lEAM. tel THE DEATH OF SA1ÑTS ThT?TtOv1D. 201 upper world, we are ready to say, " What should we stay here for? Our God is on high, our Saviour is on Sigh, multitudes of our friends are departed from us, and dwell on high. Farewell earth, and time, and sensi- ble things : We long to be with our best friends, and with our God ; we are ready, O Jesus, for thy first summons; take us when thou pleasest into heaven and eternity? 4. The comfortable death of a saint instructs us how to die, and makes death easy. When we see and hear a fellow-christian examining his heart, searching his soul to the bottom, turning all his secret thoughts outward, and looking over the past conduct of his life ; when we be- bold him reviewing his own follies and iniquities, and recalling to mind also all his sacred transactions with God ; when we see him surveying all these most import- ant concerns in the light of the lastjudgment; and, as it were, under the piercing rays of the great tribunal: when we hear him abasing himself to the dust in the most villifyingexpressions, because Ofhis sins, and yet rejoicing in the evidences of his graces, and repeating the pro- mises of the gospel with a pleasant hope ; this teaches us to converse with our own souls in a more lively manner, about sin and forgiveness, about death and eternity; for it brings these awful themes into open view, and sets them before us in their infinité importance: This reads us a glorious lecture upon the gospel of Christ, and par- doning grace, and the sanctifying Spirit, and the hope of glory, beyond what we ever found before in the best of sermons, andunder the warmest preachers. Come, my friends, come into the chamber of a dying christian, come, approach his pillow, And hear his holy language : " I am going up to heaven, and I long to be gone, to be where my Saviour is. " Why are his cha- riot-wheels so long a coming ?" Then with both arms stretched up to heaven,. I desire to 'be with God. I hope I am a sincere christian; but the meanest, and the most unworthy: I know I am a great sinner: but dick not Christ come to save the chief of sinners ; I hope I shall find acceptance in Christ Jesus. I'have trusted in him, and I have strong consolation. I have been looking into my own heart, what are uy evidences for heaven? Has not the scripture said, " He that believeth shall not perish, but shall have everlasting life;. Jplan iii. lßî.
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