The blessedness of the death of these that die in the Lord and more…The blessednesse of the death of these that die in the Lord and more…

But for further and more particular clearing of this doctrine, we shall speak a little to these three contained in it; 1. What is meant, when we say that death is a suitable subject of meditation? 2. What profit or advantage comes to the people of God by it? 3. Why do we say it is especially profitable and advantageous to be thought upon in an evil time?

But for further and more particular clearing of this doctrine, we shall speak a litle to these three contained in it; 1. What is meant, when we say that death is a suteable subject of meditation? 2. What profite or advantage comes to the people of God by it? 3. Why doe we say it is especially profitable and advantagious to be thought upon in ane evil time?

For the first, when we speak of death as a suitable subject of meditation, It is not to be strictly taken as contradistinguished from other things that proceed, accompany, and follow death; But 1. we take in the thoughts of the certainty of dying, and the uncertainty of its time and other circumstances as to us; Its then to think on death as the way of all flesh, as that which no man can get a discharge from, and of the uncertainty of the time and manner of it, how sudden and surprising it may be. 2ly, When we speak of the meditation of death, we take in all that accompanies it, the pain and outward diseases whereby men are made unable to do any profitable work in their generation, as also all the challenges, convictions, tentations, terrors, and anxieties that accompany death, and the estimation of things that we see dying men to have; All these would be taken in as a part of this meditation. 3ly, When we speak of meditating on death, we mean not that it would be meditated on, only as it is a natural thing after the fall of man, but would consider and distinguish it in its several kinds as its dying in sin and dying in the ⟨p. 96⟩Lord, the first and second death; we would look upon death on the one side, as an effect of the curse, and on the other side, as sweetened with Gods love and as an entry into happiness: And we would add to this the causes of the one and of the other, what it is that makes death miserable to one, and happy or the entry to happiness to another. 4ly, When we speak of thinking on death we would take in the effects and consequents of death, our appearing before God, Judgment, and Eternity, that are at the back of death; The entering into an unchangeable estate of well or ill being, meeting with a sentence that is irrevocable, the eternal happiness of them that die in Christ, the eternal misery of them that die in sin, perfection of Joy, and extremity of sorrow for ever, which men and Angels are not able to conceive and far less to express; And when we speak of meditation on death, we say its a suitable subject to be thinking often and frequently on all their, not only at more solemn and set times, but even in the midst of our callings and employments, in the midst of our Joy, and of our grief and sadness, to be taking some serious looks of this day that will put an end to all these in the way before spoken of;