Wouldft thou defert Chrift now, to protract a poor, miferable life on earth? If the word of God be true, if the fayings of Christ be fealed and faithful, this fhall be the portion of the apoftate. It is an eafy thing to stop the mouth of confcience now, but will it be eafy to ftop the mouth of the Judge then? Thus keep thy heart, that it depart not from the living God.

Seafon 12. The twelfth feafon of looking diligently to our hearts, and keeping them with greatest care, is the time of fickness: When a child of God draws nigh to eternity, when there are but a few • fands more in the upper part of his glass to run down; now Satan bufily beftirs himfelf; of him it may be faid, as of the natural ferpent, nunquam nifi moriens producitur in longum; he is never feen at his full length till dying: And now his great design, fince he cannot win the foul from God, is to difcourage, and make it unwilling to go to God, though the gracious foul, with Jacob, fhould then rouse up itself upon a dying bed, and rejoice that the marriage-day of the Lamb is now almost come; though it should then fay, with dying Austin, vivere renuo ut Chrifto vivam; I defpife life to be with Chrift. Or as dying Milius, when one afked hini, whether he were willing to die? O faid he, illius eft nolle mori, qui nolit ire ad • Chriftum; let him be unwilling to die who is unwilling to go to Christ. But O! what shrinking from death? What lothness to depart, may fometimes (indeed too frequently) be obferved in the ⚫ people of God? How loth are fome of them to take death by the ⚫ cold hand? If fuch a liberty were indulged to us, not to be diffolved till we diffolve ourselves; when should we fay with St Paul, "I defire to be diffolved?" Well then, the laft cafe fhall be this. Cafe 12. How the people of God, in times of sickness, may get their hearts loose from all earthly engagements, and perfuade them into a willingness to die.

And there are feven arguments, which I fhall urge upon the people of God at fuch a time as this, to make them cheerfully entertain the meffengers of death, and die as well as live, like faints. And the firft is this:

Argument 1. Firft, The harmleness of death to the people of God. Though it keep its dart, it hath loft its fting: A faint (to allude to that, Ifa xi. 8.) "May play upon the hole of the afp, and put his "band into the cockatrice's den." Death is the cockatrice, or afp, the grave is his hole or den; a faint need not fear to put his hand boldly into it: It hath left and loft its fting in the fides of Chrift, 1 Cor. xv. 55. "O death! where is thy fting?" Why art thou afraid, O faint, that this fickness may be thy death, as long as thou knoweft that the death of Chrift is the death of death? Indeed, if thou didst die in thy fins, as John viii. 21. if death, as a king, did reign over thee, Rom. v. 14. If it could feed upon thee, as the lion doth upon the prey he hath taken, as Pfalm xlix. 14. If " hell fol"lowed the pale horfe," as it is, Rev. vi. 8. then thou mightest well

ftartle and fhrink back from it; but when God hath put away thy fins from thee," as far as the eaft is from the weft," Pfal. ciii. 12. as long as there is no other evil left in death for thee to encounter with but bodily pain; as long as the fcriptures reprefent it to thee under fuch harmlefs and eafy notions, as the putting off thy clothes, 2 Cor. v. 2. "And lying down to fleep upon thy bed," Ifa. lvii. 2. Why shouldst thou be afraid? There is as much difference betwixt death to the people of God, and others, as betwixt the unicorn's horn, when it is upon the head of that fierce beaft, and when it is in the apothe cary's fhops, where it is made falubrious and medicinal.

Arg. 2. Thy heart may be kept from shrinking back at fuch a time as this, by confidering the neceffity of death, in order to the full fruition of God.

Whether thou art willing to die or no, I affure thee there is no other way to obtain the full fatisfaction of thy foul, and complete its happiness; till the hand of death do thee the kind office to draw afide the curtain of the flesh, thy foul cannot fee God: This animal life ftands betwixt him and thee, 2 Cor. v. 6. « Whilft we are at home "in the body, we are abfent from the Lord." Thy body muft be refined and caft into a new mould, elfe that new wine of heavenly glory would break it. Paul, in his highest rapture, 2 Cor. xii. 4. when he heard things unutterable, was then but as a stander-by, a looker-on, not admitted into the company as one of them; but as the angels are in our affemblies, fo was Paul in that glorious affembly above, and no otherwife; and yet even for this he muft, as it were, be taken out of the body, unclothed for a little time, to have a glimpse of that glory, and then put on his clothes again. O then! who would not be willing to die for a full fight and enjoyment of God? Methinks thy foul fhould look and figh, like a prifoner, through the grates of this mortality; "O that I had wings like a dove, then would "I fly away, and be at reft:" Moft men need patience to die, but a faint that understands what death admits him to, fhould rather need patience to live; methinks he should often look out, and liften on a death-bed for his Lord's coming; and when he receives the news of his approaching change, should say, "The voice of my beloved! be"hold, he cometh leaping over the mountains, fkipping upon the "hills," Cant. ii. 8.1

Arg. 3. Another argument perfuading to this willingness, is the immediate fucceffion of a more excellent and glorious life.

It is but a wink, and you fhall fee God: Your happiness shall not be deferred till the refurrection; but as foon as the body is dead, the gracious foul is fwallowed up in life, Rom. viii. 10, 11. When once you have loofed from this fhore, in a few moments, your fouls will be wafted over upon the wings of angels to the other fhore of a glorious eternity. Phil. i. 23. "I defire to be diffolved, and to be with "Chrift." Did the foul and body die together, as Berilius taught; VOL. V. 3 R

or did they fleep till the refurrection, as others have groundlessly fancied; it had been a madnefs for Paul to defire a diffolution for the enjoyment of Chrift: For if this were fo, he enjoyed more of Chrift whilft his foul dwelt in its fleshly tabernacle, than he should out of it.

There are but two ways of the foul's living, known in fcripture, viz. the life of faith, and the life of vifion, 1 Cor. v. 5. Thofe two divideth all time, both present and future, betwixt them, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. If when faith fails, fight fhould not immediately fucceed, what would become of the unbodied foul? But bleffed be God, this great heart-establishing truth is evidently revealed in fcripture, Luke xxiii. 43. You have Chrift's promife, John xiv. 3. "I will come and re"ceive you to myself." O what a change will a few moments make upon your condition? Roufe up, dying faint; when thy foul is come out a little further; when it fhall ftand like Abraham at its tent-door, the angels of God fhall foon be with it: the fouls of the elect are, as it were, put out to the angels to nurse, and when they die, thefe angels carry them home again to their Father's houfe: if an angel were caused to fly fwiftly to bring a faint the anfwer of his prayer, Dan. ix. 22. how much more will the angels come poft from heaven to receive and transfer the praying foul itfelf?

Arg. 4. Farther, It may much conduce to thy willingness to die, to confider, that by death, God oftentimes hides his people out of the way of all temptations and troubles upon earth, Rev. xiv. 13. "Write, "from henceforth, Bleffed are the dead which die in the Lord." It is God's ufual way, when fome extraordinary calamities are coming upon the world, to fet his people out of harm's way before-hand, Ifa. lvii. I. "Merciful men are taken away from the evil to come." So Mic. vii. 2. when fuch an evil time comes as is there defcribed, "That they all ly in wait for blood, and every man hunts his brother "with a net:" God, by an act of favour, houses his people beforehand. Doft thou know what evil may be in the earth, which thou art fo loth to leave? Thy God removes thee for thy great advantage; thou art disbanded by death, and called off the field; other poor faints must stand to it, and endure a great fight of afflictions.

It is obferved that Methufelah died the very year before the flood; Auguftine, a little before the facking of Hippo; Pareus, juft before the taking of Heidelburgh: Luther obferves, that all the apoftles died before the deftruction of Jerufalem: and Luther himself died before the wars broke out in Germany. It may be the Lord fees thy tender heart cannot endure to fee the mifery, or bear the temptations that are coming, and therefore will now gather thee to thy grave in peace; and yet wilt thou cry, O fpare me a little longer!

Arg. 5. If yet thy heart hang back, confider the great advantage you will have by death, above all that ever you enjoyed on earth; and that, (1.) As to your communion with God: (2.) As to your communion with faints.

1. For your communion with God: the time of perfecting that is now come: thy foul fall fhortly stand before the face of God, and have the immediate emanations and beamings forth of his glory upon it here thy foul is remote from God, the beams of his glory ftrike it but obliquely and feebly, but shortly it will be under the line, and there the fun shall stand still, as it did in Gibeon; there fhall be no cloudings, nor declinings of it. O how fhould this fill thy foul with defires of being unclothed!

2. As for the enjoyment of faints, here indeed we have fellowship with them of the lower form; but that fellowship is fo diffweetened by remaining corruptions, that there is no fatisfaction in it as it is the greatest plague that can befal an hypocrite to live in a pure church, fo it is the greatest vexation to the spirit of a faint, to live in a corrupt and difordered church; but when death hath admitted you into that glorious affembly of the fpirits of juft men made perfect, you shall have the defire of your hearts; here you cannot fully close with another; yea, you cannot fully clofe with your own fouls. O what difcords, jarrings, cenfurings are here? What perfect, bleffed harmony there! In heaven each faint loves another as himself, they are altogether lovely. O my foul, hafte thee away from the lion's dens, from the mountains of Bether, from divided faints, to those mountains of myrrh, and hills of frankincense: thou art now going unto thine own people, as the apostle's phrase imports, Cor. v. 8. Arg. 6. If this will not do, Confider what heavy burdens death will eafe thy fboulders of.

In this tabernacle we groan, being burdened, (1.) With bodily dif tempers; how true do we find that of Theophraftus. The foul pays a dear rent for the tenement it now lives in? But glorified bodies are clogged with no indifpofitions; death is the best phyfician; it will cure thee of all difeafes at once. (2.) With the indwelling of fin; this makes us groan from the very bowels, Rom. vii. 24. "But he "that is dead, is free from fin," Rom. vi. 7. Hath juftification deftroyed its damning power, and fanctification its reigning power? So glorification deftroys its very being and existence. (3.) We groan under temptations here, but as foon as we are out of the body, we are out of the reach of temptation: when once thou art got into heaven, thou mayeft say, Now Satan, I am there where thou canst not come; for as the damned in hell are malo obformati, so fixed in fin and mifery, that their condition cannot be altered; fo glorified faints are bono confirmati, fo fixed in holiness and glory, that they cannot be fhaken. (4.) Here we groan under various troubles, and afflictions, but then the days of our mourning are ended. God fhall wipe away all tears from our eyes. O then, let us hafte away, that we may be at rest!

Argument 7. If still thou linger, like Lot in Sodom, then, lafly, examine all the pleas and pretences for a longer time on earth. Why art thou unwilling to die?

Objection 1. Ó I have many relations in the world, I know not what will become of them when I am gone.

Solution. If thou art troubled about their bodies, and outward condition, why fhould not that word fatisfy thee, Jer. xlix. 11. Leave thy fatherless children to me, I will keep them " alive, and let thy widows truft in me." Luther, in his laft will and teftament, hath this expreffion, Lord, thou haft given me wife and children, I have nothing to leave them, but I commit them unto thee. O Father ⚫ of the fatherless, and judge of widows, Nutri, ferva, doce; nourish, keep, and teach them.' Or, art thou troubled for their fouls? Thou canst not convert them, if thou shouldst live, and God can make thy prayers and counfels to live, and take place upon them when thou art dead.

Objection 2. I would fain live to do God more fervice in the world. Solution. Well, but if he have no more fervice for thee to do here, why fhouldft thou not fay with David, « If he have no delight to use

me any farther, here am I, let him do what feemeth him good." In this world thou haft no more to do, but he is calling thee to an higher service and employment in heaven; and what thou wouldst do for him here, he can do that by other hands.

Objection 3. I am not yet fully ready, I am not as a bride, completely adorned for the bridegroom.

Solution. Thy juftification is complete already, though thy fanctification be not fo; and the way to make it fo, is to die; for till then it will have its defects, and wants.

Objection 4. O but I want affurance; if I had that, I could die prefently.

Solution. Yea, there it fticks, indeed; but then confider, that an hearty willingness to leave all the world to be freed from fin, and be with God, is the next way to that defired affurance; no carnal perfon was ever willing to die upon this ground.

And thus I have finished thofe cafes which fo nearly concern the people of God, in the feveral conditions of their life, and taught them how to keep their hearts in all. I fhall next apply the whole.

You

I. Ufe, of Information.

YOU have heard, that the keeping of the heart is the great work of a Christian, in which the very foul and life of religion confifts, and without which all other duties are of no value with God: hence, then, I fhall infer, to the confternation of hypocrites, and formal profeffors,

1. That the pains and labours which many perfons have taken in religion, are but loft labour and pains, to no purpofe, fuch as will ne

ver turn to account.

Many great fervices have been performed, many glorious works