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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 May 2017
[1] Extremes beget each other. People lay too much stress on the dying state of mind: but extravagantly too much on the forms used then. Others quiet themselves in hope of what they shall do for themselves or their ministers for them at death. Hence bad men ridicule & better men neglect the office of visiting the sick. But things are not useless because they have not all the extravagant uses which are ascribed to them. Ministers having knowledge of sickness required to visit Can 67. & promise it in ordination. We should take it for granted we are desired unless we see cause to the contrary. Our assistance wd be kindly taken wn not asked through lowness of spirits, negligence of attendants or fear of being troublesome.
[2] God means to remind us by sickness of our dependence on him. Desiring the minister to pray with or for them owns that dependence. Not desiring it is a mark of the increase of irreligion. Many avoid as much as possible the thought of death even wn it happens to one in their own family. But leaving men to die like the beasts that perish without admonition or any exercise of piety performed by them with them or for them helps to separate the ideas of death & religion & future judgment & thus the view of death will harden persons in impenitence whereas the occasion is a very advantageous one for serious impressions to all by standers as well as the persons concerned.
[3] Indeed without a good life no preparation for death can be depended on: men are so exceeding liable to mistake mere terrors of conscience for repentance. But if God gives men the particular warning of sickness they shd take it, though they have made a general preparation: & if they have had bad lives, it is not indifferent how they die, & we know not how important it may be.
[4] Men are often easily brought in sickness to give & ask forgiveness, wch in health they neglect tho a strict duty, & also to settle their affairs: now there the minister is directed to remind them of. Also to wean their hearts from the world, repent, exercise faith, trust, resignation thankfulness for wch may produce the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
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