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all go. And it may well apologize for our insisting so much on it, that we are to be inhabitants there, eternal inhabitants there. It must be infatuation to be thoughtless or unbelieving about it.

3. It will not be long ere we will be there. We have but a handbreadth of days to pass, and then we are there; our age, which is as nothing before the Lord, being once run through, we pass into that other world. Our life here is but a short preface to a long eternity; a skip from the womb to the grave, and we have made considerable progress in it already. And we are not far from the entrance of the passage into the other world, and in a little we will be in one of the parts of it, join the inhabitants thereof, and be settled in the state of it.

4. We know not how soon we may be there. The journey to the other world is not alike long to all. It is but a short journey the longest of it; but God brings some there by a short cut, and they are at the end when they think there is a great part of the way before them.

Lastly, A happy part there will never be reached without serious thoughts about it, and a firm faith in it.

SECONDLY, Improve the believed report of the other world suitably. If there is really another world, a world to come, and such as from the Lord's word it has been reported of to you; without controversy it is a matter of the greatest concern to us, and ought to influence our whole life. And it is not a true faith of it, that does not influence our conduct accordingly. Now if we would improve it suitably,

First, Improve it to a speedy choice of the way to the happy part of it, and entering upon it without delay. We are all going to the other world; but as there are two very distant parts of it, so there are two as really different ways therein, viz. the broad way, and the narrow way, Matth. vii. 13, 14. If you take the broad way, it will have a miserable ending; if the narrow, a happy ending. Therefore choose well speedily, and enter on the happy way without delay. And,

1. Choose and enter speedily into the personal way, the Lord Jesus Christ, John xiv. 6. Unite with him by faith, Eph. iii. 17. He is Lord of the other world, and heir of all things; match with him, and heaven shall be your dowery. The keys of hell and death hang at his girdle; but them that come unto him he will in no wise cast out. Here is the sure bargain for eternity. Enter personally into the covenant of grace, by believing on Christ.

2. Choose and enter speedily on the real way, the way of holiness, Isa. xxxv. 8. For "without holiness no man shall see the

Lord," Heb. xii. 14. If ye mind the holy city in the other world, ye must be holy in all conversation. If ye hold the way of looseness and licentiousness, profanity, or formality, it will undoubtedly land you in the unclean place in the other world. As ye sow ye

will reap.

Secondly, Improve it to a lowering of your esteem of this present world, and weaning your hearts from it, 1 John ii. 15. A right view of the other world would make this with all its gaudy show little in our eyes.

1. Seek not your portion in it. Leave that to those who have no expectation of the treasure in heaven; make the best of it they can, they will make a sorry portion of it, Psal. xvii. 14, 15. Take ye that advice, if ye be wise, Matth. vi. 33, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you." Let the riches, honours, and pleasures of the other world be the great conquest you are set for; and the things of a present life only a by-hand work.

2. Set not your hearts upon it, but use it passingly, 1 Cor. vii. 29-31. Carry yourselves not as natives, but as pilgrims and strangers in it. What a folly would it be for the traveller to let his heart go out on the conveniences of the inn, which he is quickly to leave; on the pleasant places by the way, where he is but passing?

3. Do not value yourselves upon your possessions in it, and your expectations from it. The former are very precarious, which he may soon be deprived of; the latter very uncertain, wherein ye are fair to be disappointed. The world's mountains in expectation, often dwindle into molehills of enjoyment. But value yourselves, according to the possessions and expectations from the other world.

Thirdly, Improve it to a Christian bearing of your afflictions with patience, Luke xxi. 19. Jam. v. 7. If we observe well, we will see that many times it is a falling into afflicting circumstances in this world, that makes us look first after the other world; and the same is what makes people look to it again, after prosperity has made them forget it. And having believingly looked into the other world, when we look back again to our afflictions, we will be the more able to bear them patiently. For,

1. We will thereby find them to be comparatively light burdens. That which makes our afflictions so very heavy, and us so uneasy under them, is the weighing them in the balance with other things of this world; our sorrow and other's joy, our poverty and other's wealth, our wants and other's enjoyments; that is the devil's rack, which he aims to put the afflicted on, that they may be made to

murmur, spurn, rage, and quarrel. But lay them in the balance with the other world's joys and sorrows, they will be light as a feather, 2 Cor. iv. 17, 18.

2. We will find them thereby to be short also, ib. The afflicted are ready to cry out, their trouble never ends, they can see no outgate. Why, but because they look not to the other world, a view of which would soon make them see they are mistaken. Job iii. 17, "There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.' What are our afflictions here of the longest continuance, but like the inconveniencies a traveller meets with on the road? If he is going to his father's house, he easily digests it, knowing that he will be easy there; if they be carrying him away to prison, he easily digests it, seeing that it will be worse with him. In both cases he bears it, knowing he is not to stay with them.

3. We will thereby see ourselves the more nearly allied to the saints in glory in the other world, by companionship in tribulation. Where are they in the other world, that had their good things in this world, and where are they that had their evil things? Luke xvi. 25. If ye look through the upper part of that world, there ye will see the man of sorrows, the man of God's right hand there, and all his happy attendants persons that came out of great tribulations, Rev. vii. 14; the sore tried Abraham, the burdened man Moses, the afflicted David, the persecuted Paul, the mournful Heman, &c. If ye look to the lower part of it, there ye will see those that spent their days in wealth, and in a moment went down to the grave, Job xxi. 13. in a merry jovial life; the dancing Herodias, the rich glutton that fared deliciously every day, &c. A serious look of this sort to the other world, would make us embrace our cross, and say, Lord, let me not taste of the dainties of the wicked, nor get my heaven here.

Lastly, We will thereby see ourselves a fitting and squaring for heaven. Stones to be laid in the temple above must be cut and hewed before they come there. Afflictions are God's hewing tools, whereby he smooths people for that building; and rough and hard stones we are, that take much hewing. Instruments of our afflictions are but the hands he employs for smoothing the stones for his building.

Lastly, Improve it to suitable endeavours to prepare for that other world. If ye prepare not for it, ye do not believe the report of it. And,

1. Labour to be habitually prepared for it. Get out of your natural state, into the state of grace; live no longer without the bond of the covenant, but personally enter into it, by believing on Christ.

Ye must be converted, ye must be born again, and become new

creatures.

2. Labour to reach actual preparation for the other world, being always ready to go into it at the call. Let your thoughts dwell much upon it; carry yourselves as strangers in this world, let there be no standing controversy betwixt God and you; and timely dispatch your generation work, and watch and wait till your change come. Consider what you have heard of the other world, and lay it to heart.

THE GREAT CARE AND CONCERN NOW, THAT Our souls bE NOT GATHERED WITH SINNERS IN THE OTHER WORLD,

CONSIDERED AND IMPROVED.

The substance of some Sermons preached at Ettrick, in the year 1729.

PSALM XXVi. 19.

Gather not my soul with sinners.

WHOEVER believes and considers the doctrine of the other world, must needs improve it to a horror of the state of the ungodly there, on the one hand, and a desire of the state of the godly on the other. He cannot miss to join the Psalmist in this text, saying, Gather not my soul with sinners. In which words we have to observe,

1. Something taken for granted, or supposed, namely, that the souls of men are to be gathered, each to those of their own sort, which is at death, Gen. xxv. 8. Now there is a promiscuous multitude in this world, good and bad together, like corn and chaff in a barn-floor, or fishes in a net; but they are gathered in the other world, some into the happy, others into the miserable company, every one to those of their own sort.

2. Something expressed, namely, a horror of the congregation of sinners in the other world. "Lord, (says he,) gather not my soul among their souls; when I remove hence, let me not take up my. lodging among them; let me not drop into their company, state and condition in the other world."

3. The connection. This request comes in natively on a reflection the Psalmist makes on the disposition of his soul, and his way, in this world. His conscience witnesseth his dislike of associating with

the ungodly, ver. 4, 5, "I have not sat with vain persons, neither will I go in with dissemblers; I have hated the congregation of evil doers, and will not sit with the wicked;" his love and liking to the presence of God and the congregation of the saints, ver. 8, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house, and the place where thine honour dwelleth." So he prays with hope, Gather not my soul with sinners: q. d. Lord, I have no liking of the company of ungodly sinners here; it is a burden to me in this world; let me not be shut up with them in the other world. My soul loves thy house; let me not be with sinners excluded eternally from thy presence.

The text plainly affords the following doctrine, viz.

DocT. Now is the time that people should be in care and concern, that their souls be not gathered with sinners in the other world.

In discoursing from this doctrine, we shall,

I. Consider some things implied in it.

II. Shew who are the sinners, that we are to have a horror of our souls being gathered with in the other world.

III. What it is for one's soul to be gathered with sinners in the other world.

IV. Consider his care and concern; or shew, what is implied in this earnest request, "Gather not my soul with sinners."

V. Give the reasons, why we should be in such care and concern. VI. Make application.

I. We shall consider some things implied in the doctrine. It implies,

1. The souls of men in their bodies in this world, are in a scattered and disorderly condition, saints and sinners in one place, one outward condition, all mixed through other; the tares and the wheat are in one field; corn and chaff in one floor; fish good and bad in one net; sheep and goats in one flock; Ham in the ark, Judas in Christ's family, and profane hypocrites with sincere Christians, in one visible church. This mixture has a threefold effect.

(1.) It keeps both parties uneasy, Gen. iii. 15. The saints are uneasy with the conversation of sinners, 2 Pet. ii. 7. and sinners with that of saints, who are an eye-sore to them, Gen. xix. 9. The one wearies to have the other out of their world, the other many a time to be away from among them. Their principles, aims, and manner of life are opposite; and they cannot unite more than the iron and clay.

(2.) They are an embargo upon one another, so that this world is neither so good nor yet so bad, as otherwise it would be. It is with the world in this case, as with the believer in whom there is a mix

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