himself for swift destruction? Rom. ix. 22, 23. By nature I was a child of wrath as well as he, a rebel, and a vile transgressor, without God, without Christ, and without hope: and why was not I seized by divine justice in those days of my rebellion, and made a sacrifice to the indignation of God? What merit was there in me that I should be spared, while my companion suffered under speedy vengeance? Let the freedom and riches of grace be adored for ever: it was rich and sovereign grace that spared me. And now through the abounding mercy of God, I hope I have fled to lay hold on the refuge set before me; my heart is in some measure sanctified, my nature renewed, and my sins pardoned. Blessed be the Lord who hath given me hope in death, while the wicked are driven away in their wickedness, driven far away from hope and heaven," Prov. xiv. 32.

4. The death of impenitent sinners does another service also for the saints, in that it sensibly excites their pity and their prayers for the living. It awakens the exercise of pious charity for the souls of their friends that are yet in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of iniquity. A true Christian that has tasted of the grace of God, can hardly be supposed to see his impenitent neighbour seized with sudden death and sent away to darkness, but it touches the springs of holy tenderness within him, and constrains him to speak a word to others in the same danger, and to lift up a cry to God upon their account for grace and salvation. Surely that Christian is not in a right temper of mind, who can see or hear of impenitent and guilty souls seized away from his neighbourhood or his acquaintance, and plunging into eternity with horror and despair, and yet have no compassion awakened in him, no bowels of pity moving for those of his acquaintance that are involved in the same iniquities, and are

yet in the land of the living, and on this side hell. Such an awful providence is like a warning-word which heaven puts into our mouths, that we may echo it with solemn horror round the neighbourhood, and try to rouse stupid sinners from their dangerous and fatal lethargy.

[Here is a proper pause in this sermon if it be loo long to be read at once.]

But it is time now to leave this general head and go on to the next.

Thirdly, if the death of hardened sinners turns to the advantage of the saint, the death of fellow Christians shall certainly work for his benefit too.

You will be ready to say, "What? Can the loss of good men from the earth ever be turned into a benefit? Can the death of saints bring any advantage to the survivers? Yes, surely, if they die like Christians indeed, in the lively exercises of faith and hope; and this will appear in these four particulars.

1. It confirms our faith in the gospel of Christ, and supports our holy profession. It gives us an assurance of the truth and power of our religion, above all other religions in the world, when it enables a poor feeble dying creature to face death with courage, to look beyond the limits of life and time, and venture into an unseen world with holy joy and triumph. It gives us a glorious evidence that the principles of Christianity are such as will justify all the labours of a holy life, and will bear us out in the profession of it, in the midst of ridicule and mockery, of persecution and martyrdom. This surely must be a religion coming down from God, that can give the weak and the unlearned such a courage, as to encounter death itself without fear : and that not from a stupid and senseless temper of

spirit, nor from a brutal hardiness, such as carries the horse and the hero into the battle, but with a clear and full discovery of God and his holiness, of our own sins and his forgiving grace, this religion can enable us to venture into his immediate presence. How glorious is our gospel, how divine a doctrine is this! It has wrought ten thousand such wonders by faith in the blood of Christ as the great atonement for sin, and the only way to the Father.

A saint leaving this world, and putting off mortality, with the light of heaven breaking in upon his soul, and the beams of glory shining round about him, with divine joy and transport in his countenance, and the language of heaven upon his lips, brings the invisible world into present view; the pious spectators grow up to a sensible assurance of the glories and felicities of that invisible world; each of them sits on the borders of paradise, each of them gets a glimpse of the new Jerusalem, and all the heavenly country, and this adds new strength to his faith and hope.

2. The glorious death of our fellow Christians, greatly encourages the imitation of their holy life. To see a child of God die from amongst men, leave this world with a holy contempt and sincere pleasure, and enter into the presence of his heavenly Father with a filial confidence; to see him finish his race with joy, and (as it were) lay hold on salvation, and put on his heavenly crown; this calls aloud upon us to tread in the same steps, to pursue the same blessed prize, and to be followers of them, who through faith and patience inherit the promises, Heb. vi. 12. When we mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, and see that his end is peace, we are animated to walk with God in the same uprightness, and to press after the same perfection. Having such a cloud of witnesses that have

gone before us, and Christ our Lord at the head of them, we run with patience the race that is set before us, till we arrive at the promised glory.

To stand near the bed of a dying saint, and observe the sweet serenity of his soul under the agonies of his flesh, would force Balaam himself to say, let me die the death of the righteous, and let my last end be like his. But the Christian goes further, and with holy zeal and humble dependence upon divine grace, establishes himself in the ways of holiness; he resolves that he will live the life of the righteous too, and tread in the paths of piety with the utmost watchfulness and care, that he may lay a foundation for the same peaceful reflections on his death-bed, and the same joyful prospect.

3. The death of fellow saints is for our benefit as it weans us from this world, as it makes earth and this life less pleasant to us, and heaven more desirable. Every holy soul that leaves the world, carries away so much more grace and goodness from it. What would this world be if all the saints had left it, but a cage of unclean birds, a nest of serpents, a wilderness of savage beasts, à habitation of Satan, and his sons and daughters; a dwelling of devils, and a region of darkness akin to hell? Did not converting grace turn sinners into saints, and make a constant succession of Christians, this would be the dismal character of this world in the space of one generation. But blessed be God, as bad as this world is, divine grace is still at work, and makes it a sort of nursery for heaven by new conversions.

Yet still the death of the saints is the loss of so much of heaven out of our sinful world; and the fewer friends God has here, there will be the fewer communications between heaven and earth. The absence of Christ and his saints, spreads a sort of dim shadow over all the fairest colours of this lower

creation; the beauties of it fade, and the flowers of it in our esteem languish and hang their head, because Jesus and so many of his holy ones are departed. When we see one pious friend after another taking their leave of us, and ascending to the upper world, we are ready to say, "What should we stay here for? Our God is on high, our Saviour is on high, multitudes of our friends are departed from us, and dwell on high. Farewell earth, and time, and sensible things; we long to be with our best friends, and with our God, we are ready, O Jesus, for thy first summons; take us when thou pleasest into heaven and eternity.

4. The comfortable death of a saint instructs: us how to die, and makes death easy. When we see and hear a fellow Christian examining his heart, searching his soul to the bottom, turning all his secret thoughts outward, and looking over the past conduct of his life; when we behold him reviewing his own follies and iniquities, and recalling to mind also all his sacred transactions with God; when we see him surveying all these most important concerns in the light of the last judgment, and as it were, under the piercing rays of the great tribunal; when we hear him abasing himself to the dust in the most vilifying expressions because of his sins, and yet rejoicing in the evidences of his graces, and repeating the promises of the gospel with a pleasant hope, this teaches us to converse with our own souls in .a more lively manner, about sin and forgiveness, about death and eternity; for it brings these awful themes into open view, and sets them before us in their infinite importance. This leads us a glorious lecture upon the gospel of Christ, and pardoning grace, and the sanctifying spirit, and the hope of glory, beyond what we ever found before in the best of sermons, and under the warmest preachers.

Come, my friends, come into the chamber of a. F f

VOL. II.