4. How comfortable it will be at death, when you have minded your business, and seriously made it your work to live to God ; and can say as our Lord, John xvii. 4, ' Father, I have glorified thee upon earth ; I have finished the work thou hast given me to do.' Oh ! the comfort of a well-spent life to a dying christian : 2 Tim, iv. 7, 8, 'I have fought a good fight ; I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith : henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, shall give me at thaj: day, and not to me only, but unto them also that love his appeai'ing;' or as Hezekiah, Isaiah xxxviii. 3, ' Kemember, Lord, I beseech thee, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart.^ I have been careful for mat- ter, manner and end, to glorify God by a constant obedience to his holy will. Now, on the other side, what thoughts will you have of a careless and mis-spent life, when you come to die ? Many beguile them- selves, and do not think of the end of their lives, till their life comes to be ended, and then they howl and make their moan ; usually when they lie a-dying, they cry out of this world, how it hath deceived them, and how little they have fulfilled the ends of their creation. Partly, because their conscience puts off all disguises, and partly because present things are apt to work upon us ; and when the everlasting estate is at hand, the soul is troubled that it did no more think of it before. Oh, it is better to be prepared than to be surprised. Think of your last end betimes. It is lamentable to begin to learn to live when we must die. These end their life before they begin to live. You are in your health and strength now, but we are all hastening apace into the other world. But when God summoneth by sickness, and you are immediately to appear before God, what have you to say for your- selves ? The devil will then be busy to tempt and trouble us, and all other comforts fail, and have spent their allowance, and are as unsavoury as the white of an egg. Will this comfort you, that you have sported and gamed away your precious time ? That you have fared of the best, and lived in pomp and honour ? Ah, no ; but this will be a cordial to your hearts, that you have made conscience of honouring and
134 SERMONS UPON 2 CORINTHIANS Y. [SeR. XXII.
glorifying God, and have been faithful in your place in promoting the church's good. Therefore if hitherto you have been pleasing the flesh, idling and wantoning away your precious time, say, ' The time past is more than enough,' 1 Peter iv. 3 ; I have long, too long, walked contrary to my great end, been dishonouring God, and destroying mine own soul ; it is high time to remember and seek after God.
5. Consider what a full reward abideth for tliose that live unto God, and in all things regard his glory : 1 Sam. ii. 30, ' Those that honour me, I will honour ; ' and John xii. 26, ' If any man serve me, him will my Father honour.' In the issue you will find that self-denial is the truest self-seeking ; that those who are contented to be anything for the Lord's glory, need not seek another pay-master. God will glorify you, if you glorify him. God's glorifying is effective and creative ; ours is but declarative ; he calleth the things that are not as though they were. We do no more than call things to be what they are, and far below what they are ; we declare God to be what he is ; we are but a kind of witnesses to God's glory ; but he is an efficient in our glory ; he bestoweth upon us what was not before ; and the glory he bestoweth upon us answereth the greatness of his being : 2 Cor. iv. 17, ' For our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, work for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' He will at length act like himself, as an infinite and eternal power. His gift shall answer his nature, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.
6. Gratitude bindeth us continually to live unto God. Every moment God is at work for us, and therefore every moment we should be at w^ork for God: John v. 17, ' My Father worketh hitherto, and I work.' In everything we should be mindful of him ; you are upheld by him every moment, and have life and breath, and all things from him.
7. Our great end must fix our minds, which otherwise will be tossed up and down in several and various uncertainties, and distracted by a multiplicity of ends and objects, that it cannot continue in any com- posed and settled frame: Ps. Ixxxvi. 11, 'Unite my heart;' and James i. 8, 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.' An uncertain mind breedeth an uncertain life ; not one part of our lives will agree with another, because the whole is not firmly knit by the power of their last end running through them. Most men's lives are but a mere lottery, because they never minded in good earnest why they came into the world. The fancies they are governed by are jumbled together by chance ; if right, it is but a good hit, a casual thing ; they live at peradventure, and then no wonder they walk at random.