chiefly and most particularly to design and intend here: And this I
shall most largely insist upon. But since death in all its circumstances
and attendants, in all the extent of its dominion, and with all its
power, is under the sovereign management of God our heavenly Father; it
is constrained to subserve his kind and gracious purposes to his own
people, in all its forms and appearances. And I think upon this account,
that I shall not transgress the apostle’s great and general design, if I
take the dreadful name of DEATH, in its widest and most formidable
extent of power, and with relation to all its victories, and shew how,
even in this largest sense, it is appointed to subserve the glory of
God, and the kingdom of Christ, and by the grace of the new covenant, it
is rendered useful and beneficial to every true christian; on this
account therefore it may be numbered amongst his possessions. _Death is
yours._
With this view I shall endeavour to run through these five general heads
following, and improve each of them, in a few particulars, to the
benefit of christians, agreeably to the design of my text.—Death is made
useful to a saint, when we consider it.
I. As reigning over all mankind in general.—II. As seizing on impenitent
and unpardoned sinners.—III. As taking captive the bodies of the
saints.—IV. As depriving us of our dear relations and kindred. And,—V.
As bringing our own bodies down to the dust.
I confess, I was very unwilling to leave the death of Christ out of this
catalogue; for his death is not only the most eminent blessing to every
christian, but it is also the price that purchased all other blessings
in time, and in eternity. It is the death of Christ that may be called
the christian’s richest treasure, for it procures for him all the
treasures of grace and glory. It is the fruit of his death, that _all
things are ours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or things present,
or things to come_. It is his death that gives truth and virtue to the
words of my text, and to all the rich and spreading comments upon it,
that faith can make here on earth, and that our souls shall taste and
enjoy hereafter in heaven.
Yet when I consider, that the death of Christ is more directly expressed
in many other scriptures, and does not seem at all to have been the
design of St. Paul in this text: and when I survey what a vast and
copious subject I must enter into, if I recount the riches of blessing
that are derived from this spring, I chuse to refer that subject to
another season. I proceed therefore according to the order I have
proposed, to treat of the various advantages to be derived from this
proposition, _Death is yours_.
_First_, The death of mankind in general shall be made profitable to
believers. The death of all the sons and daughters of Adam, shall
promote the improvement of the children of God, in knowledge, grace, and
holiness; for it instructs them in three most useful lessons.
1. It gives them a most powerful and sensible lecture on the vanity of
man. A burying place filled with tombs, is a lively book of human
frailty: It repeats the melancholy lesson in every leaf. Each little
grave-stone becomes a preacher of vanity to the living, even in the
profound silence of the dead. This is the doctrine of every rising
hillock, this is the universal theme: And every stately monument there
strikes the beholder with the same mortifying truth: though perhaps it
swells with many pompous titles and images of honour. And this lesson of
vanity stands written there still in fair and indelible characters,
though the name of the dead, and all their praises be quite worn out.
Dust and ashes, even without an inscription, and without a monument, are
silent but powerful teachers.
Alas, what is man in his best estate! A poor and mortal dying creature!
When we read the histories of past ages and foreign nations, and find
that those whole nations and ages are all dead and mingled with the
dust, and even those, who once made a great bustle and figure in this
world, are now but an empty name, we cry out, “What vain creatures we
are!” When we behold our neighbours and our acquaintance on the
right-hand, and on the left, dropping away all around us; when we see
one following another daily down to the grave of silence, it is a very
natural and just reflection: “Alas, how frail is man!” When we behold
the young, the healthy, the fair, and the strong, the rich, and the
powerful, together with the poor, the feeble, and the slave, all
yielding to the common law of death, and turning into earth and
rottenness, we have just occasion to cry out, “What a vain empty thing
is human nature, even the best of it: A piece of pretty mouldering clay:
These bodies of ours are fine and curious engines but made of the dust,
and to dust they return again.”
This is the common state, situation, and view of things in all seasons,
and in every generation. But when we fix our thoughts on some special
seasons or causes of mortality, when we think of a famine or a
pestilence that sweeps away thousands in a few days, that empties the
whole streets in a night or two, and lays towns or cities desolate; when
we read of wars and battles that overspread the mountain with slaughter,
and cover vast plains with human carcases; when we hear of storms at sea
that drown many hundreds at once, and perhaps some thousands sink down
to death in their floating habitations, then we are more feelingly
penetrated with a sense of our vanity, then we sigh and groan aloud and
break out into this mournful language? _O Lord! hast thou made all
mankind in vain?_ Ps. lxxxix. 49. How awful is thy government! How
terrible are thy judgments, thou Almighty Sovereign of life and death!
The ancient saints have made such remarks often, and mixed these scenes
of mortality with their pious thoughts, and turned them into devotion:
They have drawn many serious and pathetic inferences from such
meditations on death, and vented their musings of thought in holy
language.
(1.) “Shall man compare himself with God? Mortal man _that dwelleth in
houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, and who is crushed
before the moth! Shall he set himself to contend with the eternal God
his Maker_;” Job. iv. 17-19. Again:
(2.) “What little reason have we to be proud and boastful! Poor dying
mushrooms, who start up for a few hours, but cannot assure ourselves of
to-morrow! To-day we swell and look big among men, to-morrow we are a
feast for worms. _Our days are as a hand’s breadth; verily every man at
his best estate is altogether vanity_;” Ps. xxxix. 5. Again:
(3.) “How vain and fruitless a thing is it to _put our trust in princes,
or in the son of man in whom there is no help_? _His breath goeth forth,
he returneth to his earth, in that very day, his thoughts perish_; Ps.
cxlvi. 3, 4. Man is too weak a thing to encourage or support our
confidence.” And:
(4.) “What a necessary duty is it then to fix our constant dependance
upon God, even in all the common affairs of life! _Let us not say
therefore, that to-day or to-morrow we will go into such a city, and
continue there a year, and buy, and sell, and get gain; whereas ye know
not what will be on the morrow? For what is your life?_ _It is even a
vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away; for
that ye ought to say, if the Lord will, we shall live to do this or
that_; James iv. 13-15. And it is the same inference that holy David
makes more than once upon a survey of the mortality of man, in the
Psalms just before cited, _Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in thee_;
Ps. xxxix. 11. _Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help,
whose hope is in the Lord his God, who keepeth truth for ever_; Ps.
xlvi. 5, 6. The Lord is an everlasting friend, he lives when creatures
die, and fulfils his word of truth, when the words of princes perish
with their breath.”
2. The death of mankind in general shews us the dreadful evil and desert
of sin. It discovers to us the awful holiness and terrible Majesty of
God; and it teaches us what a sublime value he puts upon his own law,
and how fearfully he avenges the violation of it. I join these three
things together, because they stand so nearly connected in the divine
economy.
(1.) The universal death of mankind shews us, what a dreadful and
heinous evil there is in sin, and, what wide destruction it has
deserved. _By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and
so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned_; Rom. v. 12.
_For the wages of sin is death_; Rom. vi. 23. Man was made innocent, and
while he continued obedient, he was immortal: Transgression and death
came in together: A formidable pair! Two dreadful names, big with
mischief and ruin to human nature. When we see the dying agonies of poor
mankind, our fellow-creatures, our brethren in flesh and blood, let us
remember the sin of our common father, that first subjected him and all
his posterity to death; and let us reflect upon the dreadful evil that
is contained in the nature of every sin; for it deserves death at the
hand of God. Alas, how often has the best of us deserved to die, for our
transgressions have been multiplied without number.
(2.) The death of all mankind makes a solemn discovery to us of the
terrible Majesty of God and the justice that attends his government. He
will not pass by the guilt of his rebellious creatures, without a due
resentment of their crimes. And even though he pardons the sins of his
own people, so as to secure them from eternal vengeance, yet they must
pass through death, that they may learn what an evil and bitter thing it
is to have offended against their Maker and their God.
When we see a church-yard filled with little hills of mortality, the
ruins of a parish, or a spacious town, and the dust of many generations,
we naturally cry out, as in Deut. xxix. 24. “Wherefore hath the Lord
done thus unto this land, and what meaneth the heat of all this great
anger?” The next verse will give you an answer to it; yea, every man may
answer himself, _because they have forsaken the Lord their God_; they
have forsaken _his covenant of life and sinned against him_. Those
dreadful words, _In the day thou eatest, thou shalt die_; have been
putting into execution almost six thousand years, and the _Lord’s anger
is not yet turned away, but his hand is stretched out still_; Is. v. 25.
the vengeance of the Lord is not yet fully executed according to the
just demerit of sin. Though saints are saved from the dismal
consequences of death, yet God would not rescue them from dying, that
they might always remember what sin deserved. Thus the death of all
mankind discovers to us the awful Majesty of God our Maker, who will not
be affronted by his creatures, without terrible resentment; he is a holy
and jealous God.
(3.) It teaches us the high value that God has for his own law, that he
will rather dash a whole creation to pieces, than suffer his holy law to
be insulted and broken, without some reparation of the honour of it. The
race of Adam is doomed to death, for the sake of sin against this law,
and mortality and a curse spread over this lower world. Let us inure our
thoughts to such reflections as these, that we may ever keep our souls
in awe of the Majesty of God, and dread the thoughts of breaking his
law, which he values above a whole world of men. O that sin may become
the most hateful object in our eyes; it is this that has laid cities
desolate, and fills the graves; it is this that has corrupted and
destroyed our natures; it has turned millions of strong and well-formed
bodies into dust: It has ruined the most beautiful part of God’s lower
creation, and is sending thousands daily to the pit of corruption and
noisome darkness. It is sin has filled our nature with diseases, and
sown the poisonous seeds of mortality and death in every son and
daughter of Adam. A malignant and fatal poison, that has destroyed all
the nations upon earth, and buried them under ground, heaps upon heaps,
in above a hundred successions! But I now go on to another distinct
lesson, that the death of all mankind teaches us.
3. It informs us, in a very sensible and affecting manner, that we
ourselves must shortly die, and awakens the soul to actual preparation
for its departure. Heb. ix. 27. _It is appointed for all men once to
die, and after death the judgment_, Joshua and David, saints and kings,
tell us they _go the way of all the earth_: “The grave is the house
appointed for all the living;” Job xxx. 23. When we behold one after
another, made of the same flesh and blood as we are, going down to the
dust in a long continual succession, we have a solemn warning, that we
must shortly follow: There is no ransom in this case, no hope of safety,
no door of escape, and as Solomon expresses it, _there is no discharge
in this war_; Eccl. viii. 8.
A true christian takes notice of this with a pious awe upon his spirit;
and when he is ready to grow drowsy and secure, the sight of a funeral,
or a grave, shall rouse him out of his sleepy temper, and awaken
religion into life again: When he hears of a neighbour’s death, he asks
his own soul, “Art thou ready? For the next summons may come to call
thee away into the world of spirits, to stand before God the Judge of
all.”
Thus a child of God reaps some advantage by the spreading empire of
death over all mankind; he makes a sacred improvement of the terrible
waste that the king of terrors has made over all the earth: He learns
the vanity and emptiness of man in his best estate: He grows humble and
dependant on the eternal God: He reads the dreadful evil of sin on every
tomb-stone: The death of every man calls him aloud to prepare for his
own, and to be in actual readiness for his entrance into the invisible
world. Happy souls, who take this warning, and stand ever prepared!
But I proceed to the next general head which I proposed;
_Secondly_, As the death of mankind in general, gives these divine
lessons to a saint, so the death of impenitent sinners, which hath
something in it very terrible, may be turned to the advantage and profit
of believers, these three or four ways:
1. If we are true christians, and persecuted and injured here on earth,
then the death of the wicked delivers us from our enemies, and releases
us from the wrath of our oppressors. In the grave “the wicked cease from
troubling, as well as the weary are at rest;” Job iii. 17.
Look back to the distance of three thousand years, and see the children
of Israel on the banks of the Red-sea, rejoicing in the Lord their
deliverer, when an army of Egyptian carcases floated on the waters, or
were cast up in heaps upon the shore: These were the cruel oppressors of
the people of God: They were drowned in the evening, and the morning
light discovered the havoc that death had made, and the salvation it
wrought for Israel, in the xiv. and xv. of Exodus. See the whole city of
Jerusalem, and Hezekiah at the head of them, triumphing in the Lord,
when he sent the angel of death, and destroyed the besiegers: “A hundred
and four score and five thousand Assyrians lay dead on the borders of
the city;” Is. xxxvii. 36. “By terrible things in righteousness God
answered the prayer of his saints;” Ps. lxv. 5. And at the death of
Herod, the father and mother of our blessed Lord were glad, for they
returned from their flight; they came from the land of Egypt, and dwelt
in their own land again; and the child Jesus was saved from the
murderous designs of that cruel man; Mat. ii. 19.
Such examples of advantage which the saints receive from the death of
the men of violence, their impious and bloody enemies, are frequent in
sacred history: And we may remark in our day, how many a time God hath
saved us in Great Britain, when we have been on the borders of
destruction, by the death of persecutors at home and abroad. The
monarchs of the earth, have been turned down to their graves, one year
after another, and the churches of God, in many nations, have found rest
and deliverance.
2. The death of impenitent sinners has been many a time, the happy
occasion of the conversion of a saint. There is many a holy soul, now in
heaven, that was first awakened to fly from the wrath to come, by the
death of some of his wicked companions in his younger years. When a
snare falls suddenly, and seizes a little bird or two of the flock, the
rest take wing toward heaven, and fly for safety. And happy are those
souls, who take the terrible warning, who fly to the sacred refuge, and
lay hold on offered grace.
When a vile wretch is seized in the midst of his companions, and his
sins, and sent down to hell and destruction in a moment, the very gates
of hell seem to open before our faces, to receive the rebel; such a
spectacle fills the hearts of those that are near him, with amazement
and terror, and hath often been the first means of sending them to the
throne of grace; and, by degrees, to the gates of heaven. The story of
Peter Valdo is famous on this occasion, who was a rich merchant at Lyons
in France, but had no sense of inward religion, or true piety. When in
the midst of feasting and merriment, he saw one of his companions struck
with sudden death, he was awakened to serious thoughts of eternity: Upon
this he applied himself to study the scripture, and discover the errors
of the Roman church; he acquainted his friends with them, and instructed
the poor, who were continual partakers of his bounty. Then being
excommunicated by the popish clergy, he retired, with some of his
disciples, to the vallies of Piedmont, where he found some christians of
an ancient and primitive stamp, and joining with them, established those
churches which are called the Vaudois, and are famous in history, even
to this day.
Bishop Burnet also tells us, in the life of the Lord Chief Justice Hale,
that in his younger years he gave himself up to much frolic and vanity,
till one of his loose companions fell down on a sudden, and they thought
him dead: which surprizing providence sent Mr. Hale to his knees, to
pray earnestly for the recovery of his companion, and laid a foundation
for that life of eminent virtue and religion, which is described in
those memoirs. Thus not only the death of profligate sinners, but even
the appearance of their death, has been blessed to gracious purposes,
for the conversion and salvation of others.
3. The death of the wicked gives the children of God glorious matter for
praise to his distinguishing grace. When they see or hear of a hardened
and impenitent sinner cut off in his guilt and obstinacy, and in the
pursuit of his lusts, the holy soul cries out with thankfulness and
zeal, “Glory be to that grace which has made the difference betwixt him
and me!”
And this is still more remarkable, when a sinner dies with all the
terrors of God upon him, when the sting of death enters into his heart,
and sharpens all his last agonies, when conscience is awakened with all
its horrors, and the soul is plunging with its eyes open into a gulf of
everlasting misery. O how sensibly does this affect the heart of a true
christian! He stands and wonders, and adores that rich mercy that has
snatched him as a brand out of the burning. “What am I,” says he, by
nature more than another, that God should have called me by his grace,
and given me repentance unto life, while this poor wretch continued
obstinate and impenitent? We were both sons of Adam the sinner,
alienated from the life of God, and enemies to all that is holy: We were
both favoured with the means of grace, and sat under the ministrations
of the same gospel. Who, or what am I better than my neighbour, that God
should powerfully incline my heart to accept the offered salvation! That
he should have prepared me as a vessel of mercy, to be filled with
glory, while my old companion has now made himself a complete _vessel of
wrath_, and fitted himself for swift destruction; Rom. ix. 22, 23. By
nature I was a _child of wrath_, as well as he, a rebel, and a vile
transgressor, _without God_, without Christ, _and without hope_: And why
was not I seized by divine justice, in those days of my rebellion, and
made a sacrifice to the indignation of God? What merit was there in me,
that I should be spared, while my companion suffered under speedy
vengeance? Let the freedom and riches of grace be adored for ever: It
was rich and sovereign grace that spared me. And now, through the
abounding mercy of God, I hope I have fled to lay hold on the refuge set
before me; my heart is, in some measure, sanctified, my nature renewed,
and my sins pardoned. Blessed be the Lord who hath given me _hope in
death, while the wicked are driven away in their wickedness, driven far
away_ from hope and heaven; Prov. xiv. 32.
4. The death of impenitent sinners does another service also for the
saints, in that it sensibly excites their pity and their prayers for the
living. It awakens the exercise of pious charity for the souls of their
friends, that are yet _in the gall of bitterness, and in the bond of
iniquity_. A true christian, that has tasted of the grace of God, can
hardly be supposed to see his impenitent neighbour seized with sudden
death, and sent away to darkness, but it touches the springs of holy
tenderness within him, and constrains him to speak a word to others in
the same danger, and to lift up a cry to God upon their account for
grace and salvation. Surely that christian is not in a right temper of
mind, who can see or hear of impenitent and guilty souls seized away
from his neighbourhood or his acquaintance, and plunging into eternity
with horror and despair, and yet have no compassion awakened in him, no
bowels of pity moving for those of his acquaintance that are involved in
the same iniquities, and are yet in the land of the living, and on this
side hell. Such an awful providence is like a warning-word which heaven
puts into our mouths, that we may echo it with solemn horror round the
neighbourhood, and try to rouze stupid sinners from their dangerous and
fatal lethargy.
[Here is a proper pause in this Sermon, if it be too long to be read at
once.]
But it is time now to leave this general head, and go on to the next.
_Thirdly_, If the death of hardened sinners turns to the advantage of
the saint, the death of fellow-christians shall certainly work for his
benefit too.
You will be ready to say, “What! Can the loss of good men from the earth
ever be turned into a benefit? Can the death of saints bring any
advantage to the survivors?” Yes, surely, if they die like christians
indeed, in the lively exercises of faith and hope, and this will appear
in these four particulars:
1. It confirms our faith in the gospel of Christ, and supports our holy
profession. It gives us an assurance of the truth and power of our
religion, above all other religions in the world, when it enables a poor
feeble dying creature to face death with courage, to look beyond the
limits of life and time, and venture into an unseen world with holy joy
and triumph. It gives us a glorious evidence, that the principles of
christianity are such, as will justify all the labours of a holy life,
and will bear us out in the profession of it, in the midst of ridicule
and mockery, of persecution and martyrdom. This surely must be a
religion coming down from God, that can give the weak and unlearned such
a courage, as to encounter death itself without fear: and that not from
a stupid and senseless temper of spirit, not from a brutal hardiness,
such as carries the horse and the hero into the battle, but with a clear
and full discovery of God and his holiness, of our own sins and his
forgiving grace, this religion can enable us to venture into his
immediate presence. How glorious is our gospel, how divine a doctrine is
this! It has wrought ten thousand such wonders by faith in the blood of
Christ, as the great atonement for sin, and the only way to the Father.
A saint leaving this world, and putting off mortality, with the light of
heaven breaking in upon his soul, and the beams of glory shining round
about him, with divine joy and transport in his countenance, and the
language of heaven upon his lips, brings the invisible world into
present view: The pious spectators grow up to a sensible assurance of
the glories and felicities of that invisible world; each of them sits on
the borders of paradise, each of them gets a glimpse of the new
Jerusalem, and all the heavenly country, and this adds new strength to
his faith and hope.