226 DEATH A BLESSING TO THE SAINTS. [SEEM. XLII4 ness of God upon us, we shall find sweet satisfaction ;, P's. xvii. I5. " I shall be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness." Death leaves a saint, as it were, but one thing to wish or hope for, and that is the resurrection, or the accomplishment of this text in its completest sense, viz. that their bodies may awake out of the grave with,the likeness of Christ upon them, and be made conform- able to his glorious body, in vigour, beauty, and im- mortality. VII. Death is a happiness to a christian ; for it di- vides him for ever from the company ofsinners and ene- mies, and places him in the society ofhis best friends, his God, and his Saviour, his fellow-saints, and the innu- merable company of angels. O how sorely has the soul of many a saint been vexed here on earth, as, the soul of Lot was in Sodom, with the conversation of the wicked °. How have they often complained of the hidings of the face of God, of the absence of Christ their Lord, and the sensible withdrawings of the influences of the blessed Spirit ! There is a great partition-wall betwixt us and the happy world, whilst we are in this life; the veil of flesh and blood divides us from the world of spirits, and from the glorious inhabitants of it. With what surprising joy shall a poor, humble, watchful christian, that has been teazed long, and long tormentedwith the company of the wicked, enter into that illustrious and blessed society,. When death shall break down the partition-wall, and rend the veil of flesh and blood that divided him from them, and kept him at a painful distance ! " It is bet- ter, infinitely better, shall the departed soul say, to see God without the medium of such ordinances, as I have used on earth: It is better to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord Jesus. It is better to ascend, and worship in the midst of the heavenlyJerusaa km, and amongst that blessed assembly of the first-born, j than to be oined to the purest churches on earth, or to be engaged in the noblest acts of worship, which the state of mortality admits of Farewell sins and sinners for ever : Temptations and tempters, farewell to all eter- nity. And ye, my dear holy friends, beloved in the Lord, my pious relatives, my companions in faith and worship, farewell, but for a short season, till you also
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