1 .DISCOURSE 1I!. 607 was St. Paul's' practice ; 1 Cor. xv. 31. I protest ha/ our* re- joicing which I have in Christ Jesus, our Lord, I die daily: And his daily living, in the views of death, had ahappy influence to maintain his rejoicing in Christ. If youconstantly lookon your- selves as dying creatures, andplace yourselves on the borders of eternity, you will then take leave daily of sensible things andlive by the faith of things invisible. You will then behold God as ever near you, God, the judgeof all, the everlasting hope, and the portion of his saints : You will be very unwilling to have your heart absent fromGod, while you look at death as just at hand. Then the blesed Jesus, both as a Saviour, and as a judge, will be touch on your thoughts. " Am I ready to appear before my judge ? Have I any strong and secure evidences that Jesus' is my Saviour ? Then the gates of heaven will be ever as it were open before you, and the glories of it always within your view : You will think much of the heavenly world; with all its holy inhabitants, with its divine enjoyments, with its. everlasting free- dom from temptation, and sin, and sorrow, with its delightful business, and its unknown pleasures. Then this world will be as a dead thing in your eyes; it will have very little power to work on your passions, and to draw you aside fromGod: IIe will be your love, and your all. The strength of faith, and the views of death, will command your fears, and hopes, and desires, and confine them to the things of religion. Then you will be ever solicitous to brighten your evi- dences for heaven, to keep your hopes firm and 'unshaken, by often reviewing the grounds and foundations of them : And your spirit will be solicitous to be found ready at 'all limit's, for the call and summons into the upper world. Every power of nature, and every passion will be kept in its right frame and posture, under the influence of such an expectation. You will hate every sin, andabhor the thoughts of it, lest your soulsbe defiled afresh, when they are just called to depart : Youwill keep- your desires of God always warm, and set a guard on ypur love, lest it suffer any decay :' You will raise your thoughts to a continual delightful converse with heavenly things, and enter into the spirit of joy and praise. O blessed souls, who daily practise this sort of de- parturefrom the body, and anticipate the pleasures of the hea- venly state ! Who love the blessed God, and delight in him here on earth, as far as mortality will admit, and are breathing after the more consummate holiness and joy of paradise ! This was the frame and temper, this the devout language of Armelle * Most of the Greek copies, as well as our own translation, read it of your rejoicing;" but it is hard to makesense of it, without changing the word " your" into" our," which in the Greek is but the small change of one letter; and one or more manuscript copies have the word " our," and support this alteration.
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