Afterward, the same morning, being asked how he did, he answered, “I am almost in eternity; I long to be there. My work is done; I have done with all my friends: all the world is nothing to me. I long to be in heaven, praising and glorifying God with the holy angels. All my desire is to glorify God.”
President Edwards' House, Northampton, Massachusetts.
During the whole of these last two weeks of his life, he seemed to continue in this frame of heart, as having finished his work, and done with all things here below. He had now nothing to do but to die, and to abide in an earnest desire and expectation of the happy moment, when his soul should take its flight to a state of perfect holiness, in which he should be found perfectly glorifying and enjoying God. He said, “the consideration of the day of death, and the day of judgment, had a long time been peculiarly sweet to him.” From time to time he spake of his being willing to leave the body and the world immediately—that day, that night, that moment—if it was the will of God. He also was much engaged in expressing his longings that the Church of Christ on earth might flourish, and Christ’s kingdom here be advanced, notwithstanding he was about to leave the earth, and should not with his eyes behold the desirable event, nor be instrumental in promoting it. He said to me, one morning, as I came into his room, “My thoughts have been employed on the old dear theme, the prosperity of God’s church on earth. As I waked out of sleep, I was led to cry for the pouring out of God’s Spirit, and the advancement of Christ’s kingdom, for which the Redeemer did and suffered so much. It is that especially which makes me long for it.” He expressed much hope that a glorious advancement of Christ’s kingdom was near at hand.
He once told me, that “he had formerly longed for the outpouring of the Spirit of God, and the glorious times of the church, and hoped they were coming; and that he should have been willing to live to promote religion at that time if that had been the will of God: but,” says he, “I am willing it should be as it is; I would not have the choice to make for myself, for ten thousand worlds.” He expressed on his death-bed a full persuasion that he should in heaven see the prosperity of the church on earth, and should rejoice with Christ therein; and the consideration of it seemed to be highly pleasing and satisfying to his mind.
He also still dwelt much on the great importance of the work of gospel ministers, and expressed his longings that they might be filled with the Spirit of God. He manifested much desire to see some of the neighboring ministers with whom he had some acquaintance, and of whose sincere friendship he was confident, that he might converse freely with them on that subject before he died. And it so happened, that he had opportunity with some of them according to his desire.
Another thing that lay much on his heart from time to time, in these near approaches of death, was the spiritual prosperity of his own congregation of Christian Indians in New-Jersey; when he spake of them, it was with peculiar tenderness, so that his speech would be presently interrupted and drowned with tears.
He also expressed much satisfaction in the disposal of Providence with regard to the circumstances of his death; particularly that God had before his death given him an opportunity in Boston, with so many considerable persons, ministers and others, to give in his testimony for God against false religion, and many mistakes that lead to it and promote it. He was much pleased that he had had an opportunity there to lay before pious and charitable gentlemen the state of the Indians, and their necessities, to so good effect; and that God had since enabled him to write to them further concerning these affairs; and to write other letters of importance, which he hoped might be of good influence with regard to the state of religion among the Indians, and elsewhere, after his death. He expressed great thankfulness to God for his mercy in these things. He also mentioned it as what he accounted a merciful circumstance of his death, that he should die here. Speaking of these things, he said, “God had granted him all his desire;” and signified that now he could joyfully leave the world.
Sept. 28.—“I was able to read and make some few corrections in my private writings, but found I could not write as I had done; I found myself sensibly declined in all respects. It has been only from a little while before noon till about one or two o’clock, that I have been able to do any thing for some time past; yet it refreshed my heart that I could do any thing, either public or private, that I hoped was for God.”
This evening he was supposed to be dying, both by himself and by those about him. He seemed glad at the appearance of the near approach of death. He was almost speechless, but his lips appeared to move, and one that sat very near him heard him utter such expressions as these: “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. O why is his chariot so long in coming?” After he revived, he blamed himself for having been too eager to be gone. And in expressing what was the frame of his mind at that time, he said he then found an inexpressibly sweet love to those whom he looked upon as belonging to Christ, beyond almost all that ever he felt before; so that it seemed, to use his own words, “like a little piece of heaven to have one of them near him.” And being asked whether he heard the prayer that was, at his desire, made with him, he said, “Yes, he heard every word, and had an uncommon sense of the things that were uttered in that prayer, and that every word reached his heart.”