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of faith, be fo fweet, and no price can be put upon it, nothing on earth taken in exchange for it; what must a whole eternity, in the immediate and full vifions of that bleffed face in heaven, be!

Well then, if fuch fights as thefe, immediately fucceed the fight you have on earth, either by fenfe of things natural, or by reafon of things intellectual, or by faith of things fpiritual, who that believes the truth, and expects the fulfilling of fuch promises as thefe, would not be willing to have his eyes clofed by death, as foon as God shall please? I have read of a holy man that had fweet communion with God in prayer, who in the close of his duty cried out, claudimini, oculi mei, claudimini, &c. Befbut, O my eyes, be fout; you fball never fee any thing on earth like that I have now seen. Ah! little do the friends of dead believers think what vifions of God, what ravishing fights of Chrift, the fouls of their friends have, when they are clofing their eyes with

tears.

Argum, 8. The confideration of the evil days that are to come, fbould make the people of God willing to accept of an hiding place in the grave, as a special favour from God.

It is accounted an act of favour by God, Ifa. Ivii. 1, 2. to be taken away from the evil to come. There are two kinds of evils to come, the evil of fin, and the evil of fufferings. Sins to come are terrible to gracious hearts, when temptations fhall be at their height, and strength. Oh, what warping and shrinking, what diffembling, yea, downright denying the known truths and ways of God, may you fee every-where? Many confciences will then be wounded and wafted? Many scandals and rocks of offence will be rolled into the way of godlinefs: Chrift will be exposed, and put to open fhame. Should we only be fpectators of fuch tragedies as these, it were enough to overwhelm a gracious and tender heart. But what upright heart is there without fears and jealoufies of being brought under the guilt of these evils in itself, as well as the fhame and grief for them in others? Oh! it were a thousand times better for you to die in the purity and integrity of your confciences, than to protract a miferable life without them. Oh! think what a world it is you are like to leave behind you, in respect of that to come!

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And as there are many evils of fin to come, fo there are man★ evils of fufferings coming on: "The days of vifitation are coming on, the days of recompence are come, and Ifrael shall "know it," Hof. iz. 7. All the sufferings you have yet met with, have been in books and hiftories: You never faw the martyrdom of the faints, but in the pictures and ftories; but you will find it quite another thing to be the fubjects of these cruelties, than

to be the mere readers or relators of them. 'Tis one thing to fee the painted lion on a fign-poft, and another to meet the living lion roaring upon you. Ah! little do we imagine how the hearts of men are convulfed, what fears, what faintings invade their fpirits, when they are to meet the King of terrors, in the frightful formalities of a violent death.

The confideration of thefe things will discover to you the reafon of that strange with of Job, chap. xiv. 13. "Oh that thou "wouldft hide me in the grave; that thou wouldst keep me in "fecret till thy wrath be paft!" And it deserves a serious thought, that when the holy Ghost had, in Rev. xiv. 9, 10, 11, 12. defcribed the miferable plight of thofe poor fouls, who being overcome by their own fears and the love of this world, should plunge themselves first into a deep guilt, by compliance with Antichrist, and receiving his mark; then into a hell upon earth, the remorfe and horror of their own confciences, which gives them no reft, day nor night; heimmediately fubjoins, ver. 13. "Bleffed are the "dead that die in the Lord; yea, from henceforth, faith the "Spirit," &c. Oh! it is a special bleffing and favour to be hid out of the way of those temptations and torments, in a seasonable and quiet grave.

Argum. 9. Your fixed averfation and unwillingness to die, will provoke God to imbitter your lives with much more afflictions than you have yet felt, or would feel, if your hearts were more mortified and weaned in this point.

You cannot think of your own deaths with pleasure, no nor yet with patience. Well, take heed, left this draw down fuch trouble upon you, as fhall make you at last to say with Job, chap. X. I. "My foul is weary of my life ;" an expreffion much like that, 2 Sam. i. 9. Anguish is come upon me, because my life "is whole in me. My foul is hardened, or become cruel against my life, as the Chaldee renders it.

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There is a twofold wearinefs of life; one from an excellency of fpirit, a noble principle, the ardent love of Jefus Christ, Phil. i. 23. "I defire to be diffolved, and to be with Chrift." Another from the mere preffures, of affliction and anguish of fpirit, under heavy and fucceffive ftrokes from the hand of God and men. Is it not more excellent and desirable to groan for death under a preffure of love to Chrift, than of affliction from Chrift? I am convinced that very many of our afflictions come upon this fcore and account, to make us willing to die.

Is it not fad that God is forced to bring death upon all our comfortable and defirable things in this world, before he can gain our confents to be gone? Why will you put God upon

fuch work as this? Why cannot he have your hearts at a cheaper rate? If you could die, many of your comforts, for ought I know, might live. Had Joab come to Abfalom when he fent for him the firft or fecond time, Abfalom had never fet his field of barley on fire, 2 Sam. xiv. 30. And were you more obedient to the will of God in this manner, it is likely he would not confume your health, and estates, and relations, with fuch heavy ftrokes, as he hath done, and will yet farther do except your wills be more compliant.

Alas! to cut off your comforts one after another, and make you live a groaning life, the Lord hath no pleafure in it; but he had rather you should lose these things, than that he should lofe your hearts on earth, or company in heaven: Impatiens aegrotus crudelem facit medicum.

Argum. 10. The decree of death cannot be reversed, nor is there any other ordinary paffage for the foul into glory, but through the gates of death. Heb. ix. 27 "It is appointed for all men once to die, but after that the judgment.'

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There is but one way to pafs out of the obfcure fuffocating life in the womb, into the more free and nobler life in the world, viz. through the agonies of birth: and there is ordinarily but one way to pafs from this finning, groaning life we live in this world, to the enjoyment of God and the glory above, viz. through the agonies of death. You must cast off this mean, this vile body, before you can be happy. Heaven cannot come down to you, you cannot fee God and live, Exod. xxxiii. 20. It would certainly confound and break you to pieces, like an earthen pitcher, fhould God but ray forth his glory upon you in the state you now are; and it is fure you cannot expect the extraordinary favour of fuch a tranflation as Enoch had, Heb. xi. 5. or as thofe believers, fhall have, that fhall be found alive at Christ's coming, i Theff. iv. 17. You must go the common road that all the faints go; but tho' you cannot avoid, you must fweeten it. God will not reverfe his decree, but you may, and ought to arm yourselves against the fears of it. Ahafuerus would not recal the proclamation he had emitted against the Jews, but he gave them full liberty to take up arms to defend themfelves against their enemies. It is much fo here, the fentence cannot be revoked; but yet God gives you leave, yea, he commands you to arm yourfelves against death, and defy it, and trample it under the feet of faith.

Arg. 11. When you find your hearts reluctate at the thoughts of leaving the body, and the comforts of this world, then confider VOL. III.

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how willingly and chearfully Jefus Chrift left heaven, and the Bo fom of his Father, to come down to this world for your fakes, Prov. viii. 30, 31, Pial. xl. 7. Lo, I come, &c.

O compare the frames of your bearts with his, in this point, and fhame yourfelves out of to unbecoming a temper of fpirit.

(1.) He left heaven, and all the delights and glory of it, to come down to this world to be abased and humbled to the loweft; you leave this world of fin and mifery to afcend to heaven, to be exalted to the higheft. He came hither to be impoverished, you go thither to be enriched, 2 Cor. viii. 9. yet he came willingly, and we go grudgingly.

(2. He came from heaven to earth, to be made fin for us, 2 Cor. v. 21. we go from earth to heaven, to be fully and everlaftingly delivered from fia; yet he came more willingly to bear our fins, than we go to be delivered from them.

(3) He came to take a body of flesh, to fuffer and die in, Heb. ii. 24 you leave your bodies that you may never fuffer in, or by them any more.

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(4) As his incarnation was a deep abafement, fo his death was the most bitter death that ever was tafted by any, from the beginning, or ever thall be to the end of the world; and yet how obediently doth he fubmit to both at the Father's call, Luke xii. 5o." I have a baptifm to be baptized with, and how am ftraitned till it be accomplished!" Ah Chriftian, your death cannot have the ten thoufandth part of that bitterness in it that Chrift's had. I remember one of the martyrs being afked, why his heart was fo light at death? returned this answer, becaufe Chrifl's heart was fo heavy at his death. O there is a vast difference betwixt the one and the other; the wrath of God, and curfe of the law were in his death, Gal. iii. 13. but there is neither wrath nor curfe in their death who die in the Lord, Rom, viii, 1.,

God forfook him when he hanged upon the tree in the ago nies of death, Mat. xxvii. 46." My God, my God, why half thou forfaken me?" But you fhall not be forfaken; He will make all your bed in ficknefs, Pfal. xli. 3. He will never leave you nor forfake you, Heb. xiii. 5.

Yet he regretted not, but went as a fheep or lamb, Ifa. Jiii. 17. O reafon yourselves out of this reluctancy at death, by this great example and pattern of obedience.

2 Arg. 12. Lastly, Let no Chriftian be afrighted at death, conficering that the death of Chrift is the death of death, and hath utterly difarmed it of all its destructive power.

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If you tremble when you look upon death, yet you cannot but triumph when you look believingly upon Chrift.

For, (1) Chrift died (O believer) for thy fms, Rom. iv. 25. his death was an expiatory facrifice for all thy guilt, Gal. iii. 13. fo that thou shalt not die in thy fias: The pangs of death may, and must be on thy outward man, but the guilt of fin, and the condemnation of God fhall not be upon thy inner man.

(2.) The death of Chrift, in thy room, hath utterly destroyed the power of death, which once was in the hand of Satan, Heb. i. 24. Col. ii. 14, 15. his power was not authoritative, but executive: not as the power of a king, but of a fheriff; which is none at all when a pardon is produced.

(3) Chrift hath affured us, that his victory over death thall be complete in our perfons. It is already a complete perfonal victory, in respect of himself, Rom. vi. 9. he dieth no more, death hath no more dominion over him. It's, an incomplete victory already as to our perfons. It can diffolve the union of our fouls and bodies, but the union betwixt Chrift and our fouls it can never diffolve, Rom. viii. 38, 39. and as for the power it ftill retains over our duft, that also fhall be deftroyed at the refurrection, 1 Cor. xv, 25, 26, compared with ver. 54. 55. 56. 57. fo that there is no caufe for any foul in Chrift to tremble at the thought of a feparation from the body, but rather to embrace it as a privilege; death is ours.

O that thefe arguments might prevail! O that they might at laft win the consent of our hearts to go, along with death; which is the mellenger fent by God to bring us home to our Father's houfe!

But I doubt, when all is faid, we are where we were; all this fuffices not to overcome the regrets and reluctancies of nature; ftill the matter fticks in our minds, and we cannot conquer our disinclined wills in this matter. What is the matter? Where lie the rubs and hindrances? O that God would remove. them at last!

Objection 1. This is a common plea with many, I am not ready and fit to die; were I ready, I fhould be willing to be gone.

Solution (1.) How long foever you live in the body, there will be fomewhat fill out of order, fomething ftill to do; for you must be in a state of imperfection, while you remain here, and according to this plea, you will never be willing to die. (2.) Your willingness to be diffolved, and to be with Chrift, is. one fpecial part of your fitnefs for death: and till you attain it. in fome good measure, you are not fo fit to die as you should be. (3.) If you be in Chrift, you have a fundamental fitnefs

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