ness, comfort, and joy, and of the noblest future expectations. It is a perfect example to instruct me how to die well, and how I ought to be prepared when I leave the world. Grant me grace to imitate thee, to express to all my relations that cordial affection and tenderness which I find in thee, to forgive my greatest and mortal enemies, to pray for my persecutors, to submit with patience to thy will; to behave myself with courage and resolution, with zeal and affection for thy glory. Here I offer myself at thy disposal. My soul belongs to thee, as its Creator and Redeemer; for thou hast ransomed it, washed and sanctified it, clothed it with thy righteousness, and put it into a capacity of entering into thy heavenly sanctuary, and of appearing before the Father of lights. Take into thy custody, O sweet Jesus, who hast been crucified for me, a wretched sinner. Grant, I beseech thee, that I may for ever live and reign with thee in glory, in thine eternal kingdom. Amen. CHAP. XVI. The fourth Consolation against the Fears of Death is, to meditate often upon our Lord Jesus Christ in his Sepulchre. MAN AN naturally abhors and hates the sight of graves, Some cannot pass by a churchyard, without expressing a distate and dread. Not only they who make their abode in glorious palaces and stately dwellings, but also they who reside in poor huts, or in pitiful cabins; they who are shut up in black dungeons, or exposed to the injury of the weather, who have no other covering but the sky, can never think upon death without fear, when they call to mind, that this body must go into the bowels of the earth, and lie down in a stinking and noisome grave. If we will banish from our souls this dangerous apprehension and needless fear, we must consider seriously, with a religious application, that we ought never to abhor the earth, because our bodies have been made of earth; it hath been, as it were, the mother from whence we proceeded. We must also consider, that it is the general rule of nature, that all compounded bodies must return, at their dissolution, every part to its first principle. Therefore, as the soul ascends up to its first source, and returns to God who gave it; likewise it is no wonder if the body returns to dust, because it proceeds from dust, and God hath pronounced a sentence in the earthly paradise, which shall never be revoked; "Dust thou art, and to dust thou shalt return," Gen. iii. Nicodemus inquired of our Lord Jesus Christ, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?" John iii. This ridiculous and improbable conceit is proved, in a manner, to be true on this occasion; for we must enter again into the womb of the earth, our common mother, that we may be born again, and pass into another life. It is not amiss to consider often the notable representations of death mentioned by St. Paul, in the xvth chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians. For our bodies are as the seed which is cast into the earth, that it might bring forth. "Ofool, that which thou sowest is not quickened except it die." It cannot flourish until it rots. The students of nature inform us, that the generation of one thing is the corruption of an→ other. On this occasion we may affirm, that the corruption and dissolution of this wretched body is the means and way that leads to a more glorious generation. You that weep for the decease of your friends and kindred, when you see them laid in their graves, remember what David saith, They that sow in tears, shall reap with songs of joy, Ps. cxxvi. Consider, Consider, That death is the way of all flesh, and the grave is the last retreat which God hath appointed for all living: so that if we be loth to enter into the tomb, we must desire Almighty God to grant us a lodging by ourselves, to change the common course of nature, or to create for us another world. Now the sepulchre is not only the general rendezvous of all mankind, but it is a couch where they rest after their laborious and painful race. Therefore, when the prophet Isaiah speaks of the death of good men, he saith, "They enter into peace, they rest in their beds," Isa. lvii. For when he looks to the blessed state of their souls, he tells us, that they are entered into that great and eternal peace that reigns in heaven. But when he casts an eye upon their bodies, he said, "they rest in their beds." For this cause the places appointed to bury the dead are named sleeping places by the Greeks, to teach us, that they are fallen asleep, in expectation of the great morn when God shall awaken them with the sound of the archangel's trumpet. Therefore when Jacob was ready to give up the ghost, he commanded his son Joseph not to bury him in Egypt, "that he might sleep with his fathers," Gen. xlvii. Likewise Job speaks in the same manner, "I shall sleep in the dust of the earth," Job vii. And God used this language unto Moses, "Thou art going to sleep with thy fathers," Deut. xxxi. And to David," When thy days be fulfilled, thou shalt sleep with thy fathers," 2 Sam. vii. And when the prophet Daniel speaks of such as were deceased since the creation of the world, he saith, "They sleep in the dust of the earth," Dan. xii. Particularly take notice, christian souls, that when God spoke to Moses from the midst of the burning bush, he told him, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob," Exod. iv. They had been dead many ages be fore; fore; nevertheless, God names himself their God. "Now God is not the God of the dead, but of the living," Matt. xxii.— Those holy men were not dead in regard of their souls; for they are immortal, and God hath admitted them into eternal bliss. Their bodies also, to speak properly, were not dead, but slept in their graves; as our Saviour said of Jairus's daughter, "The damsel is not dead, but sleepeth," Matt. ix. And of Lazarus, "Lazarus our friend sleepeth," John xi. Moreover, we may justly say, that the condition of our bodies in the grave is better, and more pleasant, than our daily sleep; for when we rest in our beds, we are often disturbed in our fancy, we labour and sweat, and the richest and most magnificent couches are not free from this evil; whereas in the grave our bodies are at rest, and secure from all sense of pain, and enjoy a perfect sleep, and a rest without disturbance. The greatest princes, and the proudest monarchs, are constrained to take up their lodging, one after another, here in this house, which God hath prepared for all living, and to repose themselves on that couch, which is to receive all the sons of Adam. When the sacred history gives an account of the kings of Judah and of Israel, it adds, at the end of their life, "he slept with his fathers." Let us be ever so wretched, poor, and miserable, we shall be entertained in this dwelling of kings, and lay ourselves down upon their beds; therefore when Job, through the grievousness of his pain, complained because he had not died immediately after his birth, he said, "For now should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept; then had I been at rest, with kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves, or with princes that had gold, who filled their houses with silver." It is in this house, and upon this couch, that the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, evangelists, martyrs, and generally all the faithful, rest, who have lived in all the ages of the world; as it it is recorded of St. Stephen, when he commended his soul into the hands of the Lord Jesus, that "he fell asleep." Acts vii. Therefore, when St. Paul reproves the Corinthians, and acquaints them that God hath punished them with divers diseases and death, because they had profaned the Lord's supper; he tells them, "For this cause many are feeble and sick amongst you, and many sleep." And when he speaks of all those that were dead in the profession of Christ's religion, he saith, "They sleep in Jesus:" and he names them, "they that sleep." Now, we are not better and nobler than the saints of paradise, to expect that our bodies should receive a better and more favourable entertainment than they. In short, there is nothing more able to remove from our fancy that horror of our graves, than the consideration of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, who did enter into the earth like other men, and laid himself down there. He hath sanctified and perfumed that place with his divine presence, and hath made it the object of our desires, and the cause of our glory. For there is no subject but thinks it an honour to lodge in his prince's chamber, and to lie down and sleep upon the bed where he hath taken his rest, though he hath remained there but a moment, or an hour. O blessed tomb, where death and life, disgrace and glory, are lodged together, and where the Prince of Life, the Author of all honour and happiness, rested himself. Christians, who desire to banish from your souls all fears of death, and apprehensions of your graves, look upon your sépulchres in the same manner as if you should see there Jesus Christ, the King of Glory, the Prince of your Salvation, yet remaining asleep. When old Jacob heard the mistaken news of the death of his son Joseph, he was overcome with a violent grief, so that he cried out, "I shall go down with sorrow to my son into the grave." But the certain news of the |