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

VI. Often Committing our Spirits into the Hand of the Lord Jesus Christ while we Live, Let us Endeavour after such Characters upon our Spirits, as may Assure us, that He will Receive us, when we Dy.

Indeed when we first Commit our Spirits into the Hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, we are to bring them, with no other Characters but those of Sin, and Hell, upon them. If we then Commit our Spirits into the Hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the Encouragement of any Laudable Qualifications and Recommendations, in them, Ah! Lord, Thou wilt Abhor us, and cast us off! In our first Believing on the Lord Jesus Christ, He Enquires of us▪ What Spirit is that, which thou dost now Commit into my Hand? Our Answer must be, Lord, It is a Guilty Spirit, a Filthy Spirit, a Spirit as full of Sin and Hell, as ever it can hold, and a Spirit horribly under the Curse of God. Sirs, If you Answer any otherwise than So, the Redeemer of Spirits, will not Receive your Spirits. But when we Commit our Spirits into the Hand of our Lord Jesus Christ, in the last Actions of our Life, it is to be supposed, That we only Repeat, what we have done before, and that our Lord Jesus Christ, ha's already Received our Spirits, on our doing of it. Oh! Tis a dreadful Thing, for a Dying man, to think, The Lord never yet Received this poor Soul of mine; ⟨p. 26⟩for I never till now Committed it unto the Lord! When such Persons Commit their Spirits into the Hand of the Lord Jesus Christ, under the Dimness of the Anguish of Death, tis, as one says, As if one should bequeath unto an Honourable Person, some greasy Dish clout, or some dirty Shoo clout. It is of unutterable Concernment, for every man, to get the Symptoms of a Received Soul upon him, Now before his last Surrender of a Distressed Soul: and for a man to be able to say, at the last, Lord, I Commit a po•r Sinful Spirit now into thy Hand; but it is a Spirit upon which thy Blood ha's been Sprinkled, & it is a Spirit which thy Spirit ha's long since taken possession of. Now, to render this Unquestionable, we are to Examine our selves, Whether our Spirits have been Renewed by the Holy Spirit of God? and be Restless in our own Spirits till we are sure of such a Renovation. The Apostle once concluded, That when our Spirits depart from hence, the Lord Jesus Christ, will Receive them, into an House not made with Hands, Eternal in the Heavens: And upon what was it, that he Raised this Conclusion? He says, in