June 6

O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more.— Psalm xxxix. 18.

WHY is it that we do not extremely hate that which we so desperately love, sin? For the deformity of itself is unspeak- able; and, besides, it is the cause of all our woes. Sin hath opened the sluices, and lets in all the deluge of sorrows which makes the life of poor man nothing else but vanity and misery, so that the meanest orator in the world may be eloquent enough on that subject. What is our life, but a continual succession of many deaths? Though we should say nothing of all the bitter- ness and vexations that are hatched under the sweetest pleasures in the world, this one thing is enough, the multitude of diseases and pains, the variety of distempers, that those houses we are lodged in are exposed to. Poor creatures are oftimes tossed between two, the fear of death and the tediousness of life; and under these fears they can not tell which to choose. Holy men are not exempted from some apprehensions of God's displeasure because of their sins; and that may make them cry out with David, O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more. Or, perhaps, this may be a desire, not so much simply for the prolonging of life, as for the intermitting of his pain, to have ease from the present smart. The extreme torment of some sickness, may draw the most fixed and confident spirits to cry out very earnestly for a little breathing. Or rather, if the words imply a desire of recovery, and the spinning out of the thread of his life a little longer, surely he intended to employ it for God and his service. But long life was suitable to the promises of that time. There is no doubt those holy men under the law, knew somewhat of the state of immortality; their call- ing themselves strangers on the earth, argued that they were no strangers to these thoughts. But it can not be denied, that the doctrine was but darkly laid out in those times. It is Christ

Jesus who hath brought life and immortality to light, who did illuminate life and immortality, which before stood in the dark.

Surely, the desire of life is, for the most part, sensual and base, when men desire that they may still enjoy their animal pleasures, and are loth to be parted from them. They are pleased to term it, a desire to live and repent; and yet few do it when they are spared: like evil debtors, who desire forbearance from one term to another; but with no design at all to pay. But there is a natural desire of life, something of abhorrence in nature against the dissolution of these tabernacles. We are loth to go forth, like children who are afraid to walk in the dark, not knowing what may be there. In some, such a desire of life may be very reasonable; being surprised by sickness, and apprehensions of death, and sin unpardoned, they may desire a little time before they enter into eternity. For that change is not a thing to be hazarded upon a few days' or hours' preparation. I will not say that death-bed repentance is altogether desperate, but certainly it is very dangerous, and to be suspected; and, therefore, the desire of a little time longer, in such a case, may be very allowable.

I will not deny but it is possible, even for a believer, to be taken in such a posture, that it may be very uncomfortable to him to be carried off so, through the affrightments of death, and his darkness as to his after-state. On the other hand, it is an argument of a good measure of spirituality and height of love to God, to desire to depart, and dissolved, in the midst of health, and the affluence of worldly comforts. But for men to desire and wish to be dead, when they are troubled and vexed with any thing, is but a childish folly, flowing from a discontended mind, which being over, they desire nothing less than to die. It is true there may be a natural desire of death, which at sometimes hath shined in the spirits of some natural men: and there is much reason for it, not only to be freed from the evils and troubles of this life, but even from those things which many of this foolish world account their happiness—sensual pleasures, to eat and drink, and to be hungry again, and still to round that same course which, to souls that are raised above sensual things, is burdensome and grievous.

But there is a spiritual desire of death, which is very becoming a Christian. For Jesus Christ hath not only opened very clearly the doctrine of eternal life, but he himself hath passed through death, and lain down in the grave; he hath perfumed that passage, and warmed that bed for us; so that it is sweet and amiable for a Christian to pass through and follow him, and to be where he is. It is a strange thing, that the souls of Christians have not a continual desire to go to that company which is above, finding so much discord and disagreement among the best of men that are here:—to go to the spirits of just men made perfect, where there is light, and love, and nothing else; to go to the company of angels, a higher rank of blessed spirits; but, most of all, to go to God, and to Jesus the Mediator of the new Testament. And, to say nothing positively of that glory, (for the truth is, we can say nothing of it,) the very evils that death delivers the true Christian from, may make him long for it; for such a one may say—I shall die, and go to a more excellent country, where I shall be happy for ever: that is, I shall die no more, I shall sorrow no more, and shall be tempted no more; and, which is the chiefest of all, I shall sin no more.