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is the new Jerusalem, the city of the living God, where the perfected spirits of the just, in perfect life, and light, and love, are beholding, admiring, and praising, the eternal God, their Creator, and Redeemer, and Sanctifier

for ever.

PREPARATION FOR DEATH.

MY FRIENDS,

You cannot live a comfortable life, till you are prepared for a comfortable death; but if you are ready to die well, you are ready to live well, and ready to suffer, and ready for any thing! The man who hopes to be for ever with the Lord, has little to fear. How quietly may he sleep-how easily may he suffer-how joyfully may he live! Give me leave then to assist and direct you in this great work.

Spare not

1. Be sure that you repent of every known sin: there is nothing makes death so terrible to us as guilt. The sting of death is sin. It is sin that makes us hide ourselves from our God; and it is sin that hides his face from us. So great is his mercy, that nothing but our sin could separate us from his love. sin, therefore. Search it to the bottom of your hearts, you will find it has taken deep root there, and requires deep repentance: and when you have found out all its secret places in your hearts, confess it plainly but you must go still further, and forsake it resolute

very

ly: a half repentance will not afford you comfort in life, or hope in death:

That repentance which is unto life, is a turning unto God; a new heart, and a right spirit; a putting off the old man, and putting on the new; it is ceasing to do evil, and learn ing to do well; it is a death unto sin, and a new birth unto righteousness.

2. Put your souls into the hands of Jesus, to be pardoned, to be sanctified, and saved. Are you afraid of guilt, and the law, and the wrath of God, and hell? Remember he is "the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world." "He was made sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him." "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." Fly to this refuge. Lay hold on this hope set before you, and you will find strong consolation. Jesus, your High Priest, has made atonement for you here on earth, and is passed into heaven, where he ever liveth to make intercession for you. "Come therefore boldly to the throne of grace, that you may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in every time of need."

3. Devote yourself entirely to God; and make it the business of your life to please him, and to do good to all around you. O that I could persuade you, my friends, how much a

life of total resignation to God, and devotedness to his service would contribute to your comfort in life, and your peace at death! Though your only hope for salvation is the merits of your Redeemer; yet your comfort must much depend upon the evidence you have, that you are a sincere believer in him : that you are sanctified by his Spirit, and created anew in him, and made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. Would you not wish in your dying moments, to have the testimony of your conscience, "that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God. you have had your conversation in the world?"

Will it not be then matter of comfort to you, to look back on such marks of your sincerity as these?

That you have loved God above all things, and loved your brethren around you, because they were the children of the same Heavenly Father.

That you have taken Christ for your only Saviour, and his Spirit for your sanctifier? That it has been the desire of your heart, and the endeavour of your life, to please God?

That you have endeavoured to mortify sin, though it has been like cutting off a righthand, or plucking out a right eye ?

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That you have loved holiness, more than all the wealth and pleasure of the world? And that you have loved the Word of God, and his ordinances, as the means of holiness? And that it has been your earnest desire to be made more holy, and more meet for the world of holiness and love?

0 my friends! Live now, as you will wish you had lived, when you shall be upon a dying bed.

4. Live daily as in heaven while you are on earth, by faith, hope, and love. If you live as a stranger to heaven in health you will be a stranger to it in sickness; and the soul will rather have terror than pleasure, under a thought of going to a strange place, a strange God, strange company, and strange employments. Remember daily that there is your Father, your Saviour, your comforter, your home, your happiness, your friends, your treasure, your crown, your glory! Do all that you do in this world with heaven still in your eye. Hear, and read, and pray, as if heaven were open before you. Resist temptations, and follow your business, and your trade, as if heaven was still in sight; as a traveller holds on his journey in remembrance of the end. Meditate often on the heavenly glory; on the certainty, the nearness, the greatness of that glory. Think how many millions of

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