But by the door of death every gracious soul makes its escape from the tempting power of Satan : He can no more touch or affect the soul with any temptation, than we can better the body of the sun with snow-balls : For as Satan can have no access to that place of blessedness, where the souls of the saints are ; so if he could, he can find nothing in them to fasten a temptation upon. The schoolmen give this as the reason why the saints in heaven are impeccable, because all their thoughts and affections are everlast- ingly fixed in, and employed about the blessed God, whose face they continually behold in glory.
4. From distressing persecutions, into full and perfect rest. As death sets us free from the power of Satan, so from the reach of all persecutors. " There the wicked cease from troubling, and " there the weary are at rest,"' as it is in Job iii. 17. The price of one Ahab, who had sold himself to work wickedness, was a stock sufficient to purchase many years trouble to all Israel, 1 Kings xviii. 17. " Wicked men are as the unquiet, troubled sea which *' cannot rest,'' Isa. Ivii. 20. They cannot rest from troubling the saints, till they cease to be wicked or to live : When God puts out the candle of their lives, they are silent in darkness, 1 Sam. ii. 9. And when God puts out the candle of our life, we are at rest, though they rage never so much in this world. Death is the saints quietus est, their full and final discharge from persecuting enemies* When we are dying, we may say, as Psal. ix. 6. " O thou enemy, *' destructions are come to a perpetual end."*'
God may put an end to those persecutions before death ; and such a time, according to promise, is to be expected, " when our " officers shall be peace, and our exactors righteousness, Isa. Ix- 17. but if the accomplishment of the promise be reserved for ages to come, and we must spend our days under the oppression of the wicked ; yet this is our comfort, we know when we shall be far enough out of their reach.
5. From pinching wants, to universal supplies- This is the day Vol. IIL H
116 A TEEATISE OF THE SOlTL OF MAK.
in which the Lord abundantly satisfies the desires, and suppUes the needs of all his people. There are two sorts of wants upon the people of God: spiritual and temj)oral.
Spiritual wants are the just complaints of all gracious souls. You read, 1 Thess. iii, 10. of that which is lacking in the faith of the saints: There are none but find many things lacking to the perfec- tion of every grace : our knowledge of God wants clearness and efficacy ; our love to God fervour and constancy ; our faith wants strength and stability : Darkness mixes itself with our knowledge, deadness with our love, unbelief with the purest acts of faith. Go where you will, you shall find God's people every where complain- ing of their spiritual wants : one of a dark head, another of a dead heart, another of a treacherous memory. Thus they are loading one another with their complaints.
Temporal outward wants pinch hard also upon many of God's people : The greatest number of them consist of the poor of this world, James ii. 5. Those whose souls are, discharged and acquit- ted by God, whose debts are paid by Jesus Christ, may yet be en- tangled in a brake of cares and troubles in the world, and not know which way to turn themselves in their straits and difficulties. But by death the saints pass from all their wants, inward and out- ward, to a state of complete satisfaction, where nothing is lacking. From that day all their spiritual wants are supplied ; for they are now arrived " to the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ, " to a perfect man,"' Eph. iv. 13. Now " that which is perfect is *' come, and all that was in part is done away," 1 Cor. xiii. 10.
And for outward wants, they shall feel them no more : For put- ting off the body, we must needs put off all cares and concerns about it. " Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats, God shall de- " stroy both it Dud them,^" 1 Cor. vi. 13.
6. From distracting fears, into the highest security and rest of thoughts for evermore. The fears of God's people are either about their souls, or about their bodies ; the fears they have about their souls are inexpressible. Two things especially exercise their fears about their soul. (1.) Whether they be really united to Christ. (2.) Whether they shall be able to continue and persevere in the ways of Christ to the end ? they are afraid of their sincerity and of their stability : And these fears accompany many of God's people from their regeneration to their dissolution. O, what would they not give, what would they not do, yea, what would they not endure to get a full satisfaction in those things ! Every working of corrup- tion, every discovery made by temptation, puts them into a fright, and makes them question all that ever was wrought in them.
And, as their fears are great about the inward man, so also about the outward man ; especially when such bloody preparations
A TREATISE OF THE SOUL OF MAN. 117
scorn to be making by the enemies that have acted such, and so many bloody tragedies already in the world.
But at death they enter into a perfect peace and security, Isa. Ivii. 2. No wind of fear shall ever ruffle or disturb their souls, and put them into a storm any more.
7. From deluding shadows, into substantial good. This world is the world of shadows and delusive appearances. Here we are imposed upon, and baffled by empty and deceitful vanities : All we have here is little else but a dream ; at death the soul awakes out of its dream, and finds itself in the world of realities, where it feeds upon substantial good to satisfaction, Psal. xvii. 15.
Now the advantages accruing to tlie soul by death, being so great and many, though the medium be harsh and ungrateful in itself, yet there is all the reason in the world we should covet it, for the benefits that come by it.
Arg. 5. The foretastes we have had of heaven already in the body, should make all the saints long to be unembodied for the full and perfect fruition of that joy, seeing it cannot be fully and per- fectly enjoyed by the soul, till it hath put off the body by death.
That there are prelibations, first-fruits, and earnests of future glory given at certain seasons to believers in this life, is put beyond all doubting, not only by scripture testimonies, but frequent ex- periences of God's people. I speak not only with the scriptures, but with the clearest experience of many saints, when I say, here are to be felt and tasted, even here in the body, the earnests of our inheritance, Eph. i. 14. " The first-fruits of the Spirit," Rom. viii. 23. The sealing of the Spirit, Eph. i. IS. " The very joy of " the Lord," 1 Pet. i. 8. of the same kind, though in a less degree, with that of the glorified.