* Cf. note c, Vol. L p. 350.~G. VOL. vn. D d
418 FAITH TRIUMPHANT.
Use. This should stir us up, if this be so, to get this grace of faith; above all (paces, to get assurance that ice are in Christ Jesus, that so we may live with comfort,' and end our days with comfort, and live for ever happy in the Lord. It is only faith, and nothing else, that will master this king of fears,— this giant that subdues all the kings of the earth to him. This monster death he outfaeeth all («)• Nothing can outface him but faith in Christ, and that will master him. As for your glorious speeches of pagans, and moral, civil men, they are but flourishes, vain, empty flourishes. Their hearts give them the lie. Death is a terrible thing when it is armed with our sins, and when it is the messenger of God's wrath, and citeth us before God. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of torment. When we look upon it in the glass of the law and in the glass of nature, it is the end of all comforts. It is a curse brought in by sin. It is a terrible thing. Nothing can conquer and master it but faith in Christ. Oh, let us labour, therefore, to get it while we live, and to exercise it while we live, that we may live every day by faith.
It is not any faith that we can die by. It must be a faith that we have exercised and tried before. It is a tried, a proved faith, that we must end our days by. For, alas ! when death comes, if we have not learned to live by faith before, how can we end our days in faith ? He that, while he lives, will not trust God with his children, that will not trust God with his soul ; he that will not trust God with his estate, but will use ill means, and put his hand to ill courses to gain by; he that will not trust God for his in- heritance, that will not ' cast his bread upon the waters,' Eccles. xi. 1, and trust God to see it again ; he that will not do this while he lives, how shall he trust God for body and soul and all, in death ? He cannot do it. It must be a faith that is daily exercised and tried, whereby we must commit our souls to God when we die, that we may die in that faith ; that we may be able to say. All the days of my life I had experience of God's goodness ; I_^depended upon him, and I have found him true in all his promises. I committed myself and my ways to him, and I found him good and gracious in blessing me. I found him giving me a good issue ; and now I am strengthened thereby to trust God, that hath been so true to me all my life- time. I will trust him now with my soul that he will never fail me.
Let us all labour for this faith ; for though it cannot be said of us that we die rich, or that we die great in the world, perhaps we may die a violent death, as there be divers diseases that lead the body into distempers. It is no matter how we die distempered, and in any estate, so it may be said of us we die in a blessed faith.
Oij. But it may be objected that all God's children die not in faith, because some die raging and distempered, and in such fits.
Ans. But we must know that they die in faith notwithstanding all that, for then they are not themselves. The covenant between God and them was made before : they have given up themselves to God, and committed their souls to God before ; for a Christian gives up himself every day. He commits himself, soul and body, continually to God, as a blessed sacri- fice of a free-will ofi'ering ; so he learns to die daily, daily labours to live in the estate he would die in. He ought to do thus ; and many Christians do thus. Therefore, notwithstanduig these distempers, the covenant be- tween God and the soul remains still, and he dies in faith. It is said here, they ' all died in faith.' He saith not they all died in feehng. A man may die in faith, and yet not die in feeling ; and sometimes the strongest faith is with the least feeling of God's love. Feeling may be reserved sometimes
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for heaven. Yet notwithstanding, we must not take it so as if there were no feeling where there is faith ; for there was never faith yet but upon the touch of faith, the soul drew some strength and some inward feeling. Though it be not discerned of the soul in regard of the immoderate desire of the soul to have more, yet there is alway so much feeling, and strength, and comfort, that supports the soul from despair, take the child of God at the worst. Therefore when I speak of feeling, I speak of a glorious demon- stration that God sometimes takes away from his children. They died in faith, though not alway in feeling of it ; they died in faith, though not alway by a fair death or in a comely manner outwardly, to the applause of the world. It is no matter for that ; they all died in faith, and that is sufficient.