Use. If death be ours, and all that makes way to death, sickness, &c., the curse of them being taken away, and in the room a blessing hid in them, then why should we startle and be affrighted too much at the message of death, as if it were such a terrible thing ? Why should we be afraid of that that is a part of our portion.? Why should we be afraid of that which is friendly to us and doth us so much good? What, to be a Christian that lives in the household and family of faith, and to want faith so far as not to believe the glorious estate after death, or that it is not his, or that death letslhim not into it !
Nature will be nature, and death is a dissolution, and so the enemy of nature, the last enemy. Therefore nature cannot but in some measure be affrighted with death ; but then grace and the Spirit of God in his children should be above nature, and cause them to look beyond death to that happy condition which death puts them in possession of. Death is like Jordan. We go through the waters and waves of it to Canaan, the land of promise and happiness. Faith would let us see this ; and so grace would subdue nature, though nature will have a bout* with the best, death being the terrible of terribles, and the king of fear, as I said before. Therefore I speak not this that we should be senseless, but that we may see how far the meditation of these things, of this blessed prerogative, and this one part of our charter, should strengthen us.
I beseech you, therefore, let us lay up this against those dark times wherein death will be presented unto us an ugly and grim thing. It is so to nature indeed, but to faith, death is become amiable. t Indeed, as I said, there is nothing in the world that doth us so much good as death, for it is the best physician. It cures all diseases whatsoever of soul and body. And indeed — for to shut up this point — -death is the death and destruction of itself ; for after death there is no more death. It consumes itself. By death we overcome death. ' We can never die more,' Rom. vi. 9. We are freed from all death. Therefore, to be afraid of death, is to be afraid of life, to be afraid of victory ; for we never overcome death till we die. Lay up these considerations against the time of need. When death comes, there will be a confluence of a world of grief, when conscience, being guilty
* That is, ' one turn,' ' one trial.' — G. f That is, ' lovely.' Cf. Ps. Ixxxiv. 1.— G.
A cheistian's chakter. 13
of sin, shall be arraigned before God ; when there will be sickness, and diseases of body, and a deprivation of all the comforts and employments of the world. They will all meet in a centre, in a point, at death ; but a man had need to gather the greater comfort against that hour ; and what shall comfort us then ? There is a sweet comfort in Rom. viii. 38, 39, that neither life, nor death, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be able .to separate us from the love of God in Christ. It is a sweet comfort, that nothing shall separate us ; but this is a greater comfort, that death is ours. It shall not only not separate us from God and from happiness, but it shall bring us to nearer communion with God and Christ, for it is a separation that causeth a nearer conjunction ; the separation of soul and body causeth the conjunction of the soul to Christ for the present, and afterwards an eternal conjunction of soul and body in this blessed fruition of him. Now, blessed be God for Jesus Christ, that hath made in him even death, the bitterest thing of all, to be sweet unto us. ' Or things present.'
Whatsoever is present, good or ill. The good things present are ours, for our comfort in our pilgrimage and passage towards heaven. God is so. good unto his children, as that he doth not only reserve for them happiness in another world, but the very gallery and passage to heaven by the way is comfortable. Things present are theirs. They may enjoy them with comfort ; they have a liberty to all things, for refreshings, &c. 'AH things are pure to the pure,' Titus i. 15. 'Every creature of God is good, so it be received with thanksgiving and prayer,' 1 Tim. iv. 4. We have a liberty to use them, but it must be with prayer and thanksgiving. Though a man hath a liberty and right to any thing, yet there must be a suing it out, there must be some passage in law to put him in possession. So, though we have a fi'eedom to ' present things,' there must be somewhat to make a sanctified use of them. We must go to God by grace to use them well ; all must be sanctified by prayer and thanksgiving.
And as good things, so ill things present are ours. Afilictions are ours, because they fit us for a happier state ; they exercise what is good in us, and mortify what is ill. They are sanctified to subdue that which is ill, and to increase that which is good, and to make us more capable of glory. Who is so capable of glory as he that hath been afflicted in this world ? To whom is heaven heaven indeed but to the man that hath led an afflict- ing life, a conflicting course with the world and his own corruptions ? Heaven is a place of happiness indeed to him. Therefore, evil things are ours, because they sweeten happiness to come, and make us more capable and more desirous of it. So both good and evil things present are ours. God governing the world, and all things coming from him as a father, nothing shall come to us for the present but what he means to guide for our good.