3. Is not the public interest of Christ and religion, infinitely more than any private interest of my own? Terentius, captain to Adrian the emperor, présented a petition to Adrian, that the Christians might have a temple by themselves, to worship God apart from the Arians. The emperor tore his petition and threw it away, bidding him ask something for himself, and it should be granted. But he modestly gathered up the pieces of his petition again, and told him, that if he could not be heard in God's cause, he would never ask any thing for himself. Yea, even Tully, though a heathen, could say, that he' would not accept even of immortality itself, against the commonwealth. O if we had more public spirit, we should not have such cowardly spirits!

4. Did Jesus Christ serve me so, when, for my sake, he exposed himself to far greater sufferings than can be before me? His sufferings were great indeed; he suffered from all hands, in all his offices, in every member, not only in his body, but in his soul; yea, the sufferings of his soul were the very soul of his sufferings. Witness the bloody sweat in the garden; witness that heart-melting, and heaven-rending outcry upon the cross, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" And yet he flinched not; "he endured the cross, despising the shame." Alas! what are my sufferings compared with Christ's? He has drank up all that vinegar and gall that would make my sufferings bitter. When one of the martyrs was asked why he was so cheerful at his death? "O," said he, "it is because the soul of Christ was so heavy at his death." Did Christ bear such a burden for me, with unbroken patience, and constancy; and shall I shrink back from momentary, and light afflictions, for him?

5. Is not eternal life worth the suffering of a moment's pain? If I suffer with him, I shall reign with him. O how will men venture life and limb for a fading crown, swim through seas of blood to a throne! And shall I venture nothing, suffer nothing, for the crown of glory that fadeth not away? My dog will follow my horse's heels from morning to night, take many a weary step through mire and dirt, rather than leave me, though at No. XVIII.

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night all he gets by it is but bones, and blows. If my soul had any true greatness, any sparks of generosity in it, how would it despise the sufferings of the way, for the glory of the end! How would it break down all difficulties before it, whilst, by an eye of faith, it sees the forerunner who is already entered, standing, as it were, upon the walls of heaven, with the crown in his hand, saying, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things." Come on then, my soul, come on; there is eternal life laid up for them that, "by patient continuance in well-doing, seek for glory, honor, and immortality," Rom. ii. 7.

6. Can I so easily cast off the society and company of the saints, and give the right-hand of fellowship to the wicked? How can I part with such lovely companions as these have been! How often have I been benefited by their counsels! How often refreshed, warmed, and quickened by their company! How often have I fasted and prayed with them! What sweet counsel have I taken with them, and gone to the house of God in company! And shall I now shake hands with them, and say, Farewell all ye saints for ever; I shall never be among you more? Come drunkards, swearers, blasphemers, persecutors, you shall be my everlasting companions. O rather let my body and soul be rent asunder, than that ever I should say thus to the excellent of the earth, "in whom is all my delight."

7. Have I seriously considered the terrible scripture threatenings against backsliders? O my heart, darest thou turn thy back upon the very point of such threatenings as these? "Thus saith the Lord, Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm; and whose heart departeth from the Lord; for he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh," that is, the curse of God shall wither him root and branch, Jer. xvii. 5, 6. "If we sin wilfully, after we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries," Heb. x. 26, 27. And again, in ver. 38; "If any man draw back, my soul shall

have no pleasure in him" As if he should say, Take him, world, take him, devil, for your own; I have no delight in him. O who dare draw back when God has hedged up the way with such terrible threats as these?

8. Can I look Christ in the face at the day of judgment if I desert him now?

"He that is ashamed of me and of my words, in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him shall the Son of Man be ashamed when he cometh in the glory of his Father, with the holy angels," Mark viii. 38. Yet a little while, and you shall see the sign of the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory; the last trump shall sound, the dead, both small and great, even all that sleep in the dust shall awake, and come before that great white throne, on which Christ shall sit in that day. And now do but imagine thou seest the trembling knees and quivering lips of guilty sinners; imagine thou hearest the dreadful sentence of the Judge upon them, "Go, ye cursed," and then a cry-O the weeping, wailing, and wringing of hands, that there shall be then-wouldst thou desert Christ now, to protract a poor miserable life on earth? If the word of God be true, if the sayings of Christ be sealed and faithful, this shall be the portion of the apostate. It is an easy thing to stop the mouth of conscience now, but will it be easy to stop the mouth of the Judge then? Thus keep thy heart that it depart not from the living. God.

SECTION XII.-A Season of Sickness.

The twelfth season of looking diligently to our hearts and keeping them with the greatest care, is the time of sickness. When a child of God draws nigh to eternity, when there are but a few sands more in the upper part of his glass to run down; now Satan busily bestirs himself. Of him it may be said, as of the natural serpent, he is never seen at his full length till dying. And now his great design, since he cannot win the soul from God, is to discourage it, and make it unwilling to go to God; though the gracious soul, with Jacob, should then rouse

up itself upon a dying bed, and rejoice that the marriageday of the Lamb is now almost come, and say, with dying Austin, "I despise life to be with Christ," or as dying Milius said, when one asked him whether he were willing to die, “O let him be unwilling to die, who is unwilling to go to Christ." But O what shrinking from death, what unwillingness to depart, may sometimes, indeed too frequently, be observed in the people of God! How loth are some of them to take death by the cold hand! If such a liberty were indulged to us, not to be dissolved till we dissolve ourselves, when should we say with St. Paul, "I desire to be dissolved?"

The last case then shall be this-How the people of God, in times of sickness, may get their hearts loose from all earthly engagements, and persuade them into a willingness to die?

And there are seven arguments which I shall urge upon the people of God at such a time as this, to make them cheerfully entertain the messengers of death, and die, as well as live, like saints.

The first is this-the harmlessness of death to the people of God. Though it keep its dart, it has lost its sting. A saint may "play upon the hole of the asp, and put his hand into the cockatrice's den." Death is the cockatrice or asp, the grave is his hole or den; a saint need not fear to put his hand boldly into it. It has left and lost its sting in the sides of Christ, "O death! where is thy sting?" Why art thou afraid, O saint, that this sickness may be thy death, as long as thou knowest that the death of Christ is the death of death? Indeed, if thou didst die in thy sins, John viii. 21; if death, as a king, did reign over thee, Rom. v. 14; if it could feed upon thee, as the lion does upon the prey he has taken, Psalm xlix. 14; if "hell followed the pale horse," Rev. vi. 1; then thou mightest well start and shrink back from it. when God has put away thy sins from thee, "as far as the east is from the west; as long as there is no other evil left in death for thee to encounter with but bodily pain; as long as the scriptures represent it to thee under such harmless and easy notions, as the putting off thy clothes, 2 Cor. v. 2, "and lying down to sleep upon thy

But

Bed." Isa. lvii. 2; why shouldst thou be afraid? There is as much difference betwixt death to the people of God: and others, as betwixt the unicorn's horn, when it is upón. the head of that fierce beast, and when it is in the apothecarys' shops, where it is made salubrious and medicinal.

2. Thy heart may be kept from shrinking back at such a time as this, by considering the necessity of death in order to the full fruition of God.

Whether thou art willing to die or not, I assure thee there is no other way to obtain the full satisfaction of thy soul, and complete its happiness. Till the hand of death do thee the kind office to draw aside the curtain of the flesh, thy soul cannot see God; this animal life stands betwixt him and thee. "Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord," 2 Cor.. v. 6. Thy body must be refined and cast into a new mould, else the new wine of heavenly glory would break it. Paul, in his highest rapture, when he heard things. unutterable, was then but as a stander-by, a looker-on, not admitted into the company as one of them, but as the angels are in our assemblies, so was Paul in that glorious assembly above, and no otherwise; and yet even for this: he must, as it were, be taken out of the body, unclothed for a little time, to have a glimpse of that glory, and then put on his clothes again. O then who would not be willing to die for a full sight and enjoyment of God? Methinks thy soul should look and sigh, like a prisoner, through the grates of this mortality. "O that I had wings like a dove, then would I fly away, and be at rest." Most men need patience to die, but a saint who understands what death admits him to, should rather need pa-. tience to live. Methinks he should often look out and listen, on a death-bed, for his Lord's coming; and when he receives the news of his approaching change, should say, "The voice of my beloved! Behold, he cometh leaping over the mountains, skipping upon the hills,"" Cant. ii. 8..

3. Another argument persuading to this willingness,, is the immediate succession of a more excellent and gib rious life..