with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The faints will rife at the beginning of this day, in the morning of it, as foon as ever the fun of righteousness is rifen, or Chrift is come; but the rest of the dead, the wicked dead, fhall not live again till the thousand years are finished; they will not rife till the evening of this day, towards the expiration of it; like sheep they are lail in the grave, death fhall feed on them, and retain them under his power all this long day; and the upright, the righteous ones, who are found in Chrift and his righteoufnefs, fall have the dominion over them in the morning. Happy then are they that are the Lord's, that die in him, they will fhare all the glories and advantages of the refurrection to eternal life: blessed and holy is he that bath part in the first refurrection, on fuch the second death bath no power; but they shall be priests to God, and of Chrift, and shall reign with him a thousand years. The doctrine of the refurrection of the dead, as it ferves to fupport the people of God under present afflictions, and when in the view of death and eternity; as it did Job, who could fay, though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh fhall 1 fee God; whom I shall fee for myself, and mine eyes fhall behold, and not another, though my reins be confumed within me; fo it tends to affuage that grief and trouble which attend the removal of our friends from us; and for that reafon fhould be obferved and confidered by us. 4. We may affure ourselves, that the faints, while their bodies are fleeping in Jefus, and before they awake in the refurrection-morn, in the mean while, during this interval, their fouls are in a ftate of happinefs: they are mixed with the fpirits of just men made perfect; they are attended with, and furrounded by an innumerable company of angels; they are in the prefence of, and enjoy uninterrupted communion with God, Father, Son, and Spirit; in whofe prefence is fulnefs of joy, and at whofe right band are pleasures for evermore: they are bleffed with the vifion of God, are employed in finging the hallelujahs of the lamb, enjoy the fociety of glorified fpirits, and are in perfect peace and reft. If it fhould be faid, how fhall we know that this is the cafe of our departed friends? Could we be fatisfied of this, we fhould fit eafy under the lofs of them; let this fingle queftion be put, is there any reafon to believe the grace of God was bestowed upon them? If this is a clear point, the other is out of all doubt; for nothing is more certain than this, that to whom God gives grace he alfo gives glory. We may be affured of the happiness of our friends in the other world, from their having tafted that the Lord was gracious to them in this. Vocation, juftification and glorification, are infeparably connected together; whom be called, them he also juftified; and whom he juftified, them be alfo glorified*. f 2 Pet. iii. 8. * Rev. xx. 5, 6. A Pfalm xlix. 14. 5. Add 5. Add to all these confiderations one more, that in a little time we shall meet together again, and never part. Our friends are gone but a little before us; we are haftening after them as fast as the wings of time can carry us. The conduct of David is worthy of our imitation; While the child was yet alive, says he, Ifafted and wept; for I said, who can tell, whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live? But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me'. Or should the coming of the Lord prevent our going to them, for, who knows how foon he may come? He will bring all his faints with him, and we fhall have a glorious meeting with them. Then we which are alive, and remain, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air, and fo fhall we ever be together with the Lord; wherefore we fhould comfort one another with thefe words. And feing we cannot be wholly ignorant concerning them that are afleep; yea, we may affure ourselves of their happy ftate and condition; let us dry up our tears, and ceafe forrowing, efpecially in any immoderate way, and what is unbecoming our chriftian character. Which brings me, III. To inquire into the nature, rule, and measure, of that forrow, which is to be exprefled on the account of the deceafe of our friends and relatives; That ye forrow not, fays the apostle, even as others which have no hope. - All forrow for them is not denied and condemned; only fuch as was ufed by others, or λ087501, "the reft," who were no chriftians, but unconverted Gentiles. The apoftle's view is not to encourage and establish a stoical apathy, a stupid indolence, and brutal infenfibility; all which are contrary to the make of human nature, and to the practice of the faints, and even of Chrift and his apoftles. Abraham came to mourn for Sarah, and to weep for her; Joseph made a mourning for his father feven days; the children of Ifrael wept for Mofes in the plains of Moab thirty days; David lamented the death of Saul, Jonathan, and Abner; Chrift wept over the grave of Lazarus; devout men that carried Stephen to his burial made great lamentation over him; and our apostle, who gives the inftructions in our text, fignifies concerning his friend Epaphroditus, who was fick nigh unto death; that if the Lord had not had mercy on him he should have had forrow upon forrow: But exceffive, immoderate forrow, and all the extragant forms of it the Gentiles ran into, are here forbidden. The Jews were not allowed to mourn for their dead after the manner of the Heathens; it was a standing law in Ifrael, Ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead"; practices, it feems, which were used among the nations of the world: Though these people, as they were always prone to imitate the Gentiles, fo they did in their forms of mourning for the dead; for as the Ro 1 2 Sam. xii. 22, 23. m Deut. xiv. 1. mans מקננות mans had their Prafice, and the Grecians their masse, fo they had their mourning women;" fee fer. ix. 17. who by their dishevelled hair, naked breafts, and mournful voice, moved upon the affections, produced tears from others, and fet them mourning and forrowing: Such methods as these the apostle would not have chriftians give into, and especially fuch as carried in them rather marks of diftraction than of affection; fuch as covering themfelves with mud, dirt, and filth, tearing of their mouths and cheeks, fmiting their heads, breafts, and thighs; which kinds of mourning were condemned by the wiser fort of the Heathens themselves; particularly by Cicero, who pronounces them deteftable; of this fort was the mourning of Alexander for his friend Hepheftion, who, when he died, caft his armour, gold, filver, and precious garments, into the fire with him; fhaved his foldiers, and pulled down the tower and walls of the city of Ecbatana, where he was; upon which the Heathen hiftorian himself obferves, that he sm Baplacenos, "mourned in a barbarous way," or after the manner of the Barbarians, the more favage and uncultivated nations of the world; but thefe were the extravagancies, and furious tranfports of men that had no hope; when their friends died, they looked upon them, as entirely loft, as no longer in being; they had no expectation of feeing, meeting, and enjoying them any more, and this drove them into those madneffes and exceffes. They had no notion of the doctrine of the refurrection of the dead; they were without hope of that, they looked upon it as a ridiculous principle, and judged it incredible, and fo despaired of ever seeing their friends alive again: But we, who believe the doctrine of the refurrection of the dead, fhould not forrow as they did, and mourn over our friends as though they were loft, and never to be enjoyed more; this is to act contrary to our character as chriftians, to the doctrines of christianity, to the gospel of Chrift, in which life and immortality are brought to light, and fet in the clearest view before us. Even Seneca the Heathen may fhame us out of fuch a conduct as this; who having fome little notion of the immortality of the foul, and its future existence in a separate state, though none of the refurrection of the body, in a confolatory letter to Lucilius, on the account of the death of his friend Flaccus, thus expreffes himself; "The thought of deceased friends is sweet "and pleasant to me; for I have enjoyed them as one that was about to lofe them; and I have loft them as one that may have them again." Had this man known and embraced the chriftian doctrine of the refurrection, how VOL. I. would 3 F Ex hac opinione funt illa varia & deteftabilia genera lugendi, pædores, muliebres lacerationes. genarum, pectoris, fœminum, capitis percuffiones, Ciceron. Tufculan. Quæft. 1. 3. p. mihi, 1845. • Ælian, Var. Hift. 1. 7. c. 8. P Mihi amicorum defunctorum cogitatio dulcis ac blanda est, habui enim illos tanquam amiffurus amifi tanquam habeam. Senec. Ep. 63. would he have improved it to the confolation of himself and friends on fuch an occafion as ours? Let us not forrow then as fuch who are without any knowledge of this doctrine, and hope of this bleffing. This I take to be the fenfe of the apottle, who is not to be understood of other christians who had no hope of the fpiritual and eternal welfare of their deceased friends; not but that the forrow of those who have a good hope of the future well-being of their dear relations, muft, and ought to be greatly different from that of others who have no hope at all. But the apoftle is fpeaking of other Gentiles, who were without Chrift, being aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, and strangers from the covenants of promife, having no hope, and without God in the world. I go on, IV. To obferve, the comfortable affurance that believers may, and should have, that the fouls of their pious friends will be brought along with Chrift; and that their bodies will be raised from the dead at his fecond coming; in which they may be confirmed by his death, and refurrection from the dead. We may hope, and should believe, that them that fleep in Jefus, God will bring with him; that is, either Jehovah the Father will bring them with his Son, or Jehovah the Son will bring them with himfelf; for the Lord our God shall come, and all the faints with him. When Chrift fhall move from the third heaven, where he now is in his glorified body, all the bleffed fpirits of men made perfect fhall attend him; when he fhall defcend into the region of the air, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, the dead bodies of the faints that fleep in him fhall awake and rife out of their dufty beds, and be re-united with their fouls; when they fhall proceed with Christ, at the close of that day, to the judgment of the world: For not only the twelve apostles shall be feated on twelve thrones, to judge the twelve tribes of Ifrael; and all the holy martyrs fhall have thrones fet for them, and judgment shall be given them; but even all the faints fhall be fome way or other concerned in that awful work : Do ye not know that the faints shall judge the world? And when Christ has presented all his elect ones to himself as a glorious church without spot or wrinkle, or any fuch thing, and has taken a full view of them, he will take them up with him into the third heaven; he will introduce them into his father's houfe, and fix them eternally in thofe mansions which he has prepared for them; when he will fee and enjoy with fatisfaction the whole fruit of his labour, blood, and purchafe, and have all his prayers and interceffions effectually answered; which have been made in fuch form as this, Father, I will, that they also whom thou haft given me, be with me where I am, that they may behold my glory. Now of all this the death and refurrection of Chrift are a pledge and confirmation; for if we believe Ephes. ii. 1. r Zech. xiv. 5. ⚫ I Cor. vi. z. that John xvii. 24. that Chrift died and rofe again, which are things beyond all doubt and question; these are the principal articles of the christian faith, that Chrift was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our juftification; then we ought to believe, that Chrift will bring the faints with him, for whom he died, and raise up their dead bodies to everlasting life. He himself is rifen from the dead, and has the keys of bell and death; he can and will unlock the graves of his people, and fet them free; he is the refurrection and the life; he is both the efficient and meritorious cause of the refurrection of the juft: He is the first-born from the dead, and the first-fruits of them that sleep in him. His refurrection is a pledge and earneft of the faints refurrection. As fure as his dead body is raised, so fure shall theirs be raised also, and be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to fubdue all things unto himself". Since therefore, from Chrift's refurrection, we may ftrongly conclude the refurrection of the faints; then we ought not to forrow as those who are without hope of it, and may firmly believe, that thofe of our dear friends, of whom we have good hope through grace, that they have had an experience of the grace of God, that these fleep in Jefus, and shall be brought with him, and fhall come forth to the refurrection of life. And, bleffed be God, this is the cafe before us, which has been the occasion of this difcourfe; we have not only hope, but faith, even full affurance of faith, as to the truth of the work of grace upon the foul of our dear child. My affections will not permit me to give you an account of the ground and reafon of this hope, this faith, this confidence; perhaps I may communicate it to you in another way. I find I muft break off at once. der what has been faid, and the Lord give us understanding. Phil. iii. 21. Confi |