difpleasure of the Almighty. His holy, inflexible love of order will exclude those who violate it from his favour. They must be miferable, unless they are reconciled and renewed by the grace of the gospel. They must be separated from him, and they cannot be happy without him. They are not fo even in this world, which they love. How miferable then must they be, when, torn from all their attachments, pleasures, and poffeffions, having no longer any thing to divert them from a fixed attention to their true ftate, they fhall be made keenly fenfible of what is implied in that fentence, Depart from me, ye accurfed, into devouring fire. We cannot now conceive what it will be to lofe the only good which can fatisfy a foul: To be fhut out from God, whofe favour is life, and in whofe prefence there is fulness of joy, and to be fhut up where neither peace nor hope can enter. The images of fire unquenchable, and a never-dying worm, are but faint emblems of that defpair and remorfe which will fting the finful foul in a future ftate. This is the fecond death: this is eternal death; for the wicked, and all they who forget God, when thrust into hell, will for ever defire to die, and death will for ever flee from them *. II. Let us turn our thoughts to a more pleasing them, and attempt to take a view of death as foftened into a privilege by him who has brought life and immortality to light. Jefus died. His death was penal; he died for fin, though not for his own, and therefore fuffered the penalty due to fin, the curfe of the broken law. The torment and shame of his crucifixion were preceded and accompanied by unknown agonies and conflicts, which caused him to fweat blood, and to utter ftrong cries and groans. Death ftung him to the heart; but (as it is faid of the enraged bee) he loft his fting. The law having been honoured, and fin expiated, by the obedience VOL. II. Rev. ix. 6. I and and fufferings of the Son of God for us, and in our nature, death has no longer power to fting those who believe in him. They do not properly die, they fall afleep in Jefus. To them this laft enemy acts a friendly part. He is fent to put an end to all their forrows, and to introduce them into a state of endless life and joy. 1. Dying believers can fing this fong before their departure out of the world. We expect it, when we are called to attend them in their last hours; and if their illness leaves them in poffeffion of their faculties and fpeech, we are feldom difappointed. Yet I believe a full knowledge of this fubject cannot be collected from what we observe of others, or hear from them, when they are near death. We must be in fimilar circumftances ourselves, before we can see as they fee, or poffefs the ideas which they endeavour to defcribe, and which feem too great for the language of mortals to convey. We know, by the evidence of undeniable teftimony, that many faithful fervants of God, when called to fuffer for his fake, have not only been fupported, but comforted, and enabled to rejoice, under the feverest tortures, and even in the midst of the flames. We fuppofe, I think with reason, that fuch communications of light and power as raise a person, in such fituations, above the ordinary feelings of humanity, muft, either in kind or degree, be fuperior to what is ufually enjoyed by Chriftians in the fmoother walks of profperity and outward peace. God, who is allfufficient, and always near, has promised to give his people ftrength according to their day, and in the time of trouble they are not disappointed. A meafure of the like extraordinary discoveries and supports is often vouchfafed to dying believers, and thus the gloom, which might otherwise hang over their dying hours, is difpelled; and while they contemplate the approach • Acts vii. 60. 1 Theff. v. 1S. approach of death, a new world opens upon them. Even while they are yet upon earth, they ftand upon the threshold of heaven. It feems, in many cafes, as if the weakness of the bodily frame gave occafion to the awakening of fome faculty, till then dormant, in the foul, by which invisibles are not only believed, but feen, and unutterables are heard and understood. The foul's dark cottage, tatter'd and decay'd, Inftances are frequent of those who are thus bleffed when they die in the Lord; and it does not appear that old age, or great knowledge, or long experience, give any confiderable advantage in a dying hour; for when the heart is truly humbled for fin, and the hope folidly fixed upon the Saviour, perfons of weak capacities and fmall attainments, yea, novices and children, are enabled to meet death with equal fortitude and triumph. And often the present comforts they feel, and their lively expectations of approaching glory, infpire them with a dignity of fentiment and expreffion far beyond what could be expected from them; and perhaps their deportment upon the whole is no lefs animating and encouraging, than that of the most established and beft informed believers. Thus, out of the mouths of babes and fusings the Lord ordains ftrength, and perfects his praife. In a few hours, under the influence of his immediate teaching, they often learn more of the certainty and importance of divine things than can be derived from the ordinary methods of inftruction in the course of many years. In the midst of agonies and outward diftrefs, we hear them with admiration declare that they are truly happy, and that they never knew pleasure in their happiest days of health equal to what they enjoy when flesh and heart are fainting. For death has loft its fting as to them, and while they I 2 * Pf. iii. 2. are are able to speak, they continue afcribing praise to him, who has given them the victory, through our Lord Jefus Christ. Every word in this doxology is emphatical. 1st, Thanks be to God. This bleffednefs is all his work. The means are of his gracious appointment. The application is by his gracious power. He gave his Son for them, he fent his gofpel to them. It was the agency of his Spirit that made them a willing people. The word of promife, which is the ground of their hope, was of his gratuitous providing, and it was he who conftrained and enabled them to truft in it *. 2d, Who giveth us the victory. This is victory indeed; for it is over the last enemy; and after the last enemy is vanquished, there can be no more conflicts. In this fenfe, believers are more than conquerors, In other wars, they who have conquered once and again, may have been finally defeated, or they may have died (like our long-lamented General Wolfe) upon the field of battle, and have left the fruits of their victory to be enjoyed by others. But the Chriftian foldier, though he may occafionally be a lofer in a fkirmish, is fure to conquer in the laft great deciding battle; and when, to an eye of fenfe, he seems to fall, he is inftantly tranflated to receive the plaudit of his Commander, and the crown of life which he has prepared for them that love him. 3d, This victory is through our Lord Jefus Christ. They gained it not by their own fword, neither was it their own arm that faved them t. He died to deliver them, who would otherwife, through fear of death, have been always fubject to bondage. And it is he who teaches their hands to war, and their fingers to fight, and covers their heads in the day of battle. Therefore they gladly fay, Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name, be the glory and the * Pf. cxix. 49. † Pf. xliv. 3. the praife*. And this confideration enhances their pleasure; for because they love him above all, they rejoice not only in the victory they obtain, but in the thought that they are indebted to him for it. For were it poffible there could be feveral methods of falvation, and they were left to their own choice, they would, moft gladly and deliberately, chufe that method which fhould bring them under the greatest obligations to him. 2. This triumphant fong will be fung to the higheft advantage, when the whole body of the redeemed fhall be collected together to fing it with one heart and voice at the great refurrection-day. Lot was un,doubtedly thankful, when he was fnatched from the impending destruction of Sodom. Yet his lingering † fhewed, that he had but an imperfect fenfe of the greatnefs of the mercy afforded him. His feelings were probably stronger afterwards, when he stood in fafety upon the mountain, and actually faw the fmoke rifing, like the fsmoke of a furnace, from the place where he had lately dwelt. At prefent, we have but very faint ideas of the misery from which we are de livered, of the happiness referved in heaven for us, or of the sufferings of the Redeemer; but if we attain to the heavenly Zion, and fee from thence the fmoke of that bottomlefs pit, which might juftly have been our everlasting abode, we fhall then more fully understand what we are delivered from, the means of our deliverance, and the riches of the inheritance of the faints in light. And then we fhall fing in more exalted strains than we can at present even conceive of, Thanks be to God, who hath given us the victory, through our Lord Jefus Christ. • Pf. CXV. I. † Gen. xix. 16. I 3 SER |