Captives bound in chains, made free by Christ their surety

4. Death to the Lord's Free-men shall come in the best time. All men die in God's time, whenever he appointeth; but the redeemed by Christ shall die in the best time, when their work is done, and when ⟨p. 187⟩God seeth it is better for them to die than to live; God takes the best time and fittest season for the removing of his by death out of the world: But the wicked slaves of sin and Satan are cut off in a bad time, whenever they die; it is a bad time to them, because whenever it is, they go that day to hell, and to eternal torments; the day of their dissolution, is the day of their damnation; and will not that be the saddest day they ever had? they die before their work is done; before they have believed, and before they have repented, and that must be a sad day whenever it comes. Men cut down Weeds at any time, but the Corn in the best time, in the fittest season, when it is ripe to be carried into the barn.

5. Death to the Lord's Freemen hath lost its terribleness. And though all God's redeemed are not actually and totally freed from the fears of death, but sometimes kept in bondage through the fears of death; yet they have grounds and reasons why they might not fear it: But the Devil's Captives have always cause and reason to be terribly afraid of death; and if they be not, it ariseth from the blindness of their minds, and the hardness of their hearts. "It is a wonder that men should be as near to hell ⟨p. 188⟩as to the grave, and yet not be afraid to dye; It is a wonder, that men should be as near to an endless miserable life, as they are to the end of this short uncertain life, and yet their fears should not prevent their sleeping in the night, and their jovial merriments in the day-time." The Devil hath blinded them as well as bound them, and that is one reason of it. But these cannot upon any solid, rational, and religious grounds be […] from the fears of death. But so may the Lord's freemen, and this they have from and through Jesus Christ,