forth sweetness. The riddle of Samson, when applied in this manner, carries a diviner beauty in it, and more exquisite delight. And as that Jewish champion feasted his father and his mother with delicacies taken out of the lion he had slain, so does our Lord feast his brethren and his friends with sacred pleasures derived from death, our vanquished enemy.

O how unspeakable is the privilege of those that belong to Christ! If you are his, then death is yours: Christ is the only begotten Son, and he inherits all things; not only as a Son, but as the first overcomer : ye all are the sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus; ye shall also be overcomers, and shall inherit all things, Gal. iii. 26. and Rev. xxi. 7. Whether life or death, things present, or things to come, all are yours; for ye are Christ's.

I proceed to the practical uses.

I. If death, in every sense, may be turned to the advantage of the saints, as I have proved in the former discourse, let us see then that in all its appearances we gain some advantage by it. Let us not act like fools, who have a prize put into their hands, and know not how to use it.

If our fellow-creatures die and go down to the dust, and the nations of mankind perish from the earth, let us learn thereby the frailty of our natures: Let us learn so to number our days as to apply our hearts to wisdom, and be awakened to an active and immediate preparation for the day of our own death. If we see impenitent sinners dying under the anguish of a guilty conscience, let us gain a sensible lesson of the dreadful evil of sin; let it raise such a religious fear of the wrath of God, and such a sacred gratitude for our deliverance from the torments of hell, as may quicken every grace into its warmest exercise, and its brightest evidence. If death seize upon our Lord Christ himself, his dying groans lay a foundation for our immortal hopes: Let us meditate on the thousand blessings we receive from his cross and his tomb. Do the saints around us lie down and die? We should learn to follow them boldly into the dark valley, and to fall asleep in the dust with the same chearful hopes of a joyful rising day. Does death come near us into our own family, and tear our dear relatives from our arms? Even this may be turned to our advantage too; it should render the world and the pleasures of it more insipid and worthless; it should loosen our heart-strings from the fond embraces of the creature, for it calls our eyes and our souls heavenward and homeward, and that with a loud and sensible voice, if nature and grace are awake to hear it.

If death and the grave be ours, and we make no use of this privilege, we are like misers who have treasure in their possession, but never employ it to any valuable purpose. Has Christ our Lord taken death among his captives, and made it his own property? Let us look upon ourselves as humble sharers in the victory; he has appointed it to serve the interest of all his followers: He has put it into the inventory of our treasures. Let us improve it then to these divine purposes, let us seize and enjoy the spoils which Christ, the captain of our salvation, has taken from the hands of the prince of darkness.

II. Is death become your possession, O believers, through the grace of the covenant? Fear it not then, but ever look upon it with an eye of faith as a conquered adversary: Behold it as reduced to your service; wait for it with holy courage and pleasure; it is a messenger of mercy to your souls from Christ, who hath vanquished it in the open field of battle, and reduced it to his subjection. When you labour and groan under sins and temptations, under pains and sorrows, remember Christ has appointed death to be his officer for your 'relief. It is like the porter that opens the door of his repository, the grave, where your bodies shall take a sweet slumber till the resurrection-day; and it is appointed also to open the gates of heaven for your spirits, and to let them into a world of unknown felicity.

Death has so many things belonging to it, which are afflictive to nature, and formidable to the eye of sense, that we have need of all manner of assistance to raise our souls above the fear of it. The very thought of dying makes many a Christian shudder and sweat, and tremble, and awakens all the springs of human infirmity: O may the grace of faith gain a more glorious ascendency in our souls! We should often meditate on such doctrines as these, which place that dreadful thing death in the most easy and pleasing light; we should behold it as changed from a curse into a blessing, and numbered among our treasures. Christians should accustom themselves to look at it through the glass of the gospel, which casts fair colours upon what is in itself so dark and formidable. It is the gospel in that glass that discovers to us the flowery blessings that grow in that gloomy valley, and gives us a fair and delightful prospect of those hills of Paradise and Pleasure that lie beyond the grave. Why should we let this blessed gospel lie neglected, and live still in bondage to the fear of dying?

THE RECOLLECTION

Come now, and let us learn by this discourse to shame ourselves out of these weaknesses, these unreasonable fears. Let us talk to our own souls in the language of faith. Why, O my soul, why art thou afraid to let this body die? Hast thou not endured labours and trials enough, and art thou unwilling to come to the end of them? Hast thou not yet been tempted enough? Hast thou not been foiled too often, and too often thrown down in the conflict? Think of thy many wounds of conscience, the bruises of thy spirit, the defilement of thy garments, and the loss of thy purity and thy peace. Canst thou bear that all these should be repeated again and again? Art thou unwilling this war should have an end? Art thou afraid of victory and triumph ? What dost thou labour and fight for? Dost thou not run to obtain the prize? Dost thou not wrestle and fight to gain the crown? And hast thou not courage enough to go across the dark valley to take possession of this crown and this prize?

Think, O my spirit, think of thy painful ignorance whilst thou dwellest in this region of shadows: Is not knowledge thy natural and delicious food? Hast thou not lived long enough in darkness, and been involved too long in mistakes and errors? And art thou willing to dwell in a land of darkness still, a land of dreams and disguises, where truth is hardly found? Art thou afraid of the borders of that world where light and knowledge grow, and where truths and realities appear all unveiled and without disguise? Where thou shalt be cheated no more with the sound of words, but shalt see all things just as they are, in a clear light, without error and without confusion? O happy period of thy mistakes and wanderings, of all thy learned mazes in quest of truth! And art thou still afraid to come near it?

Has it not been the matter of thy secret mourning, that thy God is so much concealed from thee, that greatest and best of Beings? That the Son of God, the brightness of the Father's glory, is so much a stranger and thy Saviour is so little known? that thy faith has been labouring and wearied in many inquiries about the glories of his person as God-man, about the wonders of his united natures, and the. mysteries of his gospel: about the power of his death, the virtue of his righteousness, and the sovereignty of his grace? And art thou afraid of the sunshine, and that perfect day that shall scatter all these clouds of doubt and mistake, and let thee see thy Saviour and thy God face to face, as they are seen by angels? O that surprising hour of unknown

delight that shall place thee, O my soul, in the midst of the world of spirits, surrounded with the light of heaven, and in the open presence of God, even thy God! When thou shalt gain swift and transporting acquaintance with the Almighty Being that made thee, and the Son of God who dwelt once in mortal flesh, and died to save thee! When the divine irradiations of the eternal Spirit shall unfold those mysteries to thy view, which had so much darkness about them in these lower regions! What an illustrious scene of light and joy shall arise all around thee as thou enterest into that unknown state! What strange new ideas of things, what new worlds of knowledge shall throng in upon thee, and thy enlarged understanding shall receive them all with infinite satisfaction, and with ever-growing pleasure! Art thou not already on the wing, my soul, at such a divine prospect as this; O stupid creatures that we are, we seek after the light of truth here below, and croud about a little glimmering spark of know, ledge, we wrangle all round it with endless contention, and yet when death would open the gate of glory, and admit us into regions of light, we start back and retire, contented to abide among twilight and shadows.

But, O my soul, if truth and knowledge are not sufficient to allure thee, has holiness no constraining power? Hast thou not sinned enough and broken the laws of God often enough already? Hast thou not brought guilt enough, and grief enough, upon thyself, that thou art afraid of a state of perfect holiness? What is it that has given thee such inward pain as the perpetual workings of thy native iniquity? What is it that has made thee cry out, O wretched creature that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? From the temptations and the sins which are mingled with flesh and blood? And art thou afraid to have thy groans ended, thy complaints removed, and thy deliverance