be good; and it is declared, upon another occasion, that for his pleasure they are, and were created, Rev. iv. Therefore it is not his pleasure that they should be destroyed. But Death is the destruction of man, the most excellent of the visible works of God; which destruction is as strong an evidence of the divine displeasure, as the creation of man was an instance of divine goodness. I think any person must be sensible of this, who compares an healthy living body with a dead corpse; in which the eyes, that were formed for seeing, are grown dim and sunk into the head; the hands and feet, that were made for action, are become stiff and motionless; the ear, wonderously framed to judge of sounds, now insensible of every impression; the heart, which never rested since it was created, now cold and silent as a mass of clay; the blood, which used to flow through the veins, and spread life and warmth to every part, now congealed and frozen up to the fountain-head; the head, the seat of sense and understanding, now ready to be filled with earth and worms. Let any person contemplate such a shocking spectacle as this, and He will be in little danger of error when He comes to argue and conclude upon it.

Hence death, in itself, can be considered only as an evil; indeed the greatest of temporal evils: all the lesser evils of pain and diseases lead to this, as the waters of springs and rivers fall at length into the sea.

Death is also a curse upon the mind as well as the body; it keeps men in a state of fear and dread, and consequently of subjection and servitude. The remembrance of it is a bitter ingredient, which poisons the comforts of human life. It is like those poisonous wild gourds, which, being shred amongst other wholesome herbs, rendered them all unfit for nourish

ment. The heathen shewed the distress and bondage of mind, under which they laboured upon this account, by uttering the most doleful howlings and lamentations for their dead friends, cutting and mangling their flesh, and shaving their heads after a superstitious fashion. Even good men have been struck with anxiety and consternation at the prospect of approaching death. The pious Hezekiah, when visited by the prophet Isaiah, and forewarned of his end, turned himself to the wall, and prayed, and wept sore. Isaiah xxxviii. 2. The holy Psalmist likewise expressed the emotions he was sensible of in such words as these-My heart is sore pained within me, and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me. Psalm lv. 4, 5. Yea, Christ himself, who was the most perfect of all men, did yet, as a man, feel within himself these terrors of death, and prayed to the Father that the cup might pass from him.

But, besides all this, Death is a shame and disgrace to our nature; and that because it is a punishment. In the punishment, or rather persecution, of "the innocent, there is no shame; but punishment, when it is the consequence of guiltiness, is shameful in the eyes of all mankind. There is something hateful, which the most compassionate beholder cannot abstract from the notion of a malefactor; for which reason such are separated from the society of men, and committed to the filth and darkness of a dungeon. Now the death of every man, though it may seem natural, is really neither more nor less than a judicial execution, because it is the penalty of disobedience. And as all sin is filthy and abominable in the eyes of God, death and pollution are so nearly related, that the old law pronounced every dead corpse unclean,

and not fit to be touched, without the subsequent ceremony of a formal purification by water. We know very well that this was designed as a moral lesson to purity of mind and manners. Notwithstanding which, there must have been also a sense and propriety in the letter of the law.

The ablutions of the heathens at their funerals had probably the same original, and the same meaning: at least with those who were wise enough to consider the sense of their own ceremonies. In the practice of burning their dead, they seem also to have been sensible, that the death of every man is penal; an effect of sin which they meant to expiate, and of divine wrath which they desired to pacify, by a religious offering of every dead corpse as a sacrifice to the infernal Deities. Their whole Ritual was in a manner made up of expiations*; and the ceremonies, which were superadded to the act of burning the dead, express such an intention plainly enough. This will account for a remarkable expression in Virgil, on occasion of the funeral of Misenus: for why should the pile be called an altar, unless the body was laid upon it in the way of a sacrifice?

-festinant flentes, ARAMque SEPULCHRI Congerere arboribus, cæloque educere certant.

Æneid. vi. 177.

If all this be true, the question arises, how can death be a blessing? For the understanding of which, it must be considered, that what hath been here said relates to the death of the natural man, or child of

* See Alexand. ab Alex. lib. v. c. 27. This general thirsting after expiation may be sufficient of itself to justify that expression of the prophet concerning the Messiah, where he calls him the desire of all

nations.

Adam. The death of a Christian is another thing: and to teach us this, the Scripture hath added "Blessed are the dead from henceforth:" that is, from the mediation of Jesus Christ, and the publication of his Gospel.

Death is not now a punishment, because it is not an instance of divine vengeance. As the penalty of sin, it was inflicted upon Christ, who offered himself a Sacrifice. Upon his head the iniquities of us all were laid; as the sins of the people, according to an institution of the Mosaic law, were ordered to be laid upon the head of the yearly Sacrifice. In his person they were required and visited by the divine wrath; and if his sacrifice was a satisfactory atonement, then it must follow, in the words of the Apostle, that there is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus. Their death is not a banishment of the Spirit from the divine presence, but a returning of it to God that gave it. That door, which seems to shut them out of life, and separate them from the living, admits them into the society of the Father of Spirits. Therefore,

2. Death is no longer a reproach to us. All the Shame, that could possibly attend it, Christ took upon himself, that it might no longer be any disgrace to his disciples. He was numbered with transgressors, and was content to die the death of a Malefactor. He bore the shame as well as the pain of the Cross. And thus by the ignominy of his death, and the righteousness of the person who endured it, our death is made holy. His death was infamous in the sight of the world, that ours might be acceptable in the sight of God. In a word, he submitted to such a death as was pronounced to be cursed in its kind, that our death might be blessed.

As to the impression of the terrors of death upon the imagination, he suffered all the horrors of mind. the wrath of God could raise within him, during his bloody sweat in the Garden, that he might be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. From this his experience we have an assurance, that he knows how to succour us under the like trial: and may every faithful Christian, in his last hour, find the refreshment which those sorrows purchased for him!

Neither is death now to be regarded as a destroying of the works of God; because the future Regeneration of the body is ascertained by the fact of our Redeemer's Resurrection. He who was the first-born from the dead, an heir of life in his own right, hath secured the same right of inheritance to all the partakers of that nature in which, and with which, he entered upon his glory.

When any man is taking down a building, we do not look upon this as the act of a destroyer, if the design is to erect a better building upon the old foundations. This, God be thanked, is the gracious purpose of our dissolution. The weakness of death leads to the power of the resurrection; corruption is the way to incorruption, mortality to immortality, dishonour to glory. We know that, if our earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

But now we are to observe it, as a main article of our present subject, that this blessedness of death is not general to all mankind, though the Christian redemption is all-sufficient and universal in its nature. It is not said absolutely-blessed are the dead; but blessed are the dead which die in the Lord. A Christian life, then, is the only introduction to a blessed death.