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the thoughts of death and the grave, and your doubts and fears about the world to come, to overcome the love of God, and (not only the comforts, but also) the desires and willingness of your hearts, to be with Christ.' It will abate your love to God and heaven, to think on them with too much estrangedness and terror. The Directions under Tit. 3. will help you against this temptation.

Tempt. v. Another dangerous temptation is fetched from the remnants of your worldlymindedness; when your dignity, or honour, your house, or lands, your relations and friends, or your pleasures and contentments, are so sweet to you, that you are loath to leave them; and the thoughts of death are grievous to you, because it taketh you from that which you over-love; and God and heaven are the less desired, because you are loath to leave the world.' Watch carefully against this great temptation: observe how it seeketh the very destruction of your grace and souls; and how it fighteth against your love to God and heaven, and would undo all that Christ and his Spirit have been doing so long. Observe what a root of matter it findeth in yourselves; and therefore be the more humbled under it. Learn now what the world is, and how little the accommodations of the flesh are worth; when you perceive what the end of all must be. Would you never die? would you enjoy your worldly things for ever? Had you rather have them, than to live with Christ in the heavenly glory of the New Jerusalem? If you had, it is your grievous sin and folly; and yet know that it is a desire that you can never hope to attain. Die you must, whether you will or not! What is it then, that you would stay for? less pleasant to you, and your from it? When should that rather be than now? And what should more effectually do it, than this dying condition that you are in? It is time for you to spit out these unwholesome pleasures; and now to look up to the true, the holy, the unmeasurable, everlasting pleasures.

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Tit. 2. Directions how to Profit by our Sickness.

Whether it shall please God to recover you or not, it is no small benefit which you may get by his visitation, if you

do your part, and faithfully improve it, according to these Directions following.

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Direct. 1. If you hear God's call to a closer trial of your hearts, concerning the sincerity of your conversion; and thereby are brought to a more exact examination, and come to a truer acquaintance with your state (be it good or bad) the benefit may be exceeding great.' For if it be good, you may be much comforted, and confirmed, and fitted to give thanks and praise to God: and if it be bad, you may be awakened speedily to look about you, and seek for a recovery.

Direct. 11. If in the review of your lives, you find out those sins which before you overlooked, or perceive the greatness of those sins which you before accounted small, the benefit may be very great:' for it will help to a more deep and sound repentance, and to a stronger resolution against all sins, if you recover. And affliction is a very great help to us in this: many a man hath been ashamed and deeply humbled for that same sin, when sickness did awake him, which he could make his play-fellow before, as if there had been neither hurt nor danger in it.

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Direct. 111. There is many a deep corruption in the heart, which affliction openeth and discovereth, which deceitfulness hid in the time of prosperity:' and the detecting of these is no small benefit to the soul. When you come to part with wealth and honour, you shall better know how much you loved them, than you could before. Mark therefore what corruptions appear in your affliction, and how the heart discloseth its deceits, that you may know what to repent of, and reform.

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Direct. IV. When affliction calleth you to the use and exercise of your graces, you have a great help to be better acquainted with the strength or weakness of them.' When you are called so loudly to the use of faith, and love, and patience, and heavenlymindedness, you may better know what measure of every one of these you have, than you could when you had no such help. Mark therefore what your hearts prove in the trial, and what each grace doth shew itself to be, in the exercise.

Direct. v.

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You have a very great help now to be thoroughly acquainted with the vanity of the world, and so

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to mortify all affections unto the things below.' Now judge of the value of wealth, and honour, of plenty, and high places. Are they a comfort to a dying man that is parting with them? Or is it any grief to a poor man when he is dying, that he did not enjoy them? Is it not easy now to rectify your errors, if ever you thought highly of these transitory things? O settle it now in your firm resolution, that if God should restore you, you would value this world at a lower rate, and set by it, and seek it, but as it deserveth.

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Direct. vi. Also you have now a special help to raise your estimation of the happiness of the saints in heaven, and of the necessity and excellency of a holy life, and of the wisdom of the saints on earth; and to know who maketh the wisest choice.' Now you may see that it is nothing but heaven, that is worth our seeking, and that is finally to be trusted to, and will not fail us in the hour of Our distress : now you may discern between the righteous and the wicked; between those that serve God and those that serve him not. Now judge whether a loose and worldly life, or a holy, heavenly life be better? And resolve accordingly.

Direct. VII. You have also now a very great help to discern the folly of a voluptuous life, and to mortify the deeds and desires of the flesh when God is mortifying its natural desires, it may help you in mortifying its sinful desires.' Now judge what lust, and plays, and gaming, and feasting, and drunkenness, and swaggering, are worth? You see now the end of all such pleasures. Do you think them better than the joys of heaven, and worthy the loss of a man's salvation to attain them? Or better than the pleasures of a holy life?

Direct. VIII. Also now you have a great advantage, for the quickening of your hearts that have lost their zeal, and are cold in prayer, and dull in meditation, and regardless of holy conference.' If ever you will pray earnestly, sure it will be now; if ever you will talk seriously of the matters of salvation, sure it will be now. Now you do better understand the reason of fervent prayer, and serious religion, and circumspect walking than you did before: and you can easily now confute the scorns, or railings of the loose, un

b Mal. iii. 17, 18.

godly enemies of holiness; even as you confute the dotage of a fool, or the ravings of a man beside himself.

Direct. Ix. You have a great advantage more sensibly to perceive your dependance upon God alone: and what reason you have to please him before all the world, and to regard his favour or displeasure more, than all the things or persons upon earth.' Now you see how vain a thing is man! And how little the favour of all the world, can stand you in stead in your greatest necessity: now you see that it is God, and God alone, that is to be trusted to at last; and therefore it is God that is to be obeyed and pleased, whatever become of all things in the world.

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Direct. x. You have now a great advantage to discern the preciousness of time, and to see how carefully it should be redeemed, and to perceive the distractedness of those men, that can waste it in pastimes, and curiosity of dressings, and needless compliments and visits, and a multitude of such vanities as rob the world, of that which is more precious than gold or treasure.' Now what think you of idling and playing away your time? Now do you not think that it is wiser to spend it in a holy preparation for the life to come, than to cast it away upon childish fooleries, or any unnecessary worldly things?

Direct. xI. Also you have now a special help to be more serious than ever in your preparations for death, and in your thoughts of heaven; and so to be readier than you were before and if sickness help you to be readier to die, and more to set your hearts above, whether you live or die, it will be a profitable sickness to you.'

Direct. XI. Let your friends about you be the witnesses of your open confessions and resolutions, and engage them, if God should restore you to your health, to remember you of all the promises which you have made, and to watch over you, and tell you of them whenever there is need.' By these means sickness may be improved, and be a mercy to you.

I might next have given some special Directions to them that are recovered from sickness; but because I would not be needlessly tedious, I refer such to what is here said already. 1. Let them but look over these twelve Directions, and see whether these benefits remain upon their hearts. 2. Let them call to their lively remembrance, the sense which

they had, and the frame they were in, when they made these resolutions. 3. Let them remember that sickness will come again, even a sickness which will have no cure. And 4. Let them bethink themselves, how terribly conscience will be wounded, and their souls dismayed, when the next sickness cometh, to remember that they were unthankful for their last recovery, and how falsely they dealt with God in the breaking of their promises. Foresee this, that you may prevent it.

Tit. 3. Directions for a Comfortable or Peaceable Death.

Comfort is not desirable only as it pleaseth us, but also as it strengtheneth us, and helpeth us in our greatest duties. And when is it more needful than in sickness, and the approach of death? I shall therefore add such Directions as are necessary to make our departure comfortable or peaceful at the least, as well as safe.

Direct. 1. Because I would make this treatise no longer than I needs must; in order to overcome the fears of death, and get a cheerful willingness to die, I desire the sick to read over those twenty considerations, and the following Directions which I have laid down in my book of “Selfdenial." And when the fears of death are overcome, the great impediment of their comfort is removed.

Direct. 11. Misunderstand not sickness, as if it were a greater evil than it is; but observe how great a mercy it is, that death hath so suitable a harbinger or forerunner.' That God should do so much before he taketh us hence, to wean us from the world, and make us willing to be gone; that the unwilling flesh hath the help of pain; and that the senses and appetite languish and decay, which did draw the mind to earthly things, and that we have so loud a call, and so great a help to true repentance, and serious preparation? I know to those that have walked very close with God, and are always ready, a sudden death may be a mercy; as we have lately known divers holy ministers and others, that have died either after sacrament, or in the evening of the Lord's day, or in the midst of some holy exercise with so little pain, that none about them perceived when they died. But

e Mr. Vines, Mr. Capel, Mr. Hollingworth, Mr. Ashurst, Mr. Ambrose, Mrs. Burnel, &c.

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