I am convinced that \eYy many of our afflictions come upon this score and account, to make us willing to die.
Is it not sad that God is forced to bring death upon all our com- fortable and desirable things in this world, before he can gain our consent to be gone ? Why will you put God upon such work as this ? Why cannot he have your hearts at a cheaper rate ? If you could die, many of your comforts, for ought I know, might live. Had Joab come to Absalom when he sent for him the first or second time, Absalom had never set his field of barley on fire, 2 Sam. xiv. 30. And were you more obedient to the will of God in this man- ner, it is likely he would not consume your health, and estates, and relations with such heavy strokes as he hath done, and ^vill yet farther do, except your wills be more compliant.
Alas ! to cut off your comforts one after another, and make you live a groaning life, the Lord hatli no pleasure in it ; but
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he had rather you should lose these things, than that he should lose your hearts on earth, or company in heaven : Impatiens oegro- tus crudelem Jacit med'icurn.
Arg. 10. The decree of death cannot he reversed^ nor is there any other ordinary passage Jbr the soul into glory ^ hut through the gates of death. Heb. ix. 27. " It is appointed for all men once to die, " but after that the judgment."
There is but one way to pass out of the obscure, suffocating life in the womb, into the more free and nobler life in the world, viz. through the agonies of birth : and there is ordinarily but one way to pass from this sinning, groaning life we live in this world, to the enjo3^ment of God and the glory above, viz. through the agonies of death. You must cast off this mean, this vile body, before you can be happy. Heaven cannot come down to you, you cannot see God and live, Exod. xxxiii. 20. It would certainly confound and break you to pieces, like an earthen pitcher, should God but ray forth his glory upon you in the state you now arc in ; and it is sure you cannot expect the extraordinary favour of such a translation as Enoch had, Heb. xi. 4. nor as those believers shall have that shall be found alive at Christ's coming, 1 Thess. iv. 17. You must go the common road that all the saints go ; but though you cannot avoid, you must sweeten it. God will not reverse his decree, but you may, and ought to arm yourselves against the fears of it. Ahasuerus would not recal the proclamation he had emitted against the Jews, but he gave them full liberty to take up arms to defend themselves against their ene- mies. It is much so here, the sentence cannot be revoked ; but yet God gives you leave, yea, he commands you to arm yourselves against death, and defy it, and trample it under the feet of faith.
Arg. 11. When you find yonr hearts reluctate at the thoughts of leaving the hody, and the comforts of this world, then consider ho'uj willingly and cheerfully Jesus Christ left heaven, and the hosom of his Father, to come down to this world for your sokes, Prov. viii. 30, 31. Psal. xl. 7. Lo, I come, &c.
O compare the frames of your hearts with his, in this point, and shame yourselves out of so unbecoming a temper of spirit.
(1.) He left heaven and all the delights and glory of it, to come down to this world to be abased and humbled to the lowest ; you leave this world of sin and misery to ascend to heaven, to be exalt- ed to the highest. He came hither to be impoverished, you go thither to be enriched, 2 Cor. viii. 9. yet he came willingly, and we go grudgingly.
(2.) He came from heaven to earth, to be made sin for us, 2 Cor.
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V. 21. v-e go from earth to heaven, to be fully and everlastingly delivered from sin ; yet he came more willingly to bear our sins, than we go to be delivered from them.
(3.) He came to take a body of flesh, to suffer and die in it, Heb. ii. 24?. you leave your bodies that you may never suffer in, or by them any more.
(4.) As his incarnation was a deep abasement, so his death was the most bitter death that ever was tasted by any from the beginning, or ever shall be to the end of the world ; and yet how obediently doth he submit to both at the Father's call, Luke xii. 50. " I have '' a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be " accomplished !" Ah Christian, your death cannot have the ten thousandth part of that bitterness in it that Christ's had. I remem- ber one of the martyrs being asked, why his heart was so light at death ? returned this answer, because Christ's heart was so heavy at his death. O there is a vast difference betwixt the one and the other ; the wrath of God, and the curse of the law were in his death, Gal. iii. 13. but there is neither wrath nor curse in their death who die in the Lord, Rom. viii. 1.
God forsook him when he hanged upon the tree in the agonies of death. Mat. xxviii. 46. "My God, my God, why hasst thou forsaken me .?'' But you shall not be forsaken ; He will make all your bed in sickness, Phil. xh. 3. He will never leave you, nor forsake you, Heb. xiii. 5.
Yet he regretted not, but went as a sheep or lamb, Isa. liii. 7. O reason yourselves out of this reluctancy at death, by this great example and pattern of obedience.
Jrg. 12. Lastly, Let no Christian be qffi'ighted at deaths consider- ing that the death of Christ is the death of' death, and hath utterly disarmed it of all its destructive power.
If you tremble when you look upon death, yet you cannot but triumph when you look believingly upon Christ.
For, (1.) Christ died (O believer) for thy sins, Rom. iv. 25. his death was an expiatory sacrifice for all thy guilt, Gal. iii. 13. so that thou shall not die in thy sins : The pangs of death may, and must be on thy outward man, but the guilt of sin and the con- demnation of God shall not be upon thy inner man.
(2.) The death of Christ, in thy room_, hath utterly destroyed the power of death, which once was in the hand of Satan, Heb. ii. 24. Col. ii. 14, 15. his power was not authoritative, but execu- tive ; not as the power of a king ; but of a sheriff ; which is none at all when a pardon is produced.
(3.) Christ hath assured us, that his victory over death shall be complete in our persons. It is already a complete personal victory in respect of himself, Rom. vi. 9. he dieth no more, death hath
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no more dominion over him. It is an incomplete victory already as to our persons. It can dissolve the union of our souls and bodies, but the union betwixt Christ and our souls it can never dissolve, Rom. viii. ^)S, 39. and as for the power it still retains over our dust, that also shall be destroyed at the resurrection, 1 Cor. xv. 25, 26. compared with ver. 54, 55, 56, 57. so that there is no cause for any soul in Christ to tremble at the thought of a separation from the body, but rather to embrace it as a privilege : Death is ours.