doth sensuality besot the world!-and inconsiderateness deprive them of the benefit of their reason! O, sirs! if you know indeed that you must shortly die, live then as dying men should live: choose your condition in the world, and manage it as men that must shortly die;-use your power, and command, and honour, and use all your neighbours, and especially use the cause and servants of Christ as men should do that must shortly die. Build and plant, and buy and sell, and use your riches, as those that must die, remembering that the fashion of all these things is passing away. Yea, pray and read, hear and meditate, as those that must die. Seeing you are as sure of it as if it were this hour; in the name of God, delay not your preparations. It is a terrible thing for immortal souls to pass out of the body in a carnal, unregenerate, unprepared state; and to leave a world which they loved and were familiar with, and go to a world which they neither know nor love, and where they have neither heart nor treasure. The measure of faith which may help you to bear an easy cross, is not sufficient to fortify and encourage your souls, to enter upon so great a change. So also bear all your wants and crosses as men that must shortly die; fear the cruelties of men but as beseemeth those that are ready to die. He that can die well, can do any thing, or suffer any thing; and he that is unready to die, is unfit for a fruitful and comfortable life. What can rationally rejoice that man who is sure to die, and is unready to die, and is yet unfurnished of dying comforts? Let nothing be

now sweet to you, which will be bitter to your dying thoughts. Let nothing be much desired now, which will be unprofitable and uncomfortable then. Let nothing seem very heavy or grievous now, which will be light and easy then;-let nothing now seem honourable, which will then seem despicable and vile. Consider of every thing as it will look at death; that when the day shall come which endeth all the joys of the ungodly, you may look up with joy, and say,-Welcome heaven; this is the day which I so long expected, which all my days were spent in preparation for, which shall end my fears, and begin my felicity, and put me into possession of all that I desired, and prayed, and laboured for; when my soul shall see its glorified Lord for he hath said, If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my Father honour:' even so, Lord Jesus, remember me now thou art in thy kingdom, and let me be with thee in Paradise. O thou that spakest those words so full of inexpressible comfort to a sinful woman in the first speech after thy blessed resurrection, (John xx. 17.) Go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my God and your God.' Take up now this soul that is thine own, that it may see the glory

6

given thee by the Father; and instead of this life of temptation, trouble, darkness, distance, and sinful imperfection, I may delightfully behold, and love, and praise, thy Father, and my Father, and thy God and my God. Lord, now lettest thou

thy servant depart in peace!'-' Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!'

And now I have given you all these directions, I shall only request you in the close, that you will set your very hearts to the daily serious practice of them; for there is no other way for a ripe confirmed state of grace: and as ever you regard the glory of God, the honour of your religion, the welfare of the church and those about you, and the living and dying comforts of yourselves, O do not sluggishly rest in an infant state of grace! Did you but know how a weak and strong faith differ, and how a weak and a sound confirmed Christian differ, as to the honour of God, and the good of others, and especially to themselves, both in life and death, it would quickly awaken you to a cheerful diligence for so high and excellent an end. Did you but well understand the wrong that Christ and the Gospel have sustained in the world, yea in England, by weak, diseased, distempered Christians, your hearts would bleed, and with shame and grief it would be your secret and open lamentation. Stir up then the grace that is given you, and use Christ's means, and do your best, and you will find that Christ is not an insufficient physician, nor an ineffectual Saviour, or an empty fountain; but that he is filled with all the fulness of God, and hath Spirit and life to communicate to his members; and that there is no want which he cannot supply, and no corruption or temptation which his grace is not sufficient to overcome.

WRITTEN TO IMPRINT UPON MEN'S MINDS THE TRUE IDEA OR CONCEPTION OF

GODLINESS AND CHRISTIANITY.

The Second Part of the Directions for Weak Christians.