it. You should rather give warning to the younger sort, to take heed of covetousness, and of being ensnared by the world, and while they labour in it faithfully with their hands, to keep their hearts entirely for God.

Direct. IX. You should highly esteem every minute of your time, and lose none in idleness or unnecessary things; but be always doing or getting some good; and do what you do with all your might.' For you are sure now that your time will not be long: how little have you left to make all the rest of your preparation in for eternity! The young may die quickly, but the old know that their time will be but short. Though nature decay, yet grace can grow in life and strength; and when "your outward man perisheth, the inner man may be renewed day by day." Time is a most precious commodity to all; but especially to them that have but a little more to determine the question in,, 'Whether they must live in heaven or hell for ever.' Though you cannot do your worldly businesses as heretofore, yet you have variety of holy exercises to be employed in; bodily ease may beseem you, but idleness is worse in you than in any.

Direct. x. When the decay of your strength, or memory, or parts, doth make you unable to read, or pray, or meditate by yourselves, so much or so well as heretofore, make the more use of the more lively gifts and help of others.' Be the more in hearing others, and in joining with them in prayer; that their memory, and zeal, and utterance may help to lift you up and carry you on.

Direct. xI. Take not a decay of nature, and of those gifts and works which depend thereon, for a decay of grace.' Though your memory, and utterance, and fervour of affection, abate as your natural heat abateth, yet be not discouraged; but remember, that you may for all this grow in grace. If you do but grow in holy wisdom and judgment, and a higher esteem of God and holiness, and a greater disesteem of all the vanities of the world, and a firmer resolution to cleave to God and trust on Christ, and never to turn to the world and sin; this is your growth in grace.

Direct. XII. Be patient under all the infirmities and inconveniencies of old age.' Be not discontented at them, repine not, nor grow peevish and froward to those about you.

This is a common temptation which the aged should carefully resist. You knew at first that you had a body that must decay if you would not have had it till a decaying age, why were you so unwilling to die? If you would, why do you repine? Bless God for the days of youth, and strength, and health, and ease which you have had already! and grudge not that corruptible flesh decayeth.

Direct. XIII. Understand well that passive obedience is that which God calleth you to in your age and weakness, and in which you must serve and honour him in the conclusion of your labour.' When you are unfit for any great or public works, and active obedience hath not opportunity to exercise itself as heretofore, it is then as acceptable to God that you honour him, by patient suffering. And therefore it is a great error of them that wish for the death of all that are impotent, decrepit, and bedrid, as if they were utterly unserviceable to God. I tell you, it is no small service that they may do, not only by their prayers, and their secret love to God, but by being examples of faith, and patience, and heavenly-mindedness, and confidence and joy in God, to all about them. Grudge not then if God will thus employ you. Direct. XIV. Let your thoughts of death, and preparations for it, be as serious as if death were just at hand.' Though all your life be little enough to prepare for death, and it be a work that should be done as soon as you have the use of reason, yet age and weakness call louder to you, presently to prepare without delay. Do therefore all that you would fain find done, when your last sickness cometh; that unreadiness to die may not make death terrible, nor your age uncomfortable.

Direct. xv. Live in the joyful expectation of your change, as becometh one that is so near to heaven, and looketh to live with Christ for ever.' Let all the high and glorious things, which faith apprehendeth, now shew their power in the love, and joy, and longings of your soul. There is nothing in which the weak and aged can more honour Christ and do good to others, than in joyful expectation of their change, and an earnest desire to be with Christ. This will do much to convince unbelievers, that the promises are true, and that heaven is real, and that a holy life is indeed the best, which hath so happy an end. When they see you highest in your joys, at the time when others are deepest in dis

tress; and when you rejoice as one that is entering upon his happiness, when all the happiness of the ungodly is at an end; this will do more than many sermons, to persuade a sinner to a holy life. I know that this is not easily attained; but a thing so sweet and profitable to yourselves, and so useful to the good of others, and so much tending to the honour of God, should be laboured after with all your diligence and then you may expect God's blessing on your labours. Read to this use the fourth part of my "Saints' Rest."

CHAPTER XXX.

Directions for the Sick.

THOUGH the chief part of our preparation for death be in the time of health, and it is a work for which the longest life is not too long; yet because the folly of unconverted sinners is so great, as to forget what they were born fór till they see death at hand, and because there is a special preparation necessary for the best, I shall here lay down some Directions for the Sick. And I shall reduce them to these four heads. 1. What must be done to make death safe to

us, that it may be our passage to heaven and not to hell. 2. What must be done to make sickness profitable to us? 3. What must be done to make death comfortable to us, that we may die in peace and joy. 4. What must be done to make our sickness profitable to others about us.

Tit. 1. Directions for a Safe Death, to secure our Salvation.

The Directions of this sort are especially necessary to the unconverted, impenitent sinner; yet needful also to the godly themselves; and therefore I shall distinctly speak to both.

I. Directions for an Unconverted Sinner in his Sickness.

It is a very dreadful case to be found by sickness in an unconverted state. There is so great a work to be done, and so little time to do it in, and soul and body so unfit and undisposed for it, and the misery so great (even everlasting torment) that will follow so certainly and so quickly if it be undone, that one would think it should overwhelm the

understanding and heart of any man with astonishment and horror, to foresee such a condition in the time of his health; much more to find himself in it in his sickness. And though one would think that the near approach of death, and the nearness of another world, should be irresistibly powerful to convert a sinner, so that few or none should die unconverted, however they lived; yet Scripture and sad experience declare the contrary, that most men die as well as live, in an unsanctified and miserable state. For 1. A life of sin doth usually settle a man in ignorance or unbelief, or both: so that sickness findeth him in such a dungeon of darkness, that he is but lost and confounded in his fears, and knoweth not whither he is going, nor what he hath to do. 2. And also sin woefully hardeneth the heart, and the long-resisted Spirit of God forsaketh them, and giveth them over to themselves in sickness, who would not be ruled and sanctified by him in their health and such remain like blocks or beasts even to the last. 3. And the nature of sickness and approaching death doth tend more to affright than to renew the soul; and rather to breed fear and trouble than love. And though grief and fear be good preparatives and helps, yet it is the love of God and holiness in which the soul's regeneration and renovation doth consist; and there is no more holiness than there is love and willingness. And many a one that is affrighted into strong repentings, and cries, and prayers, and promises, and seem to themselves and others to be converted, do yet either die in their sins and misery, or return to their unholy lives when they recover, being utter strangers to that true repentance which reneweth the heart, as sad experience doth too often testify. 4. And many poor sinners finding that they have so short a time, do end it in mere amazement and terror, not knowing how to compose their thoughts, to examine their hearts and lives, nor to exercise faith in Christ, nor to follow any Directions that are given them; but lie in trembling and astonishment, wholly taken up with the fears of death, much worse than a beast that is going to be butchered. 5. And the very pains of the body do so divert or hinder the thoughts of many, that they can scarce mind any spiritual things, with such a composedness as is necessary to so great a work. 6. And the greatest number being partly confounded in ignorance, and partly withheld by backwardness and undis

posedness, and partly disheartened by thinking it impossible to become new creatures, and get a regenerate, heavenly heart on such a sudden, do force themselves to hope that they shall be saved without it, and that though they are sinners, yet that kind of repentance which they have, will serve the turn and be accepted, and God will be more merciful than to damn them. And this false hope they think they are necessitated to take up. For there is but two other ways to be taken: the one is, utterly to despair; and both Scripture, and reason, and nature itself are against that: the other way is to be truly converted and won to the love of God and heaven by a lively faith in Jesus Christ: and they have no such faith: and to this they are strange and undisposed, and think it impossible to be done. And if they must have no hopes but upon such terms as these, they think they shall have none at all. Or else if they hear that there is no other hope, and that none but the holy can be saved, they will force themselves to hope that they have all this, and that they are truly converted, and become new creatures, and do love God and holiness above all: not because indeed it is so, but because they would have it so, for fear of being damned. And instead of finding that they are void of faith, and love, and holiness, and labouring to get a renewed soul, they think it a nearer way to make themselves believe that it is so already: and thus in their presumption, self-deceiving, and false hopes, they linger out that little time that is left them to be converted in, till death open their eyes, and hell do undeceive them. 7. And the same devil, and wicked men his instruments, that kept them in health from true repentance, will be as diligent to keep them from it in their sickness; and will be loath to lose all at the last cast, which they had been winning all the time before. And if the devil can but keep them in his power, till sickness come and take them up with pain and fear, he will hope to keep them a few days longer, till he have finished that which he had begun and carried on so far. And if there be here and there one, that will be held no longer by false hopes. and presumption, he will at last think to take them off by desperation, and make them believe that there is no remedy.

And, indeed, it is a thing so difficult and unlikely, to convert a sinner in all his pain and weakness at the last,