2. This paffage is altogether neceffary; it must be, there is no avoiding it: it is the way that all men go, all the inhabitants of the earth, high and low, rich and poor, bond and free, good and bad'; it is become neceffary by the decree of God, which is infruftrable: it is appointed for men, for men in general, for all men, once to die, or to go through a change equivalent to it. This is the statute-law of heaven, and must be obeyed: the grave is the house appointed for all living; and all are brought unto it, and laid in it: though the grave of fome is very different from that of others; yet there are receptacles for the duft of all, into which they are conveyed; and good men as well as others are brought to the dust of death: and there is a neceffity of it; the time drew nigh that Ifrael must die; that truly good man, that plain, honeft-hearted man, Jacob; that gracious man, fo powerful and prevalent in prayer, Ifrael; he must die as other men, as his ancestors Abraham and Ifaac before him did; and the time was just at hand, according to the courfe of nature, and by the appointment of God, when he must fubmit to the stroke of death: and this is the case of all, the most pious and useful: Your fathers, where are they? They are all gone from hence, they have all paffed over Jordan, they are all departed into another world, an endless eternity: And the prophets, do they live for ever? No, they live but for a fhort time when they have done the work they were fent to do, they are called home to their father's house, to inherit the promises. Indeed the death of good men is different from that of others; different in the manner of their dying, being in faith, in hope, in comfort: and different in the iffue and end of it, eternal life and happiness: hence Balaam, a wicked man, defired to die the death of the righteous, and that his last end might be like his; but die they do, and muft; and even though Chrift has died for them, and by dying has abolished death. Through Chrift's death indeed they become dead to fin, and live unto righteousness; they live a spiritual life, which will never be extinct; and they will never die the fecond death: but then they are not exempted by Christ's death from a corporal one; they are delivered from it as a penal evil; it is not a curfe, but a bleffing to them; the fting of it is taken away; and they receive no hurt and damage by it; yea it is of advantage to them, as they hereby get rid of a body of fin and death; and as it is an outlet from forrow and distress, and an inlet to everlasting peace and joy. However, it is neceffary and unavoidable; as there was no other way for the Ifraelites to enter into the land of Canaan, but by paffing over the river Jordan; there is no other way of going to heaven, of entering into the everlasting reft, into eternal life, but through the ford of death: I fay, there is no other way in the ordinary course • Heb. ix. 27. ¿ Job xxx. 23. • Gen. xlvii. 29. of of things; for though there have been two perfons, and but two, Enoch and Elijab, who went to heaven by a tranflation and affumption of foul and body at once, yet these were extraordinary inftances; and even these paffed through a change fomewhat fimilar to death, as those will, that will be found alive at the perfonal coming of Chrift: but though this is, and will be the cafe of all the Lord's purchased people, yet, 3. This their paffage is attended with the utmost fafety; there is no danger in it; no evil is to be feared from it: as all the people of Ifrael paffed clean over Jordan", perfectly, completely; not one was loft or miffing in the paffage over it; fo all Chrift's purchased people pass fafely through death to eternal glory; none ever were loft in it; nor will any be miffing at the great day, when Chrift makes up his jewels, and takes the account of them, to fee that all are fafe. There is nothing of the faints loft at or by death, not even their bodies; though the dead are faid to be not, yet they are not annihilated; they are not in the land of the living, nor in the fame form and condition they were; but they are not reduced to nothing: they are indeed returned to duft, from whence they were; but then that duft is something: and the duft of the faints is precious duft, and is under the special and peculiar care of Chrift, who engaged, agreeable to the will and injunction of his divine Father, to raise it up again at the laft day'; and this is his fixed refolution and determination; I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death": and this will be done at the last day; thefe dead men fball live again; and as fure as Chrift's dead body was raised again, so fure shall theirs, and be fashioned like to his glorious body. The dead in Chrift, upon his appearance, will rife firft;, and happy those, that will have a part in this firft refurrection; they fhall live and reign with Christ a thousand years, and the fecond death fhall have no power over them; and when it will moft clearly appear that they have been no lofers, but gainers by death; their corruptible, dishonourable, weak and natural bodies being raised incorruptible, glorious, powerful and spiritual ones and as at death their bodies are not loft, and in the iffue fuffer no lofs, but gain advantages; fo their fouls immediately go to heaven; they are carried at once by angels into Abraham's bofom; they are in an inftant with Chrift in paradife: this made the apostle Paul defire to depart out of this finful world, knowing he should be immediately with Christ, in the full enjoyment of him; in which felicity the fpirits of just men made perfect in death continue in a separate state until the refurrection-morn; when they will be all brought with Christ, and be re-united to their bodies, and live for ever with him: fo that though all the Lord's purchased people pass through Jordan's river, they all come safe at last in soul and body to Canaan's land; ▸ Joshua iii. 17. * Jer. xxxi. 15. In Perfecte tranfiffet, vel plene, Tigurine verfion. ( land; nor fhall any one of them be loft or miffing; they are ordained to eternal life, and shall poffefs it: whom God predeftinates he glorifies; they are put into the hands of Chrift, and are under his care, and he has engaged to keep them, and does keep them, and will prefent every one of them to his Father, faying, Lo, I, and the children thou haft given me"; they are purchased with the price of Christ's blood, and his blood shall not be shed, nor the price of it paid in vain; they are united to him, and are one with him, and because he lives, they fball live alfo; they have his fpirit and grace as the earnest of their inheritance, until the redemption of the purchafed poffeffion; wherefore there is no danger, nor need there be any fear, in their paffage to heaven and glory; and even was there a fhipwreck in it, as in death there is none, though in life there may, with respect to troubles and diftreffes; there may be what is fimilar to one; yet like Paul, and the mariners with him in fuch a circumftance, fome on-board, and some on broken pieces of the ship, they all come fafe to land. Which leads me on further to observe, III. That for the most part, or generally speaking, the purchased people of Christ have a quiet and comfortable paffage over the ford of death, into the land of promise and rest. As when the children of Ifrael went out of Egypt, not a dog was fuffered to move its tongue against them; nor any perfon to give them the least molestation or disturbance; fo when they passed over Jordan's river to go into the land of Canaan, none of the Canaanites appeared to stop their passage, or dispute it with them, but were as ftill as a ftone till they paffed over; and when they heard what a wonderful paffage they had, the waters of Jordan being dried up until they were clean paffed over, their hearts melted within them. And fo it is commonly with the faints in the hour of death; their fpiritual enemies, who have given them fo much uneafinefs in life, are not fuffered to diftrefs them in their laft moments. As, 1. The fins and corruptions of their nature, which dwell in them, and are of all the worst enemies they have; for a man's enemies are the men of his own house', as these are they are inmates with him, and yet at enmity with him, and give him a great deal of trouble and vexation; they hinder him from doing the good he would, and put him upon and urge him to do the evil he would not; and fo break in upon his peace and comfort: they are the law in his members warring against the law of his mind, bringing him into captivity to the law of fin; which greatly grieves him, and makes him cry out, O wretched man that I am, who fhall deliver me from the body of this death? But the believer perceiving his diffolution drawing nigh, fpies deliverance from it through Jefus Christ our Lord'; which t which makes him thankful, and fills him with joy unspeakable and full of glory. Now he fees thofe Egyptians that made his life bitter, and brought him into bondage, and induced a spirit of bondage on him, all dead on the fea-fhore; having no power over him, and much less any influence to bring him into condemnation and death; now, those croking toads, as Dr Goodwin called them in his dying hour, he finds and feels falling off from him; and in a short time will hear no more their croking language, or their disagreeable noife and found: nor is he in any fear from them, having a comfortable view of the free and full forgiveness of his fins through the blood of Chrift; and of his juftification before God, and acceptance with him through his pure and perfect righteousness. 2. An evil heart of unbelief is often very diftreffing to the faints in their prefent fituation: unbelief is a fin that eafily befets them; entwines about them, and entangles them; infinuates itself into them, and greatly bereaves them of their peace and comfort, and God of his glory. Their unbelieving hearts, by reafon of fin, condemn them, and fill them with doubts and fears concerning. their eternal ftate, and make them very uneafy and uncomfortable; though God is greater than their heart, and knows all things"; what love he has in his heart towards them; what provifion he has made in covenant for them, and the great falvation his Son is the author of on their account. But often fo it is, when they come upon their dying-beds, their unbelief goes off, their doubts and fears are diffipated, and their faith increases, and fo their spiritual peace and joy in believing; and they are able to say with the apoftle, I know whom I have believed; and I am perfuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day; and though there may not be in all dying faints the like degree and exercife of faith, or fuch as amounts to a full affurance, or holy triumph of it; yet there are some actings of it, and which are attended, more or less, with peace and comfort: Thefe all died in faith; in the faith of God, as a covenant-God; in the faith of Christ, as the only Redeemer and Saviour; and in the faith of future glory and happiness: and even a good hope, through grace of these things, is attended with fpiritual joy and comfort; and this the good man has in his death; for when the wicked is driven away in his wickedness, the righteous bath hope in his death; and it is fuch a hope as makes not ashamed, and is never disappointed. 3. Satan is a very bufy adverfary with his temptations in the prefent life; and the best of men are not free from them, and are often galled and grieved with them; and fometimes they have their conflicts with him on their dying-beds; but they come off more than conquerors through him that has loved them. And when this enemy of fouls comes in like a flood, threatening to carry all before him, ☐ 1 John iii. 20. J Prov. xiv. 32. See his Life prefixed to the vth vol. of his woks, p. 19. ■ Heb. xi. 13. him, and fwallow up the faith and hope of the children of God, and fill them with darkness, doubts, and fears, and black despair; the Spirit of the Lord lifts up a standard against him; the perfon, blood, righteoufnefs and facrifice of Christ, and baffles all his defigns, and fecures the peace and comfort of the faints. And God can, and fometimes does, chain up this lion and stop his mouth, fo that not one hideous roar of his fhall be heard while the believer is paffing over Jordan's river, or through the ford of death. 4. The terrors of death are frequently taken off of Chrift's purchased people when they come to die; yea, even fuch who through fear of death have been all their life-time subject to bondage, are then delivered from it; who have been greatly diftreffed on acoount either of the pains they shall endure on a death-bed, or of the agonies of their dying moments, or of what shall follow after; these fears have all vanished and disappeared, when death has come in view. Inftances of this kind have been many, and well known: many a timorous foul in health, when they are upon the fhores of eternity, just ready to launch into it, and are in the full view of it, have fat and sung, O death, where is thy fting? O grave, where is thy victory? The fting of death is fin, and the strength of fin is the law; but thanks be to God which giveth us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord'; and if you mark the perfect man, and behold the upright, you will observe that the end of that man is peace; not only that his end or death iffues in eternal peace; but the last end he makes is a peaceful one, or is attended with spiritual peace. I will not peremptorily fay, that this calm, ferene and peaceful frame of foul attends every dying faint; but I believe for the most part it does, if not always. For though the believer may have his darkness, doubts and fears, and many conflicts of foul whilft on his dying-bed; yet usually these are all over and gone before his last moments come, and death does its work and office upon him and from the gracious promises of God to be with his people even unto death; and from the fcriptural accounts of dying faints; and from the observations I have made through the courfe of my life; I am of opinion that, generally speaking, the people of God die comfortably; their fpiritual enemies being made to be as ftill as a stone, while they pass through the floods of Jordan, or the cold ftreams of death. IV. This is afcribed to the greatnefs of the arm of the Lord, or to his almighty power. There were many things which contributed to make the passage of the Ifraelites over the river Jordan easy and comfortable, and which encouraged them to it; and fomewhat fimilar to them the people of God are favoured with oftentimes in their paffage through death; which are of fingular use and fervice to them. As, 1. It z Ifai. lix. 19. ■ Heb. ii. 15. b1 Cor. xv. 55-57. • Pfalm xxxvii. 37. |