CONFÌRdSED CHR1ST1,tN. 571 yet cáuld not shed a tear for sin, nor feel any very great sorrows or joys! If youjudge ofamanby his earnestness in some good moods, and not by the constant tenor ofhis life, you will thinkmany a hypo- crite to be better than most saints. Whowould have thought, that had seen him only in that fit, but that, Saul had been a penitent man, when he lift up his voice and wept, and said to David, "Thou art-more righteous than I, for'thouhast rewarded me good ; where- as I have rewarded thee evil ;" 1 Sam. xxiv. 16-21. A small- er matter will raise some sudden passions, than will renew the soul, and give the preeminence to God, and holiness, and heaven, in the judgment, will, and conversation ; Hosea vi. 4., xiii. 3. Isaiah lvü. 2. Matt. xiii. 20. LX. 1. A Christian indeed, confirmed in grace, is one that maketh it the business of his life to prepare for death ; and delay- eth.not his serious thoughts of it, and preparations for, it, till it sur- prise him; and therefore when it cometh it findeth him prepared, and he gladly entertaineth it as the messenger of his Father, to call him to his everlasting home. It is not a strange, unexpected, thing to him, to hear he must die ; he died daily in his daily sufferings, and mortified contempt of worldly things, and in his daily expecta- tion of his change. He wondereth to see men, at a dying time, surprised with .astonishment and terror, who jovially or carelessly neglected it before, as if they had never known till then that they must die. Or as if a few years' time were reason enough for so great a difference. For that which 'he certainly knoweth will be, he looketh at as if it were even at hand; and his preparation for it is more serioús'in his health, than othermen's is.on their death-bed. He useth more carefully to bethink himself what graces,he shall need at a dying time, and in what case' he shall then wish his soul to be ; and accordingly he laboreth in his provisions now, seven as if itwere to be to-morrow. He verily betieveth that it is incom- parably "better for him to be with Christ," than to abide on earth ; and, therefore, though death of itself be an enemyand terrible to nature, yet being the Only passage into happiness, he gladly enter- taineth it.. Though he have not himself any clear apprehensions of the place and state of the happiness of departed souls, yet it quieteth him to know that they "shall be with Christ, and that Christ knoweth all, and prepareth and secureth for him that prom- ised rest; John xii. 26. 2 Cor. v. 1. 7, 8. Phil.'i. 21. 23. Luke xxiii. 43. -Though he is net free from all the natural fears of death, yet his belief and hope of endlesshappiness doth abate those fears by the joyful expectation of the gain which followeth. See my book, called " The Last Enemy, and the List Work of a Believer;" and that of "Self-denial, " against the fears of death.
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