The four last things viz. death, judgment, heaven, hell, practically considered and applied in…

How difficult to order the Affections, to raise what is drooping, and suppress what is rebellious? For they are like the People of whom the Historian speaks, qui nec totam servitutem pati possunt, nec totam libertatem. How many Enemies of our Salvation are lodged in our own bosoms? The Falls of the Saints give sad evidence of this. If the Body were unspotted from the World as in the Creation of Man, there might be a just Plea of our unwillingness to part with it, but since it is the incentive and instrument of Sin, we should desire to be dissolved, that we might be perfectly holy. Death is the final Remedy of all the temporal and spiritual Evils to which we are liable here. And the Love of Christ should make us willing to part with all the Endearments of this Life, nay desirous to enter into the ⟨p. 138⟩Celestial Paradise, though we must pass under the Angels Sword, the stroke of Death, to come into his Presence. He infinitely deserves our Love, for we owe our Salvation and Eternal Glory to the merit of his Humiliation, and the power of his Exaltation. With what earnest affections did St. Paul desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ? ¹Love gave Wings of Fire to his Soul, ardent desires mounting to Heaven. How valiant were the Martyrs in expressing acts of Love to Christ? How boldly did they encounter Death that interposed between them and the sight of his Glory? Their Love was hotter than the Flames that consumed them. They as willingly left their Bodies, as Elijah let fall his Mantle to ascend to Heaven. And how does it upbraid the coldness of our Love, that we are so contented to be here, absent from our Saviour. That the Moles of the Earth, who never saw the Light of the Sun, and feed on bitter Roots, are pleased in their dark Receptacles, is no wonder; but if Birds that are refreshed with his cheerful Beams, and feed on sweet Fruits, should willingly be confined in Caverns of the Earth, it were ⟨p. 139⟩unnaturally strange. Thus for Pagans, (and those who are so in Heart, though different in Profession) that are so short-sighted and depraved, that they only perceive and affect present sensible things, for them to be unwilling to die is no wonder; for then all that is valuable and delightful to them is lost for ever: