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CHß3ST-IAtr
D-YITid IN
PEACE.
(blbE.
tI,
body,
and
sends
us
into
another
sort
of
world, whose affairs
and concerns are
such only
as
belong to spirits,
whether
sinful or
holy
:
A
most
delightful,
or
a
most dreadful
change!
A
world
of
unknown sorrows
or
unknown hap-
piness
!
Luke
xxiii. 43.
"
This
day
shalt thou
be with
me
in
paradise." Luke
xvi.2,
23.
"
The
rich man
died,-
-
and
in hell he lift
up
his eyes." And, indeed, the
change
is
so
vast,
that, comparatively speaking,
we
know
not
what
sorrow or happiness
is till this day comes. Now
it
is
a very
foolish
and dangerous thing,
at
best, to
pass
into
such an
extreme change
of
states
infinitely
worse,
or infinitely
better,
while
we
are
asleep and
at
all
uncertainties:
What
if
it should
be
the miserable state,
and
we
should awake
in
hell
?
But
the watchful christian
is
blessed,
for he
is
xeady for this amazing change.
He bath
long lived
upon
it
by
faith
and hope,
though
he knows
not
so
well
what the
particular
enjoyments
of
heaven
are
;
and
he
is
well
satis-
f
ed,
that
he
is
prepared
for
that
happy
world
by
God
him
-
aelf.
2 Cor.
v.
5.
"
He
that
bath wrought
us
for
the self
-
same
thing
is
God
:"
He
is
well-
pleased to have
his
faith
changed into
sight,
and
his
hope into
fruition
:
He bath
been
long pained and
burdened,
in this
sinful world,
with
the vain
trifles,
the
poor
low
cares and amusements
of it;
the
sins,
and sorrows, and
temptations
that sur-
round
him
in it, give
hire
continual
disquietudes, and
he
hath
been
training up
in
the
school
of
Christ,
by
devotion
and
good
works, for those
higher
services
of
heaven.
:Since he
can
trust
the promises
of
the
gospel,
and
has
had
some
small
foretaste
of
these
pleasures,
he knows
that
the
actions
and
employments, the businesses
and
the joys
of
the
upper
world,
are incomparably
superior
to
any thing
,here on
earth, and
free
from all
the uneasy and defiling
circumstances
of
this
life.
He
is
awake
to
receive
this
change
:
He
rejoices
in his
removal from world to world
:
His
vital
and active powers are ready for the
business
of
paradise, and
he
opens
his
heart
to
take
in the
joy.
Consideration
VII.
Death
makes
its
approaches,
of-
tentimes, and
seizes
us
in
such a manner
as
to
give no
room for prayers or repentance, then
the blessedness
of
the watchful soul appears,
that
if
he
is
carried out of
the
world and
time, in such
a surprizing
way,
he
is
safe
for
eternity.
Sometimes the messenger
of deathstops
all
our thoughts
1