace in which thou standest. Rejoice therefore in hope of the glory of God, Rom. v. 1, 2, being justified by faith, having peace with God, and access by faith and hope that maketh not ashamed: that being reconciled, when an enemy, by the death of Christ, I shall be saved by his life. Having loved his own, to the end he loveth them, and without end. His gifts and calling are without repentance. When Satan and thy flesh would hide God's love, look to Christ, and read the golden words of love in the sacred gospel, and peruse thy many recorded experiences, and remember the convictions which secret and open mercies have many a time afforded thee. But especially draw nearer to the Lord of love, and be not seldom and slight in thy contemplations of his love and loveliness. Dwell in the sunshine, and thou wilt know that it is light, and warm, and comfortable. Distance and strangeness cherish thy doubts: acquaint thyself with him, and be at peace.

Yet look up, and oft and earnestly look up after thy ascended glorified head, who said, "Tell my brethren, I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God." Think where and what he is, and what he is now doing for all his own; and how humbled, abased, suffering love is now triumphant, regnant, glorified love;


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and therefore no less than in all its tender expressions upon earth. As love is nowhere perfectly revealed but in heaven, so I can nowhere so fully discern it as by looking up by faith to my Father and Savior which is in heaven, and conversing more believingly with the heavenly society. Had I done this more and better, and as I have persuaded others to do it, I had lived in more convincing delights of God's love, which would have turned the fears of death into joyfuller hopes, and more earnest desires to be with Christ, in the arms, in the world, in the life of love, as far better than to be here, in a dark, a doubting, fearing world.

Penitence and Pardon.

Answer me not, that your sins are so heinous and abominable, that you cannot hope for a pardon. Though they are as high as the loftiest mountains, if thou art really sensible of their weight, and sighest and groanest beneath thy burthen, God's infinite mercy, like a deluge, shall cover and wash them away. Like a torrent, it shall transport them out of thy sight. For where sin hath abounded, provided a true repentance succeeds, the grace of God doth much more abound, Rom. v. 20. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool, Isa. i. 18. All the offences that you have committed since you have been in the world, are finite and limited, but God's mercy is infinite. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand? But there is forgiveness


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with thee, that thou mayest be feared, Psalm cxxx. 3, 4.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaken them, shall have mercy, Prov. xxviii. 13; and it is certain, there is no sinner, let him be ever so guilty, that shall seek God's mercy by a true repentance, but shall obtain his request. David had defiled himself with an imfamous adultery, and had imbrued his hands in the innocent blood of one of his most faithful servants: but as soon as he presented himself before God with a broken and contrite heart, Psalm li. 17; this merciful Creator washed this wretched sinner from all his iniquity at the fountain of his eternal mercy. He made him whiter than snow, and caused the bones which he had broken to rejoice; therefore he crieth out, I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord: and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin, Psalm xxxii.5. King Manasseh gave himself up to enchantments and witchcraft, and to the most gross and abominable idolatries, Chron. xxxiii.; nevertheless, he no sooner humbled himself in his fetters, than his sighs and groans found a gracious reception at the throne of God. The poor Publican, in the gospel, cast down with the weight of his sins, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner, Luke xviii. 13; but God looked upon him with an eye of mercy, and stretched out unto him his gracious hand; so that he went down to his house justified. The penitent Magdalen, being struck with horror at her own sinful and wicked life, came and cast herself at our Savior's feet, washing them with her tears, and wiping them with the hairs of her


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head; but Christ soon raised her up, with these comfortable words, Thy sins are forgiven thee. Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace, Luke vii. 48,50. St. Peter, by a frailty that should cause the best of Christians to tremble for fear, denied his Lord and Master three times, even to cursing and swearing, Matt. xxvi.; Luke xxii.; but this merciful God immediately looked upon him with an eye of compassion, and gave him grace to weep bitterly for the commission of so foul a fact. At the same time that St. Peter poured forth his tears before God, there is no doubt but God poured into his heart the oil of joy and gladness, and that he powerfully supported him by his Holy Spirit. Therefore, though your sins are ever so great and enormous, if your souls are really wrung with sorrow, if your hearts are truly touched with contrition, if you shed the tears of repentance, if you are heartily grieved that you are not sufficiently afflicted for your sins, and in such a frame of mind prostrate yourselves before your heavenly Father, he will raise you up again by his infinite mercy. He will cast all your sins and transgressions behind him, and will cry unto you, by his Holy Spirit in your heart, My Son, or my daughter, thy sins are forgiven thee, Luke vii. 48. He will fill your souls with a joy unspeakable, and will cause you to sing with the Psalmist, Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered, Psalm xxxii. 1, 2.

Prayer a necessary preparation for death.

Prayer against the fear of death, by keeping up in us a


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constant remembrance of our mortality, will help to wean us from a too intimate attachment to the things we are so soon to quit. By this habitual preparation to meet our Judge, we shall be brought to pray more earnestly for an interest in the great Intercessor; and to strive more effectually against every offence which may aggravate the awfulness of that meeting.

Fervent prayer, that divine grace may prepare us for death, will, if cordially adopted, answer many great moral purposes. It will remind every individual of every class that "the time is short"--that "there is no repentance in the grave."

Perhaps even the worldly and thoughtless man, under an occasional fit of dejection, or an accidental disappointment, may be brought to say, "When I am in heaviness, I will think upon God."--Oh, think upon Him, call upon Him, now, --now, when you are in prosperity; now, when your hill is so strong that you think it shall never be removed: think upon Him, call upon Him, when the scene is the brightest, when the world courts, flatteries invite, and pleasures betray you; think on Him, while you are able to think at all, while you possess the capacity of thinking. The time may come, when "He may turn his face from you, and you will be troubled." Think of God, when the alluring images of pleasure and of profit would seduce you from Him. Prosperity is the season of peculiar peril. "It is the bright day that brings forth the adder." Think of God when the tempting world says, "All this I will give thee." Trust not the insolvent world, it has cheated every creditor that ever trusted it. It will cheat you.

To the man of opulence, who heapeth up riches and cannot tell who shall gather them, prayer will be a constant memento: it will remind him that he walketh in a vain shadow, and disquieteth himself in vain; it will remind him of laying up treasures where thieves cannot enter, nor rust corrode.

The habit of praying against the fear of death, would check the pride of youthful beauty, by reminding her how soon it must say to the worm, Thou art my father, and to corruption, Thou art my mother and sister.

The man of genius, he who thought that of making many books there would be no end; who, in his zeal to write, had neglected to pray; who thought little of any immortality but that which was to be conferred by the applause of dying creatures like himself; who, in the vanity of possessing talents, had forgotten that he must one day account for the application of them; if happily he should be brought to see the evil of his own heart, to feel the wants of his own soul, how intense will be his repentance, how deep his remorse, that he had loved the praise of men more than the praise of God! How fervently will he pray that his mercies may not aggravate the account of his sins; that his talents may not become the instrument of his punishment! How earnestly will he supplicate for pardon, how devoutly will he "give glory to God, before his feet stumble on the dark mountains!"

The man of business, to whom we have already adverted, who thought his schemes so deeply laid, his speculations so prudently planned, that nothing could frustrate them; who calculated that the future was as much in his power as the present, forgot that death, that grand subverter


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of projects, might interpose his veto. This man, who could not find time to pray, must find time to die--he may at length find--happy if he ever find it, that he cannot meet his end with a peaceful heart, and a resigned spirit, without the preparation of prayer for support in that awful period, "when his purposes shall be broken off and all his thoughts perish."

The man of pleasure, alas! what shall we say for him ? He is sunk to the lowest step of degradation in the moral scale; he has not even human supports: he has robbed himself even of the ordinary consolations resorted to by ordinary men. He has no stay on which to lay hold, no twig at which to catch, no pretence by which to flatter himself into a false peace; no recollection of past usefulness; he has neither served his country; nor benefited society--what shall we say for him? If he pray not for himself, we must pray for him--with God all things are possible.

The statesman, indefatigable in the public service, distinguished for integrity; but neglecting the offices of Christianity; whose lofty character power had not warped, nor cupidity debased, but whose religious principles, though they had never been renounced, had not been kept in exercise; a spirit of rare disinterestedness: a moralist of unblanched honor, but who pleaded that duty had left him little time for devotion! Should divine grace incline him at last to seek God, should he begin to pray to be prepared for death and judgement, he will deeply regret with the contrite cardinal, not that he served his king faithfully, but that his higher services had not been devoted to their highest object. In this frame of mind, that ambition which


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was satisfied with what earth could give, or kings reward, will appear no longer glorious in his eyes. True and just to his sovereign, devoted to his country, faithful to all but his Savior and himself, he now laments that he had neglected to seek a better country, neglected to serve the King Eternal, the blessed and only Potentate; neglected to obtain an interest in a kingdom which shall not be moved. He feels that mere patriotism, grand as is its object, and important as is its end, will not afford support to a soul sinking at the approach of the inevitable hour, awed at the view of final judgment.

Remedies against the fear of death.

Death is a thing, that is no great matter in itself; if we consider that we die daily, that it meets us in every accident, that every creature carries a dart along with it, and can kill us. And therefore, when Lysimachus threatened Theodorus to kill him, he told him, that was no great matter to do, and he could do no more than the cantharides could: a little fly could do as much.

Of all the evils of the world which are reproached with an evil character, death is the most innocent of its accusation. For when it is present, it hurts nobody; and when it is absent, it is indeed troublesome, but the trouble is owing to our fears, not to the affrighting and mistaken object: and besides this, if it were an evil, it is so transient, that it passes like the instant or undiscerned portion of the present time: and either, is it past or it is not yet: for just when it is, no man hath reason to complain of so insensible, so sudden, so undiscerned a change.

It is so harmless a thing, that no good man was ever thought the more miserable for dying, but much the happier. When men saw the graves of Calatinus, of the Servilii, the Scipios, the Metelli, did ever any man among the wisest Romans think them unhappy? And when St. Paul fell under the sword of Nero, and St. Peter died upon the cross, and St. Stephen from a heap of stones was carried into an easier grave, they that made great lamentation over them, wept for their own interest, and after the manner of men; but the martyrs were accounted happy, and their days kept solemnly, and their memories preserved in never-dying honors.

He that would willingly be fearless of death, must learn to despise the world; he must neither love any thing passionately, nor be proud of any circumstance of his life. "O death, how bitter is the remembrance of thee to a man, that liveth at rest in his possessions, to a man, that hath nothing to vex him, and that hath prosperity in all things; yea unto him that is yet able to receive meat!" said the son of Sirach.

He that would not fear death, must strengthen his spirits with the proper instruments of Christian fortitude. All men are resolved upon this, that to bear grief honestly and temperately, and to die willingly and nobly, is the duty of a good and valiant man: and they that are not so, are vicious, and fools, and cowards. All men praise the valiant and honest; and that, which the very heathen admired in their noblest examples, is especially patience and contempt of death. Zeno Eleates endured torments rather than discover his friends, or betray them to the danger of the tyrant: and Calanus, the barbarous and unlearned Indian, willingly suffered himself to be burned alive: and


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all the women did so, to do honor to their husband's funerals, and to represent and prove their affections great to their lords. The religion of a Christian does more command fortitude, than ever did any institution; for we are commanded to be willing to die for Christ, to die for the brethren, to die rather than to give offence or scandal: the effect of which is this, that he, that is instructed to do the necessary parts of his duty, is, by the same instrument, fortified against death: as he that does his duty, need not fear death, so neither shall he; the parts of his duty, are parts of his security. It is certainly a great baseness and pusillanimity of spirit, that makes death terrible and extremely, to be avoided.

Christian prudence is a great security against the fear of death. For if we be afraid of death, it is but reasonable to use all spiritual arts to take off every apprehension of evil: but therefore we ought to remove our fear, because fear gives to death wings, and spurs, and darts. Death hastens to a fearful man: if therefore you would make death harmless and slow, to throw off fear is the way to do it; and prayer is the way to do that. If therefore you be afraid of death, consider you will have less need to fear it, by how much the less you do fear it: and so cure your direct fear by a reflex act of prudence and consideration.

If thou wilt be fearless of death, endeavor to be in love with the felicities of saints and angels, and be once persuaded to believe, that there is a condition of living better than this; that there are creatures more noble than we; that above there is a country better than ours; that the inhabitants know more and know better, and are in


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places of rest and desire; and first learn to value it, and then learn to purchase it, and death cannot be a formidable thing, which lets us into so much joy and so much felicity. And indeed who would not think his condition mended, if he passed from conversing with dull mortals, with ignorant and foolish persons, with tyrants and enemies of learning, to converse with Homer and Plato, with Socrates and Cicero, with Plutarch and Fabricus? So the heathens speculated, but we consider higher. "The dead that die in the Lord," shall converse with St. Paul, and all the college of the apostles, and all the saints and martyrs, with all the good men, whose memory we preserve in honor, with excellent kings and holy bishops, and with the great shepherd and bishop of our souls, Jesus Christ, and with God himself. For "Christ died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we might live together with him." Then we shall be free from lust and envy, from fear and rage, from covetousness and sorrow, from tears and cowardice: and these indeed properly are the only evils that are contrary to felicity and wisdom. Then we shall see strange things, and know new propositions, and all things in another manner, and to higher purposes.

In forty or fifty years we find evils enough, and arguments enough to make us weary of this life; and to a good man there are very many more reasons to be afraid of life than death, this having in it less of evil and more of advantage. And it was a rare wish of that Roman, that death might come only to wise and excellent persons, and not to fools and cowards: that it might not be a sanctuary for the timorous, but the reward of the virtuous: and indeed they only can make advantage of it.

Make no excuses to make thy desires of life seem reasonable; neither cover thy fear with pretences, but suppress it rather with arts of severity and ingenuity. Some are not willing to submit to God's sentence and arrest of death, till they have finished such a design, or made an end of the last paragraph of their book, or raised such portions for their children, or preached so many sermons, or built their house, or planted their orchard, or ordered their estate such advantages. It is well for the modesty of these men, that the excuse is ready; but if it were not, it is certain they would search one out: for an idle man is never ready to die and is glad of any excuse; and a busied man hath always something unfinished, and he is ready for every thing but death. And I remember, that Petronius brings in Eumolpus composing verses in a desperate storm; and being called upon to shift for himself when the ship dashed upon the rock, crying out, to let him alone, till he had trimmed and finished his verse, which was lame in the hinder leg: the man either had too strong a desire not to end his verse, or a great desire not to end his life. But we must know, God's times are not to be measured by our circumstances; and what I value, God regards not: or if it be valuable in the accounts of men, yet God will supply it with other contingencies of his providence: and if Epaphroditus had died, when he had his great sickness St. Paul speaks of, God would have secured the work of the gospel without him: and he could have spared Epaphroditus as well as St. Stephen, and St. Peter as well as St. James. Say no more; but when God calls, lay aside thy papers; and first dress thy soul, and then dress thy hearse.

God will afford Support.

The only source of all our consolation is God's gracious promise to help us in time of need. Engrave in the bottom of your hearts these divine sayings, When he that hath set his love upon me shall call upon me, I will answer him: I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him, Psal. xci. 15. The Lord knoweth how to deliver the godly out of temptations, 2 Pet. ii. 9. He is rich unto all that call upon him, Rom. x. 12. He is nigh unto all that call upon him, to all that call upon him in truth, Psal. cxlv. 10. He fulfils the desires of the humble, he hears their cry, ver. 19. Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all, Psal. xxxiv. 19. Call upon me, saith he, in the day of trouble, I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me, Psal. l. 15.

When a poor subject is visited and caressed by his prince in the time of his sickness, he looks upon it as a great favor, and a singular happiness. And when, in the midst of our most grievous agonies, we happen to cast our eye upon a dear friend, whom we earnestly wished to see, we are wont to say, Methinks I feel no pain, now I have the satisfaction of your company. Now the tenderness of God's love accompanies the glory of his Majesty. He is the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, 2 Cor. i. 3, 4. He is that bosom friend who loveth at all times, as it were, a brother who is born for adversity, Prov. xvii. 17. He is at once the King of Kings, and our most cordial friend.


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He enters into the house of mourning, Eccl. vii., and is nigh unto every broken heart and contrite spirit, Psalm xxxiv. 18. The lower our estate is, the more he remembereth us, Psal. cxxxvi. 23.

Notwithstanding the misbehavior of our children, we cannot bear to see them in distress, but are moved with compassion, and strive to comfort them to the best of our ability: and shall thy God, who loves thee more cordially, and with a more unalterable love than the best of fathers, or the most tender-hearted mother, forsake thee in the day of affliction? This merciful and compassionate Father, who took thee into his protection when thou camest into the world, who hath been thy God from thy mother's belly, Psal. xxii. 10, and hath administered to all thy necessities: shall he refuse thee his gracious succor in this thy utmost extremity? He who perfected praise out of thy mouth when thou didst suck at thy mother's breast, Psal. viii. 2; Matt. xxi. 16, who hath crowned thy youthful days with his divine blessings, will not cast thee off in the time of old age. He will not forsake thee in the last moments of thy life, when thy vigor is consumed, and thy strength faileth, Psalm lxxi. 9.

When we go about to assist our sick or wounded friends, we labor, by all possible means, to lessen their pain. We exert all our skill and discover our most excellent secrets; at least we endeavor to make them sensible by our officious cares, our sighs and tears, that we have a quick feeling of their anguish. Their cries and groans are so many darts or daggers that stab us to the heart. Likewise our merciful God is moved with compassion at our sufferings; when he sees us racked with cruel pains, his bowels yearn,


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his heart is turned within him, his repentings are kindled, Hosea, xi. 8, and his love towards us is inflamed afresh. In all our afflictions he is afflicted, Isa. lxiii. 9; and he that toucheth us, toucheth the apple of his eye, Zech. ii. 8. He weeps and groans for our torments, and is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, Heb. iv. 15. He binds up our bruises, and pours his balm into our wounds, Jer. xxx. He healeth the broken heart, Psalm cxlvii. 3, and causeth the broken bones to rejoice, Psalm li. 8.

Therefore my brother, or my sister, cast thyself upon God, for his power is equal to his love, and he knows better than thyself, or we can, what is proper and expedient for thee. In his due time he will cause thy pains to cease, and will take his thorn from thy flesh. Either he will drive from thee the spirit of infirmity that afflicts thee, or else he will make his strength perfect in thy weakness. He will endue thee with so much patience, arm thee with such constancy, and fill thee with such extraordinary joy and consolation, that every one shall visibly perceive that God himself is thy helper, and that his strength sustains thee. O how sweet and pleasant is God's assistance to a Christian soul! It brings with it such vast and precious delights; it causeth such undeniable testimonies of our adoption to shine forth; it gives us such a transporting earnest of our celestial inheritance, such a ravishing foretaste of paradise, that St. Paul prefers it not only to all the riches, pleasures and honors of the world, but also to his being caught up to the third heavens, where he heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter, 2 Cor. xii. 4.

If the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation


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also aboundeth by Christ, 2 Cor. i. 5. For as God commands wine to be given to him that is of a heavy heart, that he may drink and remember his misery no more, Prov. xxxi. 6,7; so he administers the most cordial and powerful consolations to the greatest evils. It is on this occasion that he displays his Almighty arm, and pours out the rich abundance of his graces. When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burnt; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, Isa. xliii. 2. For as the Son of God was in the fiery furnace, with Daniel's three companions in Babylon, Dan. iii. 25, so in the most burning fever, the most scorching pains, he will refresh thy soul, and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not, Isa. lviii. 11. Whatever flood beats against thee, whatever defluction endeavors to choke thee, thou mayest say with the royal prophet, I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved, Psal. xvi. 8. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death: though I have no help nor assistance in the world, and though there remains no more strength or vigor in the body, I will fear no evil, for thou, O God, art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me, Psal xxiii. 4.

Christ the ground of hope in death.

By the cross of Jesus Christ, we learn to put our trust in the goodness of God in our sharpest pangs, and to embrace him as our most loving Father and Redeemer, even when he seems to discover to us a countenance full


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of severity and wrath. For this eternal Son of God, in his most violent and cruel agonies, when his heavenly Father withdrew from him his aid, withheld the effects of his grace, the expressions of his love, and the comforts of his divine Spirit; yet looked upon him as his God, and prays to him with a holy assurance, repeating these pathetic words, My God! My God!

If we would die willingly, and leave these infirm bodies with a holy cheerfulness, when the time is come that we must go to the Father of spirits, we ought to remember our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, with what constancy he prepared himself for death, and with what willingness he commended his unspotted soul into the hands of God his Father, when he required it. No man taketh it from me (says he), but I lay it down of myself: I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father, John x. 18. This drew from his sacred lips these divine words, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God, Heb. x. 9; and for this reason, when he gave up the ghost, he cried with a loud voice, Luke xxiii. 46; to show that his precious soul was not taken from him by violence, but that he offered it up a willing sacrifice.

Moses' rod was changed into a serpent, as well as those of Pharaoh's magicians; but this serpent swallowed up all the others, Exod. vii. Thus the death of our Lord Jesus Christ had its fear, its sorrow, and its agony, Matt. xxvi; but his fear swallows up all our fears, and causes us to come boldly to the throne of grace; his sorrow drives away all our sorrows, and fills us with joy and eternal comfort; and his agony swells our hearts with triumph.


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The trouble and grievous conflicts of his spirit give repose and everlasting peace to our consciences. His bloody sweat dries up all our tears; his groans put an end to our groans; and his loud cries cause us to sing songs of triumph. The bands of this glorious Savior have purchased for us full liberty; and in his condemnation we are acquitted. He tasted vinegar and gall, and drank, even to the dregs, the cup of God's wrath and just vengeance, that he might give us to drink of the inexhaustible river of his delights. When he cried out, in the bitterness of his soul, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Matt. xxvii. 46; it was to the end that God should never forsake us, but, in all our distresses, should afford us his Almighty help and Fatherly assistance. He bowed his head to raise our hopes; and, finally, died to deliver them, who through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to a severe and cruel bondage, Heb. ii. 15. So that they who tremble and are afraid of the approaches of death, have not yet felt the power and virtue of the cross of Christ; they tread under foot the blood of the Son of God; and, as much as in them lies, destroy the fruit and efficacy of his blessed death.

By this time you perceive, believing soul, that death is no longer to be feared, since all its darts are broke, its arms destroyed, and all its spoils nailed to the cross of Jesus Christ. You may there behold the claws of this old lion, the paws of this devouring bear, the teeth and poison of this infernal serpent, and the head of this monstrous dragon. You may there see death swallowed up in victory, and the Prince of life leading it in triumph.


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Follow therefore the triumphal car of this glorious Redeemer, singing, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ, 1 Cor. xv. 55, 56, 57.

When the patriarch Jacob heard that his son Joseph, whom he tenderly loved, and for whom he had shed so many tears, was still alive, and governor over all the land of Egypt, he earnestly desired to see again this dear son, and to be a witness of his glory: It is enough, said he, Joseph my son is yet alive: I will go and see him before I die, Gen. xlv. 28. And you, believing souls, who hear this day, that your true Joseph, whom you passionately love, lives and reigns in heaven, where he is worshiped by all the glorified spirits, do you not ardently desire to see his face, and to behold his glory, and the magnificence of his triumph? The patriarch Jacob was feeble through age, and bowed down with sorrow, but his spirit revived when he saw the wagons which Joseph had sent to carry him; thus you, my Christian brethren, whose bodies old age or sickness hath bowed down, and whose hearts care and sorrow hath undermined, do not you find yourselves strengthened, do not you feel yourselves sensibly revived, when death draws near, and you perceive, with the eyes of faith, the horses and chariots of fire which Christ hath sent to convey you to the paradise of his glory? Joseph received his father and brethren with tears of joy, and all the house of Pharaoh rang with acclamations of gladness; with what tenderness then will Christ embrace us? What rejoicing will there be in


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heaven at your arrival? The tongues of angels alone can express a joy so unspeakable and full of glory. Joseph fed his father and his brethren, but he never imparted to them any portion of his authority and glory; whereas our Lord Jesus Christ, who excels Joseph as much in power and magnificence, as in love and compassion, shall not only feed us with the bread of his kingdom, and give us to drink of the river of his pleasures, but he will also make us partakers of his glory, and the magnificence of his empire, as he promised to his holy apostles: I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed unto me, Luke xxii. 29. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am sit down with my Father in his throne, Rev. iii. 21. Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life, Rev. ii. 10. Joseph's brethren, notwithstanding his greatness, became slaves; but Jesus Christ will place upon each of our heads a crown of pure gold. Joseph could not preserve his brethren from death; they all died one after another; and he also, in his turn, gave up the ghost; but Jesus Christ being raised from the dead, dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him, Rom. vi. 9. He is not only alive forevermore, but will likewise cause us all to become immortal. Whereas, then Jacob desired to live that he might go down into Egypt to see his son Joseph, we should ardently desire to die, that we may ascend up into heaven, there to behold our Lord Jesus Christ, who is both our Father and Redeemer. When Jacob embraced again this wonderful and beloved son, he cried out, in the transport of his joy. Now let me die, since I have seen thy face, because thou


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art yet alive: on the contrary, when we shall embrace Christ in his glory, and shall behold the light of his countenance, we shall say unto him, in a different manner, My Lord and my God, since I now see thee alive, and reigning in heaven, I shall also live and reign with thee forever and ever. Amen.

The witness of the Spirit.

Tremble not, therefore, Christian souls, nor be dismayed; for all the three persons of the most holy, most glorious, and most adorable Trinity, are engaged for your salvation and eternal happiness. The Father, by his infinite wisdom, hath found out a means to reconcile us to himself, to satisfy the rigor of his justice, and to declare the riches of his unparalleled mercies; the Son hath purchased for us this great salvation, by offering himself up a willing sacrifice upon the cross, and by shedding his most precious blood for the remission of our sins; and the Holy Spirit, by uniting us with this our High Priest, makes us partakers of the infinite merits of his sufferings. This is the true hyssop that sprinkles the divine blood of the Lamb, without spot or blemish, to the cleansing of our souls, Heb. xii. 24. It is this Spirit that gives us the white stone, wherein the new name of elect and believer is written, which no man knoweth, saving he that receiveth it, Rev. ii. 17. He gives us to eat of the hidden manna, the food of angels, which the world knoweth not, John xiv. 17. It is instead of a precious ring, by which


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our heavenly Bridegroom plights to us his conjugal faith. It is the seal of the living God, that seals to us the covenant of grace, and all the promises of glory and happiness, made to us in the gospel; as the apostle tells us, Having believed in the gospel of our salvation, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, Eph. i. 13; therefore he exhorts us, Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption, Eph. iv. 30. Finally, this is the Spirit that beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, Rom. viii. 16. 17.

Think not, Christian souls, that I intend to persuade you, that this Holy Spirit of our Lord Jesus shall come and whisper in your ear, or call unto you from within that you are the children of God, as some extravagant enthusiasts imagine. The witness that he bears with our spirits is a real and effectual witness, if I may say so; for by regenerating us, and making us become new creatures, he gives us a greater and more certain assurance of our adoption, than if he declared from heaven, Thou art my child, and thy name is written in the book of life. As the seal imprints its image in the wax, thus the Spirit of our Lord Jesus imprints in our souls the image of its holiness, and all its divine virtues. Now, as the figure that remains upon the wax enables us to pass a sure judgement, what manner of seal made the impression; so when you find the image of God engraved in your hearts, acknowledge the finger of God, and the power of his Holy Spirit; for no one can bear this blessed image, except he be the child of God. The Holy Spirit, that engraves it in our


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souls, kindles there the flames of seraphic love, and gives us tongues of fire. He causes us to speak to God with boldness, as unto our Father; and to lift up our eyes to heaven with a holy joy; as unto our inheritance.

Low attainments in piety lamented.

How then cometh my soul to be yet so low, so dark, so fond of this wretched flesh and world, and so backward to go home and dwell with Christ? Alas! a taste of heaven on earth is a mercy too precious to be cast away upon such as have long grieved and quenched the Spirit, and are not, by diligent and patient seeking, prepared to receive it. He that proclaimeth a general peace, will give peace only to the sons of peace. If, after such unkind neglects, such willful sins as I have been guilty of, I should expect to be suddenly in my Savior's arms, and to be feasted presently with the first-fruits of heaven, I should look that the Most Holy should too little manifest his hatred of my sin. My conscience remembereth the follies of my youth, and many a later odious sin; and telleth me, that if heaven were quite hid from my sight, and I should never have a glimpse of the face of glorious eternal love, it were but just. I look upward from day to day; I groan to see his pleased face, and better to know my God and my home. I cry to him daily, "My God, this little is better than all the pleasures of sin: my hopes are better than all the possessions of this world. Thy gracious looks have oft revived me, and thy mercies have


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been unmeasurable to my soul and body; but, oh, how far short am I of what even forty years ago I hoped sooner to have attained! Where is the peace that passeth understanding, that should keep my heart and mind in Christ? O where is the seeing, the longing, the rejoicing and triumphing faith? Where is that pleasant familiarity above, that should make a thought of Christ and heaven to be sweeter to me than the thoughts of friends, or health, or all the prosperity and pleasure of this world? Do those that dwell in God, and God in them, and have their hearts and conversations in heaven, attain to no more clear and satisfying perceptions of that blessed state, than I have yet attained? Is there no more acquaintance above to be here expected? No livelier sense of future joys? No sweeter foretaste? Nor fuller silencing of doubts and fears? I am not so loath to go to a friend, nor to the bed where I oft spend the night in restless pains and rolling, as I have too often been to come to thee! Alas, how many of thy servants are less afraid to go to a prison than to their God! and had rather be banished to a land of strangers, than sent to heaven! Lord, must I, that am called the child, and a heir of heaven, and a co-heir with Christ, have no more acquaintance with my glorified Lord, and no more love to thee that art my portion, before I go hence, and come before thee? Shall I have no more of the heavenly life, and light, and love? Alas! I have scarce enough in my meditations, to denominate them truly heavenly meditations: I have scarce enough in a prayer to make it indeed a heavenly prayer; or in a sermon, to make it a heavenly sermon; and shall I have no more when I come to die? Must I go hence so like


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a stranger to my home? Wilt thou take strangers into heaven, and know them as thine that do no better know thee here? O, my God, vouchsafe a sinner yet more of his Spirit, that came down on earth to call up earthly minds to God; and to open heaven to all believers! O, what do I beg for so frequently, so earnestly, for the sake of my Redeemer, as the Spirit of life and consolation, which may show me the pleased face of God, and unite all my affections to my glorified head, and draw up this dark and drowsy soul, to love and long to be with thee?

How long it is since I hoped that I had been translated from the kingdom of darkness, and delivered from the power of the prince of darkness, and brought into that light which is the entrance of the inheritance of saints; and yet, alas! darkness, darkness is still my misery! There is light round about me, in thy word and works, but darkness is within me. And if my eye be dark, the sun will be no sun to me. Alas! my Lord, it is not all the learning in the world, no not of theology that consisteth in the knowledge of words and methods, which I can take for the satisfactory heavenly light! To know what thou hast written in the sacred book, is not enough to make me know my glorified Savior, my Father, and my home. It must be a light from heaven that must show me heaven; and a light accompanied with a vital heat, that must turn to love and joy within me. O let me not have only dreaming knowledge of words and signs, but quickening light, to show the things which these words do signify, to my mind and heart! Surely the faith by which we must live, must be a living faith! and must reach further than to words, how true soever. Can faith


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live in the dark? What is it but an effect of thine illumination? What is my unbelief but the darkness of my soul? Lord Jesus scatter all these mists; make thy way, O thou Son of righteousness into this benighted mind! O send thy Advocate to silence every temptation that is against thy truth and thee, and thine agent to prosecute thy cause against thine enemies and mine, and to be the resident witness of thy verity, and my sonship and salvation. Hearing of thee is not satisfactory to me! It must be the presence and operation of thy light and love, shed abroad by thy Spirit on my heart, that must quiet and content my soul! I confess with shame that I have sinned against heaven and before thee, and am unworthy to have any glimpse or taste of heaven! but so did many that are now entertained and feasted by thy love in glory.

Society of heaven compared with that on earth.

Think here, O my soul, how sweet a state unto thee it will be to love the Lord Jesus thy glorified head with perfect love! When the glory of God which shineth in him, will feast thy love with full and everlasting pleasure: the highest created perfection of power, wisdom, and goodness, refulgent in him, will not give leave to thy love, to cease, or intermit, or abate its fervor. When thou shalt see in the glorified church the precious fruits of Christ's redemption, grace, and love, this also will feed thy love to him, from whom this heavenly glory cometh; and when thou shalt feel thyself possessed of perfect happiness, by


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his love to thee, will not this also do its part? Yea, the remembrance of all his former love; what he did for thee, and what he did in thee here on earth, how he called thee with a holy calling, how he washed thee in his blood from all thy sins, how he kindled in thee those desires which tended to that perfect glory, how he renewed thy nature, how he instructed, and guided, and preserved thee from thy childhood, and how many and how great sins, enemies, dangers, and sufferings he saved thee from, all this will constrain thee everlastingly to love him: thus, (though he give the kingdom to the Father, as ceasing his mediatory, healing, saving work of acquisition,) he will be to thee the Mediator of fruition: God in him will be accessible, and condescend to a suitable communion with us, John xvii. 24. And as Christ is thy life, radically and efficiently, as he is the giver of grace, and the spirit of love, so he will be objectively thy life as he is lovely, and it will be formally thy life to love him, and God in him forever.

Think also, O my soul, how delectable it will be to love, as well as to know those angels that most fervently love the Lord! They will be lovely to thee as they have loved thee, and more as they have been lovers and benefactors to the church and to mankind; but far more as they are so many refulgent stars which continually move and shine, and burn in purest love to their Creator. O blessed difference between that amiable society of holy spirits, and this dark, mad, distracted, wicked world! Here devils tempt me within, and devils incarnate persecute me without: blaspheming of God, reviling godliness, deriding the sacred Scriptures and sacred exercises, malignant


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slandering of the servants of God; hating, persecuting, silencing, and saying all manner of evil falsely of them, for their righteousness' sake, while such crimes are pretended as they once falsely charged on Christ himself; this is the conversation of those that I have long dwelt with in this world. Atheism, infidelity, papal church tyranny, bloody wars, destroying the righteous, oppressing the poor, adultery and fornication, stigmatizing perjury, ambition, violence, covetousness, deceit, sottish ignorance, willfulness in sin, hatred of reproof, revengeful malice; these and such like are the fruits of the soil where I have long sojourned; (though, through the grace of Christ, among the faithful there have been better fruits:) and is not the company of holy angels better than this? With whom God is all; who are even made up of shining wisdom, and holy love, and benificent [sic] activity: who are the blessed choir, that melodiously sing forth the high praises of their Maker: among whom God dwelleth as in his presence-chamber or his temple, and in whom he taketh his great delight. With these I shall see or hear no evil. No mixture of fools or wicked ones do pollute or trouble their society; there will be no false doctrine, no evil example, no favoring wickedness, no accusing goodness, no hurtful violence; but holy, powerful, operative love, will be all and do all, as their very nature, life, and work. And is it not better be a door-keeper there than to dwell in the palaces of wickedness? And is not a day with them better than a thousand here?

And with the holy angels I shall love holy souls that are made like unto them, and joined with them in the same society (and it is likely with them judge, that is,


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rule the world.) All their infirmities are there put off with the flesh; they also are spirits made up of holy life, and light and love: there is none of their former ignorance, error, imprudence, selfishness, contentiousness, impatience, or any other troubling, hurtful thing. When I think with what fervent love to God, to Jesus Christ, and to one another, they will be perfectly united there, alas! how sad and how shameful is it, that they should here be prone to disaffections and divisions, and hardly agree to call each other the servants of God, or to worship God in the same assemblies; but the remnants of dividing principles (viz., pride, error, and uncharitableness) will be all left behind. Society with imperfect saints is sweet; the imperfect image of God upon them is amiable; but their frailties here are so vexatious, that it is hard to live with some of them in peace. But perfect love will make them one; and O how delightful will that communion of saints be! I can never forget how sweet God hath made the course of my pilgrimage, by the fragrancy and usefulness of his servants' graces; how sweet have my bosom friends been, how suitable! How sweet hath the neighborhood of the godly been! How sweet hath the holy assemblies! And how many hours of comfort have I there had! How profitable have their writings, their conference, and their prayers been! What then will it be to live in the union of perfect love with perfect saints in heaven forever, and with them concordantly to love the God of love?

Desires after heaven and holiness.

So far as God maketh us willing to be delivered from sin, so far we are delivered; and our initial imperfect deliverance is the way to more. If pains then make me groan for ease, and sickness make me wish for health, why should not my remnants of ignorance, unbelief, and strangeness to God, occasion me to long for the day of my salvation? This is the greatest of all my troubles. And should it not then be the greatest wearying burden from which I should earnestly desire to be eased. As grace never doth hurt efficiently, and yet may be ill-used and do hurt objectively, as to them that are proud of it, so sin never doth good efficiently and of itself, and yet objectively may do good; for sin may be the object of grace, and so to use it is not sin. My unbelief, and darkness, and disaffection, and inordinate love of this life, do of themselves most hinder my desires of deliverance, and of a better life; but objectively, what more fit to make me weary of such a grievous state? Were my unbelief and earthly mind predominant, they would chain my affections to this world; or if I were constrainedly weary of a miserable life, I should have no comfortable hopes of a better. But as it is the nature of my sin to draw down my heart from God and glory, it is the nature of my faith, and hope, and love, to carry it upward, and to desire the heavenly perfection; not to love death, but to love that which is beyond it. And have I been so many years in the school of Christ, learning both how to live and die, begging and studying for this grace, and exercising it against this sinful flesh, and shall I now, after all, find


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flesh more powerful to draw me downward than faith, hope, and love, to carry my desires up to God?

O God forbid: O, thou that freely gavest me thy grace, maintain it to the last against its enemies, and make it finally victorious: it came from thee; it hath been preserved by thee; it is on thy side, and wholly for thee; O, let it not now fail, and be conquered by blind and base carnality, or by the temptations of a hellish conquered enemy; without it I had lived as a beast, and without it I should die more miserable than a beast. It is thine image which thou lovest; it is a divine nature and heavenly beam; what will a soul be without it, but a dungeon of darkness, a devil for malignity, and dead to holiness and heaven? Without it, who shall plead thy cause against the devil, world, and flesh? without thy glory, earth is but earth; without thy natural efficacy, it would be nothing; without thy wise and potent ordination, it would be but a chaos; and without thy grace it would be a hell. O, rather deny me the light of the sun, than the light of thy countenance! Less miserable had I been without life or being, than without thy grace.

Forsake not, then, a sinner that would not forsake thee, that looketh every hour towards thee, that feeleth it as a piece of hell to be so dark and strange unto thee, that gropeth, and groaneth, and gaspeth after thee; feeling to his greatest sorrow, (though thou art every where) that while he is present in the body, he is absent from the Lord. My Lord, I have nothing to do in this world, but to seek and serve thee; I have nothing to do with a heart and its affections, but to breathe after thee. I have nothing to do with my tongue and pen, but to speak to thee,


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and for thee, and to publish thy glory and thy will! What have I to do with all my reputation, and interest in my friends, but to increase thy church, and propagate thy holy truth and service? What have I to do with my remaining time, even these last and languishing hours, but to look up unto thee, and wait for thy grace and thy salvation? O, pardon all my carnal thoughts, and all my unthankful neglects of thy precious grace and love, and all my willful sin against thy truth and thee! and let the fuller communications of thy forfeited grace, now tell me by experience that thou dost forgive me! Even under the terrible law thou didst tell man thy very nature, by proclaiming thy name, Exod. xxxiv. 6,7. "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, and transgression and sin;" and is not the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ revealed in the gospel for our more abundant faith and consolation? My God, I know, as I cannot love thee according to thy loveliness, so I cannot trust thee according to thy faithfulness: I can never be sufficiently confident of thy all-sufficient power, thy wisdom, and thy goodness. When I have said, "Will the Lord cast off forever? and will he be favorable no more? Is his mercy clean gone forever? Doth his promise fail to generations? Hath God forgotten to be gracious? Hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Conscience hath replied, that this is my infirmity. I never wanted comfort, because thou wantedst mercy, but because I wanted faith and fitness to receive it, and perceive it. But hast thou not mercy also to give me, even that fitness and that faith? My God, all


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is of thee, and through thee, and all is to thee, and when I have the felicity, the glory of all forever will be thine. None that trusteth in thee (according to thy nature and promise) shall be ashamed: if I can live and die in trusting in thee, surely I shall not be confounded.

A confident hope.

"I will hope in the Lord, for with him there is mercy and plenteous redemption." "For he taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy." Psalm lxxviii. v. 7; cxix. 49; cxxx. 3, 4, 5, 7; cxlvii. 11. Though flesh and heart fail, the Lord is the rock of my heart; he is my portion, saith my soul, therefore will I hope in him. The Lord is good to them that wait for him; to the soul that seeketh him. It is good that I should both hope, and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for me that I have borne the yoke in my youth, and that I keep silence and put my mouth in the dust, if so be there may be hope, Psalm lxxiii. 26; Lam. iii. 24, 25, 26, 27, 29.

God need not flatter such worms as we, nor promise us that which he never meaneth to perform. He hath laid the rudiments of our hope, in a nature capable of desiring, seeking, and thinking of another life. He hath called me by grace to actual desires and endeavors; and some foretastes he hath vouchsafed. I look for no heaven, but the perfection of divine life, light, and love, in endless glory with Christ and his holy ones. And this he hath


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begun in me already. And shall I not boldly hope, when I have the capacity, the promise, and the earnest, and foretaste? Is it not God himself that hath caused me to hope? Was not nature, promise, and grace from him? And can a soul miscarry and be deceived, that departeth hence in a hope of God's own causing and encouraging? Lord, I have lived in hope; I have prayed in hope; I have labored, suffered, and waited in hope; and by thy grace I will die in hope! And is not this according to thy word and will? And wilt thou cast away a soul that hopeth in thee by thine own command and operation? Had wealth, and honor, and continuance on earth, or the favor of man, been my reward and hope, my hope and I had died together. Were this our best, how vain were man! But the Lord liveth, and my Redeemer is glorified and intercedeth for me! And the same Spirit is in heaven who is in my heart; as the same sun is in the firmament which is in my house: and the promise is sure to all Christ's seed: and millions are now in heaven, that once did live and die in hope; they were sinners once, as now I am; they had no other Savior, no other sanctifier, no other promise than I now have: confessing that they were strangers here, they looked for a better country, and for a city that had foundations, even a heavenly; where now they are. And shall I not follow them in hope that have sped so well? Hope then, O my soul, unto the end, 1 Pet. i. 13; from henceforth and forever hope in the Lord. I will hope continually, and will yet praise thee more and more: my mouth shall show forth thy righteousness and salvation. The Lord is at my right hand, I shall not be moved: my heart therefore is glad, and my


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glory rejoiceth; my flesh also shall dwell confidently and rest in hope, for God hath showed me the path of life; in his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore, Psalm cxxxi. 3; lxxi. 14, 15; xvi. 8-11.

What then remaineth, O my soul, but that in trust and hope thou love thy God, thy Savior, thy Comforter, the glorious society, thy own perfection in glorious, endless, heavenly life, and light, and love, and the joyful praises of Jehovah, better than this burden of painful and corruptible flesh, and this howling wilderness, the habitation of serpents and untamed brutes, where unbelief and murmuring, lust and folly, injustice and uncharitableness, tyranny and divisions, pride and contention, have long provoked God and wearied thee? Where the vintage and harvest is thorns and thistles, sin and sorrows, cares and crosses, manured by manifold temptations! How odious is that darkness and unbelief, that unholiness and disaffection, that deadness and stupidity, which maketh such a work as this, so reasonable, necessary, and pleasant a work, to seem unsuitable or hard! Is it unsuitable or hard to the eye to see the sun and light? or by it to see the beautified world? or for a man to love his life or health, his father or his friend? What should be easier to a nature that hath rational love, than to love him that is essential love itself. He that loveth all, and giveth to all the loving faculty, should be loved by all. And he that hath specially loved me should be specially loved by me!

Earth contrasted with heaven.

Should I not love a lovely and a loving world much better than a world where there is comparatively so little loveliness or love? All that is of God is good and lovely; but it is not here that his glory shineth in felicitating splendor. I am taught to look upward when I pray, and to say, "Our Father which art in heaven." God's works are amiable even in hell; and yet though I would know them, I would not be there. And, alas! how much of the works of man are mixed here with the works of God! Here is God's wisdom manifest, but here is man's obstinate folly; here is God's government, but here is man's tyranny and unruliness. Here is God's love and mercies, but here are men's malice, wrath, and cruelty; by which they are worse to one another than wolves or tigers, de-populating countries, and filling the world with bloodshed, famine, misery, and lamentations; proud tyrants being worse than raging plagues, which made David choose the pestilence before his enemies' pursuit. Here is much of God's beauteous order and harmony; but here is also much of man's madness, deformity, and confusion. Here is much historical truth, and some civil and ecclesiastic justice; but, alas! with how much odious falsehood and injustice is it mixed! Here is much precious theological verity; but how dark is much of it to such blind, and negligent, and corrupted minds as every where abound.

This is the world which standeth in competition for my love, with the spiritual blessed world. Much of God's mercies and comforts I have here had; but their sweetness was their taste of divine love, and their tendency to


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heavenly perfection. What was the end and use of all the good that ever I saw, or that ever God did for my soul or body, but to teach me to love him, and to long for more? How many weaning experiences? How many thousand bitter or contemning thoughts have I had of all the glory and pleasures of this world! How many thousand love-tokens from God have called me to believe and taste his goodness! Wherever I go, and which way so-ever I look, I see vanity and vexation written upon all things in this world, so far as they stand in competition with God, and would be the end and portion of a fleshy mind: and I see holiness to the Lord written upon every thing, so far as it declareth God, and leadeth me to him as my ultimate end. God hath not for nothing engaged in a war against this world, and commanded me to take and use it as mine enemy: the emptiness, dangerousness, and bitterness of the world, and the all-sufficiency, trustiness, and goodness of God have been the sum of all the experiences of my life. And shall a worldly backward heart overcome the teachings of nature, Scripture, the Spirit of grace, and all experience? Far be it from me!

The suitableness of things below to my fleshy nature, hath detained my affections too much on earth! And shall not the suitableness of things above to my spiritual nature, much more draw up my love to heaven. There is the God whom I have sought and served; he is also here, but veiled, and but little known: but there he shineth to heavenly spirits in heavenly glory. There is the Savior in whom I have believed; he hath also dwelt in flesh on earth; but clothed in such meanness, and humbled to such a life and death, as was to the Jews a stumbling-block,


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and to the Gentiles matter of reproach; but he shineth and reigneth now in glory, above the malice and contempt of sinners. And I shall there live because he liveth; and in his light I shall have light. He loved me here with a redeeming, regenerating, and preserving love; but there he will love me with a perfecting, glorifying, joyful love. I had here some rays of heavenly light; but interpositions caused eclipses and nights, yea, some long and winter nights; but there I shall dwell in the city of the sun, the city of God, the heavenly Jerusalem, where there is no night, eclipse, or darkness!

Love the great attraction of heaven.

What is heaven to me, but God? God who is life, and light, and love, communicating himself to blessed spirits, perfecting them in the reception, possession, and exercise of life, and light, and love forever. These are not the accidents, but the essence of that God who is in heaven and all to me; should I fear that death which passeth me to infinite essential life? Should I fear a darksome passage into a world of perfect light? Should I fear to go to love itself? Think, O my soul, what the sun's quickening light and heat is to this lower corporeal world! Much more is God, even infinite life and light, and love to the blessed world above. Doth it not draw out thy desires to think of going into a world of love? When love will be our region, our company, our life: more to us than the air is for our breath, than the light is for our


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sight, than our food is for our life, than our friends are for our solace, and more to us than we are to ourselves, and we more for it as our ultimate end, than for ourselves! O, excellent grace of faith, which doth foresee, and blessed word of faith, that doth foreshow, this world of love! Shall I fear to enter where there is no wrath, no fear, no strangeness, nor suspicion, nor selfish separation, but love will make every holy spirit as dear and lovely to me as myself, and me to them as lovely as themselves, and God to us all more amiable than ourselves and all: where love will have no defects or distances, no damps or discouragements, no discontinuance or mixed disaffection; but as life will be without death, and light without darkness, (a perfect everlasting day of glory,) so will love be without any hatred, unkindness, or alloy.

Nature of heavenly happiness.

Expect not, therefore, Christian souls, to meet in heaven with a paradise resembling your gardens; nor with flowers like those that enamel and adorn your parterres; nor with fruits like to them that hang upon your trees: assure yourselves that God will show you things infinitely more pleasing and delightful, and more permanent. Fancy not to find there a city built like ours, which shall really be enriched with silver and gold, pearls and precious stones; but hope for something more noble and magnificent, than all the richest and most stately cities in the world, where God will cause you to see, not only the beauty of silver, the purity of gold, the whiteness of


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pearls and the bright lustre of precious stones, but also, something far more beautiful and pure, a more perfect white, a greater brightness, and a more ravishing lustre. Think not to receive any material crown, or to sit upon thrones like to those of the kings and princes of the earth, but aspire after something more glorious, and which cannot be shaken.

I am also persuaded, Christian friends, that you expect not in heaven to find tables covered as those of the rich men of the world, nor to pamper yourselves with feasts like those prepared for the nuptials of earthly princes. Without doubt your faith hath in view something more glorious and magnificent; your soul hungers for more exquisite meats, and thirsts for more delicious drinks; you are too well instructed to think to live in heaven an animal and sensual life; such a gross and carnal conceit is only fit for the imaginary paradise of the impostor Mahomet.

You see, therefore, Christian souls, to what an exalted state of glory and happiness we have a right to pretend. For in heaven, God will not only make us shine forth as the sun and stars, and clothe us with the brightness of the glorified saints and angels; but he also promises to make us like to himself. He shall not only satisfy us with the fatness of his house, cause us to drink of the rivers of his pleasures, fill us with his riches, enlighten us with his brightness, clothe us with his honors, and crown us with his glory; but he himself will become our meat and our drink, our treasure, our sun and our glory; and if I may so speak, to satisfy and make us completely happy, God will, as it were, dissolve himself into rivers and seas


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of divine and unspeakable pleasures. But that I may not be misunderstood by to bold a metaphor, it shall suffice me to say with St. Paul, That God will be all in all, 1 Cor. xv. 28, that is to say, he will dwell and make his abode in us, in respect to his essence; and will cause us to feel in us his glorious presence, in as great a measure as a finite and limited nature, such as ours, is capable of. What the Jews fabled concerning the manna, which their fathers fed on in the wilderness, may be justly applied to Almighty God, as he intends to communicate himself to us in heaven. There is no taste, but shall be satisfied, no desire, but shall be fulfilled: nay, we may go farther, for he shall not only be our meat and our drink, but, as we have already observed, our light, and our clothing, and all that we can ask or imagine. In a word, we shall enjoy in him beyond all that we can think or desire.

The knowledge of spiritual and heavenly things, which we attain to here below, is like the light at day-break; but that which we shall enjoy hereafter, shall be like that of the sun, when it shines in its full strength; or to speak in the words of the apostle, Now we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. For now we see through a glass darkly, but then face to face, 1 Cor. xiii. 9, 10, 12. Whilst we continue in this life, God discovers to us only the skirts of his wisdom, and but a little portion is heard of him, Job xxvi. 14. But in the life to come, he shall reveal to us the depth of his glorious mysteries, which the angels desire to look into, 1 Pet. i. 12, and shall be to our understandings as a sun, to chase away all mists, and to enlighten them for ever.


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At present, our will hath its imperfections, and oftentimes rebels against God; but then it shall be perfectly sanctified and reformed, according to the image of God. It shall be inflamed with his zeal, and burn with his charity. It shall sigh after nothing but his glory, and wish for nothing but a conformity to his holy will. It shall not only obey him without resistance or reluctance, but shall fly with a sacred ardor, and be all on fire, to execute his divine commands. Whilst we remain in the fetters of this infirm and sinful flesh, there is always some filth and impurity in our affections; but when we shall come to the state of glory, God will sanctify them in such a manner by his presence, that they shall be more pure than the stars or the sun-beams; they shall be nothing but celestial fires, and flames of divine love, proceeding from the face of God himself. In a word this being of beings, who is perfection itself, this origin of all beauty, this object so exceedingly glorious and lovely, shall ravish us in such a manner, that our understanding shall be continually employed in beholding him; our wills and affections in loving and embracing him; and all the faculties of our souls in uniting ourselves to him, and being transformed into his likeness.

Nature of future Punishment.

But come at length it will, when Revenge shall array herself to go forth, and Anguish shall attend her, and from the wheels of their chariot ruin and dismay shall shoot far and wide among the enemies of the king, whose


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desolation shall not tarry, and whose destruction, as the wing of the whirlwind, shall be swift--hopeless as the conclusion of eternity and the reversion of doom. Then around the fiery concave of the wasteful pit the clang of grief shall ring, and the flinty heart which repelled tender mercy shall strike its fangs into its proper bosom; and the soft and gentle spirit which dissolved in voluptuous pleasures, shall dissolve in weeping sorrows and out-bursting lamentations; and the gay glory of time shall depart; and sportful liberty shall be bound forever in the chain of obdurate necessity. The green earth with all her blooming beauty and bowers of peace shall depart. The morning and evening salutations of kinsmen shall depart, and the ever welcome voice of friendship, and the tender whispering of full-hearted affection, shall depart, for the sad discord of weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth. And the tender names of children, and father and mother, and wife and husband, with the communion of domestic love and mutual affection, and the inward touches of natural instinct, which family compact, when uninvaded by discord, wraps the live-long day into one swell of tender emotion, making earth's lowly scenes worthy of heaven itself--All, all shall pass away; and instead shall come the level lake that burneth, and the solitary dungeon and the desolate bosom, and the throes and tossings of horror and hopelessness, and the worm that dieth not and the fire that is not quenched.

Hell, therefore, is not to be despised, like a sick bed, if any of you be so hardy as to despise a sick bed. There are no comforting kindred, no physician's aid no hope of recovery, no melancholy relief of death, no sustenance


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of grace. It is no work of earthly torture or execution, with a good cause to suffer in, and a beholding world or posterity to look on, a good conscience to approve, perhaps scornful words to revenge cruel actions, and the constant play of resolution or study of revenge. It is no struggle of mind against its material envelopments and worldly ills, like stoicism, which was the sentiment of virtue nobly downbearing the sense of pain. I cannot render it to fancy, but I can render it to fear. Why may it not be the agony of all diseases the body is susceptible of, with the anguish of all deranged conceptions and disordered feelings, stinging recollections, present remorses, bursting indignations, with nothing but ourselves to burst on, dismal prospects, fearful certainties, fury, folly, and despair.

It is most manifest to any one coolly considering in his own bosom, that if he were to give a license to the evil that is within him, to the suggestions of malice, and lust, and passion, he would become hateful to himself and horrible to all around. If the fear of God were cast away, and the fear of man; if the rewards that attend honesty, and chastity, and peace, were no longer known; if one, in short, had nothing to lose in life, no death, and no retribution after death staring him in the face, the lengths to which he would proceed are shocking to reflect upon.

Now this is precisely the state of things in the nether world. There is no hope, there is no end, there are no good beings to hold the balance against evil, and there is no restraining providence of God. Were there nothing more, I hold this to be enough to constitute the hottest, cruelest hell. I ask no elemental fire, no furnace of living


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flames, no tormenting demons, nothing but a congregation of the wicked, in the wicked state in which they died and appeared at the tribunal, driven together into one settlement, to make the best or the worst of it they can. Let every man arise in his proper likeness, clothed in his proper nature, which he did not choose to put off, but to die with; let beauty arise with the same pure tints which death did nip, and wit with all its flashes and knowledge, with all its powers and policy, with all its address; let the generations of the unrighteous gather together;--and because of their possessing none of the qualities which God approves in his volume, nor caring to possess them, let them be shipped across the impassable gulf to some planet of their own, to carry on their several intrigues and indulgencies for ever;--then here were a hell, which neither fire nor brimstone, nor gnawing worm, are able to represent. For, observe, it is such only in whom godliness could take no root that were transported thither, in whom selfishness carried it over benevolence, lust over self-control, interest over duty, the devil over God; and that in a world where hope and encouragement were all thrown into the good scale.

Hitherto I have supposed things no otherwise conditioned than they are here on earth. But what, if the ground should be doubly accursed for their sakes? What, if the body should be liable to tenfold racking pains; what, if the eye should look only upon unsightly things, and the ear should lose its faculty of tasting melody--or, perceiving it, should be invaded with restless, dunning noises; what, if the sun should smite with tropic fires, and suffocating winds whirl the miserable natives to and fro: what,


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if the realities of all that is threatened should come to pass, and the mighty devils become our masters, and we their thralls, to be used and misused as their beasts of labor; what, if God should put forth his power, and give the wicked who set him at naught, their habitation upon some burning star or fiery comet, to live like the salamander in everlasting fire?--What, if all that Dante and Milton and Tasso have imagined in their several hells--the physical torments of the one, the mental anguish of the other, the deformed, filthy, obscene forms of the third--should concur; and the imagined picture of Belial be realized! That the wicked

Duration of future Punishment.

These are the punishments of condemned souls. It remains only that we consider the length and duration of them. But by what means, my brethren, shall we describe these profound articles of contemplation? Can we number the innumerable, and measure that, which is beyond all mensuration? Can we make you comprehend the incomprehensible? And shall we amuse you with our imaginations.

[GAP IN TEXT. Type: . Extent: ]

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for ever in all its glory. What though the several senses suffer decay, and the eyes in particular will soon be closed, no more to behold the light below? Grieve not at this, inasmuch as these eyes will be formed anew with additional beauty, and with them thou wilt behold the king in his glory, and behold him for thyself; or as the Psalmist expresses the same thing, behold his face in righteousness. The ears now, it may be, are almost deaf, and will soon be entirely stopped, but hereafter they shall hear, with everlasting delight, the harmonious songs of saints and of angels. The tongue, which now faulters through weakness, and in a little time will speak no more, shall then be formed anew, and tuned for praise, joining in the melodious hallelujahs of the blessed above. The hands, now weak, shall then be made strong to receive, and for ever retain, immortal palms of victory. With the feeble feet, now scarce sufficient to support the body, thou wilt then follow the Lamb to the realms of glory, and travel the streets of the heavenly Jerusalem. In a word, the whole body, though laid in the grave, and turned into dust, shall then arise, and shine as the sun in the firmament, and in its fullest splendor.

What hath the Christian to desire more? At death, the soul goes to God, to Christ, to angels, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to share in their felicities. The body indeed is lodged in the grave; but here it will be attended with a quiet repose, at the end of which it shall rise again. The Lord will publish the grand jubilee, the prisons of death will all be opened, and the prisoners set free. The trumpet shall sound, and the dead in Christ be raised incorruptible, immortal and glorious. The Christian


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may humbly say, My heart is glad, my glory (or tongue) rejoiceth; my flesh also shall rest in hope; for the Lord will not leave it always in the grave, or suffer it to abide under the power of corruption; he will show me the path of life, and admit me to his presence, where there is fulness of joy and pleasure for evermore, Psal. xvi. 9, 10, 11.

Then let not the actual, and sensible approach of death disturb the quiet of thy mind, shake thy faith and confidence in God, or drive thee from hope, that anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast, since it is fixed in heaven, where Jesus as the forerunner is for thee entered. Comfort thyself with the words of holy Job, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though, after my skin, worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another, though my reins be consumed within me, Job xix. 25, 26, 27. And with the words of St. Paul, We look for the Savior, from heaven, even the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things to himself, Phil. iii. 20,21.

The future residence of the righteous.

The approach of Death to the Christian.

The period is now come when we must summon all the fortitude of the rational being, all the resignation of the Christian. The principles we have been learning must now be made practical. The speculations we have admired we must now realize. All that we have been studying was in order to furnish materials for this grand exigence.--All the strength we have been collecting must now be brought into action. We must now draw to a point all the scattered arguments, all the several motives, all the individual supports, all the cheering promises of religion. We must exemplify all the rules we have given to others; we must embody all the resolutions we have formed for ourselves; we must reduce our precepts to experience; we must pass from discourses on submission to its exercise; from dissertations on suffering to sustaining it. We must heroically call up the determinations of our better days. We must recollect what we have said of the supports of faith and hope when our strength was in full vigor, when our heart was at ease, and our mind undisturbed. Let us collect all that remains to us of mental strength. Let us implore the aid of holy hope and fervent faith, to show that religion is not a beautiful theory, but a soul-sustaining truth.

He who is brought to serious reflection by the salutary affliction of a sick bed, will look back with astonishment on his former false estimate of worldly things. Riches! Beauty! Pleasure! Genius! Fame!--What are they in the eyes of the sick and the dying?

R ICHES ! These are so far from affording him a moment's


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ease, that it will be well if no former misapplication of them aggravate his present pains. He feels as if he only wished to live that he might henceforth dedicate them to the purposes for which they were given.

B EAUTY ! What is beauty, he cries, as he considers his own sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, and pallid countenance. He acknowledges with the Psalmist, that the consuming of beauty is "the rebuke with which the Almighty corrects man for sin."

G ENIUS ! What is it? Without religion, genius is only a lamp on this gate of a palace. It may serve to cast a gleam of light on those without, while the inhabitant sits in darkness.

P LEASURE ! That has not left a trace behind it. "It died in the birth, and is not therefore worthy to come into the bill of Mortality."

F AME ! Of this his very soul acknowledges the emptiness. He is astonished how he could ever be so infatuated as to run after a sound, to court a breath, to pursue a shadow, to embrace a cloud. Augustus, asking his friends as they surrounded his dying bed, if he had acted his part well, on their answering in the affirmative, cried plaudite. But the acclamations of the whole universe would rather mock than sooth the dying Christian if unsanctioned by the hope of the divine approbation. He now rates at its just value that fame which was so often eclipsed by envy, and which will be so soon forgotten in death. He has no ambition left but for heaven, where there will be neither envy, death, nor forgetfulness.

The power of distinguishing objects increases with our approach to them. The Christian feels that he is entering


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on a state where every care will cease, every fear vanish, every desire be fulfilled, every sin be done away, every grace perfected: where there will be no more temptations to resist, no more passions to subdue, no more insensibility to mercies, no more deadness in service, no more wandering in prayer, no more sorrows to be left for himself, no tears to be shed for others. He is going where his devotion will be without languor, his love without alloy, his doubts certainty, his expectation enjoyment, his hope fruition. All will be perfect, for God will be all in all.

As he approaches the land of realities, the shadows of this earth cease to interest or mislead him. The films are removed from his eyes. Objects are stripped of their false luster. Nothing that is really little any longer looks great. The mists of vanity are dispersed. Everything which is to have an end appears small, appears nothing. Eternal things assume their proper magnitude, for he beholds them in the true point of vision. He has ceased to lean on the world, for he has found it both a reed and a spear; it has failed and it has pierced him. He leans not on himself, for he has long known his weakness. He leans not on his virtues, for they can do nothing for him. Had he no better refuge he feels that his sun would set in darkness; his life close in despair.

But he knows in whom he has trusted, and therefore knows not what he should fear.--He looks upward with holy but humble confidence to that great Shepherd, who having long since conducted him into green pastures,--having by his rod corrected, and by his staff supported him, will, he humbly trusts, guide him through the dark


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valley of the shadow of death, and safely land him on the peaceful shores of everlasting rest.

A Christian family in Heaven.

1. The enjoyments and occupations of heaven are uniformly represented as social: but where is the charm of society without mutual knowledge?

2. Heaven is uniformly represented as perfecting all our faculties; is it then probable that it will diminish memory, one of the most important of them? And if memory be still retained in full vigor, and it be perpetually employed, as it inevitably must be, on the past scenes of our earthly existence, is it likely that the friends and companions of that existence, inhabiting then the same celestial world with us, will be unknown to us?

3. The chief grace that will be increased in the regions of the blest, next to love to God, will be love to our companions in glory. But will not one of the most pure, elevated, and delightful exercises of this holy passion be wanting, if we are ignorant of our glorified relatives?

4. In the general judgment, which is appointed to vindicate the ways of God to man, it is nearly certain that individuals will be known to each other; and if this be the case, is it likely that their mutual knowledge will be immediately obliterated?

5. Is it likely that individuals whose names and labors bear such a close and extensive connection with the redemption and history of the church, as those of the


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prophets and apostles, will be unknown? And if they are known, may it not be inferred that others will be?

6. During our Savior's abode upon earth, he afforded to the three favored disciples a glimpse of the heavenly glory: he himself was transfigured, and Moses and Elias descended in celestial brilliancy. These two eminent servants of God were known by the astonished apostles; and if known on Mount Tabor, is it not likely they will be known in the New Jerusalem?

7. Our Savior, in one of the most impressive of his parables, represents the rich man in torments, as knowing Lazarus and Abraham in glory: now, though it be a parable, and though the whole scenery of a parable is not to be considered as conveying some moral sentiment, yet certainly nothing materially and obviously at variance with the truth is ever taught by even the appendages of the chief parabolic idea.

8. We find the apostle Paul very frequently consoling himself under the sufferings and persecutions which he had to endure, by the prospect of meeting in heaven those who had been converted by his ministry on earth. His address to the believing Thessalonians is especially in point. "What is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing? Are not even ye in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, at his coming?" I do not see how these Christians could be Paul's crown of rejoicing in that day, if they were not known to him.

These are some of the reasons which lead me to suppose that in heaven the saints will know each other.

Assuming then the fact, that saints will know each other in the celestial state, let us imagine, my dear children,


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if indeed the imagination is equal to the effort, what must be the joy attendant on the final meeting of a pious family in heaven. One of the most exquisite delights which we ever experience on earth, is the enjoyment which springs from the first interview with a friend from whom we have been separated; and this delight is in proportion to the length of time, and greatness of distance, and magnitude of danger, which have intervened between the separation and the meeting. What language can describe the thrill of transport, the almost agony of rapture, which the wife experiences in that moment when she receives a husband back again to her arms, who has been away from home for months, who has been separated from her by half the circumference of the globe, and threatened to be torn from her forever, by the dangers of shipwreck or of battle! Or who shall set forth that scene of domestic bliss which is exhibited when the sailor-boy, after having been absent for years, returns from the dangers of the sea, and the horrors of captivity, to the bosom of his family, and exchanges extatic greetings with his parents, and his sisters, and his brothers, till all seem ready to dissolve with excess of joy? What then must be the meeting of these same relatives in heaven, after having been separated by worlds and ages: that meeting when a mother receives her children to the skies from this degenerate earth, and the father hails his offspring from the world of death to the region of life and immortality! Here imagination confesses its weakness. It is a scene we have never witnessed ourselves; nor have we ever conversed with one who has. My heart, while I write, seems to beat quicker at the thought; and the very anticipation, my dear children,


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raises a commotion of pleasurable feelings in my bosom, which no words could enable me to express.

In this state, amidst all this glory, honor, and felicity, it is my sincere desire, my ardent prayer, my constant endeavor, my supreme pursuit, that your journey, my dear children, and my own, should terminate. Every thing else appears, in comparison of this, as nothing. In the view of this, thrones lose their elevation, crowns their splendor, riches their value, and fame its glory; before the effulgence and magnitude of celestial objects, their grandeur dwindles to an invisible point, and their brightness is but as the shadow of death. Did we not know the depravity of our nature, and that the natural man knoweth not these things, because they are spiritually discerned, we must indeed wonder, and inquire what bewildering influence it is, that is exerted upon the human mind, by which its attention is so fatally diverted from things unseen and eternal, to the shadowy and evanescent form of things seen and temporal. It is only on this ground that we can account for the folly, the madness of neglecting the great salvation, and seeking anything in preference to eternal glory. Dreadful madness! which, though it indulges in the miscalculations of insanity, has none of its excuses. What but this moral insanity could lead men for any object upon earth, to neglect the pursuit, and resign the hope of eternal life?

My children! my children! whom I love with an affection which can be equalled only by that solicitude for your welfare to which it has given rise, and which never sleeps nor rests, receive my admonition, and make eternal happiness the end of your existence. Look at that heaven,


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which, though but partially revealed, is revealed with such pure brightness on the page of eternal truth, "on the description of which, so to speak, the Holy Ghost employs and exhausts the whole force and splendor of inspiration;" look at it, that state of inconceivable, infinite eternal honor and bliss, and is there aught on earth, aught of pleasure or of gain, for which you will deliberately resign that crown of unfading glory?

May it be granted me to see you choosing the way of wisdom and piety, and remembering your Creator in the days of your youth: giving to all your virtues that stability and beauty which can be derived only from religion; first receiving by faith, and then adorning by holiness, the doctrine of God your Savior.--Then will my highest ambition, as a parent, be gratified, my most painful solicitude relieved. I shall watch your progress amidst the vicissitudes of life, with a calm and tranquil mind, assured that your piety will be your protector amidst the dangers of prosperity; or your comforter amidst the ills of adversity. If called to follow your bier, and weep upon your sepulcher, I shall only consider you as sent forward on the road to await my arrival at your Father's house; or if called, according to the order of nature, to go down first into the dark valley of the shadow of death, I shall find the agonies of separation assuaged, and the gloom of the dying chamber irradiated by those bright visions of glory, which connect themselves with the prospect of the meeting of a pious family in the heavenly world.

Faith.