A guide to godliness or a Treatise of a Christian life showing the dutiesA guide to godlynesse or a Treatise of a Christian life shewing the duties

§. Sect. 5 That by a godly life we are prepared against the day of death.

The fourth benefit of a godly life is, that thereby we are continually prepared against the day of death, so that the manifold evils ¹which accompany it cannot hurt us, nor the dreadful terrors thereof daunt and dismay us. For howsoever it is appointed that all must die, and this sentence, like the laws of the Medes and Persians, is irrevocable, yet to those that walk in the ways of godliness, the nature of death is quite changed, and the sting thereof taken away. For of the last and greatest evil, it is made unto them, a preparative to the chiefest good; of an enemy, it is become a friend; of a Sergeant to arrest us and imprison us in hell, it is become a joyful messenger sent of God, to deliver us out of all worldly miseries, and to bring us into the joys of heaven. In which regard the Wise man saith, that howsoever ²the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, yet the righteous hath hope in his death. And that riches profit not in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivereth ³from death, that is, from the sting of death, and all the evils that do accompany it. And the Spirit of God pronounceth them Blessed, ⁴that die in the Lord; for they rest from their labours, and their works follow them; Namely, that they may be crowned with joy and immortality. The which if it were well weighed, might justly, not only free the faithful from the immoderate fear of death, but also make it appear precious in their eyes, as it is in the sight of God, and move them ⁵with the Apostle, to desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, seeing that is best of all; and (as one saith) not to die patiently, but to live with patience,