January 25

Having a desire to depart, and be with Christ, which is far better.—Philippians 1:23.

THE apprehensions and thoughts of death should have a peculiar pleasantness in the minds of believers. You have often heard into what a blessed presence and communion death doth introduce your souls; how it leads you out of a body of sin, a world of sorrows, the society of imperfect saints, to an innumerable company of angels, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.

to that lovely Mount Sion, to the heavenly sanctuary, to the blessed visions of the face of God. Oh! methinks the Scriptures unfold enough of the glorious future, to make all the souls, in whom the well-grounded hope of heaven is found, to cry out with the apostle, "We are confident, I say, yea, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and present with the Lord."

When good Musculus drew near his end, how sweet and pleasant was this meditation to his soul! Hear his awanlike song:

"Cold death my heart invade, my life doth fly:

O Christ, my everlasting life, draw nigh.

Why quiverest thou, my soul, within my breast?

Thine angel's come, to lead thee to thy rest.

Quit cheerfully this drooping house of clay;

God will restore it in the appointed day.

Hast sinned? I know it, let not that be urged;

For Christ, thy sins, with his own blood hath purg'd.

Is death affrighting? True, but yet withal,

Consider, Christ through death to life doth call.

He triumphs over Satan, sin, and death:

Therefore with joy resign thy dying breath."

Much in the same cheerful frame was the heart of dying Bullinger, when his mournful friends expressed their sense of the loss they should sustain by his removal. "Why," said he, "if God will make any farther use of my labors in the ministry, he will renew my strength, and I will gladly serve him: but if he please, as I desire he would, to call me hence, I am ready to obey his will; and nothing more pleasant can befall me, than to leave this sinful and miserable world to go to my Saviour Christ." O that all, who are out of the danger of death, were thus freed from the dread of death too.

Let them only tremble and be convulsed at the thoughts and sight of death, whose souls must fall into the hands of a sin-avenging God by the stroke of death; who are to breathe out their last hope with their last breath. Death is yours, saith the apostle, your friend, your privilege, your passage to heaven; it is your ignorance of it, which breeds your fear about it.

"Surely he will not long delay:

I hear his Spirit cry,

'Arise, my love, make haste away!

Go, get thee up and die.

O'er death, who now has lost his sting, I give thee victory; And with me my reward I bring, I bring my heaven for thee.'

"Lord, I the welcome word receive, Thee on the mount adore, For thy dear sake content to live Some painful moments more: I live in holy grief and joy, On Pisgah's top I stand, And life's important point employ, To view the promised land."