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IF this be the life and state of gracious Souls, after their se∣paration from the Body, Then holy persons ought not to enter∣tain dismal and terrifying thoughts of their own dissolution.
The Apprehensions and thoughts of death, should have a peculiar pleasantness in the minds of Believers: you have heard into what a blessed Presence and Communion death introduceth your Souls: how it leads you out of a Body of
sin, a World of sorrows, the Society of imperfect Saints; to an innumerable Company of Angels, and to the Spirits of just men made perfect. To that lovely Mount Sion, to the heavenly Sanctuary, to the blessed Visions of the face of God. O methinks there hath been enough said, to make all the Souls in whom the well-grounded hopes of the life of glory are found; to cry out with the Apostle, We are con••i∣dent, I say, yea, and willing; rather to be absent from the Body, and present with the Lord, 2 Cor. 5.8.
When good Musculus drew near his end, how sweet and pleasant was this Meditation to his Soul! Hear his Swan∣like Song:
* 1.1Nil superest vitae, frigus praecordia captat; Sed tu Christe mihi vita perennis ades: Quid trepidas anima, ad sedes abitura quietis? En tibi ductor adest Angelus ille tuus. Linque domum hanc miseram, nunc in sua fata ruentem; Quam tibi fida Dei dextera restituet. Peccasti? Scio, sed Christus credentibus in se, Peccata expurgat sanguine cuncta suo. Horribilis mors est? Fateor, sed proxima vita est, Ad quam te Christi gratia certa vocat. Praesto est de Satana, peccato & morte triumphans Christus; ad hunc igitur laeta alacrisque migra.
Which may be thus translated.
Cold death my heart invades, my life doth flie. O Christ, my everlasting life draw nigh. Why quiver'st thou my soul within my Breast? Thine Angel's come to lead thee to thy rest. Quit chearfully this drooping house of clay, God will restore it in the appointed day. Has't sinn'd? I know it, let not that be urg'd; For Christ thy sins with his own blood hath purg'd. Is death affrighting? True, but yet withal, Consider Christ through death, to life doth call. He triumphs over Satan, sin, and Death; Therefore with joy resign thy dying breath.
Much in the same chearful frame was the heart of dying Bullinger, when his mournful friends expressed their sense of the loss they should sustain by his re••••val.* 1.2 Why, said he, If God will make any farther use of my labours in the Mi∣nistry, he will renew my strength, and I will gladly serve him: But if he please (as I desire he would) to call me hence, I am ready to obey his Will: and nothing more pleasant can befal me, than to leave this sinful and miserable World, to go to my Saviour Christ. O that all who are out of the danger of death, were thus got out of the dread of death too.
Let them only tremble and be convuls'd at the thoughts and sight of death, whose Souls must fall into the hands of a sin-revenging God by the stroke of death: who are to breathe out their last hope, with their last breath. Death is yours, saith the Apostle, 1 Cor. 3.22. your Friend, your Priviledge, your passage to Heaven: 'tis your ignorance of it, which breeds your fears about it.
Melchior A∣dams in vita Musculi, p. 385, 386.
Si Deo visum fuerit mea opera ulterius in Ecclesia ministerio uti; ipse vi∣res suffi••iet; & libens illi parebo: sin me voluerit (quod opto) ex hac vita evocare, paratus sum illius voluntati obsequi, ac nihil est quod j••cundius possit mihi contingere, quam ex hoc misero & corruptissimo seculo ad Christum Servatorem m••um migrare. idem ibid.