[4.] Meditate on the happiness into which you are entering. Stephen's eyes were opened — ' And he looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,' Acts vii. 55. Whether in vision, or by ecstasy and the elevation of faith, I dispute not ; I only urge it for this, it is a good meditation, when at the point of death to think of God, and of the glory of his presence, and of Jesus Christ in heaven at his right hand ready to receive you. Your thoughts should be now taken up about the glorious things of another world ; think no more of heaven as at a distance, but as one going to take possession of it ; the angels are ready to conduct you to Christ, and Christ to present you to God, as a proof of the virtue of his death : Jude 24, ' Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding great joy.' Death is ready to untie the soul from its chains, and to let it forth into liberty and glory ; look upon yourselves as ready to pass into the throng of spirits, to see Christ and all his blessed angels, and your everlasting companions. You are going to better company, to better employment, to a better place, where is your God, your head, the Lord Christ ready to receive you when you come thither. This is the time we longed for, looked for, prayed for ; now we are going to our preferment, and enter upon those glorious things that are represented to us in the gospel : these things should take up your thoughts. It is not so with the wicked ; how horrid are the thoughts of death to him : he is going to sufler and feel that which he would never believe before ; death cometh to him as God's executioner, to rend the unwilling soul from the embraces ©f the body ; he sees an handwriting against him, great bills of uncancelled sins awakening and amazing the conscience, and breaking all his hope in pieces. How is the man perplexed ; what between the memory of past sins and the fear of future pains, the sense of an angry God and the presence of devils ready to carry him to accursed and damned spirits, and he has no comforter, no advocate to plead for him.
288 SERMONS UPOX HEBREWS XI. [SeR. XLY.
[5.] Commend your faith to others, this is to die in faith. This is the last time that you can do anything for God in the world, and tlierefore this you should do, commend the fliithfulness and goodness of God, what a good master you have found him to be : John iii. 33; " He that hath received his testimony liath set to his seal that God is true.' Swans, some say, sing before their death ; so have God's servants com- mended their experiences of God's faithfulness to others ; as Moses : Dcut. xxxii. 4, ' He is a rock, his work is perfect ; for all his ways are judgment : a God of truth, and without iniquity, just and right is he ; ' :<o Joshua, chap, xxiii. 14, ' Behold this day I am going the way of all the earth ; and ye know in all your hearts, and in all your souls, that not one thing hath failed of all the good things, which the Lord your God spake concerning you ; all are come to pass unto you,- and not one thing hath failed thereof.' He repeats it twice. The words of <lying men are of most efficacy and authority, as being spoken out of xill their former experience, and with most simplicity, and without self-seeking and sinister ends. Therefore speak a good word of God, let the world know wliat you have found God to be, I know him for a true God, he is not behind-hand in one word. So Jacob : Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, ' God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life-long unto this day, the angel which redeemed me from all evil.' Carnal men do not honour their principles; they cannot speak of the worth of the world, and of the things they have trusted to ; they fail them when they stand in most need of them, find therefore they fall a-complaining of the world, how it hath abused and deceived them. But godly men can speak honourably of the God they have trusted. Stephen told them of his vision, though it increased their rage against him : Acts vii. 5G, ' He said, Behold I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God.' He would honour God that owned him, though it made them fall upon him like madmen. Thus j^ou see what the duty of christians is when they come to die, to die in faith and obedience, resigning their souls to God, <lismissing their bodies to the grave in hope, meditating on the great things of eternity, honouring their principles, and speaking for God to others.
Use 2. Can you thus die in faith ? It is another thing to do it in deed than what it is to do it in conceit. They that stand on the shore may easily speak to men in a storm, Sail thus and thus ; but when the waves beat high, directions are not easily followed. Can you then die in faitli ? There is the great trial of faith. A christian doth not only make it his care to live in Christ, but to die in Christ : Eev. xiv. 13, ' Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.' It is a blessed thing ' to sleep in Jesus,' 1 Thes. iv. 14. How is it with you ? are you pro- vided for such an hour ? Tliere are two expressions I shall take notice of on this occasion ; one is, 2 Cor. v. 3, ' If so be that being clothed, we shall not be found naked ; ' another is, 2 Peter iii. 14, ' Give diligence, that you may be found of him in peace.' 0 christians ! it is a sad thing to be found naked ; yon can never die with comfort, and appear before God with confidence, if you are not clothed with Christ's right- eousness. A wicked man hath no garment to cover him ; but for the righteous God puts one grace upon another, upon the righteousness of Christ God puts on the sanctification of the Spirit, and upon the sancti-