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.

Lord, let thy servant depart in peace; even in thy peace, which passeth understanding, and which Christ, the Prince of peace, doth give, and nothing in the world can take away. O, give me that peace which beseemeth a soul, which is so near the harbor, even the world of endless peace and love, where perfect union (such as I am capable of) will free me from all the sins and troubles which are caused by the convulsions, divulsions, and confusions, of this divided, selfish world. Call home this soul by the encouraging voice of love, that it may joyfully hear, and say, 'It is my Father's voice.' Invite it to thee by the heavenly messenger. Attract it by the tokens and the foretastes of love. The messengers that invited me to the feast of grace, compelled me to come in without constraint. Thy effectual call did make me willing; and is not glory better than preparing grace? Shall I not come more willingly to the celestial feast? What was thy grace for, but to make me willing of glory, and the way to it? Why didst thou dart down thy beams of love, but to make me love thee, and to call me up to the everlasting centre? Was not the feast of grace as a sacrament of the feast of glory? Did I not take it in remembrance of my Lord until he come? Did not he that told me, "All things are ready," tell me also that "He is gone to prepare a place for us?" And it is his will that we shall be with him, and see his glory. They that are given him, and drawn to him by the Father, on earth, do come to Christ. Give, now, and draw my departing soul to my glorified Head; and, as I have glorified thee on earth, in the measure that thy grace hath prevailed in me, pardon the sins by which I have offended thee, and glorify me in the beholding and participation of the glory of my Redeemer. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly, with fuller life, and light, and love, into this too dead, and dark, and disaffected soul, that it may come with joyful willingness unto thee.

Willingly depart, O lingering soul! It is from a Sodom, though in it there be righteous Lots, who yet are not without their woful blemishes! Hast thou so oft 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 please thee no where but on 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 sinful 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 unto the mark; (Phil. iii.) "Looking towards, and hastening to the coming of the day of God;" 2 Pet. iii. 10-12.

As this world hath used thee, it would use thee still, and it will use others. If thou hast sped well in it, no thanks to it, but unto God. If thou hast had manifold deliverances, and marvelous preservations, and hast been fed with angel's food, love not this wilderness for it, but God and his angel, which was thy guide, protector, and deliverer.

And hath this troublesome flesh been so comfortable a companion to thee, that thou shouldst be so loath to leave it? Have thy pains, thy weariness, thy languishings, thy labors, thy cares and fears about this body, been pleasing to thee? And art thou loath that they should have an end? Didst thou not find a need of patience to undergo them? And of greater patience than mere nature gave thee? And canst thou hope now for better when nature faileth, and that an aged, consumed, more diseased body, should be a pleasanter habitation to thee than it was heretofore? If from thy youth up it hath been both a tempting and a troublesome thing to thee, surely, though it be less tempting, it will not be less troubling, when it is falling to the dust, and above ground savoreth of the grave! Had things sensible been never so pleasant in thy youth, and hadst thou glutted thyself in health with that sort of delight, in age thou art to say by nature, "I have no pleasure in them." Doth God in great mercy make pain and feebleness the harbingers of death, and wilt thou not understand their business? Doth he mercifully, beforehand, take away the pleasure of all fleshly things, and worldly vanities, that there may be nothing to relieve a departing soul; (as the shell breaketh when the bird is hatched, and the womb relaxed when the infant must be born.) and yet shall we stay when nothing holdeth us, and still be loath to come away? Wouldst thou dwell with thy beloved body in the grave, where it will rot and stink in loathsome darkness? If not, why should it now, in its painful languor, seem to thee a more pleasant habitation than the glorious presence of thy Lord? In the grave it will be at rest, and not tormented as now it is, nor wish, at night, O that it were morning! nor say at morning, When will it be night? And is this a dwelling fit for thy delight? Patience in it, while God will so try thee, is thy duty; but is such patience a better and sweeter life than rest and joy?

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. Oh, 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 to be with Christ, as much as I know that I should desire it. But God, in nature, hath there 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; 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?

TO DEPART AND TO BE WITH CHRIST IS FAR BETTER, OR RATHER TO BE CHOSEN.

Το say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ, is not enough to make us willing. Words and notions are such instruments as God useth to work on the souls; but the convincing, satisfying, powerful light, and the inclining love, are other things. The soul now operateth ut forma hominis, on and with the corporeal spirits and organs, and it perceiveth now its own perceptions; but it is a stranger to the mode of its future action, when separated from the body, and can have no formal conception of such conceptions as yet it never had. And therefore, its thoughts of its future state must be analogical and general, and partly strange. But general notices, when certain, may be very powerful, and satisfy us in so much as is needful to our consent, and to such a measure of joy as is suitable to this earthly state. And such notices we have from the nature of the soul, with the nature of God; the course of providence, and government of mankind; the internal and external conflicts which we perceive about men's souls;

the testimony and promises of the word of God; the testimony of conscience, with the witness of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, and in it the earnest and the foretaste of glory, and the beginnings of life eternal here; all which I have before considered.

The Socinians, who would interpret this of the state of resurrection only, against plain evidence, violate the text; seeing Paul expressly speaketh of his gain by death, which will be his abode with Christ, and this upon his departure hence; which (in 2 Cor. v. 7, 8.) he calleth his being absent from the body, and present with the Lord: and Christ, to the penitent thief, calleth his being with him in Paradise: and (Luke xvi.) in the parable of the steward, Christ intimateth to us, that wise preparers, when they go hence, are received into the everlasting habitations; as he there further tells us Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom.

Goodness is primaria et mensurans, vel secundaria et mensurata: the first is God's perfect essence and will: the second is either properly and simply good, or analogical. The former is the creature's conformity to the will of God, or its pleasingness to his will: the latter is, 1. The greater, which is the welfare or perfection of the universe. 2. The lesser, which is the several parts of the universe, either, 1. In the nobler respect, as they are parts contributing to the perfection of the whole; or, 2. In the lower respect, as they are perfect or happy in themselves; or, 3. In the lowest respect of all, as they are good to their fellow-creatures which are below themselves.

Accordingly, it is far better to be with Christ, I. Properly and simply, as it is the fulfilling of God's will. II. Analogically, as it tendeth to the perfection of the universe and the church. III. And as it will be our own good or felicity. IV. And as it will be good to our inferior fellow-creatures; though this last be most questionable, and seemeth not included in the meaning of this text. Somewhat of these in order.

I. It is an odious effect of idolatrous selfishness to acknowledge no goodness above our own felicity, and, accordingly, to make the goodness of God to be but formally his usefulness, benevolence, and beneficence, to his creatures, which is by making the creature the ultimate end, and God but the means; to make the creature to be God, and deny God, indeed, while we honor his name; as also it is to acknowledge no higher goodness formally in the creature, than in its own felicity as such; as if neither the pleasing of God's will, nor the perfection of the church and world, were better than we are. We are not of ourselves, and therefore we are not chiefly for ourselves; and therefore we have a higher good to love.

That is simply best which God willeth. Therefore, to live here is best whilst I do live here; and to depart is best, when the time

of my departure cometh: that is best which is, for it is the work of God: the world cannot be better at this instant than it is, nor any thing better, which is of God, because it is as he willeth it to be; but when God hath changed them, it will then be best that they are changed. Were there no other good in my departure hence, but this simple good, the fulfilling of God's will, my reason telleth me that I should be fully satisfied in it: but there is also a subordinate sort of good.

II. For my change will tend to the perfection of the universe; even that material good or perfection, which is its aptitude for the use to which God hath created and doth preserve it: as all the parts, the modes, the situation, the motions of a clock, a watch, or other engine, do to the ends of the artificer. Though God hath not told me particularly, why every thing, and mode, and motion, is as it is, I know it is all done in perfect wisdom, and suited to its proper use and end. If the hen or bird knoweth how to make her nest, to lay her eggs secretly together, when and how to sit on them till they are hatched, and how to feed them, and preserve them, and when to forsake them, as sufficient for themselves without her help, &c; if the bee knoweth when, and whence, and how to gather her honey and wax, and how to form the repository combs, and how to lay it up, and all the rest of her marvelous economy, shall I think that God doth, he knoweth not what, or what is not absolutely the best? Doth he want either skill, or will, or power?

And should the stone grudge to be hewed, the brick to be burnt, the trees to be cut down, and sawed, and framed, the lead and iron to be melted, &c., when it is but to form an useful edifice, and to adapt and compose every part to the perfecting of the whole?

Shall the waters grudge that they must glide away, and the plants that they must die, and half die every winter, and the fruits and flowers that they must fall, or the moon that it must have its changing motions, or the sun that it must rise and set so oft, &c., when all is but the action and order which maketh up that harmony and perfection which was designed by the Creator, and is pleasing to his will?

III. But lawful self-love is yet further herein gratified: the goodness expressed in the text is that analogical, subordinate good, which is mihi bonum, my own felicity, and that which tendeth thereunto it is most reasonable to love God best, and that next which is likest him, (if known,) and why should it not be the easiest and the sweetest? But experience findeth it so easy to love ourselves, that, certainly, if I firmly believe that it is best for me, I shall desire to depart, and to be with Christ. And have I not reason to believe it?