Corollary IV.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Mather, Cotton and Mather, Increase
How welcome should a Death in the Lord be unto them that belong not unto the Devil, but unto the Lord! While we are sojourning in this World, we are in what may upon too many accounts be called The Devils Country: We are where the Devil may come upon us in great wrath continually. The day when God shall take us out of this World, will be, The day when the Lord will deliver us from the hand of all our Enemies, and from the hand of Satan. In such a day, why should not our song be that of the Psalmist, Blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my Salvation be exalted! While we are here, we are in the valley of the shadow of death; and what is it that makes it so? 'Tis because the wild Beasts of Hell are lurking on every side of us, and every minute ready to salley forth upon us. But our Death will fetch us out of that Valley, and carry us where we shall be for ever with the Lord. We are now under the daily Buffetings of the Devil, and he does molest us with such Fiery Darts, as cause us even to cry out, I am weary of my Life. Yea, but are we as willing to die, as, weary of Life? Our Death will then soon set us where we cannot be reach'd by the Fist of Wickedness; and where the Perfect cannot be shotten at. It is said in Rev. 14.13. Blessed are the Dead which die in the Lord, they rest from their labours. But we may say, Blessed are the Dead in the Lord, inasmuch as they rest from the Devils! Our dying will be but our taking wing:
When attended with a Convoy of winged Angels, we shall be convey'd into that Heaven, from whence the Devil having been thrown he shall never more come thither after us. What if God should now say to us, as to Moses, Go up and die! As long as we go up, when we die, let us receive the Message with a joyful Soul; we shall soon be there, where the Devil can't come down upon us. If the God of our Life should now send that Order to us, which he gave to Hezekiah, Set thy house in order, for thou shalt die, and not live; we need not be cast into such deadly Agonies thereupon, as Hezekiah was: We are but going to that House, the Golden Doors whereof, cannot be entred by the Devil that here did use to persecute us. Methinks I see the Departed Spirit of a Believer, triumphantly carried thro' the Devils Territories, in such a stately and Fiery Chariot, as the Spiritualizing Body of Elias had; methink I see the Devil, with whole Flocks of Harpies, grinning at this Child of God, but unable to fasten any of their griping Talons upon him: And then, upon the utmost edge of our Atmosphære, methinks I overhear the holy Soul, with a most heavenly Gallantry, deriding the defeated Fiend, and saying, Ah! Satan! Return to thy Dungeons again; I am going where thou canst not come for ever! O 'tis a brave thing so to die! and especially so to die, in our time. For, tho' when we call to mind, That the Devils time is now but short, it may almost make us wish to live unto the end of it; and to say with the Psalmist, Because the Lord will shortly appear in his Glory, to build up Zion. O my God!
Take me not away in the midst of my days. Yet when we bear in mind, that the Devils Wrath is now most great, it would make one willing to be out of the way. Inasmuch as now is the time for the doing of those things in the prospect whereof Balaam long ago cry'd out Who shall live when such things are done! We should not be inordinately loth to die at such a time. In a word, the Times are so bad, that we may well count it, as good a time to die in, as ever we saw.