When j'ou find your hearts dull and cold, and inactive to good, then fetch fire from hence to inflame them : from the ' second coming' of Christ, from the love of God in Christ, from the love of his appearance. Oh, rouse up and quicken your hearts with such considerations. Do you conflict with any enemies, either without or within ? Remember what the apostle saith : • Fight the good fight of faith ; lay hold on eternal life,' 1 Tim. vi. 12. What is the way to fight the good fight of faith ? Why, lay hold on eter- nal life, and that will make a man fight indeed.
Are you in any disconsolate condition ? If you be, see what the apostle Paul saith to the Thessalonians : ' Wherefore, comfort ye one another with these words,' 1 Thess. iv. 18. With what words ? Why, ' We shall be ever with the Lord.' Oh these words will comfort indeed. Consider, when you have lost your friends, your estate,, or anything, it shall be all fully made up there ? Do you, as it were, make it up beforehand, with comforts of a higher nature ? They be things that will comfort indeed.
And so, when you find yourselves dull in doing the work of the Lord, think upon the ' second coming ' of Christ, and that he will not then come empty-handed, but ' he will bring his reward with him,' Rev. xxii. 12. Consider what St Paul said to Timothy : ' I charge thee, therefore, before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and dead at his appearing, and his kingdom,' &c., 2 Tim. iv. 1. The holy apostle had no greater a conjuration to move Timothy to be diligent, and to quicken him in his ministry, than by the coming of our Lord Jesus. So let us stir up ourselves, and comfort ourselves hereby.
656 THE bride's longing.
Beloved, the soul is never in such a tune, as when the thoughts of these glorious times have raised the affections to the highest pitch and peg. Then the soul is never uncomfortable ; and so long as it is so affected, it cannot sin, for we lose our frame, we let down the soul in base desires, we let loose our thoughts from closing with Christ, and with the time to come, when we sin. When we let them loose, then they sink down to earthly things ; and that is the cause of all sin and of all discomfort.
So long, then, as we keep our hearts in a blessed frame of faith, and in a love of the appearing of Christ, they are impregnable. Satan cannot come between us and our faith, but he labours to loosen our faith and love, and to distract us with the businesses of the world, that we shall have very seldom thoughts of these things. Alas, that we ' who are born again to an inheritance incorruptible and undcfiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for us,' 1 Pet. i. 4, should have so little and so light thoughts of our inheritance !
If a man were to go a journey by sea a 3^ear hence, he would be thinking every day upon his journey, what he should have to carry with him, and what will do him good when he comes there. We have all of us a long journey to go, from earth to heaven ; and we should be thinking of it every day in the year.
But we have a company of men in the world, all whose happiness is in putting off all thoughts in that kind ; in deferring the day of their death, and putting the evil day far away from them ; not thinking upon them ; that so they may drown themselves in pleasure and voluptuousness. Ah, what a pitiful case hath Satan and our own sinful dispositions brought us unto, that we should place our happiness, safety, and comfort in putting off the thoughts of death, in going on presumptuously in sin, and never thinking upon that great day ! Alas, they cannot think of it but as Felix did, who, when he heard Paul dispute and reason of * righteousness, and temperance, and judgment to come, trembled,' Acts xxiv. 25.
Why, let Felix tremble, and let the world tremble, but let every Chris- tian that hath made his peace with God, rejoice. Even as poor birds do sing when the spring time is returned again — for it warms them, and puts life and spirit into them, and they entertain the light and heat of the sun with singing and melody — so let us, in our thoughts, entertain Christ's coming with joy and comfort, having made our peace, substantially and solidly, with God. Let us look up, and lift up our heads with joy, for our redemption draweth nigh, Luke xxi. 28.
Now I come to the farticnlar occasion.
It is well known that the particular occasion of this meeting is, to cele- brate and solemnise the funeral of that worthy man Sir Thomas Crew, one of the king's Serjeants, in regard of whom I made choice of this text. If I wanted matter to speak of him, he had many natural excellent parts, which did commend him. I might speak of the quickness of his wit, of the firm- ness of his memory, of the readiness of his expressions, of the clearness and solidity of his judgment, able to penetrate into the depth of things, &c. And for his ability in his particular calling, I might say many things. He was a man very eminent in his calling : he was one of the oracles of the law in his time ; one that had gathered very long and large experience, and wonderful great dexterity in that profession. And surely, beloved, these