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God? Doth God or I know better what he hath | to value and desire that world of light, love, and yet to do? And who is fittest to do it? The order, which he calls us to prefer and hope for. church's service and benefits must be measured out by our master and benefactor, and not by ourselves.

What am I to those more excellent persons whom, in all ages, he hath taken out of the world? And would men's thoughts of the church's needs detain them? The poor heathen, infidel, mahometan nations have no preachers of the gospel? And if their need prove not that God will send them such, no country's need will prove that God will continue them such. Many more useful servants of Christ have died in their youth John Janeway preached but one sermon: Joseph Allen, and many other excellent men, died young in the midst of their vigorous, successful labours: both of them far more fit for God's work, and likely to win souls, and glorify God, than I am or ever was, however their greater light was partly kindled from my lesser. Yet did both these, under painful, consuming languishings of the flesh, die as they had long lived, in the lively triumphant praises of their Redeemer, and joyful desires and hopes of glory? Shall I at seventysix years of age, after such a life of unspeakable mercies, and almost fifty-three years of comfortable help in the service of my Lord, be now afraid of my reward, and shrink at the sentence of death, and still be desiring to stay here, upon pretence of further service: we know not what is best for the church as God doth: the church and the world are not ours, but his; not our desires, but his will, must measure out its mercies: we are not so merciful as he is: it is not unmeet for us to desire many things which God will not give, nor sees it meet to grant the particulars of such desires. Nothing ever lay so heavy on my heart as the sin and misery of mankind, and to think how much of the world lies in folly and wickedness. For what can I pray so heartily as for the world's recovery: and it is his will that I should show a holy and universal love by praying,-'Let thy name be hallowed. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is done in heaven:' yet alas, how unlike is earth to heaven, and what ignorance, sin, confusions, and cruelties, here reign and prosper? Unless there is a wonderful change to be expected, even as by a general miracle, how little hope appears that ever these prayers should be granted in the things? It makes us better to desire that others may be better: but God is the free disposer of his own gifts: and it seems to be his will, that the permitted ignorance and confusion of this world should help us the more

If I am any way useful to the world, it is undeserved mercy that hath made me so; for which I must be thankful: but how long I shall be so, is not my business to determine, but my Lord's. My many sweet and beautiful flowers arise and appear in their beauty and sweetness, but for one summer's time, and they murmur not that they flourish for so short a space. The beasts, birds, and fishes, which I feed on, live till I will have them die: and as God will be served and pleased by wonderful variety at once, of animals and vegetables, &c. so will he by many successive generations: if one flower fall or die, it suffices that others shall summer after summer arise from the same root: and if my pears, apples, plums, &c. fall or serve me when they are ripe, it suffices that, not they, but others, the next year shall do the same; God will have other generations to succeed us : let us thank him that we have had our time: and could we overcome the grand crime of selfishness, and could we love others as ourselves, and God, as God, above all the world, it would comfort us at death, that others shall survive us, and the world shall continue, and God will be still God, and be glorified in his works and love will say, I shall live in my successors, and I shall more than live in the life of the world; and yet most of all in the eternal life and glory of God.

God, who made us not gods, but poor creatures, as it pleased him, knows best our measures: and he will not try us with too long a life of temptations, lest we should grow too familiar where we should be strangers, and utterly strangers to our home: no wonder if that world was ready for a deluge, by a deluge of sin, in which men lived to six, seven, eight, and nine hundred years of age: had our great sensualists any hope of so long a life, they would be more like incarnate devils, and there would be no dwelling near them for the holy seed: if angels were among them, they would, like the sodomites, seek furiously to abuse them.

Nor will God tire us out with too long a life of earthly sufferings: we think short cares, fears, and sorrows, persecutions, sickness, and crosses, to be long and shall we grudge at the wisdom and love which shortens them. Yea, though holy duty itself be excellent and sweet, yet the weakness of the flesh makes us liable to weariness, and abates the willingness of the spirit: and our wise and merciful God will not make our warfare, or our race, too long, lest we be wearied and faint, and fall short of the prize. By our

weariness, complaints, fears and groans, one me to the feast of grace, compelled me to come would think that we thought this life too long, in without constraint: thy effectual call did and yet when we should yield to the call of God, make me willing: is not glory better than prewe draw back as if we would have it everlasting. paring grace? Shall I not come more willingly Willingly submit then, O my soul: it is not to the celestial feast? What was thy grace for, thou, but this flesh, that must be dissolved; this but to make me willing of glory, and the way to troublesome, vile, and corruptible flesh: it is but it? Why didst thou dart down thy beams of the other half of thy meat and drink, which thy love, but to make me love thee, and to call me presence kept longer uncorrupted. Thou diest up to the everlasting centre? Was not the feast not when man dieth, by thy departure; as thou of grace as a sacrament of the feast of glory: livest not to thyself, thou diest not to thyself; Did I not take it in remembrance of my Lord whether I live or die, I am the Lord's: he that until he come? Did not he that told me all set up the candle, knows how long he hath use things are ready, tell me also that he is gone to for the light of it. Study thy duty, and work prepare a place for us, and it is his will that we while it is day, and let God choose thy time, shall be with him, and see his glory. They that and willingly stand to his disposal. The gospel are given him, and drawn to him by the Father dies not when I die: the church dies not: the on earth, do come to Christ: give now and draw praises of God die not: the world dies not: my departing soul to my glorified Head: as I perhaps it shall grow better, and those prayers have glorified thee on earth, in the measure that shall be answered which seemed lost: yea, and thy grace hath prevailed in me, pardon the sins it may be some of the seed that I have sown, by which I have offended thee, and glorify me shall spring up to some benefit of the dark and in the beholding and participation of the glory unpeaceable world when I am dead. Is not this of my Redeemer; come, Lord Jesus, come quickmuch of the end of life? Is not that life goodly, with fuller life, light, and love, into this too which attains its end? If my end was to do good and glorify God, if good be done, and God glorified, when I am dead, yea though I were Willingly depart, O lingering soul! It is from annihilated, is not my end attained? Feign not a Sodom, though in it there be righteous Lots, thyself to be God, whose interest—that is, the who yet are not without their woeful blemishes! pleasing of his will-is the end of all things; and Hast thou so often groaned for the general blindwhose will is the measure of all created goodness and wickedness of the world, and art thou feign not thyself to be all the world: God hath not lost his work; the world is not dissolved when I am dissolved. O how strong and unreasonable a disease is this inordinate selfishness! | Is not God's will infinitely better than mine, and fitter to be fulfilled? Choose the fulfilling of his will, and thou shalt always have thy choice if a man be well that can always have his will, let this always be thy will, that God's will may be done, and thou shalt always have it.

Lord, let thy servant depart in peace; even in thy peace, which passes understanding, and which Christ, the Prince of peace, doth give, and nothing in the world can take away. O give me that peace which is suited to a soul which is so near the harbour, even the world of endless peace and love; where perfect union, such as I am capable of, will free me from all the sins and troubles which are caused by the convulsions and confusions of this divided, selfish world. Call home this soul by the encouraging voice of love, that it may joyfully hear, and say, It is my Father's voice: invite it to thee by the heavenly messenger: attract it by the tokens and the foretastes of love: the messengers that invited

dead, dark, and disaffected soul, that it may come with joyful willingness unto thee.

loth to leave it for a better? How often wouldst thou have rejoiced to have seen but the dawning of a day of universal peace and reformation? Wouldst thou not see it where it shines forth in its fullest glory? Would a light at midnight have pleased thee so well? Hast thou prayed and laboured for it so hard? Wouldst thou not see the sun? Will the things of heaven please thee no where but on earth, where they come in the least and weakest influences, and are terminated in gross, terrene, obscure, and unkind recipients? Away, away, the vindictive flames are ready to consume this sinful world! Sinners that blindly rage in sin, must quickly rage in the effects of sin, and of God's justice: the pangs of lust prepared for these pangs! They are treasuring up wrath against this day: look not then behind thee: away from this unhappy world! Press on unto the mark, looking towards, and hastening to the coming of the day of God.'

As this world hath used thee, it would use thee still, and it will use others: if thou hast sped well in it, no thanks to it, but unto God: if thou hast had manifold deliverances, and marvellous pre

servations, and hast been fed with angels' food, ¦ as much as I know that I should desire it: but love not this wilderness for it, but God and his angel which was thy guide, protector, and deliverer.

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effectual notice of goodness, which is God's way, in nature and grace, to change and draw the will of man. Come then, my soul, and think believingly, what is best for thee, and wilt thou not love and desire most that which is certainly the best?

God in nature hath there laid upon me some necessity of aversion, though the inordinateness came from sin: else Christ had not so feared, Hath this troublesome flesh been so comfort- and deprecated the cup: death must be a penable a companion to thee, that thou shouldest be alty, even where it is a gain; and therefore it so loth to leave it? Have thy pains, thy weari- must meet with some unwillingness: because we ness, thy languishings, thy labours, thy cares and willingly sinned, we must unwillingly suffer: the fears about this body, been pleasing to thee? gain is not the pain or dissolution in itself, but Art thou loth that they should have an end? the happy consequences of it. All the faith and Didst thou not find a need of patience to undergo reason in the world, will not make death to be them; and of greater patience than mere nature no penalty, and therefore will not take away all gave thee? And canst thou hope now for better unwillingness. No man ever yet reasoned or when nature fails, and that an aged, consumed, believed himself into a love of pain and death, as more diseased body, should be a more pleasant such: but seeing that the gain is unspeakably habitation to thee than it was heretofore? If greater than the pain and loss, faith and holy from thy youth up it hath been both a tempting reason may make our willingness to be greater and a troublesome thing to thee, surely though than our unwillingness, and our hope and joy it be less tempting, it will not be less troubling than our fear and sorrow: and it is the deep and when it is falling to the dust, and above ground savours of the grave! Had things sensible been ever so pleasant in thy youth, and hadst thou glutted thyself in health with that sort of delight, in age thou art to say, by nature: I have no pleasure in them.' Doth God in great mercy make pain and feebleness the harbingers of death, and wilt thou not understand their business? Doth he mercifully beforehand, take away the 'pleasures of all fleshly things, and worldly vanities, that there may be nothing to relieve a departing soul, as the shell breaks when the bird is hatched, and the womb relaxes when the infant must be born; and yet shall we stay when nothing holds us, and still be loth to come away? Wouldst thou dwell with thy beloved body in the grave, where corruption reigns? If not, why should it now, in its painful languor, seem to thee a more pleasant habitation than the glorious presence of thy Lord? In the grave it will be at rest, and not tormented as now it is, nor wish at night, O that it were morning! nor say at morning, When will it be night? And is this a dwelling fit for thy delight? Patience in it, while God will so try thee, is thy duty: but is such patience a better and sweeter life than rest and joy?

But, alas, how deaf is flesh to reason? Faith hath the reason which easily may shame all contrary reasoning; but sense is unreasonable, and especially this inordinate, tenacious love of present life. I have reason enough to be willing to depart, even much more willing than I am: O that I could be as willing as I am convinced, that I have reason to be! Could I love God as much as I know that I should love him, then I should desire to depart, and to be with Christ

CHAP. IV.

THE INCONCEIVABLE ADVANTAGES OF BEING
WITH CHRIST-IT IS FAR BETTER.

To say and hear that it is far better to be with Christ, is not enough to make us willing; words and notions are such instruments as God uses to work on souls, but the convincing, satisfying, powerful light, and the inclining love, are other things. The soul now operates on and with the corporeal spirits and organs; and it perceives now its own perceptions; but it is a stranger to the mode of its future action, when separated from the body, and can have no formal conception of such conceptions as yet it never had. Therefore its thoughts of its future state, must be analogical and general, and partly strange. But general notices, when certain, may be very powerful, and satisfy us in so much as is needful to our consent, and to such a measure of joy as is suitable to this earthly state. Such notices we have from the nature of the soul, with the nature of God, the course of providence, and government of mankind, the internal and external conflicts which we perceive about men's souls, the testimony and promises of the word of God, the testimony of conscience, with the witness of the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, and in it the earnest and the foretaste of glory, and

the beginnings of life eternal here; all which I parture comes: that is best which is, for it is have before considered. the work of God. The world cannot be better at this instant than it is, nor any thing better, which is of God, because it is as he wills it to be: but when God hath changed them, it will then be best that they are changed. Were there no other good in my departure hence but this simple good, the fulfilling of God's will, my reason tells me that I should be fully satisfied in it: but there is also a subordinate sort of good.

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The Socinians, who would interpret this of the state of resurrection only, against plain evidence violate the text: seeing Paul expressly speaks of his gain by death, which will be his abode with Christ, and this upon his departure hence which he calls his being absent from the body, and present with the Lord:' which Christ, to the penitent thief, calls his being with him in paradise ;' in the parable of the steward, Christ intimates to us, that wise stewards, when they go hence, are received into the everlasting habitations; as he there further tells us Lazarus was in Abraham's bosom.

Goodness is primary or secondary: the first is God's perfect essence and will: the second is either proper and simple good, or analogical. The former is the creature's conformity to the will of God, or its pleasingness to his will: the latter is the greater, which is the welfare or perfection of the universe. The lesser, which is the perfection of the several parts of the universe, either in the nobler respect, as they are parts contributing to the perfection of the whole; or in the lower respect, as they are perfect or happy in themselves; or, in the lowest respect of all, as they are good to their fellow-creatures which are below themselves.

Accordingly, it is far better to be with Christ, properly and simply, as it is the fulfilling of God's will; analogically, as it tends to the perfection of the universe and the church; as it will be our own good or felicity; and as it will be good to our inferior fellow-creatures; though this last be most questionable, and seems not in'cluded in the meaning of this text.

It is an odious effect of idolatrous selfishness, to acknowledge no goodness above our own feKicity, and accordingly to make the goodness of God to be but formally his usefulness, benevolence, and beneficence to his creatures, which is by making the creature the ultimate end, and God but the means; to make the creature to be God, and deny God indeed, while we honour his name: as also it is, to acknowledge no higher goodness formally in the creature, than in its own felicity as such, as if neither the pleasing of God's will, nor the perfection of the church and world, were better than we are. We are not of ourselves, and therefore we are not chiefly for ourselves, and therefore we have a higher good to love.

For my change will tend to the perfection of the universe, even that material good or perfection which is its aptitude for the use to which God hath created and doth preserve it: as all the parts, the modes, the situation, the motions of a clock, a watch, or other engine, do to the ends of the artificer. Though God hath not told me particularly, why every thing, mode, and motion is as it is, I know it is all done in perfect wisdom, and suited to its proper use and end. If the hen or bird knows how to make her nest, to lay her eggs secretly together, when and how to sit on them till they are hatched, and how to feed them and preserve them, and when to forsake them, as sufficient for themselves without her help, &c; if the bee knows when, whence, and how, to gather her honey and wax, and how to form the repository combs, and how to lay it up, and all the rest of her marvellous economy, shall I think that God doth he knows not what, or what is not absolutely the best? want either skill, will, or power.

Should the stone grudge to be hewed, the brick to be burnt, the trees to be cut down, and sawed and framed, the lead and iron to be melted, &c. when it is but to form an useful edifice, and to adapt and compose every part to the perfecting of the whole?

Shall the waters grudge that they must glide away, and the plants that they must die, and half die every winter, and the fruits and flowers that they must fall, or the moon that it must have its changing motions, or the sun that it must rise and set so often, &c. when all is but the action and order which makes up that harmony and perfection which was designed by the Creator, and is pleasing to his will?

But lawful self-love is yet futher herein gratified: the goodness expressed in the text is that analogical subordinate good which is my own felicity, and that which tends thereunto: it is most reasonable to love God best, and that next which is likest him. Why should it not be That is simply best which God wills. There- the easiest and the sweetest? But experience fore to live here is best whilst I do live here; finds it so easy to love ourselves, that certainly, and to depart is best when the time of my de- if I firmly believe that it is best for me, I shall

desire to depart and to be with Christ, have I cure of thy fears? What was it but this glory not reason to believe it?

The reasons of it I will consider in this order: 1st. The general reasons from the efficients and the means. 2d. The final reasons. 3d. The constitutive reasons from the state of my intellect, and its action and fruition there. 4th. The constitutive reasons from the state of my will. 5th. The constitutive reasons from my practice there, leaving out those which the resurrection will give me, because I am speaking but of my present departure unto Christ.

SECTION 1.-GENERAL REASONS FOR

DEPARTURE.

That is best for me, which love itself, my heavenly Father designs, and chooses for my good. I hope I shall never dare to think, or say, that he is mistaken, or that he wanted skill or love, or that I could have chosen better for myself than he doth, if he had left all to my choice. Many a time the wise and gracious will of God hath crossed my foolish rebellious will on earth: and afterward I have still perceived that it was best; usually for myself, but always for a higher good than mine. It is not an enemy, nor a tyrant that made me, that hath preserved me, and that calls me hence. He hath not used me as an enemy: the more I have tried him, the better I have found him. Had I better obeyed his ruling will, how happy had I been; and is not his disposing and rewarding will as good? Man's work is like man, and evil corrupts it; but God's work is like God, and uncorrupted. If I should not die till my dearest friend would have it, much more till I myself would choose it, not constrained by misery, I should rejoice, and think my life were safe! O foolish, sinful soul, if I take it not to be far better to be at God's choice, than at my own, or any man's; and if I had not rather that he choose the time than I!

Be of good cheer then, O my soul, it is thy Father's voice that calls thee hence. His voice that called thee into the world, and bade thee live, that called thee out of a state of sin and death, and bade thee live hereafter unto him; that called thee so often from the grave, and forgiving thy sins, renewed thy strength, restored thee to the comforts of his house and service; and hath so graciously led thee through this howling wilderness, and brought thee almost to the sight of the promised land. Wilt thou not willingly go, when infinite fatherly love calls thee? Art thou not desirous of his presence? Art thou afraid to go to him who is the only

to which he did finally elect thee? Where dost. thou read that he elected thee to the riches and honours of this world, or to the pleasures of the flesh? But he elected us in Christ to the heavenly inheritance. Indeed he elected thee also to bear the cross, and to manifold sufferings here; but is it that which thou preferrest before the crown? That was but as a mean unto the kingdom, that thou mightest be conformed to Christ, and reign with him when thou hast suffered with him. If God choose thee to blessedness, refuse it not thyself, nor behave thyself like one who does so.

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Surely that state is my best which my Saviour purchased and promised me as best as he bought me not with silver and gold, so neither to silver and gold. Did he live and die to make me rich or advanced in the world? Surely his incarna tion, merits, sacrifice, and intercession, had a low design if that were all; and who hath more of these than they that have least of Christ? But he purchased us to an incorruptible crown; to an inheritance undefiled, that fades not away, reserved in heaven for us, that are kept by God's power, through faith, unto salvation. Is it heaven that cost so dear a price for me, and is the end of so wonderful a design of grace, and shall I be unwilling now to receive the gift?

That sure is best for me for which God's Holy Spirit is preparing me; that for which be is given to believers; and that which is the end of all his holy operations on my soul. But it is not to love this world that he is persuading me from day to day, but to come off from such love, and to set my heart on the things above. Is it to love this life and fleshly interest, this vanity and vexation, or rather to love the invisible perfection, that this blessed Spirit hath done so much to work my heart? Would I now undo all, or cross and frustrate all his operations? Hath grace been so long preparing me for glory, and shall I be loth to take possession of it? If lam not willing, I am not yet sufficiently prepared?

If heaven be not better for me than earth, God's word and ordinances have been all in vain? Surely that is my best which is the gift of the better covenant, and which is secured to me by so many sealed promises, and which I am directed to, by so many sacred precepts, doctrines, and examples; and for which I have been called to hear, read, meditate, pray, and watch so long. Was it the interest of the flesh on earth, or a longer life of worldly prosperity, which the gos pel covenant secured to me; which the sacra ments and Spirit sealed to me; which the Bible

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