A good man making a good end. The life and death, of the Reverend…

I Bring you this Day, a Text of Sacred Scripture, which a Faithful Servant of the Lord Jesus Christ, lately gone unto Him, did before his going, order for you, as his Legacy. Give your Attention.

'Tis That, in Psal. XXXI.5. Into Thine Hand I Commit my Spirit.

That Holy, and Worthy Minister of the Gospel, whose Funeral is this Day to be attended, having Long Laboured for the Conversion of men unto God, at length grew very Praesagious that his Labours in the Evangelical Ministry, drew near unto an End. While he was yet in Health, and not got beyond the Fifty Fourth Year of his Age, he did, with such a Presage upon his mind, (having first written on this wise in his Diary, Oh! that ⟨p. 4⟩Christs Death might fit me for my own!) begin to Study a Sermon, on this very Text, Into Thine Hand I Commit my Spirit. But his Great Master, who favoured him with such a Presage, never gave him an opportunity to Finish and Utter, what he had begun to Study. His Life had all this while, been a Practical Commentary upon his Doctrine; and now, behold! His Death must Expound and Apply the Doctrine, which he would have Preached unto us. He must show us, how to do that Important work of Committing a Departing Spirit into the Hands of God, no otherwise than by the Actual doing of that work himself. While therefore he Lay a Dying, he a•k'd one of his dearest Relations, Dost thou know what I am doing! She said, No; He then added, I am Rendering, I am Rendering! meaning, I suppose, his own Spirit unto the Lord. But while he was doing of that work, and with Humble Resignation Committing his own Spirit into the Hands of God, he desired of me, that I would Preach upon the Text, about which he had been under such Intentions. Wherefore [If at least I may be thought worthy of such a Character!] You are now to consider me, shall I say, as Executing the Will of the Dead? or, as Representing a Man of God, whom God hath taken. The Truths, which we shall now Inculcate, will be such, as you are all along to think, These are the Things which a Saint now in Glory