But the point of the resurrection is very large, and perhaps I shall have better occasion to speak of it afterward. I only apply it to the present purpose, how it strengthens faith in misery and in the hour of death.
A man is strengthened in his faith when he thinks, now I am going ' the way of all flesh,' Josh, xxiii. 14, I am to yield my soul to God, and death is to close up mine eyes ; yet I have trusted in God, and do trust in God that will raise my body fr-om the grave. This comforts the soul
2 CORINTHIANS CHAP. I, VER. 10. 161
against the horror of the grave, against that confusion and darkness that is after death.
Faith seeth things to come as present, it sees the body, after it hath a long time been in the dust, clothed with flesh, and made like the glorious body of Christ. Faith sees this, and so a Christian soul dies in faith, and sows the body as good seed in the ground in hope of a glorious resurrection.
And that comforts a Christian soul, in the loss of children, of wife, of friends, that have been dearesf and nearest to me. I trust ' in God that raiseth the dead,' that he will raise them again, and then we shall all be for ever with the Lord. It is a point of singular comfort. For the main articles of our faith they have a wondrous working upon us, iu all the passages of our lives. It is good to think often upon the pillars of our faith, as this is one, ' that God will raise us from the dead.'
But I go on to the next verse.
M5KSE 10.
' Who delivered us from so great a death, ivho doth delirer us; in whom we trust that he u'ill yet deliver us.' St Paul sets down his troubles to the life, that he might make himself and others more sensible of his comforts, and of God's grace and goodness in his deliverance. These words contain his deliverance out of that trouble, his particular deliverance out of a par- ticular trouble. And this deliverance is set down by a triple distinction of time. As time is either past, present, or to come ; so God, who is the de- liverer for all times, ' he hath delivered us' for the time past, '^he doth de- liver us ' for the present, ' in whom we trust that he will deliver us ' for the time to come.
Who delivered its from so great a death.' After St Paul had learned to trust in God, after he had taken forth that lesson, a hard lesson to learn, that must be learned by bringing a man to such extremity, I say, after he had learned ' to trust iu God that raiseth the dead,' God gave him this re- ward of his dihgence in the blessed school of afflictions. He delivered him, ' who hath delivered us, and who doth deliver us' continually. He will not take his hand from the work, and for the time to come I hope he wiU do so still.
St Paul here calls his trouble a death. It was not a death properly. It is but his aggravation of the trouble that calls it a death ; because God's mercy only hindered it from being a death. It was only not a death. It was some desperate trouble, some desperate sickness. The particular is not set down in the Scripture. We know what a tumult there was about Diana of Ephesus, Acts xix, and in 1 Cor. xv. 32, ' He fought with beasts at Ephesus (which is in Asia), after the manner of men.' Whether it were that, or some other, we know not. Whatsoever it was, he calls it a death. He doth not call it an affliction, but a death ; and a great death, to make himself the more sensible.
Wherefore have we souls and understandings, but to exercise them in setting forth our dangers, and the deliverances of God ? to consider of things to aii'ect us deeply ? The apostle here to affect himself deeply, he sets it down here by a death.
And ofttimes in the Psalms, the psalmist in Ps. xnii. 4, and Ps. xi. 6, he calls his afflictions death and hell, and so they had been indeed, except
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162 COMMENTAUY ON
God had delivered him. But to coitk! to the points that are considerable hence. First of all we may observe this, that
God, till lie hare wroiifilit ]tis oiiii ivork, lie doth vol deliver ; he brings men to a low ebb, to a renj low estate, before he will deliver.
Secondly. After God hath ivroxifjht his own work, then he delivers hit children.
Thirdly. Jle continues the n-ork still, ' he doth deliver me.'
Fourthly. That npon experience of (Jod's fdi-rner deliveranee, God's children have fowl (led. a. blessed arf/iniioit for the time to come. 'He hath, and he will deliver mo.' God is alway like himself. He is never at a loss. What he hath done, he doth, and will do, reserving the limitations, as we shall see afterward.
Doct. 1. God doth not at the first deliver his children.
He delivered St Paul, but it was after he had brought him to ' receive the sentence of death,' and after he had learned not to trust in himself, but ' in God that raiseth the dead.' God defers his deliverance for many reasons. To name a few.