SECT. III.] THE CONQUEST OVER DEATH. 367 quished, and when it shall be destroyed ; and thus it lays a foundation for courage at death, and gives us assurance . of a joyful rising-day. Death being abolished by the mediation of Christ, immortality and life are brought to light by his gospel ; 2 Ì im. i. 10. That is, there is a brighter discovery of the future state, and of everlasting happiness, than ever before was given to the world. Here in the name of Christ, and of his gospel, we may give a challenge to all other religions, and say, which of them has borne up the spirit of man so high above the fears of death as this has done ? or has given us so fair, so rational, and so divine an account how death has been overcome by one man, and how by faith in his name we may all be made overcomers ? How vain are the trifles with which the heathen priests and their prophets amused the credulous multitude ? What silly and insipid fables do they tell us of souls passing over in a ferry-boat to the other world, and describe the fields of pleasure, and the prisons of pain in that country of ghosts and shadows, in so ridiculous a manner, that the wise men of their own nations despised the romance, and. few were stupid enough to believe it all. If we consult the religion of their philosophers, they give us but a poor, lame, and miserable account ofthe state after death. Some of them denied it utterly, and others rave at random in mere con- jectures, and float in endless uncertainties. The courage which some of their heroes professed at the point of death, was rather a stubborn indolence, than a rational and well-founded valour ; and not many arrived at this hardiness of mind, except those that supposed their ex- istence endedwith their life, and thought they should he dissolved into their first atoms. Aristotle, one of the greatest men amongst them, tells us that futurity is un- certain, and calls death the most terrible ofall terribles. If we search into the religion of the Jews, which was a scheme ofGod's own contrivance and revelation to men, we find the affairs ofa future world lay much in the dark; their consciences were not so thoroughly purged from the guilt of sin, but that some terrors hung about them, as appears from Heb, x. 1, 2, 3. and having so faint and obscure notices, of the separate state of souls, and of the resurrection, these were the persons, who in a special a
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