Arg. 3. Another argument, persuading to this willingness, is the immediate succession of a more excellent and glorious life.

It is but wink, and you shall see God: your happiness shall not be deferred till the resurrection; but as soon as the body is dead, the gracious soul is swallowed up in life, Rom. viii. 10, 11. When once you have loosed from this shore, in a few moments your souls will be wafted over upon wings of angels to the other shore of a glorious eternity, Phil. i. 23. I desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ. Did the soul and body die together, as Berilius taught; or did they sleep till the resurrection, as others have groundlessly fancied; it had been a madness for Paul to desire a dissolution for the enjoyment of Christ, for if this were so, he enjoyed of Christ whilst his soul dwelt in its fleshly tabernacle, than he should out of it.

There are but two ways of the soul’s living known in scripture, viz. the life of faith, and the life of vision, 1 Cor. v. 5. Those two divide all time, both present and future, betwixt them, 1 Cor. xiii. 12. If when faith fails, sight should not immediately succeed, what should become of the unbodied soul? But, blessed be God, this great heart-establishing truth is evidently revealed in scripture, Luke xxiii. 43. You have Christ’s promise, John xiv. 3, I will come and receive you to myself. O what a change will a few moments make upon your condition? Rouse up, dying saint; when thy soul is come out a little farther; when it shall stand like Abraham at its tent door, the angels of God shall soon be with it: the souls of the elect are, as it were, put out to the angels to nurse, and when they die, these angels carry them home again to their father’s house: if an angel were caused to fly swiftly to bring a saint the answer of his prayer, Dan. ix. 22, how much more will the angels come post from heaven to receive and transfer the praying soul itself?

Arg. 4. Farther, It may much conduce to thy willingness to die, to consider, That by death, God oftentimes hides his people out of the way of all temptations and troubles upon earth, Rev. xiv. 13, Write, from henceforth, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. It is God’s usual way, when some extraordinary calamities are coming upon the world, to set his people out of harm’s way before-hand, Isa. lvii. 1, 2. Merciful men are taken away from the evil to come. See, Mic. vii. 1, 2; when such an evil time comes as is there described, that they all lie in wait for blood, and every man hunts his brother in a net: God by an act of favour houses his people before-hand. Dost thou know what evil may be in the earth which thou art so loth to leave? Thy God removes thee from thy great advantage; thou art disbanded by death, and called off the field; other poor saints must stand to it, and endure a great fight of afflictions.

It is observed, that Methuselah died the very year before the flood; Augustine, a little before the sacking of Hippo; Pareus, just before the taking of Heidelburgh: Luther observes that all the apostles died before the destruction of Jerusalem: and Luther himself before the wars broke out in Germany. It may be the Lord sees thy tender heart cannot endure to see the misery, or bear the temptations that are coming, and therefore will now gather thee to thy grave in peace; and yet wilt thou cry, O spare me a little longer?

Arg. 5. If yet thy heart hang back, consider the great advantage you will have by death, above all that ever you enjoyed on earth; and that, 1. As to your communion with God: 2. As to your communion with saints.

1. For your communion with God: the time of perfecting that is now come: thy soul shall shortly stand before the face of God, and have the immediate emanations and beamings forth of his glory upon it; here thy soul is remote from God, the beams of his glory strike it but obliquely and feebly, but shortly it will be under the line, and there the sun shall stand still, as it did in Gibeon; there shall be no cloudings nor declinings of it: O how should this fill thy soul with desires of being unclothed!

2. As for the enjoyment of saints, here indeed we have fellowship with them of the lower form; but that fellowship is so dissweetened by remaining corruptions, that there is no satisfaction in it: as it is the greatest plague that can befal an hypocrite, to live in a pure church; so it is the greatest vexation to the spirit of a saint, to live in a corrupt and disordered church; but when death hath admitted you into that glorious assembly of the spirits of just men made perfect, you shall have the desire of your hearts: here you cannot fully close one with your own souls. O what discords, jarrings, censurings are here? What perfect blessed harmony there! In heaven each saint loves another as himself, they are altogether lovely. O my soul haste thee away from the lions’ dens, from the mountains of Bether, from divided saints, to those mountains of myrrh, and hills of frankincense: thou art now going to thine own people, as the apostle’s phrase imports, 2 Cor. v. 8.

Arg. 6. If this will not do, consider what heavy burdens death will ease thy shoulders of.

In this tabernacle we groan, being burthened. 1. With bodily distempers; how true do we find that of Theophrastus, the soul pays a dear rent for the tenement it now lives in? But glorified bodies are clogged with no indispositions; death is the best physician; it will cure thee of all diseases at once. 2. With the indwelling of sin; this makes us groan from the very bowels, Rom. vii. 24. But he that is dead, is free from sin, Rom. vi. 7. Hath justification destroyed its damning power, and sanctification its reigning power? So glorification destroys its very being and existence. 3. We groan under temptations here, but as soon as we are out of the body, we are out of the reach of temptation: when once thou art got into heaven, thou mayest say, now Satan, I am there where thou canst not come; for as the damned in hell are malo obsormati, so fixed in sin and misery that their condition cannot be altered; so glorified saints are bono confirmati, so fixed in holiness and glory, that they cannot be shaken. 4. Here we groan under various troubles and afflictions, but then the days of our mourning are ended. God shall wipe away all tears from our eyes: O then let us haste away, that we may be at rest.

Arg. 7. If still thou linger like Lot in Sodom, then, lastly, examine all pleas and pretences for a longer time on earth, why art thou unwilling to die?

Objection 1. O I have many relations in the world, I know not what will become of them when I am gone.

Solution. If thou art troubled about their bodies, and outward condition, why should not that word satisfy thee, Jer. xlix. 11. Leave thy fatherless children to me, I will keep them alive, and let thy widows trust in me? Luther in his last will and testament hath this expression, “Lord, thou hast given me wife and children, I have nothing to leave them, but I commit them unto thee. O Father of the fatherless and judge of widows, Nutri, serva, doce; nourish, keep, and teach them.” Or art thou troubled for their souls? Thou canst not convert them, if thou shouldst live; and God can make thy prayers and counsels to live, and take place upon them when thou art dead.

Objection 2. I would fain live, to do God more service in the world.

Solution. Well, but if he have no more service for thee to do here, why shouldst thou not say with David, If he have no delight to use me any further, here am I, let him do what seemeth him good. In this world thou hast no more do do, but he is calling thee to an higher service and employment in heaven; and what thou wouldst do for him here, he can do that by other hands.

Objection 3. I am not yet fully ready, I am not as a bride completely adorned for the bridegroom.

Solution. Thy justification is complete already, though thy sanctification be not so; and the way to make it so, is to die: for till then, it will have its defects and wants.

Objection 4. O but I want assurance: if I had that, I could die presently.

Solution. Yea, there it sticks indeed; but then consider, that an hearty willingness to leave all the world to be freed from sin, and be with God, is the next way to that desired assurance; no carnal person was ever willing to die upon this ground.

And thus I have finished those cases which so nearly concern the people of God, in the several conditions of their life, and taught them how to keep their hearts in all. I shall next apply the whole.

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