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we may do it well. Therefore, prepare for death, and do it timeously.

If ye, who are unregenerate, ask me what ye shall do to prepare for death, that ye may die safely? I answer, I have told you already what must be done. And that is, your nature and state must be changed: ye must be born again; ye must be united to Jesus Christ by faith. And till this is done, ye are not capable of other directions, which belong to one's dying comfortably; whereof we may discourse afterwards in the due place.

HEAD II.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWIXT THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED IN THEIR DEATH.

PROVERBS xiv. 32.

"The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death."

THIS text looks like the cloud betwixt the Israelites and Egyptians, having a dark side towards the latter, and a bright side towards the former.—It represents death, like Pharaoh's jailer, bringing the chief butler and the chief baker out of one prison; the one to be restored to his office, and the other to be led to execution. It shows the difference betwixt the godly and the ungodly in their death; who, as they

act a very different part in life, so, in death, have a vastly different exit.

First, As to the death of a wicked man: here is, 1. The manner of his passing out of the world. He is "driven away," namely, in his death, as is clear from the opposite clause. He is forcibly thrust out of his place in this world; driven away as chaff before the wind. 2. The state he passeth away in he dies in a sinful and hopeless state. (1.) In a sinful state: he is "driven away in his wickedness." He lived in it, and he dies in it; his filthy garments of sin, in which he wrapt up himself in his life, are his prison-garments, in which he shall lie wrapt up for ever. (2.) In a hopeless state; "but the righteous hath hope in his death:" which plainly imports the hopelessness of the wicked in their death. Whereby it is not meant, that no wicked man shall have any hope at all when he is a-dying, but shall die in despair. No: sometimes it is so indeed; but frequently it is otherwise: foolish virgins may, and often do, hope to the last breath. But the wicked

man has no solid hope and as for the delusive hopes he entertains himself with, death will root them up, and he shall be for ever irretrievably miserable.

Secondly, As to the death of a righteous man: he hath hope in his death. This is ushered in with a but-importing a removal of those dreadful circumstances with which the wicked man is attended, who "is driven away in his wickedness; but" the godly are not so. Not so, 1. In the manner of their passing out of the world. The righteous is not driven away as chaff before the wind; but led away as a bride to the marriage-chamber; carried away by the

angels into Abraham's bosom. Not so, 2. As to their own state when passing out of this life. The righteous man dies, (1.) Not in a sinful, but in a holy state. He goes not away in his sin, but out of it. In his life he was putting off the old man, changing his prison-garments; and now the remaining rags of them are removed, and he is adorned with robes of glory. (2.) Not in a hopeless, but a hopeful state. He hath hope in his death: he has the grace of hope, and the well-founded expectation of better things than ever he had in this world; and though the stream of his hope at death may run shallow, yet he has still as much of it as makes him venture his eternal interests upon the Lord Jesus Christ.

DOCTRINE I.-The wicked dying, are driven away in their wickedness, and in a hopeless state.

In speaking to this doctrine, I. I shall show how, and in what sense, the wicked are driven away in their wickedness at death. II. I shall discover the hopelessness of their state at death. And, lastly, Apply the whole.

(1.) What is meant

(2.) Whence they (3.) In what respects

I. How, and in what sense, the wicked are driven away in their wickedness. In discoursing of this matter, I shall briefly inquire, by their being driven away. shall be driven, and whither. they may be said to be driven away in their wickedBut, before I proceed, let me advertise you, that you are mistaken if think that no persons are to be called wicked but they who are avowedly vicious and profane; as if the devil could dwell in

ness.

you

none but whose name is legion. In Scripture account, all who are not righteous, in the manner hereafter explained, are reckoned wicked. And there

fore the text divides the whole world into two sorts, the righteous and the wicked; and ye will see the same thing in that other text, "Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked." Wherefore, if ye be not righteous, ye are wicked. If ye have not an imputed righteousness, and also an implanted righteousness, or holiness; if ye be yet in your natural state, unregenerate, not united to Christ by faith; howsoever moral and blameless in the eyes of men your conversation may be, ye are the wicked who shall be driven away in their wickedness, if death find you in that state. Now,

First, As to the meaning of this phrase "driven away," there are three things in it-The wicked shall be taken away suddenly, violently, and irresistibly.

1. Unrenewed men shall be taken away suddenly at death. Not that all wicked men die suddenly; nor that they are all wicked who die so: God forbid! But, (1.) Death commonly comes upon them unexpected, and so surpriseth them; as the deluge came surprisingly on the old world, though they were forewarned of it long before it came. Death seizeth them, as a creditor doth his debtor to hale him to prison, and that when they are not aware. Death comes in as a thief, at the window, and finds them full of busy thoughts about this life, which that very day perish. (2.) Death always seizeth them unprepared for it. The soul and body are, as it were, hugging one another in mutual embr

when death comes like a whirlwind, and separates them. (3.) Death hurries them away in a moment to destruction, and makes a most dismal change: the man, for the most part, never knows where he is, till in hell he lift up his eyes. The floods of wrath suddenly overwhelm his soul; and, ere he is aware, he is plunged in the bottomless pit.

2. The unrenewed man is taken away out of the world violently. Driving is a violent action: he is chased out of the world. Fain would he stay if he could; but death drags him away, like a malefactor, to the execution. He sought no other portion than the profits and pleasures of this world; he hath no other; he really desires no other: how can he then go away out of it, if he were not driven?

Quest. But may not a wicked man be willing to die? Ans. He may indeed be willing to die; but, observe, it is only in one of three cases: (1.) In a fit of passion, by reason of some trouble that he is impatient to be rid of. Thus many persons, when their passion has got the better of their reason, and when, on that account, they are most unfit to die, will be ready to cry, 'O to be gone!' but should their desire be granted, and death come at their call, they would quickly show they were not in earnest; and that if they go, they must be driven away against their wills. (2.) When they are brimful of despair, they may be willing to die. Thus Saul murdered himself; and Spira wished to be in hell, that he might know the uttermost of what he believed he was to suffer. In this manner men may seek after death, while it flees from them. But fearful is the violence those do undergo, whom the terrors of God do thus drive. (3.) When

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