ú60 coNQUEST O5'E$ DEATH. ofdeath ? I ám pot afraid to enter into eternity ; the grace of Christ, and his gospel, have given me hope and courage enough to be dead ; but I am still afraid of dying ; it is a hard and pain- ful work, how shall I sustain the sharp conflict? I shiver at the thoughts of venturing through thatcold flood that divides betwixt this wilderness and the promised land." Another christian is too much unacquainted with the world of spirits, with the nature of the separate heaven, with the par- ticular business and blessedness of holy souls departed ; and he is afraid to venture out of this region of flesh and blood, into a vast and unknown world. Though he, has good hope trough grace, that he shall arrive safe at heaven ; yet the heavenly country is so unknown a land, and the valley of entrance to it so dark, that he fears to pass into it through the shadow of death. Another is terrified àt the thoughts of death, because he knows not how to part with his dear relatives in the flesh, and to leave them exposed to an unkind age and a thousand dangers. " If I had none to leave behind me, I could die with chearlul- ness; but while I think ofsuch a separation, the thought of death has terror in it. " Thus upon various accounts a good man may have fearful apprehensions of dying ; and that whichcarries so much terror aboutit, may well be called an enemy. Before we proceed any further, let us make two reflections on the first general head : I. If death be an enemy to the best of men in so many re- spects, then we may infer the great evil of sin : For it was sin that brought death into this our world; Rom. v. I. By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon allmen,for that all have sinned. We are too ready to conceive a slight opinion of the evil of sin, because it is so common to thebestof men, and so constant an attendant on human nature daily and hourly ; we entertain too gentle and harmless thoughts of it, because its biggest evil is of a spiritual kind, and invisible ; we see not that infinite tná'¡esty which it dishonours, that spotless holinessof God which it offends, the glory and perfection of that law which is broken by it: We can take but short and scanty notices of the injury that it does to God the supreme Spirit, while we are shut up in tabernacles of flesh. But here in these scenes of death, we may survey the sensible and mighty injury that sin has done to the nature of man, and thence infer how offensive it is to God. By our eyes and our ears, we may be terribly convinced, that it is no little evil that could occasion such spreading and durable At}iSphief. Wo cannot fratne a just notion of what man was in his state
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