he comes to us, we entertain him with gladness; when he dies, we mourn, and usually over-mourn, To be separated from a faithful friend, is like the rending a member from our body. And would not our desires after God be such, if we really loved him? Nay, should it not be much more than such, as he is above all friends most lovely? May the Lord teach us to look closely to our hearts, and take heed of self-deceit in this point! Whatever we pretend, if we love either father, mother, husband, wife, child, friend, wealth, or life itself, more than Christ, we are yet none of his sincere disciples. When it comes to the trial, the question will not be, Who hath preached most, or heard most, or talked most? but, Who hath loved most? Christ will not take sermons, prayers, fastings; no, nor the giving our goods, nor the burning our bodies; instead of love. And do we love him, and yet care not how long we are from him? Was it such a joy to Jacob to see the face of Joseph in Egypt? And shall we be contented without the sight of Christ in glory, and yet say we love him? I dare not conclude, that we have no love at all, when we are so loth to die; but I dare say, were our love more, we should die more willingly. If this holy flame were thoroughly kindled in our breasts, we should cry out with David, "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?"-By our unwillingness to die, it appears we are little weary of sin. Did we take sin for the greatest evil, we should not be will ing to have its company so long. "O foolish, sinful heart! Hast thou been so long a cage of all unclean lusts, a fountain so incessantly streaming forth the bitter waters of transgression, and art thou not yet weary? Wretched soul! Hast thou been so long wounded in all thy faculties, so grievously languishing in all thy performances, so fruitful a soil of all iniquities, and art thou not yet more weary? Wouldest

thou still lie under thy imperfections? Hath thy sin proved so profitable a commodity, so necessary a companion, such a delightful employment, that thou dost so much dread the parting day? May not God justly grant thee thy wishes, and seal thee a lease of thy desired distance from him, and nail thy ears to these doors of misery, and exclude thee eternally from his glory?" It shows that we are insensible of the vanity of the creature, when we are so loth to hear or think of a removal. 66 Ah, foolish, wretched soul! doth every prisoner groan for freedom? and every slave desire his jubilee? and every sick man long for health? and every hungry man for food? and dost thou alone abhor deliverance? Doth the Isailor wish to see the land? Doth the husbandman desire the harvest, and the labourer to receive his pay? Doth the traveller long to be at home, and the racer to win the prize, and the soldier to win the field? And art thou loth to see thy labours finished, and to receive the end of thy faith and sufferings? Have thy griefs been only dreams? If they were, yet methinks thou shouldest not be afraid of waking. Or is it not rather the world's delights that are all mere dreams and shadows? Or is the world become of late more kind? We may at our peril reconcile ourselves to the world, but it will never reconcile itself to us. O unworthy soul! who hadst rather dwell in this land of darkness, and wander in this barren wilderness, than be at rest with Jesus Christ! who hadst rather stay among the wolves, and daily suffer the scorpion's stings, than praise the Lord with the host of heaven!"

§ 20. This unwillingness to die, doth actually impeach us of high treason against the Lord. Is it not choosing of earth before him, and taking of present things for our happiness, and consequently making them our very god? If we did indeed make God our end, our rest, our portion, our treasure, how is it possible but we should desire to enjoy him? It

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moreover discovers some dissimulation. Would you have any believe you, when they call the Lord your only hope, and speak of Christ as all in all, and of the joy that is in his presence, and yet would endure the hardest life, rather than die and enter into his sence? What self-contradiction is this, to talk so hardly of the world and the flesh, to groan and complain of sin and suffering; and yet fear no day more than that, which we expect should bring our final freedom! What hypocrisy is this, to profess to strive and fight for heaven, which we are loth to come to! and spend one hour after another in prayer, for that which we would not have! Hereby we wrong the Lord and his promises, and disgrace his ways in the eyes of the world. As if we would persuade them to question, whether God be true to his word or not? whether there be any such glory as the scripture mentious? When they see those so loth to leave their hold of present things, who have professed to live by faith, and have boasted their hopes in another world, and spoken disgracefully of all things below in comparison of things above; how doth this confirm the world in their unbelief and sensuality? Sure," say they, "if these professors did expect so much glory, and make so light of the world as they seem, they would not themselves be so loth to change." O how are we ever able to repair the wrong which we do to God and souls by this scandal? And what an honour to God, what a strengthening to believers, what a conviction to unbelievers, would it be, if Christians in this did answer their profession, and cheerfully wel come the news of rest!-It also evidently shows that we have spent much time to little purpose. Have we not had all our life-time to prepare to die? So many years to make ready for one hour, and are we so unready and unwilling yet! What have we done? Why have we lived? Had we any greater matters to mind? Would we have wished for more frequent warnings? How oft hath death entered the habitations of our neighbours! How oft hath it knocked

at our own doors! How many distempers have vexed our bodies, that we have been forced to receive the sentence of death! And are we unready and unwilling after all this? O careless dead-hearted sinners! unworthy neglecters of God's warnings! faithless betrayers of our own souls!

21. Consider, not to die, is never to be happy.To escape death, is to miss of blessedness; except God should translate us, as Enoch and Elijah, which he never did before or since. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable. If you would not die, and go to heaven, what would you have more than an epicure, or a beast? Why do we pray, and fast, and mourn? Why do we suffer the contempt of the world? Why are we Christians, and not pagans and infidels, if we do not desire a life to come? Wouldest thou lose thy faith and labour, Christian? all thy duties and sufferings, all the end of thy life, and all the blood of Christ, and be contented with the portion of a worldling or a brute? Rather say as one did on his death-bed, when he was asked whether he was willing to die or not, "Let him be loth to die, who is loth to be with Christ." -Is God willing by death to glorify us, and we are unwilling to die, that we may be glorified? Methinks, if a prince were willing to make you his heir, you would scarce be unwilling to accept it; the refusing such a kindness would discover ingratitude and unworthiness. As God hath resolved against them, who make excuses when they should come to Christ, "None of those men, who were bidden, shall taste of my supper;" so it is just with him to resolve against us, who frame excuses when we should come to glory.-The Lord Jesus was willing to come from heaven to earth for us; and shall we be unwilling to remove from earth to heaven, for ourselves and him? He might have said, "What is it to me if these sinners suffer? If they value their flesh above their spirits, and their lusts above my Father's love; if they will sell their souls for nought; who is it fit should be the loser? B b

Should I, whom they have wronged? Must they wilfully transgress my law, and I undergo their deserved pain? Must I come down from heaven to earth, and clothe myself with human flesh, be spit upon and scorned by man, and fast, and weep, and suffer, and bleed, and die a cursed death; and all this for wretched worms, who had rather hazard their souls, than forbear one forbidden morsel? Do they cast away themselves so slightly, and must I redeem them so dearly?" Thus we see Christ had reason enough to have made him unwilling; and yet did he voluntarily condescend. But we have no reason against our coming to him; except we will reason against our hopes, and plead for the perpetuity of our own calamities: Christ came down to fetch us up; and would we have him to lose his blood and labour, and go again without us? Hath he bought our rest at so dear a rate? Is our inheritance pur chased with his blood? And are we, after all this, loth to enter? Ah, sirs! it was Christ, and not we, that had cause to be loth. May the Lord forgive, and heal this foolish ingratitude!

22. Do we not combine with our most cruel foes, in their most malicious designs, while we are loth to die, and go to heaven? What is the devil's daily bu siness? Is it not to keep our souls from God? And shall we be content with this? Is it not the one half of hell which we wish to ourselves, while we desire to be absent from heaven? What sport is this to Satan, that his desires and thine, Christian, should so concur!that when he sees he cannot get thee to hell, he can so long keep thee out of heaven, and make thee the earnest petitioner for it thyself! O gratify not the devil so much to thy own injury! Do not our daily fears of death, make our lives a continual torment? Those lives which might be full of joy, in the daily contemplations of the life to come, and the sweet delightful thoughts of bliss; how do we fill them up with causeless terror! Thus we consume our own comforts, and prey upon our truest pleasures. When we might