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[1] Ye will desire it above all things else ye can reach in this world, preferring it to the best things that earth affords, Psal. iv. 6, 7. Ye will value it more than the profits and pleasures of the world, counting them but dung in comparison thereof.

[2] Ye will highly prize holy ordinances, public, private, and secret, as the means of communion with Christ; and yet not be satisfied with them without communion with him in them. They to whom these are a burden or tasteless, plainly discover they value not communion with Christ, these being the galleries wherein the King is held, Cant. vii. 5.; they are not of the Psalmist's mind, who say, Psal. lxxxiv. 10. "A day in thy courts is better than a thousand; I had rather be a door-keeper in the house of my God, than dwell in the tents of wickedness. Those that rest in them, and are pleased when the task is got done, shew they value not the true use of them, represented to us in the spouse's practice, Cant. iii. 2. "I will rise now, and go about the city in the streets, and in the broad ways I will seek him whom my soul loveth."

[3.] It will be your great concern to guard against whatever may mar it, or keep you back from it; and to keep the way wherein you may obtain it. That is you will beware of living in the allowed practice of sin, but be tender and holy in your lives, Psal. lxvi. 18. John xiv. 21.

USE III. Evidence yourselves truly married to Christ, by making it your great concern to have actual communion with Christ here, till ye come to the full enjoyment of him in the other world, To press this, I offer these motives very briefly.

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1. This is necessary to evidence your sincerity in the marriage covenant, 1 John ii. 19. "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us." Being careless of communion with Christ, speaks that the heart is not with him, but with other lovers.

2. It is necessary to your getting safe through an ensnaring world; therefore says Christ to his people, Cant. iv. 8. "Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon; look from the top of Amana, from the top of Shenir, and Hermon, from the lions' dens, from the mountains of the leopards," if ye are left alone, ye will fall in the wilderness.

Lastly, Without communion with Christ here, there will be no communion with him in the other world, according to what the Psalmist says, Psal. lxxiii. 24, "Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterwards receive me to glory." Communion with Christ in grace here, is the foundation of communion with him in glory hereafter.

I close with these few directions.

1. Look for communion with Christ in the way of free grace and unhired love; that he may come over mountains to you, mountains of guilt and unworthiness, as undeserving such a high privilege.

3. Seek it resolutely in all means of his appointment, going from one mean and ordinance to another till ye find him, as the spouse did, Cant. iii. 1. and downwards. So may ye, persevering, succeed, whatever difficulties be in your way.

3. Be diligent observers of providences, and make a due improvement of them as means of communion with him, Psal. xcii. 4. and cvii. ult.

Lastly, Be habitually tender in your walk; keeping off from every thing that may grieve his Spirit, and provoke him to depart; acting in this case as the spouse did, Cant. iii. 5. “"I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love till he please.”

READINESS FOR OUR REMOVAL INTO THE OTHER WORLD OPENED UP, URGED, AND ENFORCED.

The substance of several Sermons preached at Ettrick in the year 1730.

Be

Luke xii. 40.

ye therefore ready also: for the Son of man cometh at an hour when ye think not.

AFTER all we have heard of the other world, what will it avail, if it issue not in preparing for our removal into it? That is certainly the use which all of us are to make of it, which we have in the words of the text. In which we have two things:

1. An alarm to be ready for the removal into the other world, "Be therefore ready also," In the parable of the rich man, ver. 16— 21. our Saviour had shown the dreadful surprising removal of secure sinners into it, when they are not at all ready for it, but dreaming of a long continuance at ease here, which puts preparation for it out of their heads. And thence he proceeds to caution against inordinate care for this uncertain life, and to stir up to be ready, to be on the wing, for the other life, ver. 35.; and to be

always ready, as those that are at an uncertainty as to the time of their removal. This is to be ready also, as well as the goodman of the house would be if he knew what hour the thief would come.

2. The reason why we should be ready, always ready, never unprepared: "For the son of man cometh at an hour when we think not. Because we know not when we may be called off, more than one knows what time of the night the thief will break in on his house. Now Christ the son of man comes as a thief, at a time uncertain to us. There is a twofold coming of the Son of man. (1.) At the general judgment. (2.) At death. Both are to remove us into the other world; the word is general, agreeing to both; and in point of our making ready they come to one, because whatever readiness they can be in for the general judgment, must be made before death, there being no access after that to make ready any more, but as the tree falls it lies. So we shall consider it as his coming at death, to carry us off hence. There are two things here: 1st, The certainty of our

removal into the other world,-"The Son of man cometh;" he will certainly come, how long soever he may delay his coming. That is a tryst that cannot be broken.

2dly, The uncertainty of the time of it, as to us, however precisely it is appointed in the divine decree; he has not told us when it shall be, more than the thief tells the good-man when he is to make an attempt on his house. So that if there be any time when we are not ready, he may for any thing we know, as readily come then, as at any time. From the text ariseth this weighty point of doctrine, viz.

DocT. Such is the certainty of our removal into the other world, and the uncertainty of the time of that removal, that we ought always to be ready for it.

IN discoursing from this doctrine, I shall,

I. Premise some things imported in it.

II. Consider the certainty of our removal into the other world. III. The uncertainty of the time of it.

IV. The readiness for that removal.

Lastly, Apply in some practical uses.

I. I shall premise some things imported in this doctrine.

1. Great is the weight that depends on our being ready for a removal into the other world. Eternal well or woe depends on it; for according to the situation we are found in at our removal, so will we be received and lodged there; in the upper part, the region of bliss, or the lower part, the region of horror, to remove no more. And this makes carelessness to prepare for it absolutely unaccountable.

2. We are naturally unfit, and unready for that removal. Were it a matter indifferent which part of that world we should land in, we could at no time be reckoned unfit and unready for it; for they that are not ready for eternal light above, are ready for eternal fire below. But it can never be indifferent to a rational creature, which of these shall be its portion. And therefore they that are not ready to be inhabitants of heaven, are not ready for their removal; and such are we all naturally, having no title to it, Eph. ii. 3, 12, and no meetness for it, till we get it anew by grace, Col. i. 12.

3. Now is the time, and here is the place, of getting ready, 2 Cor. vi. 3. "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation." We are set into this world, to make ready for the other; and time is given us to prepare for eternity. If time be once over, and we be turned out of this world, we have no more access to make ready for the other, Eccl. ix. 10. "There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave whither thou goest." So it is with us, now or never.

Lastly, We ought always to keep ourselves in readiness, that we be not surprised and taken at a disadvantage; hence says our Lord, Luke xxi. 34-36. "Take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day come upon you unawares. For as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the whole earth. Watch ye therefore and pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things that shall come to pass, and to stand before the Son of man." One may be ready at one time, who is not ready at another as he ought to be; falling carnally secure, after he has bestirred himself to prepare. But at that time when he is least looking for the removal, it may be nearest ; and whatever unreadiness it trysts him with, so great will the loss be.

II. We shall consider the certainty of our removal into the other world.

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1. It was the other world, and not this, that man was chiefly and in the first place designed for, as to his settled abode. When God made this world, he made it but as a thoroughfare to the other, a place through which man should pass into the other, Matth. xxv. 34. The other world was always the home, this was but the place of the pilgrimage, where at no time man was to stay for good at all, but only to sojourn. For consider,

(1.) This world was ordained to be the place of trial, the other the place of retribution, according to men's works. The trial cannot always last, otherwise it would be no trial; but the retribution

may very well last for ever, and really will do so. Therefore we must necessarily remove out of this world as the place of trial, into the other as the place of retribution, which therefore must be looked on as our settled abode, Matth. xxv. ult. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal."

(2.) This world never had in it, that perfection of either happiness or misery, that was designed for man according to his behaviour in it. Even in paradise there was a want, and in the deluge there was an ark. But God will perfect his work of whatever kind. Therefore the settled abode is there, not here.

Wherefore it is a fatal mistake ever to look on this world as our home, whether we be saints or sinners; that is the use of the other world only.

2. The man Christ is removed into the other world, never to come back to dwell in this; and to that world where he is we must needs go. The happiness secured for his own people, who must be taken to the place where he is, John xiv. 3. and the misery ensured for his enemies, who must be "punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord," 2 Thess. i. 2. brought thither and slain before him, Luke xix. 27. make this necessary. Therefore, as sure as Christ hath removed into that world, we must follow.

3. Men must be for ever, but this world will have an end; therefore our removal out of it into the other world is most certain. "This is not your rest, because it is polluted;" and because of its pollution, it must be burned up, 2 Pet. iii. 10. Now the soul is immortal, and the body shall have a resurrection, and so the man must be for ever; he must be in some world, and since this will be destroyed, he must certainly remove to the other.

4. Our life in this world is a journey through it, ending in a going out of it, and therefore into the other world, Psal. xxxix. ult. We enter upon it at our birth, make progress therein in our life, and come to the end of it at death, which is the passage into the other world. All things are in motion here, and every thing undergoes changes; but none does more so than man, who springs up, and quickly goes down again; and at length his place knows him

no more.

4. Death, the passage into the other world, is appointed to all, Heb. ix. 27. "It is appointed unto men once to die." All must pass through that dark and shady vale, and then they are in the other world; and have no more concern in what is done under the sun. And the certainty of our dying, we may not only read in our bibles; but in our very bodies themselves, where every gripe, pain,

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