The Supposition of Dying This Year Improved
The mpposition of dying this year shoidd be improved: the consequence of redeeming time and providing for eternity farther pressed. Thefdhf of elder persons is condemned and checked from the example of children. It is advisable to familiarise the thotights of death, and to imagine beforehand what apprehensions of things we shall then have.
The longest life is but a day multiplied; and who can certify) or assure me, which will be my last! He only, who was God as well as man, could say, “Mine hour is not yet come,” Is all my life given me to resolve this question, Whether I shall be in heaven or hell for ever!’’ And have I any time to lose and squander away as superfluous! Have I any more than need! It is no impossible or unreasonable supposition to make, that I may die this year. Let me adroit that thought, and imagine myself on a bed of sickness, wearied with pain, and ready to leave this world; the physicians gone, despairing of my recovery; my friends about me weeping; and all things in a doleful melancholy posture, suited to such a state; feeling within myself the presages of death, expecting the final stroke in an hour or two more; what is then the value of sensual pleasure! Can I then relish or savour them! What then is honour to me, who shall never go abroad more to receive it, till carried to my grave! Will it then comfort me to have lived in reputation and applause, if my heart was not humble under it, and the honour of God promoted by it? Can riches and a great estate support me when I am just packing up for a removal to the other world? In that hour, will it be any satisfaction to have made a stir and noise for a few years upon earth, to be talked of for a while longer than other men? Ate these the things my dying thoughts will be most concerned to reflect on?
These dignities, pleasures, and possessions, offered to a dying man, would rather upbraid than tempt him; they come too late, as a prince’s pardon to a man whose head is off. Die I must, and appear before my Judge, to answer for all that I have received and done in the body. Fool that I was, shall I then too justly say to myself, not to have considered this much sooner! not to have provided for it at a better rate! my sins stare me in the fiice, my conscience tells me I am not ready for such ’ a trial: I have lived a stranger to such thoughts as now I cannot refuse, and which should have been admitted sooner. But, if to such a state any hope of mere may be granted, though it be unspeakably little, yet I cannot promise myself any such warning by sickness. The sleeping virgins were called at midnight, and so may I. Where can I pitch my tents on earth, to be secure against a sudden removal!
liord! make these thoughts effectual, to prevent my loss of precious time; which, at such a season, will be esteemed precious, though now it be not. how swift, how short, is my time of trial, in order to eternity! how difficult, how iro]^OTtat.) work it is to prepare for au everlasting state! What is all this worlds how little, bow mere -a nothing, to a departing soul? And shall I, after such reflections, continue to pursue shadows, and please myself with empty dreams, when being so near my final judgment, the common wisdom of a man requires me to mind it in good earnest, and be more solicitous about it than for any thing temporal? Oh! in what manner will death open my eyes, by shutting the windows of sense! How shall I then see the nothingness of what is but temporal, And the reality of what is eternal!
We sometimes laugh to see the vanity of little children, who are greatly pleased with painted toys, and busily employed about trifles. It extorts a smile to see them eager and industrious, and mightily concerned in their childish sports; to see them sigh or weep for little things which we de<^ spise; to observe with what solicitude and care they will raise a little fabric, which three moments after they themselves pull down, or would otherwise tumble of its own accord. We laugh at these, but should weep over ourselves, as the greater and older fools, who are every whit as silly, yea, infinitely more; that, considering we know the frailty of our present life, and can look beyond the grave to another world, should yet mispend our precious time on things which cannot profit; and please ourselves with what is so unsuitable to our age and state; and suffer our passions to work with violence for a thing of nought; and our greatest diligence, care, and zeal, to be exercised on things impertinent and vain; that are perishing in themselves, and can contribute nothing to our eternal welfare! And is it not thus with reference to all that men toil and la* hour for with the neglect of an immortal state?
The voluptuous Sadducee will not refuse the present gratification of his sensual appetite, because he is uncertain of another day. “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” Should not the same motive quicken my diligence in a better work? and, because ray Lord may “come suddenly, as a thief in the night,” I immediately prepare to meet him? Let me now, therefore, O my soul! look forward to the end of life and time! and so let me esteem, and seek, and choose, and do, every thing, in the first place, which then I shall wish I had! Let me do nothing now which I verily believe I shall then be ashamed of or sorry to reflect on; that, by thinking what a condition I shall then wish to have my soul in, I may now provide myself much better than I have done hitherto. That, while I am in the greatest probability of living, I may suppose my change to be near, and so not dare to do any thing but what I would or might do, if I were in the persent expectation of death. To this end, let me go down to the potter’s house, descend to the consideration of my mortality, and dwell among the tombs! remembering the Egyptians built themselves better tombs than houses, because they were to dwell longer in them. Let every night’s repose serve me as a memorial of my last sleep! and let my bed stand for the model of my coflfin! This is the only way to be dead to this world; to be able to judge of things now, as we shall do. after death, according to immutable eternal truth.