Now the soul cannot look out at the eyes but it will be infected, nor hear by the ears but it will be distracted, nor smell at the nostrils and not be tainted, taste by the tongue and not be allured, and touch by the hand and not be defiled. Every sense and member is too ready upon every occasion and temptation to betray the soul ; which should make us willing to die and to long for that day wherein our bodies shall be glorified.^
Ah, believers ! it will be but as a day before those bodies of yours,
^ Rev. ii. 10, iii. 4, 12, 22, and vii. 16, 17.
* A man will easily swallow a bitter pill to get health. The physician helps us not without pain, and yet we reward him for it.
^ Death to a believer is the gate of heaven ; it is janun vita, the door of life. It con- veys us out of the wilderness into Canaan, out of a troublesome sea into a quiet haven John xiv. 1-3. .
* When Plato saw one over-indulgent to his body by high feeding it, he asked hJm what he meant, to make his prison so strong. ^ Query, ' encaged ' or 'encased'? Li
® The Greeks call the body the soul's bond, the soul's s 'pulchre.
404 A believer's last day [Eccles. VII. 1.
that are now like a picture out of frame, or a house out of repair, that are now deformed and diseased, &c., shall be agile and nimble, swift and facile in their motion. For clarity and brightness they shall be like Christ's body when it was transfigured, Mat. xvii. 2 ; they shall be very amiable and beautiful, they shall be impassible and immortal. Here our bodies are still dying. It is more proper to ask when we shall make an end of dying, than to ask when we shall die. Death is a worm that is always feeding at the root of our lives, wliich should make death more desirable than life.
[9.] Ninthly, Dwell much upon ilie readiness and icillmgness of other saints to die. Good old Simeon having first laid Christ in his heart, and then taking him up in his arms, he sings, ' Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salva- tion,' Luke ii. 28-30. I have lived enough, I have my life ; I have longed enough, I have my love; I have seen enough, I have my sight ; I have served enough, I have my reward ; I have sorrowed enough, I have my joy. So the believing Corinthians, 2 Cor. v. 4, 8, they groaned earnestly to be clothed upon with their house which is from heaven, they groaned that mortality might be swallowed up of life, and ' that they might be absent from the body, and present with the Lord.' So Paul desires earnestly ' to be dissolved, and to be with Christ, which is best of all,' Phil. i. 23. So those in Peter, ' they look for and hasten the coming of the day of God,' 2 Pet. iii. 12. They are said to hasten the day of God, in respect of their earnest desires after it, and in respect of their preparations for it. So the souls under the altar cry, ' How long, Lord, how long ? ' &c., Rev. vi. 9, 10.
So Paula, that noble lady, when one did read to her Cant. ii. 11, ' The winter is past, and the singing of birds is come ; ' Yea, she re- plied, ' the singing of birds is come,' and so she went singing into heaven. So Jewel, ' Lord, now let thy servant depart in peace ; break off all delays ; Lord, receive my spirit.' Further he said, ' I have not so lived that I am ashamed to live longer ; neither do I fear to die, — because we have a merciful Lord. A crown of righteousness is laid up for me ; Christ is my righteousness.' So another being in a swoon, as her friends thought, a little before her end they cried. Give her some rosa solis ; but she put it back, saying, 'I have rosa solis you know not of So Mr Fearing,! a little before his death, said, ' I find and feel so much inward joy and comfort in my soul, that if I were put to my choice Avhether to die or live, I would a thousand times rather choose death than life, if it might stand with the holy will of God.2 gQ ]\ii. Bolton, lying on his death-bed, said, ' I am by the wondei-ful mercies of God as full of comfort as my heart can hold, and feel nothing in my soul but Christ, with whom I heartily desire to be.' All, Christians ! if the exceeding willingness of the saints to die will not make you willing to die, what will ?
[10.] Tenthly and lastly. Consider this, that the Lord iv ill not leave thee, hut be with thee in that hour: ' Yea, though I walk through the
' Query, 'Dereing'?— G.
" Let all tlic devils in hell, saith Augustine, lieset me round, let fasting macerate my body, let sorrows oppress my mind, let pains consume my flesh, let -watching dry me, or heat scorch me, or cold freeze me, let all these — and what can come more — happen unto me, so 1 may enjoy my Saviour.
ECCLES. VII. 1 ] IS HIS BEST DAY. 405
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil ; for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,' saith the psalmist, Ps. xxiii. 4. So the apostle, Heb. xiii. 5, ' Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee.' i There are five negatives in the Greek, to assure God's people that he will never forsake them ; five times in Scripture is this precious promise renewed, that we may press it till we have pressed the sweetness out of it. Though God may seem to leave thee, thou mayest be confi- dent he will never forsake thee. Why should that man be afraid of death, that may be always confident of the presence of the Lord of life ?
3. The next use shall be to stir you all up to prepare and Jit for your dying-day. Ah, Christians ! what is your whole life, but a day to fit for the hour of death? what is your great business in this world, but to prepare and fit for another world ? It was a sad speech of Csesar Borgia, who being sick to death, said, ' When I lived, I provided for everything but death ; now I must die, and am unprovided to die.' 2 Ah, Christians ! you have need every day to pray with Moses, ' Lord, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts to wis- dom,' Ps. xc. 13, and to follow the counsel of the prophet Jeremiah, ' Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and be- fore your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and while ye look for light he turn it into the shadoAv of death, and make it gross darkness,' Jer, xiii. 16. Old age is the dark mountain which makes a broad way narrow, and a plain way cragged. It is a high point of heavenly wisdom to consider our latter end : ' Oh that they were wise, that they understood this, that they would consider their latter end ! ' Deut. xxiii. 19. Jerusalem paid dear for forgetting her latter end. Jerusalem's filthiness was in her skirts, because she remembered not her latter end, therefore also she came down wonderfully. To provoke you to prepare and fit for a dying-day, consider seriously these following things : —