The life of faith in three parts, the first is a sermon on Heb.…

4 Suppose you saw the face of Death, and that you were now lying under the power of some mortal sickness, Physicians having forsaken you, and said, There is no hope: Your friends weeping over you, and preparing your winding sheet and coffin, digging your graves, and casting up the skulls, and bones, and earth, that must again be cast in to be your covering and company: Suppose you saw a Messenger from God to tell you that you must die to morrow; or heard but what one of your predecessors heard, Luke 12.20. Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee: then whose shall these things be that thou hast provided?] How would such a Message work with you? would it leave you as you are? If you heard a voice from God this night in your chamber in the dark, telling you, that this i• the last night that you shall live on earth, and before to morrow your souls must be in another world, and come before the dreadful God: what would be the effect of such a Message? And do you not verily believe that all this will very shortly be? Nay, do you not know without believing, that you must die, and leave your worldly glory? ⟨p. 31⟩and that all your pleasures and contents on earth, will be as if they had never been, (and much worse!) O wonderful! that a change so sure, so great, so near, should no more affect you, and no more be fore-thought on, and no more prepared for! and that you be not awakened by so full and certain a fore-knowledge, to be in good sadness for eternal life, as you seem to be when death is at hand!

5. Suppose you saw the great and dreadful day of Judgement, as it i• described by Christ himself in Matth. 25. [When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all his holy Angels with him, and shall sit upon his glorious Throne, and all Nations shall be gathered before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as a Shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats, and shall set the sheep on his right hand, and the goats on his left.] v. 31, 32, 33. and shall sentence the righteous to eternal life, and the rest into everlasting punishment. If you did now behold the glory and terror of that great appearance, how the Saints will be magnified, and rejoice, and be justified against all the accusations of Satan, and calumnies of wicked men; and how the ungodly then would fain deny the words and deeds that now they glory in; and what horror and confusion will then overwhelm those wretched souls, that now out-face the Messengers of the Lord? Had you seen them trembling before the Lord, that now are braving it out in the pride and arrogancy of their hearts: Had you heard how then they will change their tune, and wish they had never known their sins: and wish they had lived in greater holiness than those whom they derided for it: What would you say, and do, and be, after such an amazing fight as this? Would you sport it out in sin as you have done? Would you take no better care for your salvation? If you had seen those sayings out of the holy Ghost fulfilled.