A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed showing wherein its enmity…A treatise of death, the last enemy to be destroyed shewing wherein its enmity…

so was David, and Paul, and all the Saints, awhile ago: yea and Christ himself. Am I beset with sin, and compassed with infirmities, and racked by my own distempered passion? so were the many Saints now glorified, but the other day. Elijah was a man subject (saith James,) to like passions as we are, Jam. 5.17. Am I ⟨p. 188⟩maliced by dissenting adversaries? Do they privily lay snares for me, and watch my halting, and seek advantage against my name, and liberty and life? so did they by David, and many other now with Christ? But now these enemies are overcome. Art thou under pains, and consuming sicknesses? are thine eyes held waking, and doth trouble and sorrow waste thy spirit? doth they flesh in thy heart fail thee, and thy friends prove silly comforters to thee? So was it with those thousands that are now in Heaven, where the night of calamities is past, and the just have dominion in the morning, and glory hath banished all their griefs, and joys have made them forget their sorrows, unless as the remembrance of them doth promote those joys. Are thy friends lamenting thee, and grieved to see the signs of thy approaching death? ⟨p. 189⟩do they weep when they see thy pale face, and consumed body, and when they hear the sighs and groans? Why thus it was once with the millions that are now triumphing with their Lord? They lay in sickness, and underwent the pains, and were lamented by their friends, as thou art now. Even Christ himself was once in his agony, and some shakt the head at him, and other pitied him, who should rather have wept for themselves, then for him: This is but the passage from the womb of mortality, into the life of immortality, which all the Saints have past before thee, that are now with Christ. Dost thou fear the dreadful: face of death? Must thy tender flesh be turned t• rotness and dust? and must thou lie in darkness till the Resurrection, and thy body remain as the Common earth? And is not this the ⟨p. 190⟩case of all those millions, whose souls now see face of Christ? Did they not lie as thou dost, and die as thou must, and pass by death to the life which they have now attained? O then commit thy soul to Christ, and be quiet and comforted in his care and love. Trust him as the Mid-wife of thy departing soul, who will bring it safe into the light and life, which thou art yet such a stranger to. But it is not strange to him, though it be strange to thee.