laborious and bloody Warfare; and with as much Pleafure as the Children of Ifrael did out of their Camps in which they had remained in the Defert, to enter into the fweet and comfortable Dwellings of the Land of Canaan.

Not only that Body is like to an hired House, or to a Tabernacle tranfported up and down; but it is by Sin become to our Soul a woful Prifon. Therefore Death may be compared to the Meffengers fent by King Pharaoh, on purpose to take Jofeph out of the Dungeon, and bring him to his Palace. The Body that was created to be a noble Pavilion of Joy and Honour, is become, to our Soul, a wretched incommodious Prifon, and Death is like to the Furnace of Babylon, that burnt and confumed the Bands of the three Children, without prejudicing their Perfons or Attire, Dan. iii. For it deftroys the natural Bands that detain our Souls enflav'd to theEarth; but meddles not with its Ornaments, with its Righteousness and Sanctification. It is like the Skin that enclosed the Child in his Mother's Womb, or like the Shell where the Chicken is formed: For of Neceffity it must be broken before we can enter into immortal Life. In fhort, we may fay, that the Body which was given to the Soul for its Palace, is become, by Sin, its Grave, and loathfome Sepulchre, far more noisome than that of Lazarus ; and that Death is like the Voice that calls upon us, Lazarus come forth. Faithful Souls, you fee then, that as Sampfon carried away the Gates of the City of Gaza, and tranfported them to the Top of the Hill; fo hath Jefus Chrift, our true Sampfon, tranfported and carried the Gates of Death to the highest Pitch of Glory: Therefore, whereas before we looked upon it with Horror as the Entrance of Hell; now we may behold it with Confidence and Joy, faying, as Jacob did of Bethel, This is the Gate of Heaven.

Seeing therefore, that this is the Nature and Condition of Death, I find, that Men give it too much Advantage; for we fhould not offer to say, that fuch are dead whom God hath admitted into eternal Life; because the Qualification fhould be derived from the

chief and nobleft Part: As it is in Nature, there is no Generation without Corruption; and we commonly fay, That it is a Generation, when the thing engendered is more excellent than the thing corrupted; on the contrary, that it is a Corruption when the thing corrupted excels the thing that is engendered. For this Reafon, our Change and Removal out of this World fhall rather be ftiled a Life than a Death: Though our Body dies and rots in the Earth, our Soul revives and mounts up to Heaven; and this mortal Life which we leave with the World, is nothing in Comparison of that Life that we fhall enjoy with Chrift and his holy. Angels. God is, named the God of Abraham, of Ifaac and of Jacob. Now he is not the God of the Dead, but of the Living, Exod. iv. Matth. xxii.

I may also without any Figure affirm, That Death, in refpect to the Body, is no real Death, but a kind of Sleep; as it is faid in the Prophet Daniel, Many fleep in the Duft of the Earth, Chap. xii. And in Isaiah, That the Juft fleep in their Beds. Therefore our Saviour fpeaking of Jairus's Daughter, declared, The Child is not dead, but fleepeth, Mat. ix. And Lazarus his Friend, Lazarus our Friend fleepeth, and I go to awake him. Beloved, if thou art of the Number of fuch as Chrift loveth, thy Death will be but a kind of Sleep of a fhort Continuance, and of a few Days; the Lord will raife thee up again: For the Hour cometh, and is already, that the Dead fhall bear the Voice of the Son of God, and they that fball bear, ball revive, Joh.v. During this Life, the Affaults of Death are no better than light Shirmishes, the most sensible and moft dangerous Blow that it ftrikes, in Appearance, is when it feparates the Soul from the Body; but the last and most final Encounter, that will put an end to all Difputes, will be at the Day of Judg ment, when Jefus Chrift will appear from Heaven' with the Hoft of all his immortal Angels and Saints, to encourage us to the Encounter. He will come with an encouraging Voice of an Archangel, and the laft Trumpet fhall found. Then Death will endeavour to

Keep

keep us ftill in its black Prisons, and our Bones will be found without Life or Motion; but the Spirit of God fhallbreath upon these dry Bones, and will cause them to revive. As when the Prophet Jonas was three Days and three Nights in the Belly of the Whale, God commanded the Fish to vomit him up again upon the Ground; thus, when we fhall have made fo long our Abode in our Graves, as God hath appointed in his Wisdom, Death fhall be forced to restore all that it hath swallowed. And as Daniel came out of the Lion's Den by break of Day, thofe favage Beafts having done him no harm; thus at the break of the last Day, at the rifing of the Sun of Righteousness, we shall all go out of Death's deep Dens; and as if God had fent an Angel on purpose to shut the Mouth of this old Lion, we shall then find that it hath done us no harm. Instead of devouring us, it will prove a faithful Keeper of our Bones. The Faithful then may speak to Death in the Language of the Prophet Micah, Rejoyce not against me, O mine Enemy, when I shall fall I shall rife, when I fit in Darkness, the Lord fhall be a Light unto me, Micah vii. 8. As Mofes faid to Pharaoh, We will go into the Wilderness to facrifice unto our God, we will go out of thine Egypt with our Young and with our Old, with our Sons and with our Daughters, with our Flocks and with our Herds, there fhall not an Hoof be left behind, Exod. x. Thus we, in an holy Confidence, may talk with Death; Maugre thy Rage and Fury, we will go up to Heaven to facrifice to our God immortal Praises; we fhall get out of thy Fetters. We, our Wives, our Children, our Brothers and Sifters, our Parents and Friends, all the People of God, whom thou doft at present keep in a clofe Restraint. Notwithstanding the infernal Attempts of thine inhuman Power, there fhall not remain fo much as an Handful, no not fo much as the leaft Grain of our Afhes behind us.

When the Son of God fhall appear in his Glory, from Heaven, he fhall confume all Death's Trophies and Monuments with irresistible Flames; so that it

fhall

shall happen to this imperious Enemy of Mankind, as it happened to the Kings of the Amorites mentioned in the Ifraelitish Hiftory, Job.x. 24. Joshua fuffered them to live until he had returned from the Victory; and when he had perfectly overcome all his Enemies, he commanded them to be brought forth, and gave Order to his Captains to tread upon their Necks, and with his own Sword he dispatched them, caft them into a Cave, and caufed great Stones to be rolled at the Entrance of it. Thus fhall our true and celeftial Joshua deal with Death; he suffers it to reign while he is gone to purfue his Enemies; for the laft Enemy that shall be destroyed by him is Death: When he shall have perfectly fubdued all other Enemies, he will crown all his Victories with a glorious End, and accomplish the Church's Triumph, by caufing us to trample upon Death, that fhall be caft into the bottomless Pit, whereof the Entrance fhall be shut up for ever, Rev.x. Then fhall be accomplished this glorious Prophesy, Death is fwallowed up in Victory, 1 Cor. xv. For the Spirit of God affures us in exprefs Terms, That Death fhall be no more.

By what we have faid, it may eafily appear, what is become of the Rope thrice twisted by the Devil, with an Intent to ftrangle therewith all Mankind. The Son of God hath cut in Pieces the firft of these unhappy Ties, by the Almighty Power. By the Spirit of Sanctification, he loofens the fecond by degrees; and by the last he draws us to himself, and then he burns and confumes it altogether. Therefore we have no Reason to fear an eternal Death, nor to tremble when Hell opens its wide Jaws. If we refift the Devil, be flies away from us, Jam. iv. At laft we shall trample him under our Feet, Rom. xvi. It is true, that the fad and doleful Effects of the fpiritual Death commonly draw out of us many a fad Groan and Tear, whilft our Souls remain in this finful Flesh. We are already got out of the Tombs of Corruption and Sin; but yet bear about us, as it were, our winding-sheet, and

fome

fame odd Reliques of our natural Mifery. But we have this Confideration to comfort, our drooping Spirits, That Chrift will fhortly give the fame Order from Heaven for us, as he did for Lazarus, Loofe him, and let him go, Joh. xi. So that instead of the Corruption of our Nature, that is fo incommodious to us, he will inveft us in an Estate of Glory, Incorruption, Immortality, and perfect Happiness. In relation to the natural Death, we may juftly fay, That our Lord and Saviour hath freed us from all the Fears that it might caufe in us. So that it is my Judgment, that we may not only affirm, that we have not the least Apprehenfion of it; but we may expect it with Confidence: For if we be truly of the Number of the Faithful, and God's adopted Sons, we hope, defire, and rather haften Death's Arrival, by our most earnest and paffionate Wishes.

What I have already declared in this Chapter, might fatisfy any Chriftian Soul, and furnish it with fufficient Confiderations to ftrengthen it against all Apprehenfions from Death. Now as one who wants to buy Stuffs in a Shop, when he cheapens fuch as are flight, and of small Value, he cafts his Eye only upon a Piece or Pattern, and by that judges of the reft; but when he intends to purchase a rich Tapestry of great Value, he defires to view and confider every Part, one after another, and make an Estimation of the Value and Beauty of every Corner fo I judge, that the wife and religious Reader will defire how, that as I have difcovered to him in grofs, the Body of Confolations against the Fear of Death, I fhould in the next Place, unfold the hidden Excellencies, produce every Part of them by Degrees to his Contemplation, and with my Pen, make him take Notice of all the Rarities.

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