Christ, and the ministers of the gospel, that have been tired and worn
out in tedious controversies in this world, and sorely perplexed amongst
the difficult passages of scripture, when they shall arrive at that
region of light and glory, where the darknesses of the mind shall be all
scattered, the veil shall be taken off from sacred things, and doubts
and difficulties shall vanish for ever!
Alas! What desolation and mischief has the noise and clamour of
controversy brought on the church of Christ in all ages! What quarrels
and sharp contests has it raised among fellow-christians, and
especially, where zeal and ignorance have joined together, and brought
fire and darkness into the sanctuary! This has banished charity and love
out of the house of God, and made the Spirit of God himself to depart
grieved. Surely death carries a considerable blessing in it, as it
delivers us from these disorders, these bitter quarrels, and appoints us
a place in the temple of God on high, where the axe and the hammer never
sound, where the saw of contention is never drawn, where the noise of
war is heard no more, but perfect light lays a foundation for perfect
and everlasting love.
III. Death makes an utter end of sin, it delivers us from a state of
temptation, and conveys us into a state of perfect holiness, safety, and
peace. _The spirits of the just are made perfect_ in holiness, when they
leave this sinful and mortal flesh, they stand without spot or blemish,
without fault or infirmity of greater or lesser size, and appear pure
and undefiled before the throne of God; Rev. xiv. 5. _Their robes are
washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb; and they serve him
without sin, day and night, in his temple_; Rev. vii. 14, 15. When death
carries them away from this world, it carries them out of the
territories of the devil; for he has no power in that land whither happy
souls go: And all the remaining lusts of the flesh, that had their
death’s wound given them by renewing grace, are now destroyed for ever;
for the death of the body is the final death of sin, and the grave is,
as it were, the burying-place of many unruly iniquities, that have too
often defiled and disquieted the spirit.
And as the corrupt affections which are mingled with our flesh and
blood, and which are rooted deep in animal nature, are left behind us in
the bed of death, so when we ascend to heaven, we shall find no manner
of temptation to revive them. There is no malice or angry resentment to
be awakened there, no incitements to envy, intemperance, or the cursed
sin of pride, that cleaves so close to our natures here on earth. When
we are encompassed with those blessed creatures, angels and saints made
perfect, we shall meet with no affront, no reproach, no injury to
provoke our anger, or kindle an uneasy passion. Most perfect friendship
is ever practised there; it is a region of peace, a world of immortal
amity.
Nor shall we find any temptation to envy, in that happy state; for
though there are different ranks of glorified creatures, yet each is
filled with a holy satisfaction, and hath an inward relish of his own
felicity suited to his own capacity and state, and they have all a
general relish of the common joy, and a mutual satisfaction in each
others happiness. Envy, that fretful passion, is no more. In heaven
there are no provocations to those unruly appetites, which break in upon
our temperance, and pollute our souls.
Pride and haughtiness of spirit have no room in that blessed world: The
superior order of saints, which are nearest the throne, shall not
despise the meanest; for the nearer they approach to the perfect image
of Christ, the more intense and diffusive is their love. Besides, every
saint in glory shall see himself in his own nothingness, and infinitely
indebted to divine grace for all things: This shall for ever forbid all
vanity and conceit of merit. In heaven we shall see God in the fulness
of his glory, and shall have so penetrating a sense of his saving grace,
that a creature rescued from hell cannot be proud there.
Rejoice then, ye poor feeble christians, that have been long wrestling
with your indwelling sins, and maintaining a holy and daily fight, with
strong and restless corruptions in your nature: _Lift up your heads_ at
the thoughts of death, _for the day of your redemption draws nigh_; Luke
xxi. 28. Death is your deliverer. It is like the angel that Christ sent
to Peter, to knock off his fetters, and release him from the prison; it
may smite and surprize you, and it has indeed a dark and unlovely
aspect; but its message is light and peace, holiness and salvation.
IV. Death is ours, for it takes us away from under all the threatenings
of God in his word, and places us in the actual possession of the
greatest part of the blessings, that God has promised us. The saints
that are dead are thus described; they are _those, who through faith and
patience, inherit the promises_; Heb. vi. 12.
Whilst we are in this life, there are many threatenings in the bible
that belong to the saints as well as to sinners. I shall mention that
great and general one that is annexed to the covenant of grace; Ps.
lxxxix. 30. _If the children of Christ forsake my law, and walk not in
my judgments; then will I visit their transgression with a rod, and
their iniquity with stripes_; but when death has conveyed them into the
presence of their heavenly Father, they shall forsake his law no more;
there are no more transgressions for the rod to correct, the stripes of
chastisement cease for ever; and their Father, and their God, shall be
angry no more.
The best part of the promises are fulfilled when a soul arrives at
heaven. The promise of the resurrection of the body yet remains
unaccomplished indeed; but every separate spirit in heaven waits for it
with full assurance of accomplishment. “I have found,” says the holy
soul, “so many rich promises of the covenant fulfilled already, and I am
in the possession of so many divine blessings that God once foretold,
that I am well assured that my God is faithful who has promised, and the
rest shall be all fulfilled.”
V. Death raises us above the mean and trifling pleasures of the present
state, as well as delivers us from all present pains, and brings us into
a world of perfect ease, and superior and refined delight. It divides us
from the pains and pleasures, that we derive from the first Adam, and
sets us in the midst of superior blessings, which the second Adam has
purchased for us. _We shall hunger no more, we shall thirst no more,
neither shall the scorching heat of the sun light upon us_, or any
painful influence from the elements of this world: _The Lamb which is in
the midst of the throne shall feed us with celestial food_, suited to
our purified natures, and lead us to drink full draughts of unknown
pleasure, which is described by living fountains of water. We shall see
God himself, the original beauty, and the spring of all delight: We
shall see our Lord Jesus Christ, the most illustrious copy of the
Father, _the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his
person, and God himself shall wipe away all tears from our eyes_; Rev.
vii. 16, 17. _Though the wages of sin is death_ by the appointment of
the law of God; Rom. vi. 23. yet this very death is constrained to serve
the purposes of our great Redeemer; and it brings us into the possession
of that _eternal life_, which is the _gift of God through Jesus Christ
our Lord_.
VI. Death not only gives us possession of promised blessings, but it
banishes all our fears and doubts for ever, by fixing us in a state of
happiness unchangeable. They that are once entered into the temple of
God on high _shall no more go out_ of it; Rev. iii. 12. For they are
established in the house of God, they are as pillars there, they become
a part of that vast and living temple, in which God dwells for ever in
all his glory.
Death is ours; for it finishes our fears, it fulfils our wishes and our
hopes, and leaves us no more room to fear to all eternity. When we
behold the face of God in righteousness, and awake out of this world of
dreams and shadows, in the world of happy spirits with the likeness of
God upon us, we shall find sweet satisfaction; Ps. xvii. 15. _I shall be
satisfied when I awake with thy likeness._ Death leaves a saint, as it
were, but one thing to wish or hope for, and that is the resurrection,
or the accomplishment of this text in its completest sense, _viz._ that
their bodies may awake out of the grave with the likeness of Christ upon
them, and be made conformable to his glorious body, in vigour, beauty,
and immortality.
VII. Death is a happiness to a christian; for it divides him for ever
from the company of sinners and enemies, and places him in the society
of his best friends, his God, and his Saviour, his fellow-saints, and
the innumerable company of angels. O how sorely has the soul of many a
saint been vexed here on earth, as the soul of Lot was in Sodom, with
the conversation of the wicked! How have they often complained of the
hidings of the face of God, of the absence of Christ their Lord, and the
sensible withdrawings of the influences of the blessed Spirit!
There is a great partition-wall betwixt us and the happy world, whilst
we are in this life; the veil of flesh and blood divides us from the
world of spirits, and from the glorious inhabitants of it. With what
surprizing joy, shall a poor, humble, watchful christian, that has been
teased long, and long tormented with the company of the wicked, enter
into that illustrious and blessed society, when death shall break down
the partition-wall, and rend the veil of flesh and blood that divided
him from them, and kept him at a painful distance! “It is better,
infinitely better, shall the departed soul say, to see God without the
medium of such ordinances, as I have used on earth: It is better to be
absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord Jesus. It is
better to ascend, and worship in the midst of the heavenly Jerusalem,
and amongst that blessed assembly of the first-born, than to be joined
to the purest churches on earth, or to be engaged in the noblest acts of
worship, which the state of mortality admits of. Farewell sins and
sinners for ever: Temptations and tempters, farewell to all eternity.
And ye my dear holy friends, beloved in the Lord, my pious relatives, my
companions in faith and worship, farewell but for a short season, till
you also shall be released from your present bondage and imprisonment by
the messenger of death: Fear it not, for it is your Lord, and my Lord,
your Saviour and mine, who sends it to release you from all the evils
which you have long groaned under, and to bring you to our Father’s
house, where the businesses, the pleasures, and the company are
infinitely agreeable and entertaining.”
Thus have I shewn in various instances, how the death of a believer in
general is appointed to work for his good, and becomes an advantage to
him through the grace of Christ. I proceed to shew how the death of a
christian in all the particular circumstances that attend it, has
something in it that may be turned to his benefit.
_Christ has the keys of death and the grave; he was dead, and is alive,
and behold he lives for evermore_; Rev. i. 18. And he knows how to
manage all the circumstances of the death of his saints for their
profit: He appoints the time when, the manner how, and the place where
they shall die, and determines all these things by rules of unsearchable
wisdom, under the influence of his faithfulness and his love.
1. The time when we shall die is appointed by Christ: If he calls us
away in the days of our youth, he secures us thereby from many a
temptation, and many a sin; for our life on earth is subject to daily
defilements. He prevents also many a sorrow and distress of mind, many
an agony and sharp pain to which our flesh is subject, and saves us from
all the languishing weaknesses of old age, and from tasting the dregs of
mortality.
When our blessed Lord foresees some huge and heavy sorrows ready to fall
upon us, or some mighty temptations approaching towards us, he lays his
hand upon us in the midst of life, and hides us in the grave. This has
been the sweet hiding place of many a saint of God, from a day of public
temptation and over-spreading misery.
If he lengthens out our life to many years, we have a fair opportunity
of doing much more service for our God, and our Redeemer; and we also
enjoy the longer experience of his power, his wisdom, and his faithful
mercy, in guiding us through many a dark difficulty, in supporting us
under many a heavy burden, and delivering our souls from many a
threatening temptation. Oftentimes he sweetens the passage of his aged
saints through the dark valley, with nearer and brighter views of the
heavenly world: He gives them a strong and earnest expectation of glory,
and some sweet foretaste of it, to bear them up under the langours of
old age and sickness: The haven of rest becomes sweeter to them, when
they have passed through many tedious storms: The hour of release into
the world of light, is more exquisitely pleasing, after a tedious
imprisonment in the flesh, and long years of darkness.
2. The manner, how we shall die, is appointed also by Christ our Lord,
for the benefit of his saints. If death smite us with a sudden and
unexpected stroke, then we are surprized into the world of pleasure at
once, and, ere we are aware, our souls find themselves in the midst of
the paradise of God, surrounded with joys unspeakable. If our mortal
nature decay by slow decrees, we have a precious opportunity for the
more lively exercises of faith, we may then converse with death
before-hand, and daily grow in preparation for our departure. We see
ourselves launching down the stream of time, and if our faith be awake
and sprightly, we rejoice in the sensible and hourly approaches of
heaven and eternity. We may speak many useful dying sentences for the
glory of our Lord, and make happy impressions upon the souls of those we
leave behind; We may invite and require, we may allure and charge our
dear relatives to follow us in the same path, and to meet us before the
throne.
3. Our Lord also designs our benefit, when he appoints the place of our
death, whether we shall quit the body at home or abroad; for some of us
he sees it best, that our friends should stand round us and close our
eyes, and, as it were, see our spirits take their flight into the
invisible world, that they may assist and support us with divine words
of consolation, or that they themselves may learn, and dare to die, and
be animated by our example to encounter the last enemy. Our Lord sees it
proper, for others of his saints, to die in the midst of strangers, or
perhaps amongst enemies and by a violent death, that he may thereby give
a glorious testimony to their faith and piety, as well as to the power
of his own gospel. Whether we breathe our last at land or at sea, in our
native country, or in a foreign climate, _all shall work together for
the final welfare of those that love God, and are called_ and justified,
and sanctified _according to his holy purpose_; Rom. viii. 28.
There are, doubtless, some peculiar and secret reasons, in the grand
comprehensive scheme of the counsels and decrees of God, why the death
of every saint is appointed at this season, and not at another; why some
young buds are cropped ere they blossom on earth, and transplanted to
open and unfold themselves, and shine in the garden of God on high,
while others are brought home into the heavenly garner, like fruit well
grown, or like a shock of corn fully ripe. There is a divine reason why
some are hurried away by a violent death, and others are permitted
naturally to dissolve into their dust: Why some must die on this spot of
ground, and others on that: for the vast scheme of his counsels has a
glorious consistency in it with the covenant of his grace: And indeed,
the covenant of grace runs through the whole scheme of divine counsels,
and mingles itself with them all. We rejoice in this meditation, while
we believe the truth of it. We are persuaded, that we shall know,
hereafter, the various and admirable designs of divine providence and
love, in all the infinite variety of the deaths of his saints; and this
shall make part of our songs in the upper world, and give a joyful
accent to our hallelujahs there.
Let us maintain therefore, a blessed assurance of the wise and gracious
designs of our Lord, in all the circumstances of the death of his
people. Let us learn to say with that aged saint, and eminent servant of
Christ, the Reverend Mr. Baxter, when under many weaknesses of nature,
and long and sore agonies of pain, he spake concerning his death, “Lord,
when thou wilt, what thou wilt, how thou wilt.” Let us insure our souls
in his hands for eternity, and not be over-solicitous about the
circumstances of our death, about the place, the manner, or the hour
when we shall take our leave of life and time.
[If this sermon be too long, it may be divided here.]
Having made it appear, in these several sermons, that death is ours, or
shall turn to our advantage, not only when it strikes our friends or
strangers, but when it seizes our own flesh also: I desire to conclude
this subject of discourse with various inferences, of which some may be
called doctrinal, and others practical.
The doctrinal inferences are these:
Inference I. How different is the judgment of sense, from the judgment
of faith? The eye of sense looks upon death as a sovereign and cruel
tyrant, reigning over all nature and nations, and making dreadful havoc
among mankind, as it were, after his own will and pleasure; but faith
beholds it as a slave subdued to the power of Christ, and constrained to
act under his sovereign influence for the good of all his saints. Sense
teaches us to look upon ourselves, as the possession and food of death;
but faith assures us, that death is our possession, and a part of our
treasure. Death is yours, O christians, _for all things are yours_.
When sense has the ascendant over us, we take death to be a dark and
dismal hour; but in the speech and spirit of faith, we call it a bright
and glorious one. Sense esteems it to be the sorest of all afflictions,
but faith numbers it among the sweetest of our blessings, because it
delivers us from a thousand sins and sorrows.
It has been reported, that Socrates called “death a birth-day into
eternal life.” A most glorious thought, and a very inviting name! But it
is strange, that a heathen philosopher should ever hit upon it, it is so
much like the dialect of the gospel, and the language of faith. He had
learned to talk more nobly than the sensual world, though he was not
favoured with the light of the gospel. It is so much the more shameful
for christians, to talk and live below the character of this
philosopher.
O when shall we get above this life of sense? When shall we rise in our
ideas and our judgment of things? When shall we attain to the upper
regions of christianity, and breathe in a purer air, and see all things
in a brighter and better light? When shall we live the life of faith,
and learn its divine language? Death is like a thick dark veil, as it
appears to the eye of sense; when shall our faith remove the veil, and
see the light, the immortality, the glory that lies beyond it? Death,
like the river Jordan, seems to overflow its banks, when we approach it,
and divides and affrights us from the heavenly Canaan: When shall we
climb to the top of Pisgah, that we may look beyond the swelling waves
of this Jordan, and take a fair and inviting prospect of the promised
land.
II. How glorious and how dreadful is the difference, between the death
of a saint and that of a sinner, a soul that is in Christ, and a soul
that has no interest in him! The death of every sinner has all that real
evil and terror in it, in which it appears to an eye of sense; but a
convinced sinner beholds it yet a thousand times more dreadful. When
conscience is awakened upon the borders of the grave, it beholds death
in its utmost horror, as the curse of the broken law, as the
accomplishment of the threatenings of an angry God. A guilty conscience
looks on death with all its formidable attendants round it, and espies
an endless train of sorrows coming after it. Such a wretch beholds death
riding towards him on a pale horse, and hell following at his heels,
without all relief or remedy, without a Saviour, and without hope.
But a true christian, when he reads the name of death among the curses
of the law, knows that Christ his Saviour and his Surety, has sustained
it in that dreadful sense, and put an end to its power and terror. He
reads its name now in the promises of the gospel, and calls it a
glorious blessing, a release from sin and sorrow, an entrance into
everlasting joy. The saint may lie calm and peaceable in the midst of
all the attendants of death; like Daniel in the den of lions, for it
cannot hurt or destroy him: But when a sinner is thrown to this
devourer, it does as it were break all his bones, it tears both his
flesh and his spirit as its proper prey; _Death feeds upon him_, as the
scripture expresses it: Ps. xlix. 14. and fills his conscience with
immortal anguish. Who can bear the thought of dying in such a state
under the dominion of death, without Christ, and without hope.
III. How much does the religion of the New Testament transcend all other
religions, both that of the light of nature, and all the former
revelations of grace; for it better instructs us how to die. The
religion of the ancient patriarchs, the religion of Moses and the Jews,
as well as the religion of the philosophers, all come vastly short of
christianity, in the important business of dying.
The philosopher, by the labours of his reason, and by a certain
hardiness of spirit, persuades himself not to tremble at the thoughts of
death; for it may be, there is no hereafter; or if there be, he would
fain hope for an happy one: And thus he ventures into death, with some
sort of courage and composure of mind, like a bold man, that is taking
an immense leap, in the dark, out of one world into another: but he can
never know certainly, that there are no terrible things to meet him in
that unseen state.
The religion of the Jews and patriarchs, which God himself revealed to
men, enabled many of them to resign their lives with patience and hope,
and to walk through the valley of death without much dismay, when the
appointed hour was come. A few of them I confess, have been elevated by
a noble faith above the level of that dispensation: Yet some of them
seem to make bitter mourning, because of the shadows of darkness that
covered the grave, and all the regions beyond it. _They were all their
life-time subject to bondage through the fear of death_; Heb. ii. 14.
It is our Jesus alone, who has _brought life and immortality into so
glorious a light by the gospel_; 2 Tim. i. 10. He dwelt long in heaven
before he came into our world, and again he went as a fore-runner into
those unseen worlds, and came back again and taught his disciples, what
heaven is: And thus we learn to overcome death with all its terrors, by
the richer prospect, which he has given us, of the heavenly country that
lies beyond the grave: He has taught his followers to rejoice in dying,
and to possess the pleasures that are to be derived from death, as it is
an entrance into the regions of light and joy. Blessed be God! that we
were born in the days of the Messiah, since Christ returned from the
dead, and that we were not sent either to the schools of the
philosophers, or even to Moses, to teach us how to die.