363 / 652
SECT.
I.]
THE CONQUEST
OV$R DEATH.
353
need not recite these things
to you,
the
images
of
them
are
too fresh and painful,
and sit
too heavy
upon
your re-
membrance.
S.
Death
is
an enemy
to
the saint,
so
far
as
it hinders
him frorn
the
enjoyment
of
his
perfect
heaven, for
it
keeps
one
part
of
hint
in
the grave for many
years or
ages.
Let
us
think
of
the
dust of
the
ancient
martyrs, the
dust of
the apostles, and the
holy
prophets
:
Let
us
look
many
ages
backward
to
the
dust
of
David, and
Abra-
ham, and
Noah,
to
the
dust
of
Adam, the first
of
men
:
How
long have
their
souls waited
in
heaven, as
it
were in
a
widowed
estate?
How long has
their
flesh
been
mingled
with common
earth,
and lain confined
under
the bands
of
death,
useless
to
all the
glorious purposes
of
their forma-
tion and
their
being
?
A
tedious
extent
of
time
!
Four
or
five
thousand years, wherein they
have
done nothing
for God
in
the
body,
and in
the
body
received
nothing
from
God
?
For death
hinders a believer
from some
of
the
business
of
heaven, and some
of
the blessedness
of
it,.
1.
From
some
of
the
business
of
heaven
:
It
is
only
the soul
that
is
then received
to glory,
and
dwells
there
alone
for a season, while
death
keeps the body
prisoner
in
the grave
;
it
is
only
the
soul
that
glorifies
its
Maker in
that
upper
world,
the world
of
spirits, for the
flesh
lies
silent
in
the dust
:
The
grave
cannot
praise
thee,
(Leath
cannot celebrate
thee,
O
Lord
;
Isa. xxxviii.
18.
The
body
is
redeemed
with
the
blood
of
Christ,
as well as
the
soul,
but death
puts fetters upon
it,
and forbids
it
to serve
its
Redeemer.
2.
The
believer
is
restrained
also by
death
from some
of
the
blessedness
of
heaven
;
it
is
only the soul
enjoys
the
delight, and
that
too only
in
its
abstracted nature, and
pure
intellectual
capacity; it
is
cut
off
by
death
from all
that
rich variety
of pleasure
which rises
from
its
commu-
nion
with
so
noble a frame as
the
body
of
man
is.
It
has
no
senses to
receive the
satisfactions
that
arise
from
the
material
part of
heaven
:
It
has no
eyes to
behold
the
glorified
flesh
of our
Lord
Jesus
Christ
;
no ears to
hear
his
voice;
no
tongue
to
converse
with
its
Saviour. And
though
we
are sure there
is
a holy
correspondence between
Christ
Jesus
and
separate
souls,
for
we
are
said
"
to
be
present
with
the
Lord,
when
we
are absent
from
the
body
;"
2
Cor.
v. g.
yet
this
correspondence cannot
be
VOL.
III.
M
A