611 DEATII A BLESSING TO THE SAINTS. out of this world of dreams and shadows, in the woad of happy spirits withthe likeness of God upon us, we shall find sweet satis- faction ; Ps. xvii. 15. I shall be satisfied when I awake with, thy kenest. 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 conformable to his glorious body, in vigour, beauty, and immortality. VIL Death is a happiness to a christian; for it divides him for ever from the company of sinners and enemies, and places him in the society of his best friends, his God, arid his Saviour, his fellow- saints, and the innumerable 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 ofthe hidings of the face of God, of the absence of Christ their Lord, and the sensible withdrawiugs 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 in- habitantsof it. With what surprizing joy, shall a poor, humble, watchfulchristian, that has been teased long, and long tormented with the company of the wicked, enter into that illustrious and blessedsociety, when death shall break down the partition -wall, and rend the veil of flesh andblood that divided him from them, and kept him at a painful distance ! " It is better, infinitely better, shall the departed soul say, to seeGod withoutthe 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 heavenly Jerusalem, and amongst that blessed assembly of the first-born, than to bejoinedto thepurest churcheson earth, or to be enga- ged 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 eternity. And ye my dear holy friends, beloved in the Lord, my pious relatives, my companiofis in faith and worship, farewell butfor a short season, till you also shall be released from your present bondage and imprisonment -by the messenger of death : Fear it not, for it is your Lord, and my Lord, your Saviour and mine, who sends it to re- lease you from all the evils which you have long groaned under, and to bring you to our Father's house, where the businesses, the pleasures, and the company are infinitely agreeable and entertaining."
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