Pf. lxxxii. That

Pf. xlix.

nours, nor Riches, nor Wifdom, can exempt Men from it. Neither Crowns nor Neither Crowns nor Scepters can make Men Immortal: The Greatest Monarchs upon Earth, after they have Lived like Gods, must come to Dye like Men. We fee Wife Men alfo Dye, as well as the Igno rant and Foolish; and Good Men alfo Dye as well as Others and None do fo much John viii. as think of efcaping. Abraham is Dead, 52,53. and the Prophets are Dead: All the whole Generations from Adam, the numerous Pro geny of fo many thousand Years, are a Dead and gone. So that David when he was Dying, only tells his Son, that he was Kings ii. going the Way of all the Earth.

all

One Generation goeth off the Stage, to make Room for another that is coming on. We know not how foon our own Turn may be: We are still Changing, and conftantly going on towards our Great Change; never continuing in one Stay. In the midft of Life we are in Death; Always in the Way of it, and Always hafting towards it. And Every Day, Every Hour, may put us in mind of it. The Paffing-Bells and Funerals that we fo often Hear and See, are fo many Mementos to us of our own Mortality, and bid us Prepare to Follow. But though we do fo well Know that we muft Dye, and as furely Dye as now we Live; Though we fee a Thoufand fall before us, and Ten Thousand at our Right-hand, yet (by whatever Infatuation

it is) No Man layeth it much to Heart; Very Few in Comparison do well and feriously confider it, as a Cafe that will foon be their own, and what they ought therefore above all things to be providing for.

There is nothing certainly that more concerns us, and yet there is nothing that we lefs care to think of. If it is Friends or Relations that we are following to the Grave, we look Solemn and Serious for the Time, but the Impreffion foon wears off; This World foon gets Ground of the Other, and drives it fo out of our Thoughts, that perhaps we think no more of our own Departure, till the next Funeral Solemnity: And the more frequent they are, they ftill every time lefs and lefs affect us. As we find, They that minifter to the Sick, and whose Business it is to attend Death-beds and Funerals, are little or nothing concerned at them.

This is what I know not well how to account for, unless it be thus-That we are ready to make our Eftimate of Dangers, not fo much by the Greatnefs, as by the Nearnefs of them. It was Ariftotle's Obfervation long fince, that the Evils that are Near us, hanging over our Heads, are mightily feared; Arift. but if they are at a Distance, they are little Rhet.lib.2. Heeded by us. And he inftances in this very Cafe, the Cafe of Death [ ἴσασι γὰρ παντὲς ὅτι ἀποθανονται· ἀλλ' ὅτι ἐκ ἐγγὺς, ἐδὲν ·Sport (How.] All Men know (fays he) that

F4

they

they fhall Dye, but because Death is not near, they nothing regard it though it be in itself (as he elsewhere calls it) the T φοβερῶν φοβερώτατον, of all Terrors the moft Terrible. And his Obfervation is ftill confirmed by Experience: Men are very apt in their own Fancies to put far from them the Evil Day; and then, though many Years before have foon pafs'd away and are gone, yet the Years that they promise themselves to come, are fuch a Vaft While, that they need not yet trouble themselves with the Thoughts of it. And Men generally do indeed fo little Think of it, that it is become a Proverbial Saying amongst us, to express what a Man least of all apprehends or thinks of, that he Thinks no more of it than of his Dying Day.

So easily can Men put afide the Thoughts of their Latter End. And if they so little care to Think of it, what good Preparation or Provifion is like to be made for it? Yet is it a Matter of much the greatest Concernment of any thing in the World to every One of us, to be well Prepared for Death: There is fo very much depends upon it

1. The Happiness of our Life.

2. The Happiness of a Comfortable Death;

and

3. Our Eternal Happiness in the World to come all Depend upon it: And 4thly, We have but this One Opportunity for it.

1. The

1. The Happiness of our Life here depends upon our being Prepared to Dye.

The Apostle takes Notice in his Epiftle to the Hebrews (Chap. ii.) That till fuch time as our Saviour came and took our Nature upon him, that he might tafte Death for every Man, and take out the Venom and Sting of Death for us, and that thro' Death he might deftroy Him who had the Power of Death, that is, the Devil, Mankind liv'd as in a State of Slavery, being thro' Fear of Death all their Life-time fubject to Bondage. That, as oft as they thought of it, dash'd and fower'd all their Enjoyments. For * “what "Comfort (fays Tully) can there be in "Life, when Thinking Men must be "perpetually, Night and Day, disturb'd "with this Thought, that by and by they "muft lye down and Dye?" It is a very Terrible Thing to Nature to think of its Diffolution; and to think that the Dear Body, that has been nurtur'd up with so much Care, and Labour, and Coft, that is now fo great a Favourite, fo much made of, and carefs'd, muft foon be tumbled into the Grave, there to Rot and Putrefy, and perish for ever in the Duft. And This was all that, before Chrift's Coming, Men had in any Clear

* Qua enim poteft in Vita effe Jucunditas, cum dies noctefque Cogitandum fit jam jamque effe Moriendum? Cic. Tufc. Quæst. lib. I.

View; They had no direct Promife, even for the Soul, of any Future Life: Nor fo much as any Expectation or Thought of it for the Body. The Apoftle therefore does very juftly reckon it as a Part of our Redemption by Christ, and the Beginning of it, that he had delivered us from the Slavish Fear of Death.

Mortality was brought upon Mankind at First as a Punishment for Tranfgreffion, but Chrift did as it were Sanctify Death to us, and remove the Evil of it, when he had overcome the Sharpness of Death, and did thereby open the Kingdom of Heaven to all Believers. He himself having fuffered Death for us, and thereby Redeemed us from the Guilt and Punishment of Sin, and quercome Death, he not only promifed Us a Conquest over it too, but himself became the FirstFruits, and by his own Refurrection gave us a Pledge and Earnest of our Refurrection, even the Redemption of our Bodies, when Rom. viii. we shall be delivered from the Bondage of 21, 23. Corruption, into the glorious Liberty of the Sons of God; at the Appointed Time, 1 Cor. xv. When Death itself fhall come to be swallowed up in Victory,and shall be no more.

54. Rev.xxi.4.

But then this Blefling is obtained for none but Believers only, that have Liv'd in the Fear and Service, and Dy'd in the Faith of Christ. To them Death fhall be only the Way to a Better Life: When their Mortal