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O WHAT need you will have of Christ then as an advocate with God, when the question is to be determined, where your mansion is to be assigned through all eternity, whether in heaven or hell! O then be looking always to Christ with the eye of faith. Live in the constant thoughts of this blessed Mediator. Let Him be first in your thoughts in the morning, and last in your thoughts at night.
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It might be much to the glory of God and good of souls, that a great part of our testaments and latter wills should consist of solemn charges, exhortations and blessings to our children, or those to whom we may bequeath any legacy; so as they can never open our testaments, or look into them, but they might hear something that may make impressions on their souls for their spiritual edification, and for quickening to the diligent practice of both family and personal godliness.
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O Christless sinner, what will you do in the day of visitation? to whom will you flee for help? Your houses, your lands, your money, your honours, your companions, your relations, will all be miserable comforters to you. Everything will look black and dismal round about you. If you look without you for help, you may see your friends weeping and lamenting your case, but this will do nothing but increase your vexation and misery. If you look within you for relief, conscience, that before you would not suffer to speak, will meet you with bitter stings and upbraidsings. It will bring to your view the sins you had forgotten, the time you have mis-spent, the health you have mis-improved, the offers of grace you have refused, the great salvation you have neglected. What folly was it for thee to provoke God and slight Christ, for a little worldly profit, or a little brutish pleasure? Can these relieve thee when the arrows of the Almighty stick within thee, and the terrors of God do set themselves in array against thy soul? In the meantime, the devil that tempted you to your soul-ruining course, will step in, and represent your sins in the blackest colours and aggravations, to render you altogether hopeless and desperate. O sinner, thou that refusedst rest from Christ in the day of health and grace, shalt find no ease from the creature in the day of sickness and death.
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Consider how little reason a believer hath to be much in love with the present life. 1st—“Tis a sinful life; sin dwells in your nature, breaks out in your life, and pollutes all your duties. How oft have you groaned under this burden; and should you not be glad to be eternally delivered from it? 2nd—It is a life of diseases and infirmities; and should you not be willing to be cured of them all at once? 3rd—It is a life of temptations: Satan is still harassing thee; and should you not be desirous to be out of his reach? 4th—It is a life of persecutions from the wicked; they hate, reproach, and injure you many ways. And is it not desirable to be where the wicked cease from troubling, and where the weary be at rest? 5th—It is a life of clouds and darkness; your sun is often veiled, and your evidences obscured, which occasions many bitter complaints. And should you not desire that time when the day shall break and all shadows flee away? 6th—It is a life of calamities and fears; it is like a stormy sea, where one wave rolls on the back of another.
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Mr. John Holland, a godly minister, continued his usual practice of expounding the Scripture in his family to the last; and, the day before his death, he called for the Bible, and causing another to read the eighth chapter of the Romans, he discoursed upon it verse by verse; but on a sudden he said, “O stay your reading! what brightness is this I see? Have you lighted any candles?” A stander by said, “No, it is the sunshine” (for it was about five o’clock in a clear summer’s evening). “Sunshine,” saith he, “nay, it is my Saviour’s shine. Now farewell world, welcome heaven! the day-star from on high hath visited my heart: O speak it when I am gone, and preach it at my funeral. God dealeth familiarly with man: I feel His mercy: I see His majesty. Whether in the body or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth; but I see things that are unutterable.” And in this rapture he continued till he died.
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Surely the day shall break, and the shadows flee away; my King cometh, my well-beloved is on His way; He hath sent His letter before me to warn me of it, saying, “Behold I come quickly.” O that, like the cold and wearied night-watch, I may be looking out for the appearing of the morning-star, and the breaking of the eastern sky; and may be still crying, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus; come quickly.”
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I am living on the righteousness of Christ, yea, dying in the Lord. Even so, come. I am detained here, upon the shore, waiting for a fair wind to carry me over this Jordan. I have waited, and will wait for thy salvation, O Lord. The Lord is a rock, and His work is perfect: Lord, perfect what concerneth me.
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O for more faith! May my faith ripen to a full assurance, that I may go off the stage rejoicing, and that an abundant entrance may be ministered to me into the kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. O for more faith, that I may die like Simeon when he had Christ in his arms, saying, “Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace according to thy Word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”—Christian Treasury.