6 '2 DEATH A BLESSING TO THE SAINTS. glass of the gospel, which casts fair colours upon what is in itself so dark and formidable. It is the gospel in that glass which dis- covers to us the flowery blessings that grow in that gloomy valley, and gives a fair and delightful prospect of those hills of paradise and pleasure that lie beyond the grave. Why should we let this blessed gospel lie neglected, and live still in bondage to the fear of dying ? The Recollection. " Come now, and let us learnby this discourse, to shame ourselves of these weaknesses, these unrea- sonable fears. Let us talk to our own souls in the language of faith. Why, O my soul, art thou afraid to let this body die ? Hast thou not endured labours and trials enough, and art thou unwilling to come to the end of them ? Hest thou not yet been tempted enough ? Hast thou not been foiled too often, and too often throwndown in The conflict? Think of thy many wounds of conscience, the bruises of thy spirit, the defilement of thy garments, and the loss of thy purity and thy peace. Canst thoubear, that all these should be repeated again and again ? Art thou unwilling this war should have an end? Art thou afraid of victory and triumph ? What dost thou labour and fight for ? Dost thou not run to obtain the prize ? Dost thou not wrestle and fight to gain the crown ? And hast thou not courage enough to go across the darkvalley, to take possession of this crown and this prize. " Think, O my spirit, think of thy painful ignorance whilst thou dwellest in this region of shadows : Is not knowledge thy natural and delicious food ? Hast thou not lived long enough in darkness, and been involved too long in mistakes and errors ? And art thou willing to dwell in a land of darkness still, a land of dreams and disguises, where truth is hardly found ? Art thou afraidof the borders of that world, where light and knowledge grow, and where truth, and realities appear all unveiled and with- out disguise ? Where thou shalt be cheated nomore with the sound of words, but shalt see all things just as they are, in a clear light, without error, and without confusion ? O happy period of thymistakes and wanderings, of all thy learned mazes in quest of truth ! Andart thou still afraid to come near it ? "Has it not been the matter of thy sacred mourning, that thy God is so much concealed from thee, that greatest and best of beings ? That the Son of God, the brightness of the lather's glory; Heb. i. 3. is so much a stranger, and thy Saviour is so little known ? That thy faith has been labouring and wearied in many enquiries about the glories of his person as God-man about thewonders of his united natures, and the mysteries of his . gospel, about the power of his death, the virtue of Iris righte.. eusness, and the sovereignty ofhis grace ? And art thou afraid
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