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has exchanged its hostile, for a friendly aspect. Life and death, together with all things present, or to come, are yours, for ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's.

3. Christ enables his people to obtain victory over the fear of death.

To the eye of sense, the change which passes upon our nature in death, is dismal and distressing-in the view of reason, it is profoundly mysterious-to the conscience of a sinner, realizing his condition and prospects, apart from all resources but his own, it is infinitely terrible. To combat the fears of death, by dint of natural bravery, is madnessby thoughtless levity, is senseless and shocking impietyby human philosophy, is wild infatuation—a dream of folly. To found hope in death on man's own righteousness, is daring presumption. It is noble bravery to meet and resist an evil which it is possible to overcome, and to dare an enemy which can be vanquished; but what is to be thought of those who assume airs of defiance against powers wielded by the Omnipotent. When Jehovah comes, as a consuming fire, who will set the dried thorns and briars against him in battle? Let the reality be contemplated as it is. There is in the prospect of our spirits passing, disembodied, into an unseen, untried state of being, and that an eternal state of retribution, a boundless vastness, an unsearchable darkness-there are mysteries baffling the conceptions of the wisest, and terrors dismaying the boldest. The mind instinctively feels the insufficiency of created dependence here, and reverts to the attributes and dominion of Deity. But apart from the mediation of the Redeemer, the divine perfections frown indignant on the hope of a sinner, and repel it as utter presumption. The divine government holds him a rebel, doomed by its awful curse to destruction from the Almighty, in the flames which his wrath has kindled. It treats him as a prisoner, and the hour of dissolution is that, when, if still unreconciled, his fetters are struck off, and he is hurried before

the judgment-seat to receive his sentence, and thence to the place of torment and despair. It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Let the sinner contemplate, in their real magnitude, the charges to which he must plead guilty, and say, if he can devise a reason why he should not be condemned; and consider his judge, and think if he can evade, or brave his judgment; and reflect on his doom, and ponder if his heart can endure, or his hands be strong, in the day when God shall deal with him. Awakened to the realities of his condition, the prospect of death will agitate conscience with dreadful alarm, and imagination, rushing into a dark futurity, will realize the horrors of dying unreconciled to God, with whom all have to do. What now shall give the soul victory over the fears of death, and fill it with triumph in the prospect of dissolution? It is no light matter to enjoy conscious peace with God, and the assurance of hope, while the mind is impressed with powerful views of his infinitely glorious attributes, with deep convictions of sin, and with an awful sense of the solemnities of an entrance through death and judgment, into a boundless eternity. The gospel presents grounds of hope and consolation, fully adequate to meet the most awful and alarming views which the believing mind can take of its everlasting concerns, and the Spirit of God equally impresses both. He presents to the trembling and alarmed conscience the infinite purity, value, and efficacy, of the sacrifice of Christ. He discloses to the view of the mind the love, and power, and grace, the mediatorial glory and fulness, the willingness, and all-sufficiency to save, of the risen and glorified Redeemer. He enables him to survey the riches of the covenant, ordered in all things and sure, in which God stands irrevocably engaged to receive, and save to the uttermost, all who return to him by Christ. Having persuaded him by the Word, and enabled him to flee from the way of death, and yield himself to God, through Jesus Christ, and enter on the path of life; he also, from the Word, assures him, that he is

accepted in the Beloved-that the Holy God, before whom he is soon about to appear, forgives all the sins of such as thus come to him, and has forgiven, therefore, his sins, and regards him with divine favour, and has appointed him to glory. By the same steps by which the converted soul is led on in Christian attainment, is he enabled to vanquish the fears of death. It is not by light views, and superficial exercises, and languid emotions, and feeble prayer and endeavour, that the Christian rises to that established strength of faith, and hope, and love, by which he advances to confirmed victory over the fears of death. There are carnal affections to be subdued-estrangement of heart towards divine things to be cured-reluctance to close communion with heaven to be overcome-fetters attaching the soul to earth to be loosened and broken-and a relish for spiritual enjoyment to be invigorated. The mind must be familiarized with bright views of the glory of the heavenly world. The Christian must not only apprehend distinctly the ground and foundation of hope, but also rise in devout comtemplation to the grandeur, beauty, and affecting nature of the objects of hope, so as to converse with them, realize, and feel them, and be transported with love and desire towards them. The soul on whose affections the glories of immortality have a deep hold, and which feels powerfully their attractions, and which, not only in title and relation, but in sentiment, and feeling, and anticipated enjoyment, is come to Mount Zion, and the innumerable company of Angels, and God the judge of all, and the spirits of just men made perfect, and Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant, and which views death as rendered through Christ's death and dominion its avenue to glory, is the soul that treads on the power of the last enemy. To him a removal from this world is a transition to a purer, happier mode of existence, amidst more blessed and glorious scenes; and especially, from the light of the divine glory imperfectly beheld, to the presence of Deity

seen as he is. Such a Christian will enjoy a triumphant sense of victory. The triumph of the Redeemer is transferred to him. In his personal feelings, death is swallowed up in victory, and he sings,-O death, where is thy sting! O grave, where is thy victory! Precious in the sight of God is the death of his saints. Much has he done by the work of Christ, and by his word and his Spirit, and his means of grace, and his providence, to awaken us to the conflict, and prepare us for victory in that momentous hour. Ob! let us prepare. Let us be diligent, that we may be found of him in peace without spot and blameless.

4. The saint obtains a signal triumph over the last enemy, when, rising from its final stroke, his soul ascends to immortality.

To those who die in their sins, death is terrible indeed. It robs them of all. Their wordly portion, their only portion, is for ever lost. The pleasures of sin which are but for a season, are all gone. Only the sin itself remains and is consummated in its power within them-their degradation and misery. Its guilt continues a fearful load, which sinks them lower than the grave. It was never by faith transferred to the Lamb of God, who is the propitiation for our sins; it therefore remains upon their heads, passes with them into eternity, is charged upon them in the judgment, and draws down upon them the terrors of the second death. In their case it thus abides in all its virulence as the sting of death. It is not so with believers. Freed not only from the guilt, but from the last remains of the influence of sin in their natures, their death is not attended with divine wrath, and the terrors of the curse. Death is to them a putting off the earthly tabernacle a falling asleep in Jesus-a departing to be with him. Its visitation is a gracious act of the administration of the Redeemer, who comes to receive them to himself. It is the messenger of Christ who has the keys of death and of the unseen world, executing his mandate to transfer them to

his presence in glory. Though in itself an enemy, Christ who died to overcome death, has prevailed to change its stroke into a benefit. The disembodied spirit of the saint passes from it triumphant. Its pains prove the pangs of his birth into a new life. Its stroke smites off his fetters, and dismisses him into liberty. Its violence rends from him the corrupted garments of mortality, that he may be clothed with celestial glory. His removal hence is his translation to heaven, to dwell before the throne of God and of the Lamb. Those whom he leaves behind may mourn as did even Elisha on the translation of Elijah; but the released spirit, soaring on angels' wings, to the light and joy of the divine presence, mourns not. "Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from henceforth; yea, saith the Spirit, they shall rest from their labours and their works do follow them."

5. Death is finally swallowed up in victory, in the Resurrection.

It has seemed good to the infinite wisdom of God, to signalize the final admission of his redeemed into glory, by the solemnities of a day of universal judgment. Then all the generations of mankind having fulfilled the period of their moral trial, and the plan of God's moral administration, as regards our world, having been completed, all shall be judged together in the view of the assembled universe. Though the glorification of the saints in their entire nature, their public acquittal from every charge, and their open acknowledgment as the sons of God, be delayed till the consummation of all things, yet the entrance of their spirits into immortality is not delayed. They are not suffered to remain here through the revolving ages of time, victims of Satan's rage and of wicked men's hostility, and exposed to the tribulations of the world, and the assaults of temptation. In such a case, groaning and travailing together in pain, they might have been heard, each exclaiming, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove, that I might fly away and be at rest.—I

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