[6.] Sixthly, Tell me, Chridians, did not Christ come to deliver yon, from the fear of death ? Yes ; he did come into the world, and did take our nature upon him, that he might deliver us from the fear of death, Heb. ii. 14, 15. Why, then, should you be unwilling to die ? Tell me, hath not Christ disarmed death of all its hurting power, and taken away its sting, that it cannot harm you \ Yes, he hath, 1 Cor xv. 55-57. Why then should you be unwilling to die ? Tell me, souls, will not Christ be with you in that hour ? will he not stand by you, though others should desert you ? Yes ; we have it under his own hand that he will be present with us, and that he will neither, living nor dying, leave us, nor forsake us, Ps. xxiii. 4, Heb. xiii. 5, 6. Why then should you be unwilling to die ? Tell me, O trembling Christians, shall death be any more to you than a change ? a change of place, a change of company, a change of employment, a change of enjoyment f No, certainly ! Death to us will be but a change ; yea, the happiest change that ever we met with, Job xiv. 14, John xi. 26, 1 Thes. iv. 14 ; why then should you be unwilling to die, seeing that to die is nothing but to change earth for heaven, rags for robes, crosses for crowns, and prisons for thrones, &c. ? But tell me once more, Christians, hath not Jesus Christ, by his lying in the grave, sanctified the grave, and per- fumed and sweetened the grave ? Hath he not, by his blood and death, purchased for you a soft and easy bed in the grave ? Yes ; we believe he hath done all this for us. Oh why then should you be unwilling to die ? Once more, tell me, Christians, will not Jesus Christ raise you out of the grave after you have taken a short nap ? Will he not cause you to hear his voice ? Will he not call you out of that withdrawing- room, the grave, and bring ycu to immortality and glory ? Yes ; we believe he will, John vi. 39, 40, 1 Cor. i. 5, 1 Thes. iv. 14-18. Oh why then should you be unwilling to die ? Oh why should you not, upon
1 Ejus est timere mortem qui ad Christum no lit ire, Let him fear death that is loth to go to Christ — Cyprian.
454 A STRING OF PEARLS. [1 PETER I. 4.
all these accounts, long for it, and whenever it comes, readily and will- ingly, cheerfully and sweetly, embrace it? O Christians, Christians: let but your hopes and your hearts be more fixed upon the things that are reserved in heaven lor you, and then you will neither fear death, nor feel it when it comes. But,
1 7.] Seventhly, Death will 'perfectly cure you of all corporal and spiritual diseases at once: as the aching head and the unbelieving heart; the ulcerous body and the polluted soul.1 Now your bodies are full of ails, full of aches, full of diseases, full of distempers, so that your wisest physicians know not what to say to you, nor what to do with you, Dor how to cure you. It is often with your bodies as it was with the civil and ecclesiastical body of the Jews, which from 'the sole of the feet, even to the crown of the head, was full of wounds, bruises, and putrefying sores,' Isa. i. 6. But now death will perfectly cure you of all ; death will do that for you that you could not do for yourselves; death will do that for you that all your friends could not do for you; death will do that for you that the ablest and wisest physicians could nor do for you. It will cure you of every ache, of every ail, &c. At Stratford Bow, in Queen Mary's days,2 there was burnt a lame man and a blind man at one stake. The lame man, after he was chained, casting away his crutch, bade the blind man be of good comfort, for death, said he, will cure us both : thee of thy blindness, and I of my lameness.
Ah, Christians ! death will cure you of all your infirmities, of all your distempers; and why, then, should you be unwilling to die? Maecenas in Seneca had rather live in many diseases than die ; but I hope better things of you, for whom Christ hath died.
And as death will cure all your bodily diseases, so it will cure all your soul-distempers also. Death is not mors hominis, but mors pea <0'i not the death of the man, but the death of his sin ; peccatum erat nbstetrix mortis, et mors sepulclirum peccati, sin was the midwife that brought death into the world, and death shall be the grave to bury sin.3 Death shall do that for a Christian that all his duties could never do, that all his graces could never do, that all his experiences could never do, that all ordinances could never do. It shall at once free him fully, perfectly, and perpetually from all sin, yea, from all possibility of ever sinning more.
The Persians had a certain day in the year in which they used to kill all serpents and venomous creatures ; such a day as that will the day of death be to their sins who are interested in a Saviour. When Sam- sod died, the Philistines also died together with him; so when a be- liever dies, his sins die with him. Death came in by sin, and singoeth out by death. As the worm kills the worm that bred it, so death kills sm that bred it, Heb. xii. 23, Rom. vi. 7, 1 Cor. xv. 26.
And why, then, should Christians be afraid of death, or unwilling to die, seeing death gives them a writ of ease from infirmities and weak- nesses, from all aches and pains, griefs and gri pings, distemper and jes, both of body and soul?
Homer reports of his Achilles, that he had rather be a servant to a
1 Ulttmus morboruvi medicu s mors. 2 [Foxe] Act. ami .Mon. fol. 1773.
s Quid est mors nisi sepultura vitiorum ? What is death but the burial ol vices? — Am- brose de bono mortis, c. 4.
1 Peter I. 4.] a string of pearls. 455
poor country clown here in this world, than to be a king to all the souls departed;1 and the truth is, the most famous heathens have preferred the meanest life on earth above all the hopes they had of a better life ; but I hope better things of you, Christians ; and that upon this very ground, that death will certainly and perfectly cure you of all bodily and soul distempers at once. But,
[8.] Eighthly, 7s not your dying day an inevitable day ? Why, yes, yes. Why, then, should you be afraid to die ? Why should you be unwilling to die, seeing that your dying day is a day that cannot be put off? The daily spectacles of mortality which we see before our eyes clearly evince this truth, that all must die.2 Itis a statute-law in heaven that all must die. All men and women are made up of dust, and by the law of heaven they must return to dust. All have sinned, and therefore all must die. The core of that apple which Adam ate sticks in the throats of all his children, and will at length choke them all one by one.3