their love, and their counsel, and their care, all their sweet sympathy of joys and sorrows, all their agreeable conversation and heavenly advice. What a tedious way have we to walk through without such a guide or helper? We have lost the benefit of their watchful eye, their holy jealousy for our souls, their fervent and daily prayers. But there are records in heaven, where all the prayers of the saints are kept; and God often turns over his register, and, in distant successive years pours down blessings upon the posterity, and multiplies his graces amongst them, in answer to the requests that were offered upon earth by the saints that are now with God.

5. The last reason I shall now mention to prove death an enemy to the saints, is the terror that it fills the mind with long before-hand. There are but few that, in their best estate on earth, are got quite above these terrors, and there are none can say, "I have been always free from them :" so that in the younger days of their christianity at least, all have been afraid of death; and these fears are enemies to our peace. Some spend all their lives in this bondage of fear, and that upon different accounts.

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A christian of weaker faith cries out within himself, "how shall I pass that awful moment that sets my soul naked before the eyes of a holy God, when I know not whether I am clothed with the righteousness of his Son or not, whether I shall stand the test in that day? I dread that solemn, that important hour, that shall put me into an unchangeable state of miseries that are infinite, or of infinite blessedness. How shall I, that am a sinner, "stand before that tribunal and that Judge, in whose sight no mortal can be innocent? My evidences from heaven are dark and cloudy, that I cannot read them; they have been often sullied with fresh guilt, and I doubt whether I am new-born or not, or reconciled to God. And what if I should be mistaken in this affair of the greatest moment?

The mistake can never be rectified; therefore I shake at the thoughts of death, that hour of decision; for my faith is weak."

Another saint, of a strong and lively faith, but of a timorous temper, cries out, "How shall I bear the agonies and the pangs of death? I am not afraid to enter into eternity; the grace of Christ and his gospel have given me hope and courage enough tỏ be dead; but I am still afraid of dying: it is a hard and painful work, how shall I sustain the sharp conflict? I shiver at the thoughts of venturing through that cold flood that divides betwixt this wilderness and the promised land."

Another christian is too much unacquainted with the world of spirits, with the nature of the separate heaven, with the particular business and blessedness of holy souls departed; and he is afraid to venture out of this region of flesh and blood into a vast and unknown world. Though he has good hope through grace that he shall arrive safe at heaven; yet the heavenly country is so unknown a land, and the val ley of entrance to it so dark, that he fears to pass through the shadow of death, bo ta j

Another is terrified at the thoughts of death, bes cause he knows not how to part with his dear rela, tives in the flesh, and to leave them exposed to an unkind age and a thousand dangers. "If I had none to leave behind me, I could die with cheerfulness; but while I think of such a separation, the thought of death has terror in it.",

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Thus, upon various accounts, a good man may have fearful apprehensions of dying; and that which carries so much terror about it, may well be called an enemy.

Before we proceed any farther, let us make two reflections on the first general head.vide 1st Reflection: If death be an enemy to the best of men in so many respects, then we may infer the great evil of sin for it was sin that brought death

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into this our world; Rom. v. 12. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned."

We are too ready to conceive a slight opinion of the evil of sin, because it is so common to the best of men, and so constant an attendant on human nature daily and hourly; we entertain too gentle and harmless thoughts of it, because its biggest evil is of a spiritual kind, and invisible; we see not that infinite majesty which it dishonors, that spotless holiness of God which it offends, the glory and perfec tion of that law which is broken by it: we can take but short and scanty notices of the injury that it does to God the supreme Spirit, while we are shut up in tabernacles of flesh. But here, in these scenes of death, we may survey the sensible and mighty injury that sin has done to the nature of man, and thence infer bow offensive it is to God. By our eyes and our ears, we may be terribly convinced that it is no little evil that could occasion such spreading and durable mischief.

We cannot frame a just notion of what man was in his state of perfect innocncy, in his original beauty and honor, and immortal frame; and therefore we cannot so well judge of the vastness of the loss which we sustain by sin; but we can see and feel the formidable attendants of death, and learn and believe that it is a root of unknown poisoned bitterness that has produced such cursed fruit, especially if we remember, that all the sorrows before described fall upon the saints themselves, even where sin is pardoned, and death has lost its sting. But if we descend in contemplation to the endless and unknown misery that waits upon the death of a sinner, and say, "All these are the effects of sin?" how inexpressibly dreadful will the cause appear? The wise man has pronounced them fools, by inspiration, that make a mock at such mischief, Prov. xiv. 9.

2d Reflection. We may here learn the greatness

f the love of Christ, that would venture into the and of death, and conflict with this mighty enemy, nd yield to the power of it for a season, for our akes. "Greater love hath no man than this, that man lay down his life for his friends," John xv. Hereby perceive we the love of God, because e died for us," 1 John iii. 16. Rom. v. 8.

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Many terrible attendants of death did our Lord heet and struggle with, beyond what any of his ints can feel. Death, like a lion, ran furious upon im, as it does upon a sinner, its proper prey. He het death in its full strength and dominion, for he ad all our sins upon him; and death had its own harp sting when our Lord entered the combat. There was the wrath of God, which was threatened the broken law, to mingle with his pangs and gonies of nature: this made his soul exceeding sorwful; all his inward powers were amazed, and is heart oppressed with heaviness, Mark xiv. 33, 04. He was almost overwhelmed in the garden, beore the thorus or the nails came near him; and on ne cross he complains of the forsakings of God his Imighty friend, when death his mighty enemy was ast upon him; and all this (saith he to every be, ever) I bore for thy sake: my love was stronger an death.

SECT. II.

DEATH IS THE LAST ENEMY.

proceed now to the Second General proposed; nd that is, to inquire in what sense death is said to be the last enemy, or the last that shall be destroyed; For we may join this word last either to death or to lestruction; and in each sense it affords comfort to he saints.

1. It is the last enemy that the saints have to grapple with in this world. The three great adveraries of a christian are, the flesh, the world, and the (XIV.)

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devil, and they assault him often in this life. Death comes behind, and brings up the rear; the saint com bats with this enemy, and finishes all the war. Eve ry believer has listed himself under the banner of Christ, who is the Captain of his salvation. When he first gives himself up to the Lord, he renounce every thing that is inconsistent with his faith and hope, he abandons his former slavery, undertakes the spiritual warfare, and enters the field of battle.

It is a necessary character of the followers of Christ, that they fight with the flesh, subdue corrupt nature, suppress their irregular appetites, give daily wounds to the body of sin, Col. iii. 5. Rom. viii. 13. They fight against this world; they refuse to comply with the temptations of it when it would allure them astray from the path of duty; they defy its frowns and discouragements, and break through all its op positions in their way to heaven, James iv. 4. They resist satan when he tempts them to sin, and van quish him by the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, Ephes. iv. 11, 12, 17. and when he accuses them, and attempts to bring terror into their souls, they overcome him, and cast him down by the blood of the Lamb, Rev. xii. 10, 11. They are made con querors over these adversaries in the strength of Christ. Now the pangs of death are the last troublers of their peace; death is the last enemy that attacks them, and some have very terrible conflicts with it.

It was in these agonies, in this sharp contention, the words of my text were uttered by that honored saint, whose memory will be always precious, and whose loss we this day mourn. This cheerful lan guage of hope, among many other scriptures, broke out from her lips. Thus lively was her faith in a dying hour Methinks I hear her speaking the words with a firm trust in the promise; "the last enemy t that shall be destroyed is death." And this encouraged her onward through the few remaining struggles of life and pain. It is as if she had said,