2. The next question is, How far he hath delivered us from death ? We see the godly are obnoxious to the changes and decays of nature, yea, to the strokes of violence, as well as others ; and how are we de- livered ? I answer — It is enough that ' the second death hath no power over us,' Rev. xx. 6 ; nothing to do with us, Eom. viii. 1, ovUv KarciKpi/xa, ' not one condemnation,' &c. We may die, but we shall not be damned ; and though we go to the grave, yet we are freed from hell. But this is not all. In the first death believers have a privi- lege— they do not die as others do.
[1.] The habitude and nature of it is changed. That which is penal in death is now gone. It is not a destruction, but a delivery. Be- lievers have wrong thoughts of death. We are delivered from it as it is a punishment and a ciu'se. Now it is a blessing, one of Christ's legacies to the church : 1 Cor. iil 22, ' All things are yours.' While death was in the devil's hands it was an enemv ; but it is made a
4-16 THE saint's triumph over death. [1 COK. XV.
57.
friend and a blessin;^ in Christ, a passage from the vale of tears to the kingdom of glory, the end of a mortal life, and tlie beginning of that which is immortal. As Haman to Mordecai, it intended a mis- chief, but it proveth a privilege. To a wicked man it is properly an execution, but to the godly a dismis.sion of their souls into the bosom of Christ : Luke ii. 28, 'Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace ; ' they quietly send away their souls, but a wicked man's soul is taken away. It is twice so expressed : Luke xii. 20, ' This night shall they take away thy soul from thee ; ' and Job xxvii. 8, ' When God taketh away his soul,' &c. They would fain keep it longer, but God taketh it away whether they will or no. A godly man resigneth, and sendetli away his soul in peace. His life cannot be taken away — it is only yielded up upon the call of providence ; and he dieth, not because he must die, but because he would die. He may die sooner than he thought, but not sooner than he would ; for when God willeth it, he submitteth. But to return. The blessing of death lieth in tliree things : —
(L) The funerals of the godly are but the funerals of their sins and frailties and weaknesses. Peccatum moritur, miseria moritur, lomo noil moritur. It is not the man dieth, but the sin, the misery dieth. All other means and dis[)cnsations do but weaken sin, but death destroyeth it. When God justifieth, the damning power is gone ; when God sanctifieth, the reigning power is gone ; but when by death we come to be glorified, then the very being of it is gone. When the house was infected with leprosy, so as scraping would not serve the turn, it was to be digged down ; we are so infected with sin that all other remedies are too weak, nothing but death will serve the turn. When ivy is gotten into a wall, it cannot be wholly destroyed till the wall itself be demolished : cut off the stump, the body, the boughs, the branches, still there are some strings that are ready to sprout again. 8o it is here, original sin cannot be destroyed, the constant groans of the faithful are, ' Who shall deliver us from this body and mass of sin ? ' Eom. vii. 24. But now death is a sudden cure ; sin brought in death, and, as it were in revenge, death destroyeth sin.
(2.) There is a way made for a present and complete union of the soul with Christ : Phil. i. 23, ' I desire to be dissolved and be with Christ.' We are loosed from the body and joined to Christ. It is better a soul be separated from the body than absent from Christ. We liave a union here, but not a presence. Kow judge you, which is better, — to be present with the body or to be present with the Lord ; to have the company of the body or the company of Christ ? Here the soul is enclosed and imprisoned, as it were ; but there thou hast the free enjoy- ment of Christ, without the clog of an earthly estate. The soul, as soon as it departs the body, goeth immediately to Christ. As when Potiphar's wife laid hold on Joseph's coat, he escaped, so you leave your upper garment in death's hand, but tlie soul flieth to God. The body came from Adam, and runneth in a fleshly channel, and what we bad from Adam must for a while be mouldered to dust, to purge it from the impurity of the conveyance ; but the soul, by a natural right, returneth to God wlio gave it, and by a special interest to Christ, that redeemed and sanctified it by his own Spirit.
1 Cor. XV. 57.] the saint's triumph over death. 447