2. It is well sought when this is our scope, for then the request is lawful both for matter and end : James iv. 3, ' Ye ask and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.' Life should not be loved but for further glorifying of God, for all our natural interests must be subordinate to our great end.
Well, then, we may lawfully pray for long life, with submission to trie will of God, and that death may not come upon us suddenly, but according to the ordinary course of nature.
But how will this stand with the desires of dissolution, and willing- ness to depart and to be with Christ, which certainly all Christians that believe eternity should cherish in their hearts ?
To this I answer — (1.) By concession ; (2.) By correction.
1. By concession. It is true we are to train up ourselves in an expectation of our dissolution, &c. See ver. 17 more fully. But —
2. By correction. Though it be expedient to desire death, yet we are not anxiously to long after it, till the time come. For —
[1.] They do not simply desire death for itself, but as a means to enjoy those better things which follow after death : Phil. i. 23, ' For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.' It is not our duty to love death as death. No ; so it is an evil which we must patiently bear, and may holily deprecate it ; but because of the good beyond it, it is our duty to love God, to long after communion with him, and to be perfected in holi- ness. Had it not been an evil to be avoided and dreaded, Christ had never prayed against it ; and 2 Cor. v. 4, ' For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened : not for that we would be un- clothed, but clothed upon, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.' It were an unnatural desire to desire death as death. A creature cannot desire its own destruction. Jesus Christ, before he manifested his sub- mission, did first manifest the innocent desires of nature : ' Father, let the cup pass.' The separation of the soul from the body, and the body remaining under corruption, is in itself evil, and the fruit of sin : Kom. v. 12, ' And so death passed upon all men, for that all have
296 sermons upon psalm cxix. [Ser. CLXXXIX.
sinned.' Grace is not given to reconcile us to corruption, or to make death, as death, desirable, or to cross the inclinations of innocent nature. But—
[2.] Upon these terms, death is sweetened to them, and they readily submit to it. Though it be not to be desired as it is death, yet heaven and eternal happiness beyond it is still matter of desire to us. Death is God's threatening ; and we are not threatened with benefits, but evils ; and evils of punishment are not to be desired, but cheerfully submitted unto for a higher end. Nature abhorreth and feareth death; but yet grace desireth glory. The soul is loath to part with the body, but yet it is far bather to miss Christ, and be without him. A man is loath to lose a leg or an arm, yet, to preserve the whole body, he is contented to part with it. In short, the soul is bound to the body with a double band — the one natural, the other voluntary, by love and affection, desiring and seeking its welfare. The voluntary bond is governed and ordered by religion till the natural bond be loosed, either in the ordinary course of nature, or at the will of God.
[3.] There are certain circumstances in death which do invite us to ask longer life in order to this end ; as —
(1.) God's children would not have the occasion of well-doing or self-denying obedience taken from them too soon ; so great is their love and desire of gratitude to God, that they would yet longer praise God in this self-denying way. Death would shut their mouths.
(2.) They would not be taken away in a cloud, or before they see the issue of some present trials on the church or them. They have no will to die till the sense of wrath be removed : Ps. xxvii. 13, ' I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.'
(3.) They may have some design a-foot for God, and therefore are desirous of a little more time to attain this design ; therefore pray to God to prolong their lives a while : Rom. xv. 31, 32, ' Now I beseech you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ's sake, and for the love of the Spirit, that ye strive together with me in your prayers to God for me, that I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judea : and that my service which I have done for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints, that I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed.'