Thirdly, It also implies the great value belivers have for their souls. That is the precious treasure ; and their main solicitude and chief care, is to see it secured in a safe hand : " Father, into thy hands " I commit my spirit :" They are words speaking the believer's care for his soul, that it may be safe, whatever becomes of the vile body. A believer when he comes nigh to death, spends but few thoughts about his body, where it shall be laid, or how it shall be disposed of: He trusts that in the hands of friends; but as his great care all along was for his soul, so he expresses it in these his very last breathings, in which he commends it into the hands of God : It is not, Lord Jesus receive my body, take care of my dust, but receive my spirit : Lord, secure the jewel, when the casket is broken.
Fourthly, These words imply the deep sense that dying believers have of the great change that is coming upon them by death ; when all visible and sensible things are shrinking azvayfrom them, and failing. They feel the world and the best comforts of it fading: Every creature and creature-comfort failing : For, at death we are said to fail, Luke xvi. 9. Hereupon the soul clasps the closer about its God, cleaves more close than ever to him : " Father, into thy " hands I commend my spirit.'" Not that a mere necessity puts
f The place avails nothing, neither does the very pleasantness of heaven itself increase the happiness of blessed spirits, but only as it is God's dwelling place* Parker de decensu, lib. 2. p. 132.
446 THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 3ERM. XXXVI.
the soul upon God ; or that it cleaves to God, because it hath then nothing else to take hold on : No, it chose God for its portion, when it was in the midst of all its outward enjoyments, and had as good security as other men have for the long enjoyment of them : but my meaning is, that although gracious souls have chosen God for their portion, and do truly prefer him to the best of their comforts ; yet in this compounded state, it lives not wholly upon its God, but partly by faith, and partly by sense ; partly upon things seen, and partly upon things not seen. The creatures had some interest in their hearts ; alas, too much : but now all these are vanishing, and it sees they are so. I shall see man no more, with the inhabitants of the world, (said sick Hezekiah ;) hereupon it turns itself from them all, and casts itself upon God for all its subsistence, expecting now to live upon its God entirely, as the blessed angels do ; and so, in faith, they throw themselves into his arms : " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."
Fifthly, It implies the atonement of God, and his full reconcilia- tion to believers, by the blood of the great Sacrifice ; else they durst never commit their souls into his hands : " For it is a fearful thing " to fall into the hands of the living God," Heb. xii. 29- i. e. of an absolute God, a God unatoned by the offering up of Christ. The soul dare no more cast itself into the hand of God, without such an atoning sacrifice, than it dares approach to a consuming fire ; And, indeed, the reconciliation of God by Jesus Christ, as it is the ground of all our acceptance with God ; for we are made ac- cepted in the beloved : So it is plainly carried in the order or manner of the reconciled soul's committing itself to him : For, it first casts itself into the hands of Christ, then into the hands of God by him. So Stephen, when dying, " Lord Jesus receive my " spirit :" And by that hand it would be put into his Father's hands.
Sixthly, and lastly, It implies both the efficacy and excellency of faith, in supporting and relieving the soul at a time when nothing else is able to do it : Faith is its conductor, when it is at the greatest loss and distress that ever it met with : it secures the soul when it is turned out of the body ; when heart and flesh fail, this leads it to the rock that fails not : it sticks by that soul till it sees it safe through all the territories of Satan, and safe landed upon the shore of glory ; and then is swallowed up in vision : many a favour it hath shewn the soul while it dwelt in its body. The great service it did for the soul was in the time of its espousals to Christ. This is the marriage-knot, the blessed bond of union betwixt the soul and Christ. Many a relieving sight, secret and sweet support it hath received from its faith since that ; but, surely, its first and last works are its most glorious works. By faith it first ventured itself
SERM. XXXVI. THE FOUNTAIN OF LIFE. 447
upon Christ ; threw itself upon him in the deepest sense of its own vileness and utter unworthiness, when sense, reason, and multi- tudes of temptations stood by, contradicting and discouraging the soul : by faith it now casts itself into his arms, when it is launching out into vast eternity.
They are both noble acts of faith ; but the first no doubt, is the greatest and most difficult : for, when once the soul is interested in Christ, it is no such difficulty to commit itself into his hands, ;is when it had no interest at all in him. It is easier for a child to cast himself in the arms of his own father, in distress, than for one that hath been both a stranger and an enemy to Christ, to cast itself upon him, that he may be a father and a friend to it.
And this brings us upon the second enquiry I promised to satis- fy, viz.
Secondly, What warrant or encouragement have gracious souls to commit themselves at death into the hands of God ? I answer, Much every way ; all things encourage and warrant its so doing : For,
First, This God, to whom the believer commits himself at death, is its Creator : the Father of its being ; he created and inspired it, and so it hath the relation of a creature to a Creator : yea, of a creature now in distress, to a faithful Creator, 1 Pet. iv. 19- " Let them that suffer according to the will of God, commit the " keeping of their souls to him in well-doing ; as to a [faithful " Creator].'1 It is very true, this single relation, in itself, gives little ground of encouragement, unless the creature had conserved that integrity in which it was originally created *. And they that have no more to plead with God for acceptance, by their relation to him as creatures to a Creator, will doubtless find that word made good to their little comfort, Isa. xxvii. 11. <; It is a people of " no understanding, therefore he that made them, will not have " mercy on them ; and he that formed them, will shew them no " favour.'' But now, grace brings that relation into repute : ho- liness ingratiates us again, and revives the remembrance of this re- lation ; so that believers onlv can plead this.