Chrift. You may fay, as Pfalm xxiii. 4. "When I walk through the valley of the fhadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me." You may go off the stage with the Pfalmift's words in your mouth, Pfal. xxxi. 5. "Into thine hand I commit my fpirit, for thou haft redeemed me, O Lord God of truth."

6 Labour earnestly to overcome the love of life and fears of death, fo as to be content to part with all things here at God's call. O believer, what is there in this earth to tempt thee to hang back, when God calls thee to depart? while you are here, you may lay your account with many loffes, croffes, difappointments, griefs, and calamities, of all forts. Friends will fail you, enemies will hate you, lufts will molest you, fatan will tempt you, the world will deceive you. Death is the way that the deareft of God's faints, and all the cloud of witneffes, have gone before you; yea, the Lord Jefus your Head hath trod this path, and hath taken the fting out of death, and hath paved a way through its dark valley, that his people may fafely follow him. Hath the Captain of your falvation gone before you, and will any of his foldiers fhrink to follow him? Are you content. to remain always at the fame diftance from him, and to enjoy no more of his prefence than now you have? Are you fatisfied to live for ever with no more knowledge of God, no more love to Chrift, no more holiness or hea venly mindedness than at prefent you have? Do you not groan under your remaining ignorance, deadness, wanderings, pride, paffion, unbelief, felfishness, worldlinefs, and other fins and lufts that here befet you? And are you not defirous to go to the place where you will be eternally free from them all, and where you never complain of a dull, dead or fenfelefs frame of heart, or of any heart weariness, or wandering in duty any more; for the heart fhall then be as a fixed pillar in the temple of God, and fhall go no more out; the eternal adoration and praifes of God fhall be the foul's delight and element for ever. By fuch confiderations, frive to conquer the fears of death and defires of life, which are often great clogs to the people of God in their preparation for removing.

7. Be cften meditating upon the heavenly glory

which fhortly all believers will fee and enjoy. Be much in the contemplation of the glorious company above; behold Chrift upon his glorious throne at the righthand of God, and Abraham, David, Peter, Paul, and all the rest of the faithful ones, with their crowns of righteousness, triumphing about their Redeemer.— Think, O believer, how happy will that day be, when thou shalt meet with thy father and thy brethren, and when thou shalt fee thy elder brother on the throne, ready to pals fentence in thy favours. What melody will that fentence found in thine ears, "Come, ye bieffed of my father!" What frame wilt thou be in, when he fets the crown of glory on thy head? "O eternally free love!" wilt thou cry, “O Saviour thou didst wear a crown of thorns, that I might wear a crown of glory: thou didit groan on the cross, that I might now fing. Wonderful free love, that chufed me, when thoufands were paft by; that faved me from ruin, when my companions in fin muft burn in hell for ever!" Think, how ravishing it will be to meet with your godly acquaintances in heaven, with whom you prayed, and praifed, and converfed here! Will you not then cry out, "O my brethren, what a change is here! this glorious place is not like the poor dwellings we had on earth; this body, this foul, this ftate, this place, our clothes, our company, our language, our thoughts, are far unlike thofe we had then the bad hearts, the body of death, the corruptions and temptations we then complained of, are all now gone. We have no more fears of death or hell, no more use for repentance or prayer, faith or hope, thefe are now fwallowed up in immediate vifion, eternal love, joy and praife." And for thy help, O believer, in meditating on these things, read fome parts of the book of Revelation, or caufe them to be read to you; and fup. pofe with yourfelf, you had been a companion with John in the ifle of Patmos, and had got fuch a view of the glorious majefly, the bright thrones, the heavenly hofs, the fhining fplendor which he faw, the Saints in their white robes, with crowns on their heads, and plalms in their hands, and heard them finging the fong M 2

of

of Mofes and the Lamb, and trumping forth their eternal Hallelujahs; what a heavenly rapture wouldst thou have been in! Well then, O believer, thou fhalt fhortly have clearer and more sweet fights than all those which John, or any of the Saints, ever faw here upon earth. Surely that heavenly glory is a fubject worthy of thy thoughts, and moft fuitable for thee to meditate on in time of fickness, and when in the view of death.

8. It would also be very fuitable at this time, in order to your actual readiness for death, to be frequently looking out and longing for Chrift's coming as Abraham stood in his tent door ready to go forth to meet the angels that were fent unto him, fo fhould the believer keep himfelf in a waiting pofture at this time. He should be like the loving wife, that longs and looks for the coming of her abfent husband, according to his letters to her; by this time (thinks the) he will be at fuch a place, and against such a time he will be at another place, and fo in a few days I will fee him. It is the character of believers, they are fuch as love his appearing, 2 Tim. iv. 8. They defire his coming, Cant. vili. 14. "Make hafte, my beloved; even fo come, Lord Jefus, come quickly" Believers fhould look upon themselves as pilgrims here, wandering in a wildernefs abfent from home, and at a distance from their father's houfe; and, in time of affliction, it is very proper for them to be crying, as David doth, Pfalms lv. 6. "O that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away and be at reft: I would haften my escape from the windy tempeft." " when

fhall the time of my pilgrimage, and the days of my banishment be finished, that I may get home to my country and friends above? Oh! my Lord is gone, my Saviour hath left the earth, and entered into his glory? My friends and brethren are gone to their bleffed reft, where they fee God's face, and fing his praife for ever and how can I be willing to ftay behind, when they are gone? Muft I be finning here, when they are ferving God above? Meft I be groaning and fighing,

when

when they are triumphing and dividing the fpoil? Surely I will look after them, and cry, O Lord, how long? When fhall I be with my Saviour and my God."

DIRECT. V. Let Believers, in time of sickness, endea

vour all they can to glorify God, and edify thofe that are about them, by their fpeech and behaviour.

IF ever a child of God be active to promote the honour and glory of God, it should be in the time of ficknefs, and when death may be approaching. And there is good reafon for it; for 1. This may be the laft opportunity that ever thou fhalt have to do any thing for God, and therefore thou fhouldt ftudy to improve it to the utmost Heaven, to which thou art going, is the place where thou shalt receive thy reward; but thou canft have no access there to advance God's glory, by commending God and Christ, and religion, to finners, or weak believers. Upon this account, many of God's children have been content to fufpend their heavenly happiness for a while, and to itay upon the earth for fome longer time I have read of a certain martyr, when going to fuffer, who expreffed fome forrow that he was going thither, where he should do his God no more fervice, to wit, in the fenfe above explained. And of another, that faith, "If it were poffible there could be a place for any grief in heaven, it would arife from the Chriftian's confidering that he did fo little for God while he was upon earth. Now is the working feafon, O believer, be bufy while it lafts, according to the example of thy bleffed Saviour, John ix. 4. "I muit work the work of him that fent me while it is day; for the night cometh wherein no man can work." This confideration fhould make thee move thy felf with the greatest activity, like Samfon before his death, who, when he could have no more opportunity to ferve God and his church, he cried to God and faid, Judges xvi. 28. "O Lord God, remember me, I pray thee, and ftrengthen me this once." And then he bowed himself with all his might, to pull down the pillars of Dagon's

temp's

temple, being willing to facrifice his life to the ruin thereof.

2. The holy fpeech and carriage of dying believers may, through the bleffing of God, make deep impreffion upon the hearts of unregenerate men that are wit ne fles to them. Those who have derided the people of God for the strictness of their lives, and defpifed their counfels and reproofs, as proceeding from humour or precifene fs; yet have begun to notice their words and actions, when they have feen them on fick-beds, and on the borders of eternity, and to have other thoughts of religion and holiness than formerly they had. Now they think the man is in good earnest, and speaketh the thoughts of his heart; and if ever he can be believed, it must be now. It is moft convincing to carnal perfons, to fee believers bearing up with patience under their fickness; to hear them fpeaking good of God,-commending his ways, and rejoicing in God as their portion, in midst of their fharpeft pains to fee them behaving as thofe that are going to dwell with Christ, fmiling and praifing God, when friends are fighing and weeping about them. This inclines them to think, furely there must be a reality in religion, there is a visible difference between the death of the righteous and of the wicked. Hence a wicked Balaam wishes to die the death of the righteous, and to have his laft end like his. It left a conviction upon that young man's confcience, who faid to his loose companion, after they had visited godly Ambrofe on his death-bed, and faw how cheerful he was, and triumphing over approaching death, "O that I might live with thee, and die with Ambrose!" Nay, fuch fights might draw them not only to defire to die the death of the righteous, but alfo to refolve to live their lives. If carnal men faw believers going off the ftage with fuch confidence and joy, as becomes thofe that are entering into eternal reft with Christ, and those that are going out of an howling wilderness to a glorious Canaan; it might be a powerful invitation to them to go and feck after the fame felicity.

3 This likewife would be very edifying and confirming to all that fear God. How much would it con

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