SSS THE WATCHFUL CHRISTIAN DYING IN PEACE. 1DI$C. IT. our lives in that very posture of body in which we are then found, should we not be awake, and keep our- selves ii the most natural and easy gestures all that day, lest we be seized at once, and fixed in some distorted, painful, and uneasy situation all our months and years to come ! Or, if we were to be bound down to one sin- gle thought or passion all the remnant of our life, in Which we were found in any uncertain minute in this hour, should we not watch with utmost care,, and guard against every unpleasing thought, and every fretful and vexing passion, lest it should be fixed upon us till we die? Now this is the case at death : The almighty voice of God then pronounces, " He that is unclean and unholy, must for ever be unholy and unclean; but he that is righteous,' let him be righteous still, and he that is holy, shall be for ever holy," Rev. xxii. 11. I will not pre- cisely determine, that this is the sense of that text, yet since the apostle speaks there concerning the coming of Christ, it may be very applicable to the present case. Now how dreadful soever this thought is to a guilty sinful creature, it is no terror to a wakeful christian: He is ready to have these words pronounced from heaven, for they will establish him in eternal holiness and eternal peace': He hath endeavoured to secure to himself an in- terest in the love of God through the faith and love of Jésus the blessed Mediator, and at death he is fixed for ever in their love. He hath loved God in time, and in this visible world, and there is nothing in all the unseen worlds, nothing thriigh all the ages of eternity, "shall ever separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus." The moment of death bath fixed him for ever a holy and beloved soul, beyond the power of creatures to change his temper, or his state. This is the blessedness of the watchful christian. Consideration III. Death sets us, in a more immediate and sensible manner, in the presence of God, a glorious 'a:nd holy God, "God the Judge of all;" and blessed is the watchful christian, for he is willing to stand before this God, to be brought into his presence: This is what he bath longed and prayed for, to be for ever with God. It is the blessedness that he bath sought with incessant labours and tears, with holy diligence and daily devotion, and
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=