Seeing man was taken from the ground, he is neither God nor angel,
hut a poor earthen vessel, such as God can easily knock in pieces
and cause to return to the ground again.
And the time of need is the day of death, when I am to pack up all
to be gone from hence, the way of all the earth. Now the greatest
trial is come, except that of the day of judgment. Now a man is to
he stripped of all but that which cannot be shaken. Now a man grows
near the borders of eternity. Now he begins to see into the skirts
of the next world. Now death is death, and the grave the grave
indeed. Now he begins to see what it is for soul and body to part,
and what to go and appear before God. Now the dark entry and the
thoughts of what is in the way from a death-bed to the gate of the
holy heaven, come nearer the heart than when health and prosperity
do compass a man about.
Some men are cut off like the tops of the ears of corn, and some are
even nipped by death in the very bud of their spring; but the safety
is when a man is ripe, and shall be gathered to his grave as a shock
of corn to the barn in its season.