nature's Good -night. Gen. 40. ao. ahd sa. Hal. I. s. Mut.;. t3. Aug. traft. in Job. 46. Rev, 6.g. Deer friends are in rho bo- fome,Joh.t.18. Stetpea). Job /S. 14: Numb. a ;ì i. Lib.;. char,6. Lib. 1. chap. a. Here. fur. tiibil morti eft tam(mile gum famous. Cic. de Sentit. Ecclus 34.3. yet is it ftrangely animated with confounding horrour, that it muff be the veffel whereinto God will pour endlefs and everlafling wra:h. Can Inch fleep (think ye) who lodge in beds of flaming Brimflone, and in (beets of boyling Lead ? Thofe forlorn expreffìonswhich Scripture delivers their departure in, deny us all fuch hopes. They are dead, they fhall not live, they are fallen, they (hall not rife, Ifa. 26.14. Mark ; dead from this life, and (hall not live in the other e, fallen now, and that' not rife then, or if rife, butas Pharaoh's Baker, from the pri- fon to the gibbet, for they fhaNnot be able to(toad injudgwent, Pfa1.1.5. I am Cure not (land to what they have done. Sad Strapado .' to be hoys'd into the clouds to fall into the bottomlefs pit ! miferable advance of a ¡hell fifa by abird into the air, to receive his death by a fall ! Confider this all ye that forget God, left he take you away fuddenly, and there be none co help : confider that Gods ways are not as Mans; the guilty and innocent do he in like cuflody till the great Affize and Gaol-delivery; through one gate a Citizen may walk co his recreation, and a thief be led to his execution; the Sheep and Goat may feed together during life, but the Shepherd of our foul feparates them by death : the Wheat and Chaff may ly together in the floor, But he wholefan is inhis hand, will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into his garner, but will burn thechar with unquenchable fire. Death as the red Sea, divides the lfraelite from the Egyptian, Evart. 14. 13. they (hall fee each other no more for ever. Receptue efl pauper, receptus dives ; La.ratua into Abra ham befome, where is falnefs ofjoy; Dives into Hell, where is the complement of mifery ; misery fo extreme, is flupifies our thoughts, exceeds our commisera- tion; for how can we lament what we cannot apprehend, what we cannot re- medy, unlefs we weep as Solon for his Son's death, becaufe weeping could not help ? On the other fide, could our frckly faith but apprehend the tranfcendent hap- piness of choie that fleep, could weconfider that they who ferve at the Altar on earth, lie under the Altar in heaven, fafer far from condemnation than thofe that flee to the Altar here; that they who leaned on Chrifls bofom here, and fucked the fincere milk of his Word to their fpirimal growth, now lie in Abraham bofom, that is, in the familiarity and society of God : that the fervanrsof God do prefently from death enter into their Mailers joy ; We should be ravifhed with joy, not a tear should fall unlessfor private re peóis ; nor weep for them, but for our (elves; not that they are abfent from us, but that we are. not prefent with them ; indeed not weep at all, butfor joy that one is gone, whole good life and our charity fuggefis her tranflated into a flare of refsand fleep. Cheep not, She ú not dead but fleepetb. --- Her Affirmative Condition. The journey of an Ilraeliteindeed towards the heavenly Canaan, is like that of the Israelites in name toward the earthly: much hindered by the many evil reports that, are brought up of the way to this goodLand. Death theyfay is the King of terrours ; the Grave a Sarcopbagraa, a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof, a land of darl(nefi and oblivion, Pfal. 88. 1 z. Now that we may not fear where no fear is, God is pleafed to pull out this fling of Death, and thew us our diffolution in the moll pleasant reprefentationof fleep, Not dead but fleepeth. So well was Nature's Secretary infirutìed, that although in his Ethicks he [tarries at Death as the moil terrible, yet inhis De Generatione he tells w, the inter- val of living and not living, is fleep, and his reason is, becaufe Nature procecdeth but gradatim from one extream to another, as if he knew the only medium to bring the eveningofLife to the dawnof the Refurreólion, were the night of Death. Some of their ownPoets fay much like it; Sleep in Seneca is Frater durns lan- guida mortis, in Ovid, mortis Imago, Death'syounger brother and refemblance. Awaken your attention ro Tome Analogies which pats betwixt them; we (hall conclude asSiracides of thevifrons of Dreams, That flapand deathare the refem- blance cf one another, ae the itkenefx offace toface. Sleep
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