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I?I:'ATI4
A
BLESSING
TO
THE SAINTS.
[SEItM.
XLIII.
ject
of
discourse
with
various inferences,
of
which
soma
may
be
called
doctrinal, and others practical.
The
doctrinal
inferences are these
:
Inference
L
How
different
is
the
judgment of
sense,
from
the
judgment of
faith
!
The
eye
of,
sense
looks
upon death
as
a
sovereign
and
cruel tyrant, reigning over
all
nature
and nations,
and
making
dreadful
havoc
among
mankind,
as
it
were,
after
his own
will
and plea
-
sure; but
faith beholds it
as
a slave
subdued
to the power
of
Christ, and constrained
to
act under
his
sovereign
in-
fluence
for
the good
of
all his saints. Sense
teaches
us
to
Iook
upon
ourselves,
as
the
possession and food
of
death
;
but
faith assures
us,
that
death
is
our
possession,
and
a
part
of
our treasure.
Death
is
yours, O christians, for
all things are yours.
When
sense has the
ascendant
over
us, we
take death
to
be
a dark and
dismal
hour;
but
in
the speech and
spirit of
faith,
we
call
it
a bright
and glorious one.
Sense esteems
it
to be the
sorest
of
all
afflictions,
hut
faith
numbers
it
among the sweetest
of our
blessings,
because
it delivers
us
from
a thousand
sins
and
sorrows.
It
has been
reported,
that
Socrates
called
"
death
a
birth
-day into
eternal
life." A
most glorious thought,
and a
very
inviting name
!
But
it
is
strange,
that
a
hea-
then.
philosopher
should ever
hit
upon
it,
it
is so
much
like the
dialect of
the
gospel,
and the language of
faith.
He
had
learned
to talk more nobly than the sensual
world, though he was not favoured
with
the light
of
the
gospel.
It
is
so
much the more shameful for christians,
to talk and
live
below
the
character
of
this
philosopher.
O
when shall
we
get
above this
life
of
sense
?
When
shall
we
rise in
our
ideas
and our
judgment of
things?
When
shall
we
attain
to the
upper
regions
of
christian-
ity,
and
breathe
in
a
purer
air, and
see
all things in
a'
brighter
and
better
light
?
When
shall
we
live
the
life
of
faith, and learn
its divine
language
?
Death
is
like a thick
dark
veil, as
it appears
to'
the
eye
of
sense;
when shall
our
faith
remove
the
veil,
and
see
the
light,
the immor-
tality, the
glory
that
lies
beyond it?
Death,
like the ri-
ver Jordan,
seems
to
overflow
its
banks, when
we
ap-
proach
it,
and
divides
and
affrights
us
from
the heavenly
Canaan
:
When
shall we climb to
the top of Pisgah,
that
we may
look,
beyond the
swelling waves
of
this
Jordan,