the truth and importance of them. He rests his whole hope of Heaven and eternal glory on the infallibility of them. His inward and increasing experience of what he is, notwithstanding all he knows, believes, and enjoys of Christ and the Father's love in him through the gracious influences of the Spirit, renders the salvation of Immanuel inestimably precious to him. He sees. enough in Christ to bear him up and carry him infinitely above and beyond himself and all the miseries of this present life. In the knowledge of Jesus he hath a perfect antidote against the fears of death. And he views an allsufficiency of glory in the God-man, Christ Jesus, to make him most blessed for ever and ever. He feels the mortality of his body. He finds that the sentence," Dust thou art, and unto dust "thou shall return," begins to take place in him, and triumphs in the victory of Christ, who conquered death and him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. In the prospect of a speedy difsolution he is most sweetly. and graciously supported through the knowledge, which the Holy Spirit has given him from the word, of the covenant-engagements and transactions of the Eternal Three on his behalf. He views the same as his everlasting se

curity. He receives and believes the record of the divine persons concerning it, and sets his own seal to the truth of it. He believes himself safe in the hands of Christ. His faith is very simple, and freely exercised on him. His whole hope for life everlasting is in him alone. He perceives every part of his salvation to be without himself. He hath in Christ every thing he wants to make him perfectly holy, happy, and blefsed. He enters more fully and spiritually into the knowledge of Christ and into commur.ion with him. He makes more free and constant use of him, and receives with peculiar delight the declarations of grace, the proclamation of pardon, and the sweet and precious promises which are given him. He sees that his vast obligations to the Holy Spirit for what he hath wrought in him, for what he hath taught him, for his exalting Christ in him, and for leading him from time to time into communion with Jesus and the Father in him, surpass all his thoughts and conceptions.

The time comes that he must die. The Lord sends death to take down the tabernacle of his body. The believer has nothing to do but to die. He says, "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." As he lived by faith, so he

must die in faith; as all, who went to Heaven before, did. It is declared, these all died in faith. In his dying case and circumstances he finds the word of our Lord sweet to him. Jesus says, "Verily, verily, if a man keep my "saying, he shall never see death." The believer sees that every part of God's word makes for him,—most exactly suits him. He mixes faith with it, and receives strength and consolation thereby. Death is to him no more

than sleep. Dying is only falling asleep in his body in the arms of Jesus.

Our

Lord hath abolished death. He hath taken out the sting of it. He saves his dying children from the fears of it. He gives his dying friend to find and experience in his dying moments the truth hereof. He saith to him, "I am "the resurrection and the life, he that "believeth in me, though he were dead,

yet shall he live, and whosoever liveth "and believeth in me shall never die.". There is in the very article of death everlasting life for the believer. He will find life in the highest perfection, when he ceases to breathe the air of this world. As soon as his connection is broken with the elements of this visible system, he enters through the consecrated pafsage of death on that same spiritual and eternal life which Christ

lives in glory. The Lord, having finished all the good pleasure of his will in and with the believer in a time-state, is his guide unto death, over, and beyond it. He resigns up his soul to his divine Saviour saying, Lord Jesus, receive my Spirit. Thus he dies in faith,-dies in Christ,-under the blessing of the Holy' Trinity. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. From the very moment of their death believers are blefsed. From henceforth their eternal blefsednefs begins. The Holy Ghost sets his seal to this truth: yea, saith the Spirit. It is an immutable truth, that, at the instant in which the believer falls asleep in Jesus, his soul in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, is delivered from the very inbeing of sin and swallowed up of life, being clothed with immortality and eternal glory. It is absent from the body, but present with the Lord; whilst the corpse sleeps in the arms of Jesus to be raised, in the future appointed time, from the grave of death: when it will be fashioned like unto Christ's glorious body.

O my soul! let these things sink down into thine heart. Consider the subject, and look up for the divine blefsing on it, saying, O Holy Father! it hath pleased thee to record in thy word the everlasting perfection of thy Son

Jesus Christ and his great salvation; and the revelation which thou hast made of it therein with thy testimony is very clear and plain: I believe thy record worthy of full credit, and the work of Jesus to be a finished salvation; help me to walk with thee in the true belief hereof on thy own authority and word. Grant me grace to live by faith, to walk by faith, to fight the good fight of faith, and to persevere in my spiritual warfare; believing that thou hast given me eternal life, that this life is in thy Son, and that he who hath the Son hath life. Let me receive thy word and oath, as my full security for everlasting life. O thou most blefsed and precious Jesus! keep me looking to thee and living on thee for every thing. Be with me in my walk and warfare,-in sicknefs and in death. When thou bringest me to it let me glorify thee by dying in the full belief of thy everlasting and complete salvation; and of thy complete victory over death and all the powers of darknefs. Let me glorify thee with my latest breath by putting honour, on thee, as God-man Mediator,-as my ALL on earth, and ALL in Heaven. O Holy Ghost! I blefs thee for all thy divine teachings, gracious quickenings, comforts, and strengthenings. Keep, O, keep my eye on Jesus, till I see him in