VIII.

DEATH SWALLOWED UP IN VICTORY.

"So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."-1 COR. xv. 54.

“It is appointed unto men once to die." Such indeed was not our original destiny. Had our first parents retained their integrity, the power of death would not have extended to them or their posterity. But "by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned." Some of the human race, like buds nipped in the moment of their formation, are cut off in infancy; some, like leaves which a violent storm shakes from the tree while they are still green, fall in the freshness and verdure of youth; some are spared to a ripe autumnal age, or even till they reach the wintry period of grey hairs ;--but all die sooner or later. Whatever diversity there may be among men in the circumstances of their lives, one grave receives them universally in the end :—just as a multitude of rivers may be imagined running towards a great ocean, and exhibiting the utmost variety in their volumes, in the length of their courses, in the character of the regions through which they flow, in the degree of smoothness or impetuosity with

which they pursue their way, in the utility and fertilising qualities of their waters, and in other respects; but they all terminate at last, and are alike lost, in the ocean. Death spares no class, rich or poor, high or low, learned or unlearned. A heathen poet has said, and said beautifully, "It knocks with impartial foot at the cottage of the peasant and the palace of the king." The good die equally with the bad. Genius gives no exemption from the common fate. The arrows of the destroyer smite those who stand on the pinnacles of glory as well as those whose walk is unnoticed and obscure. A Plato, a Milton, and a Newton have passed away even as others; they have dropped, like falling stars, from the firmament where they shone; and the place that knew them, knows them no more.

While death is thus inevitable, it is likewise, on several accounts, naturally formidable and appalling to the mind. Here, however, an important distinction must be made. To a wicked man there is nothing to counterbalance or mitigate its terrors, but to a Christian there is much; for Jesus has "brought life and immortality to light through the gospel." By his decease, burial, resurrection, and ascension, he has consecrated the tomb and afforded his people at once an example and a pledge of the triumph which they shall obtain over the last enemy. To cheer them in the dark valley they have such precious declarations as these, "Because I live, ye shall live also;" "Where I am, there shall also my servant be;" "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;" and once more, in the text, "Death is swallowed up in victory."

In the further prosecution of this subject, I shall first mention a few of the circumstances that give death the formidable and appalling character which it naturally has; and then point out the manner in which the power and

K

sting of these are removed in the case of God's people. And may the Holy Spirit direct us in speaking and hearing! May our minds be duly solemnised, and our thoughts ordered aright, while we meditate on a subject of such deep moment!

I. 1. First of all then, among the circumstances which give death a formidable and appalling character, I would mention the violent separation of soul and body, with the dissolution of the latter.

The Scriptures in speaking of the human frame describe it as 66 curiously wrought," and again as "fearfully and wonderfully made." The body is indeed a piece of workmanship of an amazing kind. When we look at it simply as a machine in which every thing desired is accomplished in the most perfect way; when we consider the variety of ends to be served by its different parts, the delicacies of contrivance used to effect these, and the manner in which each part brings about its own purpose without interfering with the operation of any other; when we take into account, besides this, its fitness to be a habitation for the rational soul, and reflect upon the mysterious link that unites the spiritual principle to the corporeal, upon the sympathy that subsists between these, and the way in which each reacts upon its fellow,-the destruction of the body cannot but appear to us in the light of an evil to be deprecated. It is not, nor ever can be, a matter of indifference to us in itself, however other considerations may alter or modify our feeling-yet in itself it cannot be a matter of indifference that the earthly house of this tabernacle should be dissolved; that an edifice built with such surpassing wisdom, with which the living soul has been so closely connected for a series of years, which has been the vehicle of its sensations, the minister of its volitions, an instrument whose strings have vibrated in unison to its every emotion, should fall to pieces, lose every vestige of the rare organi

zation by which it is distinguished, and moulder into dust. The prospect of going down to the grave and saying to

corruption, Thou art my father, and to the worm, Thou art my mother and my sister," is one from which humanity instinctively shrinks.

The very pain, too, with which the dissolution of the body is usually accompanied adds to the natural repugnance with which we anticipate that event. There are different degrees of physical agony in death, according to the particular disease by which an individual is cut off. And in some cases persons die as calmly as if they were but falling asleep,-no pang is endured,—no struggle is experienced, no feature is distorted. Such cases, however, are the exceptions. As a general rule it is painful to die. The loosening of the cords of life,—the tearing away of the spirit from its mansion of clay, are, for the most part, things of exceeding agony; and, constituted as we are, the knowledge of this fact inevitably heightens the aversion with which, in any case, we should have been disposed to regard the breaking up of the bodily system.

2. But, secondly, among the circumstances which give death a formidable and appalling character I would mention this, that it removes us from familiar earthly enjoyments. I do not here speak of vicious indulgences, to which the name of pleasure has been erroneously given, for in the eye of right reason there would be nothing to be regretted in our separation from these; but I speak of the many enjoyments of a lawful kind with which the earth is stored, enjoyments which, the more that a person is devoted to the service of his Maker he will relish the more; and from which, if his human sympathies are in proper play, he cannot but feel it an unwelcome thing

to be torn.

Whatever admiration we may have for the frame of spirit that often makes saints long ardently for heaven,

we must view with utter and unmingled reprobation the frame of spirit that sometimes makes individuals displeased with earth. "Truly," said Solomon, "the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is to behold the sun." "Not for that we would be unclothed," was the language of one whose aspirations after celestial felicity were as high and as constant as those of any other man that ever breathed. All-all at least whose feelings are in a healthy statelove life, and cling to it with tenacity; and that, not merely because to do so is an original dictate of our nature, implanted in it for wise purposes by the great Creator, but likewise on account of the enjoyment that has been experienced during life, and which, according to a common law of suggestion, associates itself in the mind with the idea of prolonged existence. The thought of dying comes to be felt as identical with the thought of leaving much to which the heart has grown attached,-of having converse no more with beloved friends,—of walking no more in paths which our feet have delighted to tread,of seeing no more scenes on which our eyes have rejoiced to look,—of hearing no more sounds and voices that have been wont to charm our ears,—of drawing water no more from wells of pure and innocent gratification at which we have been accustomed to drink. I grant that there are associations on the other side; for life has its sorrows as well as its joys, and oftentimes the latter are both dark and protracted—so much so, that the world has been poetically described as "a vale of tears." But, poetry apart, there are few persons, probably no Christians, in whose lives happiness does not unspeakably preponderate over misery; and, at all events, this I imagine to be certain, that though under the immediate pressure of distress an individual may exclaim: "I would not live always," and may express a desire to be taken out of a world where he is suffering so much, yet when death does actually draw