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become more commodious habitations, or more fuitable Companions for the Spirits of juft Men made perfect; might be changed from natural Bodies to Spiritual: And if fuch Change be neceffary (as we are taught to believe by the best Authority") it seems to be but of fmall confequence when, or in what manner it be made; whether we are to fleep firft, or be found like thofe of the laft Generation; fince the times of our dying and rifing again are in reality coincident; and our Change therefore alike momentary; nor will this Sleep be any more to us than the twinkling of an Eye; neither fhall those who remain unto the coming of the Lord prevent us who were fallen afleep, nor enter into the Joy of their Lord before us; but both we and they fhall at the Sound of the laft Trump be caught up together to meet the Lord in the Air, and fo be ever with him*,

But how many ufes foever of this fort may be affigned for Death we are ftill to remember that it must be a moft imperfect Sketch, a faint difcovery of fome few of the various Ends of Providence in this immenfe Plan, whereof so very small a part at prefent lies before us; a more complete difplay of which will probably constitute no inconfiderable portion of our future Happiness, when we shall know, even as we ourselves are known; when our whole Spirit, Soul, and Body fhall be prefented blameless at the coming of our Lord and Saviour Jefus Chrift, Which brings me to consider,

u 1 Cor. 15. 50.
* 1 Cer. 15: 51, 52.

See Mr. Taylor on Rom. p. 354:
Theff. 4.15, &c.

IIIdly,

IIIdly, What Notions of Death are now proper and agreeable to the Chriftian State.

Now this refults from, and has been in a good Degree anticipated under the foregoing Heads. For if among the Heathen, whom the Apoftle points out in the latter part of the Text, the great dread of Death, and that perpetual Bondage confequent upon it, arose from their furveying it as the laft Evil, which put a period to their whole Existence, [which many of them contended that, it did, and none, as we have feen, had ground fufficient to convince them of the contrary;] we who are taught to look upon it in quite another Light, ought to be affected with it in another. manner. To them indeed Death had a terrible. Sound, and could not but be attended with a train of the most melancholy Sentiments, whenever they were forced (as they were frequently) to entertain that Thought. It would unavoidably. be mixing with their Entertainments of all kinds, and when it did fo, would as unavoidably allay and spoil their relifh; which we find some of them confeffing and complaining of. This was the Sword continually hanging over their Heads by a fingle Hair; the Spectre always haunting their abode; which, whatever fome profeffed Libertines might pretend, would caft a sudden damp on every Joy; it would leave no prefent Grati

Efe. Eumen. v. 655. Eurip. Troad. v.631, &c. Catull. 5.6. Lucret. 3.842, &c. 987, &c. Lucan. L.7. v.470, 471. L.8. v.395,396. Sen. Trag. Tro. A. 2. Chor. Caf in Sal. C. 51. Cic. pro Clu. C.61. Comp. Id. Sup. p. 111,' n. e. Plin. N.H. L.7. C. 55. Sen. Ep. 54.71. Comp.

Cleric. in Eccl.4.2, 3. Campbell, Neceff. of Rev. S. 4. 7 Cic. Tufc. Q. 1.11.13. de Fin. 1. 38.

Y

fication

*

fication free from pain and uneafiness; and as to any future Profpects, through what a Gloom muft each confiderate Perfon view these, which were all to be cut off fo very foon, and either close in abfolute Extinction, or if he should be called to Life again, that Life commence a State of Punishment and Suffering; to which he must be conscious he was but too liable! In this cafe, how could Man, even a comparatively wife and good Man, contemplate himself any otherwife then as walking all his Life time in a vain Shadow, and at laft lying down in forrow and despair!

But how entirely is this Scene changed under the Chriftian Difpenfation! What a different apprehenfion must we have of Death, when we know that it is fo far from injuring any of our noblest Pleasures, or deftroying our beft Pursuits, that it rather puts us into a Capacity of enjoying them more perfectly, and opens a way to our more free, full, uninterrupted profecution of them to Eternity! A way, which though, for reasons intimated above, it must be in fome measure gloomy ftill, yet is there little left to terrify, much to fupport and comfort us, when we come into the Shadow of this Vale of Death; enough to brighten up its Horrors, and convert them into a Crown of Glory; to make us even rejoice that we are got fo near it, from whence may fafely view those blifsful Seats of Paradife, that are prepared to receive us, and to which it conducts us. The Heathen had at beft but feeble Arguments for, or rather fome faint Gueffes at, and Wishes of an Hereafter; and in the mean time were toffed to and fro in uncertainty among

their several Syftems, fluctuating in perpetual Doubts, and on each difappointment, ready to give all up, and fly even to the most miserable of all comforts, Infenfibility, for refuge. How vaftly different is our Cafe, who have fo firm a ground of Expectation to rely on, and that strong Confolation which refults from it in all Difficulties! Who can at all times lay hold on the Hope that is fet before us, as an Anchor of the Soul both fare and fedfaft; God himself having given us not only molt exprefs Promifes, in which it is impoffible for him to lye, but also many infallible Proofs, and actual Inftances of what the Generality of them were used to think impoffible, ba Refurrection from the Dead. And though, as being partakers of Flesh and Blood, we are ftill naturally Mortal; nor was it Chrift's intent to alter the whole frame of our Nature inftantly, by tranflating us into fome different Order of Beings, as he must have done, had he freed us from all natural Corruption, and which (as we have feen above) would have been improper fo long as there were the Seeds of moral Corruption yet remaining in us; but he chofe rather to improve it gradually, and procure a proportional enlargement of its Privileges; as he did in the most effectual manner, by laying hold of the fame Nature himfelf, and lifting it up firft from Sin by his Doctrine and Example, and then purchafing for it a release from its prefent Sorrow, Pain, and Diffolution, by his own meritorious Sufferings and Death.

a v. Cic. in Confiderat. n. e. p.III.

Celf. ap. Orig. 5. p. 240. M. Anton. 12.5. See Whitby on 1 Theff. 4.13. and Hallet's Difcourses, V. I. p. 298.

Y 2

And

And thus by the Mediation of the second Adam are we delivered from the worst and most dreadful part of the Sentence on the first, that which denounced Death abfolutely and indeterminately; and thereby left Man in a State of unlimited Subjection to it: or rather is this Death, which though in one Sense it ftill preferves its Power over the World, and will and ought (as we have feen) to preserve it during the whole of this probationary State, and likewise on account of that Sin whereof it is the great Corrective, has still the Appearance and the Name of an Enemy [the laft Enemy that fhall be deftroyed is Death;] yet is it, I fay, to us become a very different thing to what it was to our firft Parents and the generality of their Offspring, before the dawning of that Profpect which our Lord has opened by his coming in the Flesh. 'Tis now fo far from the Extinction of our Being, that it becomes the great Improvement and the Exaltation of it: 'tis no more than a paffage from a mixed, imperfect, to a pure and perfect Portion of Felicity; the End of all our Labours in one State, and the beginning of our Recompence in another. In which View, God will not appear either to have made all Men for nought, or fubjected them to Vanity even here: the prefent Life, however frail and tranfitory, if thus taken in relation to, and as connected with another, is very far from being an useless or contemptible Gift: Much may be done in this bad World, if we but make a proper ufe of it, towards rendering ourselves meet to be partakers of a better: the Ground of the Heart may be prepared, the Seeds of Virtue fown, the Heavenly

Plant

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