But what means this objection ? Let your faith be but suitable to these conditional promises, i. e. believe they shall be made good to you so far as God sees them good for you : do you but labour to come up to those conditions required in you, and thereby God will have more glory, and you more comfort : If your prayers for these things proceed from pwc ends, the glory of God, not the sa- tisfaction and gratification of your lusts : If your desires after them be moderate as to the measure, content with that proportion the Infinite Wisdom sees fittest for you : If you take God's way to ob- tain them, and dare not strain conscience, or commit a sin, though you should perish for want : If you can patiently wait God's time for enlargements from your straits, and not make any sinful haste, you shall be surely supplied ; and he that remembers your souls will not forget your bodies. But we live by sense, and not by faith ; present things strike our affections more powerfully than the invisible things that are to come. The Lord humble his people for this.
Deduction 4. Is this the privilege of believers, that they can com- mit their souls to God in a dying hour? Then how precious, how useful a grace is faith to the people of God, both living and dying?
All the graces have done excellently, but faith excels them all : faith is the Phoenix grace, the queen of graces : deservedly it is stiled precious faith, ft Pet. i. 1. The benefits and privileges of it in this life are unspeakable : and as there is no comfortable living, so no comfortable dying without it.
First, While we live and converse here in the world, all our comfort and safety is from it ; for all our union with Christ, the fountain of mercies and blessings, is by faith, Eph. hi. 17. "that " Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith." No faith, no Christ : all our communion with Christ is by it : he that cometh to God must believe, Heb. xi. 6. The soul's life is wrapt up in this com- munion with God, and that communion in faith. All communica- tions from Christ depend upon faith ; for look, as all communion is founded in union, so from our union and communion are all our communications. All communications of quickenings, comforts, joy, strength, and whatsoever serves to the well-being of the life of grace, are all through that faith which first knits us to Christ,
SERM. XXXVI. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 453
and still maintains our communion with Christ ; believing we re- joice, 1 Pet i. 8. The inner man is renewed, whilst we look to the things that are not seen, 2 Cor. iv. 18.
Secondly, And as our life, and all the supports and comforts of it here, are dependent on faith, so you see our death, as to the safety and comfort of our souls then, depends upon our faith : he that hath no faith, cannot commit his soul to God, but rather shrinks from God. Faith can do many sweet offices for your souls upon a death-bed, when the light of this world is gone, and all joy ceases on earth : it can give us sights of things invisible in the other world, and those sights will breathe life into your souls, amidst the very- pangs of death.
Reader, do but think what a comfortable foresight of God, and the joys of salvation, will be to thee, when thine eye-strings are breaking ; faith can not only see that beyond the grave, which will comfort, but it can cleave to its God, and clasp Christ in a pro- mise, when it feels the ground of all sensible comforts trembling, and sinking under thy feet : " My heart and my flesh faileth, but " God is the strength (or rock) of my heart, and my portion for " ever."" Reeds fail, but the rock is firm footing ; yea, and when the soul can no longer tabernacle here, it can carry the soul to God, cast it upon him, with " Father, into thy hands I com- " mend my spirit.11 O precious faith !
Deduction 5. Do the souls of dying believers commend themselves into the ha?ids of God? Then let not the surviving relations of such sorrow as men that have no hope. A husband, a wife, a child, is rent by death out of your arms : well, but consider into what arms, into what bosom they are commended. Is it not better for them to be in the bosom of God, than in yours ? Could they be spared so long from heaven, as to come back again to you but an hour, how would they be displeased to see your tears, and hear your cries and sighs for them : They would say to you as Christ said to the daughters of Jerusalem, " Weep not for me, but weep for your- " selves, and for your chhildren.11 I am in a safe hand, I am out of the reach of all storms and troubles. O did you but know what their state is, who are with God, you would be more than satisfied about them.
Deduction 6. Lastly, I will close all with a word of counsel. Is this the privilege of dying believers, to commend their souls into the hands of God ? Then as ever you hope for comfort, or peace in your last hour, see that your souls be such, as may be then fit to be com- mended into the hands of an holy and just God : See that they be holy souls ; God will never accept them if they be not holy, " With, " out holiness no man shall see God," Heb. xii. 24. " He that hath " this hope, (viz. to see God) purifieth himself, even as he is pure."
454? the fountain of life. SERM. XXXVII.
1 John iii. 3. Endeavours after holiness are inseparably connected with all rational expectations of blessedness. Will you put an un- clean, filthy, denied thing into the pure hand of the most holy God ? O see they be holy, and already accepted in the beloved, or woe to them when they take their leave of those tabernacles they now dwell in. The gracious soul may confidently say then, Lord Jesus ! into thy hand I commend my spirit O let all that can say so then, now say,
Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ.
Christ's Funeral illustrated, in its Manner, Reasons, and excellent Ends.
Then toolc tltey the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes, with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified, there was a garden, and in the gar- den a new sepulchre, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore, because of the Jews preparation-day, for the sepulchre was nigh at hand.
jL OU have heard the last words of dying Jesus commending his spirit into his Father's hands. And now the life of the world hangs dead upon a tree. The light of the world, for a time, muffled up in a dismal cloud. The Sun of Righteousness set in the region and shadow of death. The Lord is dead, and he that wears the keys of the grave at his girdle, is now himself to be locked up in the grave.
All you that are the friends and lovers of Jesus, are this day in- vited to his funeral : such a funeral as never was since graves were first digged. " Come see the place where the Lord lay." There are six remarkable particulars, about this funeral, in these three verses.