It is a matter of sweet consolation too, when a humble christian, who walks carefully before God, is reproached by the world for a deceiver and a hypocrite, that he can appeal to God, with whom his life is hid, and say, “My record is on high; though my friends, or my enemies, may scorn or deride me, yet he knoweth the way that I take, and the secret exercises of my hidden life: He knows my longings and breathings of soul after him, and that nothing but his love can satisfy me: He knows my diligence and my holy labour to please him: He knows the wrestlings and the conflicts that I go through hourly, to maintain my close walking with my God: He knows that I live, though it is but a feeble life; and the charges of the world against me are false and malicious.” It is with a relish of holy pleasure that the christian sometimes, in secret, appeals to our Lord Jesus Christ, as Peter did, and says, _Lord, thou who knowest all things, knowest that I love thee_, John xxi. 17. IIId Consolation. It is a matter of unspeakable comfort to a christian, that the most terrible things to a sinner, are become the greatest blessings to a saint: And these are death and judgment. What can be more dreadful to those who know not God than those two words are; for they put an eternal end to all their present pleasures, and to all their hopes. But what greater happiness can a saint wish or hope for, than death and judgment will put him in possession of? The one carries his soul upward where his life is, that is, to God and Christ in heaven; the other brings his life down to earth, where his body is, for Christ shall then come to raise his dust from the grave. I confess, I finished my former discourse on this text, with a meditation on death and judgment; how the gloom which hung around the saint in this life, is all dispelled at that blessed hour; and he who was unknown and despised among men, stands forth with honour amongst admiring angels: His hidden manner of life is for ever at an end. But in this discourse the secret and glorious springs of his life, _viz._ God and Christ, will naturally lead us to the same delightful meditations of futurity, as the hidden manner of it has done; and there is so rich a variety of new and transporting scenes and ideas attending that subject, that I have no need to tire you with unpleasing repetition, though I resume the glorious theme.