Lazarus the
beggar found this a truth--a beggar so despised of the rich glutton
that he was not suffered to come within his gate; a beggar full of
sores and noisome putrefaction--yet behold, when he dies angels come
from heaven to fetch him thither.
True, death-bed temptations are ofttimes the most violent, because
then the devil plays his last game with us; he is never to assault
us more. Besides, perhaps God suffereth it thus to be that the
entering into heaven may be the sweeter, and ring of this salvation
the louder. O it is a blessed thing for God to be our God and our
guide, even unto death, and then for his angels to conduct us safely
to glory. This is saving indeed.
Mercy seems to be asleep when we are sinking; for then we are as if
all things were careless of us; but it is but as a lion couchant, it
will awake in time for our help.
There are those that have been in the pit, Psa. 40:2, now upon mount
Zion, with the harps of God in their hands, and with the song of the
Lamb in their mouths.
God hath set a Saviour against sin, a heaven against a hell, light
agamst darkness, good against evil, and the breadth and length and
depth and height of the grace that is in himself for my good,
against all the power and strength and subtlety of every enemy.
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