expulsion from the body. The Apostle says, the wages of sinis death, Rom. 6. 23. not only that of the body, but the death of the soul, which is a dreadful concomitant of it. And from hence we may discover the false philosophy of the wisest heathens in their opinion of death. They judged it to be the primary necessity and condition of nature, fixed by irresistible fate: And not understanding the true and just reason of its coming into the world, they could not apply a sufficient remedy against its evil.

2. As the effect of the divine decree respecting sin. This is discovered by revelation in the word of God, and the real execution of it. It is appointed to men once to die, Heb. 9. 27. This decree is universal and unrepealable. One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: Eccles. 1. 4. like the ebbing and flowing of the sea in its stated periods. Nothing can interrupt or frustrate this appointment. There are divers conditions of men, and various ways of living in the world; some are high in dignity, others are level with the earth: Some walk in a carpet way, smooth and easy, others in a thorny and troublesome: Some walk on the golden sands, others on the mire: But the same uncontrolable necessity of dying involves all. And whatever the way be, whether pleasant or doleful, yet every one passes with equal steps, measured by the same invariable spaces of hours and days, and arrives at the same common end of life. Those who are regarded as visible deities amongst men, that can by their breath raise the low, and depress the lofty, that have the lives of millions in their power; yet when the ordained time is come, as they cannot bribe the accusing conscience for a minute's silence, so neither delay death. "I have said ye are Gods, but ye shall die like men."

3. Death is to be considered as the sentence of the law. The reasonable creature was made under a law, the rule of his actions. The moral law directed him how to continue in his holy and blessed state: To which was annexed the precept of not eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, only as a mark of his subjection, and for the trial of his obedience. This precept had an infallible sanction by the most high lawgiver: in the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death, Gen. 2. 17. Man did not keep this command of so easy observation, and justly incurred its doom. As sin is the violation of the law, so death is the violation of the sinner in his nature and felicity retorted from the law.

The deaths of men are very different in their kinds; and are comprised in the words of David concerning Saul: The Lord shall smite him, or his day shall come to die, or he shall descend into the battle, and perish, 1 Sam. 26. 10. Sometimes they are cut off by the immediate flaming hand of God, for the more exemplary revenge of sin; sometimes by surprising accidents; sometimes by bloody contentions; sometimes by consuming diseases.

But though death be not uniform, it is always the execution of the law upon offenders. As of those who are condemned by human justice, some suffer more easy and honorable death, others a more disgraceful and torturing; some are beheaded, others are crucified, yet all die as malefactors. Thus some die a natural death, others a violent; some by a gentle preparing sickness, without reluctation, others die upon the rack, by sharp pains: Some die attended with their friends, and all supplies to sweeten their passage, others forsaken of all comforts: Yet death is the same sentence of the law upon all men. And this, if duly considered, makes it terrible in whatever shape it appears.

CHAPTER II..

What the fear of death includes. The passion of fear in general considered. The special causes that make death so fearful. It is an evil universally known. It is certainly future. The bondage of men from the fear of death. The reason why men are not always under the actual fear of death.

II. The next thing to be considered is, what the fear of death includes, and the bondage that is consequent to it. This I shall explain and amplify, by considering four things.

1. The nature of fear in general, as applicable to the present subject. 2. The particular causes that render death so fearful. 3. The degree of this fear expressed by bondage. 4. How it comes to pass that men are not always under the actual fear of death, but subject to the revolutions of it all their lives.

[1.] I will consider the nature of fear in general, as applicable to the present subject.

Fear is a passion implanted in nature, that causes a flight from an approaching evil. Three things are requisite to qualify the object, and make it fearful. (1.) The evil must be apprehended. Knowledge, or at least suspicion, excites fear, by representing an evil that is likely to seize upon us. Till the mind discerns the danger, the passions are unmoved: And imaginary evils, by the mere apprehension, are as strongly feared as real. (2.) The evil must be future. For the naked theory of the most pernicious evil does not wound the soul, but the apprehension of falling under it. If reason can open an expedient to prevent an evil, this passion is quiet. And fear precisely regards its object, as to come. Present evils induce grief and sorrow Past evils by reflection affect with joy, and give a quicker relish to present felicity. Approaching evils alarm us

with fear. (3.) The evil must be apprehended as prevalent to make it fearful. For if by comparison we find our strength superior, we either neglect the evil for its levity, or determine to encounter it; and resistance is the proper effect of anger, not of fear. But when an impendent evil is too hard for us, the soul shrinks and recoils from it.

Now all these qualifications that make an object fearful, coneur in death.

1. It is an evil universally known. The frequent funerals are a real demonstration that speaks sensibly to our eyes, that death reigns in the world. On every side death is in our view, and the shadow of it darkens our brightest days.

2. It is certainly future. All the wretched accidents of this life, such as concern us in our persons, relations, estates and interests; a thousand disasters that a jealous fear and active fancy will extend and amplify; as they may, so they may not happen to us. And from this mixture of contrary possibilities, from the uncertainty of event, hope, that is an insinuating passion, mixes with fear, and derives comfort. For as sometimes a sudden evil surprizes, not forethought of; so often the evil that was sadly expected, never comes to pass. But what man is he that lives, and shall not see death? Psal. 89. 4. Who is so vain as to please himself with an imagination of immortality here? Though men are distinguished in the condition of living, yet all are equal in the necessity of dying. Human greatness in every kind, nobility, riches, empire cannot protect from the sudden and sovereign hand of death, that overthrows all. The most conspicuous difference in this world is between the victorious, and the vanquished prostrate at their feet: But death makes them equal. Then the wretched captive shall upbraid the proud conqueror, "Art thou become weak as we? Art thou become like us? The expressions of scripture concerning the frailty of man, are often literally and precisely verified: "He is like the grass, in the morning it flourishes and groweth up, in the evening it is cut down and withereth."

3. Death is a prevalent insuperable evil: Hence the proverbial expression, Strong as death, that subdues all, cruel as the grave that spares none. It is in vain to struggle with the pangs of death. No simples in nature, no compositions of art, no influence of the stars, no power of angels can support the dying body, or retain the flitting soul. There is no man hath power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither hath he power in the day of death and there is no discharge in that war. Eccles. 8. 8. The body sinks in the conflict; and death feeds on its prostrate prey in the grave.

[2.] I shall consider more particularly, the causes that render death so fearful to man: 1. In the apprehension of nature. 2. In the apprehension of conscience.

1. In the apprehension of nature, death has this name engraven in its forehead, Ultimum terribilium, the supreme of terrible things, upon several accounts.

(I.) Because usually sickness and pains languishing and tormenting, make the first changes in the body, and the natural death is violent. This Hezekiah complained of with a mournful accent, He will cut me off with pining sickness: from day even to night thou wilt make an end of me. I reckoned till morning that as a lion, so will he break all my bones. Isa. 38. A troop of diseases are the forerunners of this king of terrors. There is a preceding encounter, and sometimes very fierce, that nature feels the cruel victory before it yields to this enemy. As a ship that is tossed by a mighty tempest, and by the concussion of the winds and waves, loses its rudder and masts, takes in water in every part, and gradually sinks into the ocean: So in the shipwreck of nature, the body is so shaken and weakened by the violence of a disease, that the senses, the animal and vital operations decline, and at last are extinguished in death.

(2.) Death considered in the strictest propriety, as destructive of the natural being, that is our first and most valuable good in the order of nature, is the just object of fear. The union between soul and body is very intimate and dear, and like David and Jonathan, they part unwillingly. Nature has a share in the best men, and works as nature. St. Paul declares, we would not be unclothed, not finally put off the body, but have it glorified in conjunction with the soul. Our blessed Saviour, without the least impeachment of the rectitude and perfection of his nature, expressed an averseness from death, and with submission to the divine will, desired a freedom from it. His affections were holy and human, and moved according to their objects.

(3.) The natural consequents of death render it fearful. Life is the foundation of all natural enjoyments; and the loss of it induces the loss of all forever. It is from hence that such evils as are consistent with life, and deprive us only of some particular content and pleasure, are willingly chosen rather than death. The forfeiture of estate, the degrading from honor, the confinement to a perpetual prison, the banishing from our native country, are less penalties than death.

There is a natural love of society in man, and death removes from all. The grave is a frightful solitude. frightful solitude. There is no conversation in the territories of darkness. This also Hezekiah, in his apprehensions of death, speaks of with tears: 1 shall see man no more in the land of the living, Isa. 38, 11. As in the night the world is an universal grave, all things are in a dead silence; palaces, courts of justice, temples, theatres, schools, and all places of public conversation are shut up; the noise and rumor that keeps men in continual observation and action ceases.

Thus when the sun of this present life is set, all the affairs and business, all the vain joys of company, feasting, dancing, music, gaming, ceases. Every one among the dead is confined to his sealed obscure cell, and is alone an entertainment for the

worms.

The psalmist saith of princes, Their breath goeth forth, they return to the earth, in that very day their thoughts, their glorious compassing thoughts perish. This the historian observes was verified in Julius Cæsar: After his assuming the imperial dignity, he thought to reduce the numerous laws of the Romans into a few volumes, comprising the substance and reason of all; to enrich and adorn the city of Rome, as was becoming the regent of the world; to epitomize the works of the most learned Grecians and Romans for the public benefit. And whilst he was designing and pursuing these, and other vast and noble things, death surprized him, and broke off all his enterprizes.

At the terrible gate that opens into eternity, men are stripped of all their honors and treasures, and as naked as they come into the world, go out of it. Be not thou afraid when one is made rich, when the glory of his house is increased. For when he dieth, he shall carry nothing away; his glory shall not descend after him, Psal. 49. 16. 17. Death equally vilifies, makes loathsome and ghastly the bodies of men, and reduces them to sordid dust. In the grave, the dust is as precious and powerful of one, as of another. Civil distinctions are limited to the present time. The prodigious statue in Nebuchadnezzar's vision, Dan. 2. 32. 33. 34. 35. while it was upright, the parts were really and visibly distinct: The head was of fine gold, the breast and arms of silver, the belly and thighs of brass, the legs of iron, the feet part of iron and part of clay; but when the stone cut out without hands, smote the image upon the feet, then was the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold, broken to pieces together, and became like the chaff the wind carries away. Who can distinguish between royal dust taken out of magnificent tombs, and plebean dust from common graves? Who can know who were rich, and who were poor, who had power and command, who were vassals, who were remarkable by fame, who by infamy? They shall not say this is Jezebel, 2 Kings 9. 37. not know this was the daughter and wife of a king. The king of Babylon, stiled Lucifer, the bright star of the morning, that possessed the first empire in the world, was degraded by death, humbled to the grave, and exchanged all his glorious state for worms and putrefaction. The worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee, Isa. 14. 11. In short, death separates men from all their admired charming vanities. Now considering men merely in the order of nature, what reflection is more fearful and tormenting, than the necessity, that cannot be overruled, of parting for ever with all the delights of life? Those who have ascended to