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the devil. And he has destroyed them. He died for our fins, and rofe again for our juftification. His victory was complete, and in him we conquer. We come after him only to gather up the spoils of his triumph. Through faith in him the sting of death is taken out of the confcience, and thereby the fear of it out of the heartA believer ought to say, and when he is in his right mind he says with joy and gratitude-"The Lord is my light, and my salvation, what then shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life, of whom then shall I be afraid? Yea, though I walk through the valley and thadow of death, I will fear no evil-I need not fear any, because thou my Lord and Saviour hast promised to be with me, thy rod and thy staff, they shall comfort me." What an infallible antidote has our Jesus here provided against all guilty fears, and against all natural fears? These promifes to his dying followers cannot fail. He who made them is almighty to fulfil them; and almighty to enable us to believe, that he will both fupport and comfort. Jefus wonderful in his person, wonderful in all his works and waysHe has changed the very nature of death. He has turned it into life. Whosoever believeth in him shall never die, but is passed already from death unto life. The Holy Spirit has put him into present poffeffion of a life laid up with Chrift, out of the reach of death. So that when his body expires, it falls asleep in the Lord, and his spirit enters upon an eternal triumph

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umph of life and glory, among the spirits of just men made per

fect.

O what a deliverance is this from the bondage of fin, and the terrors of the grave. It is the peculiar blessedness of believers in Jesus: For the natural man cannot but fear death, and look upon it as his enemy. He has no profpects, but what are bounded by time. His whole happiness is in the present world, and in the enjoyment of what he calls the blessings of it. He was laying fine plans, and hoping to live to execute them-heaping_up riches -living in the unrestrained liberty of sensual enjoyments-murdering his time-mispending his talents-without any concern about eternal things-When, lo,

an enemy comes, and puts an end to all his schemes. He dies. Perhaps- he may be a sceptic, doubting of the certainty of a future state: He may with there was none, but he can have no evidence: And if he continue to wish it, even to the last, O what a scene will open, when he meets a just and an angry God! He may be a materialist, and please himself with fancying, that what we call his foul, will vanish at his death into foft air: But the God of truth says, That when the dust shall return to the earth, as it was, the spirit shall return to God who gave it: And in the morning of the refurrection Christ will reanimate the dust, and body and foul shall be united to live for ever. He may be one of the careless,

quite unprepared, but when the messenger

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messenger arrests him, he must go with him, and that in a moment. Perhaps he may be a moralift, trusting to his own goodness; he may fortify himself with arguments taken from Seneca, but these will furnish him with no armour, proof against the guilt of fin, or the sting of death. He may seek aids from philofophy, falfely so called, but its votaries profeffing themselves to be wife, in the hour of death found that they were fools. Every human help has failed, when most wanted. "But blessed is he, who hath the God of Jacob for his help, and whose hope is in the Lord his God: Who made heaven and earth, and all that therein is, who keepeth his promise for ever." Here is the Christian's never failing support. God, even his cove

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