61S DEATH A BLESSING Ti) T=iE SAINTS'. christians, to talk and live below the character of this phi- losopher. 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 christianity, and breathe in a purer air, and see all things inabrighter 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 im- mortality, the glory that lies beyond it ? Death, like the river Jordan, seems to overflow its banks, when we approach it, and divides and affrights us front the heavenly Canaan : When shall we climb to the top of Pisgah, that we may look beyond the swelling waves of this Jordan, and take a fair and invitingpros- pect of the promised land. Il. How glorious and how dreadful is the difference, be- tween the death of a saint and that of a sinner, a soul that is in Christ, and a soul that has no interest in him ! The death of every sinner has all that real evil and terror in it, in which it appears to an eye of sense ; but a convinced sinner beholds it yet a thousand times more dreadful. When conscience is awakened upon the borders of the grave, it beholds death in its utmost horror, as the curse of the broken law, as the accomplishment of the threateniugs of an angry God. A guilty conscience looks on death with all its formidable attendants round it, and espies an endless train of sorrows coming after it. Such a wretch be- holds death riding towardshim on a pale horse, and hell following at his heels, without all relief or r.uíedy, without a Saviour, and without hope. But a true christian, when he reads the name of death among the curses of the law, knows that Christ his Saviour and his Surety, has sustained it.in that dreadful sense, and put an end to its power and terror. He reads its name now in the pro- mises of the gospel, and calls it a glorious blessing, a release from sin and sorrow, an entrance intoeverlasting joy. Thesaint may lie calm and peaceable in the midst of all the attendants of death ; like Daniel in the den of lions, for it cannot hurt or des- troy him : But when a sinner isthrown to this devourer, it does as it were break all his bones, it tears both his flesh and his spirit as its proper prey ; Death feeds upon him, as the scrip- ture expresses it : Ps. xlix. 14. and fills his conscience with immortal anguish. Who can bear the thought of dying in such a state under the dóminion of death, without Christ, and without hope. III. Ilow much does the religion of the New Testament transcend all other religions, both that of the light of nature,
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