The works of George Swinnock, M.A

³I Wish that the uncertainty of my sick Neighbours outward recovery, may make me the more careful ⟨p. 595⟩and solicitous about his spiritual health. If he die, he is stated and fixed for ever and ever, and I am for ever deprived of all opportunities of profiting or advantaging his soul. Now he is sick, he is nigh death, but one step from it. The sick stand upon the borders of the grave, upon the brink of the pit, nay, of eternity. Those that are in most perfect health, are inclining towards death; but they that are sick, are approaching the Chambers of darkness. Such a man may speak in the language of Haman, My life draweth nigh unto the grave, Psa. 88. 3. Should he depart this life in a natural estate, he falleth into the jaws of eternal death. All prayers for him will then be fruitless, and there is no giving counsel to him after death. I must now advise, exhort, persuade, beseech him to mind faith and repentance, or never do it; I must now put up hearty cries and groans to God on his behalf, or never do it. The loving kindness of God cannot be declared in the grave, nor his faithfulness in destruction. ²When he is wailing in Hell for the ungodliness of his heart and life, I may be weeping on earth for my neglect of him, or unfaithfulness to him, but both our tears will be ineffectual, and our cries comfortless. O that the love of my Saviour, the command of my God, the worth of a soul, the weight of an eternal estate, the fear of losing such a season, and the impossibility of recalling or recovering it, may all provoke me to be instant with the sick, to turn to God, and abhor and bewail their sins, and to be fervent with God, that he would crown my endeavours with success! Lord, I may speak thy Mind and Will to Men, but thou alone, who didst make the ear, canst enable them ⟨image 322⟩to hear, let it please thy Majesty so to affect my heart with a due sense of others misery, so to direct my tongue what to speak in order to their recovery, and so to prosper the undertakings of thy servant, that as often as I visit any unconverted person in his sickness, I may turn a sinner from the error of his ways, save a soul alive, and hide a multitude of sins.