flesh, all set before you without disguise Desire no abatement whatever, may be made by the teachers of Christ in compliance with custom, or in gratification of your passions,

CHAP. XIX.

CHRIST, A SAVIOUR FROM DEATH.

THE last enemy, out of whose hands the Lord, the Horn of Salvation delivers his people, is death: which, whether its origin, manner of approach, or nature be considered, deserves the name of king of terrors. It entered into the world by divine decree, to punish the most enormous offence, except the murder of Christ, which the sun ever saw : for man, like the angels, was made upright, though liable to fall: surrounded with a profusion of blessings from God, who beheld his new made creature with delight, and pronounced him very good. "And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, of every tree in the garden, thou mayest eat freely but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day thou eatest of it, thou shalt surely die," Gen. ii.

Nevertheless Adam did eat of it, though he knew the threatening included his seed

as one with himself: for it is against all reason to suppose the sentence could contain any greater extent of punishment, than Adam understood the threatening to do. Every possible circumstance therefore of provocation, met together in this one offence. It was the vilest ingratitude against divine bounty surrounding him on every side. It was an impudent impeachment of his Supreme Benefactor's wisdom, goodness and love, as if the command had been foolish, hard, or envious. It was a violent suspicion, if not a denial of his veracity. It was a wilful opposition to his authority, a revolt from his government, an exaltation of himself above God, in seeking his own interest and pleasure, by trampling upon the honour, law, and majesty of his Maker.

This one offence, big with all hateful qualities, instantly wrought a disastrous change in man's condition, as terrible earthquakes do in capital cities, leaving behind it a sad scene of ruins: for the moment Adam transgressed, the threatening began to take place. Instantly the light, the presence, the love and image of God, departed from him, with the immortality which he before possessed; for his deeply injured Maker withdrew, as it seemed necessary he should, from rebel man. He summoned him to appear, and hear his

doom, and then expelled him paradise, to wander on the earth, a poor, guilty, corrupt, and dying creature.

Death, entering thus by sin into the world, as a punishment for the highest act of rebellion against God, always strikes men with terror, till sunk into brutish stupidity, or till the Saviour has taken away its sting.

The manner of death's approach, bears strong testimony also to its guilty origin: for till superabounding grace has converted this foe into a friend, he exceedingly distresses the children of men, whether springing upon them from an ambush, or making his advance by regular siege. In the former case, death appals, and seizes in a moment the voluptuous in the midst of their carousals; utterly impoverishes with a stroke the prosperous sons of commerce, exulting in their day-dreams of realizing their wealth; drives, as a whirlwind, the ambitious from the face of the earth, when their honours are blooming, their preferments enlarging, and all their projects ripening to their wish.

What sudden havoc also does this destroyer make of domestic comforts, in which we may lawfully delight. A swift arrow from his quiver, strikes to the heart the bridegroom rejoicing over his bride; cuts off a lovely

blossom, the only child, from its parental stem; divorces those in a moment, whose conjugal affection, matured by years of sweetest society, united them like soul and body;' divorces them, when the tender pledges of their love, most need their mutual care. By such daily inroads, this dreadful spoiler haras ses mankind, leaving those who have yet escaped his shafts, and still more those who have been wounded, anxious for the absolute uncertainty of all their possessions.

When instead of thus seizing upon his prey, death advances, as in general more slowly, his assaults are bitterly distressing.

All maladies

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms
Of heart-sick agony, all fev'rous kinds
And fierce catarrhs, and pining atrophy,
Intestine stone and ulcer, cholic pangs,
Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheumą.
Dire is the tossing, deep the groans,

Whilst over them, triumphant Death his dart
Shakes

At length he strikes the blow, which brings on the entire sensible destruction of the body, soon making it too hideous for the eye of tenderest friends to look on, too offensive to be endured at all, a fit tenant for the grave, a feast for worms,

Yet how small a part of the evil of death, do all these gloomy ignominious circumstances contain! They are but the awful introduction to that "outward darkness," which receives those who die in their sins: "for the wages of sin is death:" Death, opposed to the holiness and happiness of eternal life in the presence of God, which must therefore mean a state of hopeless misery.

And can the Horn of Salvation deliver out of all this dreadful calamity? Can he cause light to spring up in the midst of such darkness, and fill the close of life with divine consolations? He can, he does. His all-sufficient grace prepares his people for the combat with this last enemy, animates and succours them in the midst of it; enriches them immensely at the moment of their dissolution, and redeems them at last in the sight of men and angels, from every trace of death's dominion.

To encounter death, the faithful are prepared, both by their knowledge and experi ence. "They know in whom they have believed, and that he is able to keep that which they have committed unto him." They know their Redeemer is the mighty God; and that part of the everlasting covenant be