To some entering the room, he said, “You are all very welcome. I am taking a little wine for refreshment. In awhile, I shall have new wine in the kingdom of his glory. I dare scarce allow my thoughts to fix directly upon it. I must look aside lest I be overwhelmed. But I must speak of him who hath done wonderful things for me, and kept me in a perfect calm. Verily, light is sown for the upright, and gladness for the true of heart. O when shall I conceive aright of glory! I cannot order my speech now, because of darkness! I long to behold it, but I will wait till he comes. I have experienced much of his goodness since I lay on this bed. I have found that tribulation worketh experience, and experience patience, and patience hope. And I have found the love of God shed abroad in my soul.” Then turning to his wife, he said, “My dear, encourage yourself in the hope, that under the conduct of the same captain of salvation, you will come thither also. Cast yourself and your family upon the Lord. Encourage yourself; God liveth. Blessed be my Redeemer, the rock of my salvation!”
*Then he said, “Who is like unto him? O, what has he allowed me this night! I know now the meaning of that, Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, ye shall receive it. The Lord hath even allowed me to be very minute in every circumstance. Many a day have I feared, how I should get through the valley of the shadow of death: but now I fear not. Blessed be God, who, since I laid down here, hath carried on a work of sanctification far in my soul, that makes me meet for heaven! Young as I am, I die old and satisfied with days. The child is going to die an hundred years old. I am like a shock of corn, fully ripe. But, O, I have been under a bright sun, in a day when the sun of righteousness shone, and I have had glorious showers.”
After a little silence he said, “I have slept, and am refreshed. And now what shall I say? I can say no more to commend the Lord; not for want of matter, but of words. Well, Sirs, you’ll meet with difficulties; but this may encourage you, you see God owns his servants own him, and despise what his enemies can do against them?—God has kept my judgment for the best piece of work I ever had. O what of God do I see! I never saw any thing like it. The beginning and end of religion are wonderful sweet.” One said, “God’s dealing with you has been very uncommon.” He answered, “Very uncommon indeed, if you knew all that I know. But therein is the excellency of his power seen, in that he maketh the weak strong.”
A while after he said to those about him, “O this is the most honourable pulpit I was ever in! I am preaching the same Christ, the same holiness, the same happiness I did before. I have much satisfaction in that. I am not ashamed of the gospel I have preached. I was never ashamed of it in all my days; and I am not ashamed of it at the last. Here am I, a weak man, in the hand of the king of terrors, rejoicing in hope of the glory that shall be revealed; and that by the death and resurrection of a despised Christ. When the beginning of this trouble was upon me, I aim’d (as my strength would allow) at that, shew me some token for good; and indeed I think, God hath shewed me a token for good.”
Then perceiving his spirits faint, he said, “Come Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, fluttering within my breast like a bird to be out of a snare.—When shall I hear him say, The winter is past; arise my love and come away? Come and take me by the hand, That I stumble not in the dark valley of death!”
Then he desired a minister to pray; and after prayer said, “Lord, I wait for thy salvation. I wait as the watchman watcheth for the morning. I am weary with delays! O why are his chariot wheels so long a coming! I am sick of love. I am faint with delay!”
Then he said, “draw the curtains about me, and let me see what he has a mind to do with me:” And after a while, “Whence is this to me? There is a strange change within this half hour. Ah, I am like to be shipwrecked to health again? O what sort of providence is this? I was in hopes to have been at my journey’s end: and now I am detained by a cross wind. I desire to be patient under his hand; but he must open my heart to glorify him. O pray for me; pray for me; that none who fear him may be ashamed on my account.”
To the apothecary he said, “I thought to have been away, but I am come back again. I was glad to be gone; yet I am not wearied. He has not allowed a fretting thought. My pain is great; but I am enabled to bear it. O I am a monument of the power of God. My great desire has been these many years, to suffer for the truth of our religion. And now God has given me the greatest honour to be a living witness to it. I am a monument that we have not followed cunningly devised fables. I shall be at heaven shortly, by the word of my testimony, and the blood of the Lamb.” Then to a citizen he said, “There are but few names in this place, that set their faces heavenward. But be you encouraged to go on: you have been a kind neighbour; the Lord bless you and your family. They that are planted in the house of the Lord, shall flourish in the courts of our God. Here is an evidence of it. Last winter I thought I was going to be cast out as a withered branch, and now the dead stock that was cut has budded again, and grown a tall cedar in Lebanon.”
Then he said to the ministers, “I desire to hear the word read, the word preached. Many times, when I thought on the worthies of old, I said I was born out of due time: but now I think I am born in due time; for I shall see Jesus! Jesus that delivers from the wrath to come. I shall see Elijah and Moses, the great old testament prophets. I shall see the two great mediators, the type and the antitype. The three disciples got a glorious sight of Christ in his transfiguration, to confirm their faith against the objections of the unbelieving. Was he despised as a mere man and his godhead disowned? Lo, here he appears in divine majesty and glory! Did they say he was against the law? Lo, here Moses, by whom the law was given, adoring him. Did they say, he was not the Messiah foretold by the prophets? Lo, here Elijah the most zealous of them, owning and honouring him. Was he reproached as a deceiver of the people? Lo, the voice from heaven saith, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: hear ye him. Yet this sight was of short continuance. But in heaven we shall have an abiding sight. We shall then behold his glory; and we shall be like unto him: for we shall see him as he is.—
“O! I am full of matter! I know not where to begin or end. The Spirit of the Lord, hath been mighty with me! O, the book of God is a strange book! ’Tis written within and without. I never studied it to the half of what I should: but now God hath given me much of it together.—Never was I more uneasy in my life: and yet I was never more easy. All my bones are ready to break; my hand is a burden to me; and yet all is easy!”