by
these occasions. This is my strength, that whether thou say to me, as
thine angel said to Gideon, _Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt
not die_;[259] or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, _Thou shalt die
there_;[260] yet thou wilt preserve that which is ready to die, my soul,
from the worst death, that of sin. Zimri _died for his sins_, says thy
Spirit, _which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin which he did to
make Israel sin_;[261] for his sins, his many sins, and then in his sin,
his particular sin. For my sins I shall die whensoever I die, for death
is the wages of sin; but I shall die in my sin, in that particular sin
of resisting thy Spirit, if I apply not thy assistances. Doth it not
call us to a particular consideration that thy blessed Son varies his
form of commination, and aggravates it in the variation, when he says to
the Jews (because they refused the light offered), _You shall die in
your sin_:[262] and then when they proceeded to farther disputations,
and vexations, and temptations, he adds, _You shall die in your
sins_;[263] he multiplies the former expression to a plural. In this
sin, and in all your sins, doth not the resisting of thy particular
helps at last draw upon us the guiltiness of all our former sins? May
not the neglecting of this sound ministered to me in this man's death,
bring me to that misery, so that I, whom the Lord of life loved so as to
die for me, shall die, and a creature of mine own shall be immortal;
that I shall die, and the _worm_ of mine own conscience _shall never
die_?[264]

XVIII. PRAYER.

O eternal and most gracious God, I have a new occasion of thanks, and a
new occasion of prayer to thee from the ringing of this bell. Thou
toldest me in the other voice that I was mortal and approaching to
death; in this I may hear thee say that I am dead in an irremediable, in
an irrecoverable state for bodily health. If that be thy language in
this voice, how infinitely am I bound to thy heavenly Majesty for
speaking so plainly unto me? for even that voice, that I must die now,
is not the voice of a judge that speaks by way of condemnation, but of a
physician that presents health in that. Thou presentest me death as the
cure of my disease, not as the exaltation of it; if I mistake thy voice
herein, if I overrun thy pace, and prevent thy hand, and imagine death
more instant upon me than thou hast bid him be, yet the voice belongs to
me; I am dead, I was born dead, and fro