he might Dye the Death of the Righteous and have bis Laft End like Theirs. From whence I confidered,

I. That Men Naturally have proper Notions and Juft Sentiments of Good and Evil; And whether they will Practise Honefty, Virtue, and Piety, or not, yet they cannot but have a good Opinion of them.

II. I confidered what the Motives and Reafons are that can make Men practise contrary to their Judgments. And

III. That tho' the Wicked will not Live as the Righteous Man does, yet they would be glad to Dye with him, and have their Laft End like His.

Pursuant to what has been said, especial ly on the Laft General Head, I fhall now proceed to confider,

I. What the great Difference is betwixt the Death of the Wicked, and the Death of the Righteous, that should make the One appear Dreadful, and the Other very Defirable.

II. If the Death of the Righteous be so very Defirable, we will confider, how far it concerns every one of us, to take care to be well Prepared for it. And

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III. I

III. I fhall offer fome Rules, by which I conceive we may best Prepare Ourselves for a Happy Death.

I. We are to confider what the great Difference is betwixt the Death of the Wicked, and the Death of the Righteous, that should make the One appear Dreadful, and the Other fo Defirable.

Now the Difference cannot lye in the Nature of the thing: For as it is appointed to all Men to Dye, fo the Nature of Death is the fame to All, the Separation of Soul and Body, and the Confignment of each of them to their proper Places, there to abide till they shall be again re-united at the Judgment-Day. This is the Common Lot of Mankind, the fame to the Just and to the Unjust.

But the true Difference lies in the Moral Circumstances of their Death, which we may confider, (according to diftinct Order of Time,) as they refpect the Time Paft, or Prefent, or to Come: For fo we find Men's Thoughts work on their Death-beds; When Death prefents itself in View, they think it Time to look about them: Their anxious Thoughts run backwards and forwards, working every Way; in Reflections on their Paft Actions, in Confideration of their Prefent Condition, and in Solicitous Apprehen

fions of their future State: And all these administer great Joy and Comfort to the Righteous, which the Wicked are wofully Destitute of.

Of all these I shall speak severally.

I.

Firft, One great Difference betwixt the Death of the Wicked, and the Death of the Righteous, is the Different Reflections they have to make on their Paft Actions.

Men in the Spring tide of their Age, whilft all goes well with them, whilft their Blood runs High, and they have their Spirits gay and fprightly, their Veins full of Blood, and their Bones of Marrow, are too Airy to be confined to Rules, and think it a Meannefs of Spirit to Live under the Awe of any Scrupulous Fears. In this Youthful Heat and Bravery, Confcience is overborn and brought into Subjection, and made to truckle to the Dominion of Sin. But as

Young Men, ftout and hardy, in the Prime and Vigour of their Age, think they are able to bear out any thing by the Natural Strength of their Conftitution, and care not therefore what Strefs they lay upon it; yet do afterwards feel the hard Strains, or Blows and Bruises that they received, and thoughr they had conquered in their Youth: So when Men in the Madness of their Youth will make bold with their Confcience, laying Load upon Load, they may footh, or ftifle,

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or

or ftupify it for the Time, but Oppress'd Confcience will fome time or other revive, and after many Years the Old Wounds that Sin has made may come to break out again upon them, and they may forely feel them in their Old Age.

But when Death approaches, and the Body is humbled and brought low, the Soul gets Strength by the Weakness of the Body, and then is the Time for Confcience to fhake off its Fetters, and it will be fure then to break loose upon the Sinner. There is no Colluding nor Prevaricating now, no Dif fembling nor Concealing any thing they have ever Done: Confcience has been privy to all, and has feen what the World never could discover: It runs back thro' the feveral Stages of his Life, and brings all fresh to his Remembrance; Open and Secret Sins, fetting them all in Order before his Face. And All of them are now prefented to him in their Proper Colours; No longer Charming and Lovely, but Frightful, Loathsome, Deteftable. The Evil Day is come that he can take no Pleafure in them. The Wanton Entertainments of his Youth, and all the Glories of the World, that once appeared so gay and glittering, and beautiful as the Rainbow, prove now in the End, like That too, Mere Vapour, nothing but Emptiness and Delufion: And he wonders how he could ever be so infatuated, as to be enamour'd of

fuch

fuch Vanities. All that is in the World, the Luft of the Flesh, the Luft of the Eyes, 1 John ii. and the Pride of Life; All the Temptations 16. of the World, its Pleasures, Riches, and Honours, have loft their Charms, and left nothing but a fad and bitter Remembrance behind them. And Oh! with what an Eye does he now look back upon those Triftes Voluptates, thofe Sad and Sorrowful Pleafures, of which he Then had little Fruit, but Now they break his Heart.

For when the Sinner Dying, comes to look back upon his Paft Life, and confiders, how wretchedly it has been mispent and fquandered away, fome on one Vice, and fome on another, and All generally on Vanities and Follies, and God all the while scarce in all his Thoughts, how muft his Heart mifgive him, and fink and dye within him? When he reflects how miferably all the Talents that God had given him, all the Powers and Faculties of Mind and Body, and all the Bleffings and Gifts of Nature, Grace, and Providence, have been mifus'd, and misemploy'd; I fay, when looking Backwards, he can fee Nothing but Sin and Bafenefs, and Ingratitude to God in every Part of his Life, Shame and Confufion must cover him; his Heart is difquieted within him Fearfulness and Trembling come upon him, and an horrible Dread overwhelms him; and his own Confcience condemns him: As faith

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