SECT. I.] THE CONQUEST OVER DEATH. -- 355 struggling with all the difficulties, the hardships, and the dangers that attend a christian in his travels through this wilderness, and not see their faces again in the flesh, nor converse with them in the manner we were wont to do, till the heavens be no more. Upon this account also death is a worse enemy to those that survive, for they sustain the biggest loss: It deprives them of their dear and delightful relatives without any recompence, for the world grows so much the more un- desirable to a saint by the death of every friend. Chil- dren are torn away from the embraces of their _parents, and the wife is seized from the bosom. This is, as it were, tearing the flesh asunder of those whose hearts are joined; this gives occasion to bitter sorrows, to long and heavy complaints. How suddenly are we sometimes deprived of the desires of the eyes, and the comforts of life, theornaments and the supports of our earthly state? And we have lost all their love, and their counsel, and their care; all their sweet sympathy of joys and sorrows, all their agreeable conversation and heavenly advice. What a tedious way have we to walk through without such a guide or helper ? We have Iost the benefit of their watchful eye, their holy jealousy for our souls, their fervent and daily prayers. But there are records in heaven, where all the prayers of the saints are kept; and God often turns over his register, and, in distant suc- cessive years, pours down blessings upon the posterity, and multiplies his graces amongst them, in answer to the requests that were offered up on earth by the saints that are nowwith God. 5. The last reason I shall mention to prove death an enemy to the saints, is the terror that it fills the mind with long beforehand. There are but few that, in their best estate on earth are got quite above these terrors, and there are none can say, I have been always free from them : so that in the younger days of their christianity at least,. all have been afraid of death ; and these fears are enemies to our peace. Some spend all their lives in this bondage of fear, and that upon different accounts. A christian of weaker faith cries out within himself, " How shall I pass that awful moment that sets my soul naked before the eyes of a holy God, when I knownot whether I am cloathed with the righteousness of his Son A
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