SERMON XLIV. TRIUMPH OVER DEATH AND THE GRAVE. I Cor. xv. 55, 56, 57. O death, where is thy fting? O grave, where is thy victory? The fting of death, is fin: And the ftrength of fin, is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jefus Chrift. TH HE Chriftian foldier may, with the greatest propriety, be faid, to war a good warfare *. He is engaged in a good cause. He fights under the eye of the Captain of his falvation. Though he be weak in himself, and though his enemies are many and mighty, he may do that, which, in * 1 Tim. i. 18. other other foldiers, would be presumption, and has often been the caufe of a defeat; he may triumph, while he is in the heat of battle, and affure himself of victory, before the conflict is actually decided. For the Lord, his great Commander, fights for him, goes before him, and treads his enemies under his feet. Such a perfuafion, when folidly grounded upon the promises and engagement of a faithful unchangeable God, is fufficient, it should seem, to make a coward bold. True Chriftians are not cowards; yet, when they compare themselves with their adverfaries, they see much reafon for fear and fufpicion, on their own parts; but when they look to their Saviour, they are enlightened, strengthened, and comforted. They confider, who he is, what he has done; that the battle is not fo much theirs, as his; that he is their ftrength, and their shield, and that his honour is concerned in the event of the war. Thus put of weakness, they are made ftrong; and however preffed and oppofed, they can fay, Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us *! The whole power of the oppofition against them, Rom. viii. 37. is fummed up in the words, fin and death. But these enemies are already weakened and difarmed. It is fin that furnished death with his fting; a fting fharpened and ftrengthened by the law. But Jefus, by his obedience unto death, has made an end of fin, and has fo fulfilled and fatisfied the law on their behalf, that death is deprived of its fting, and can no longer hurt them. They may, therefore, meet it with confidence, and fay, Blessed be God, who giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jefus Christ. We have here, two unfpeakably different views, to take of the fame fubject. Death armed with its formidable fting; and death rendered harmless, and its aspect softened, by the removal of the fting. I. The first is a very awful fubject. I entreat your attention. I am not now about to speak upon a point of fpeculation. It is a perfonal, a home concern, to us all. For we must all die. But should any of you feel, not only the ftroke, but the sting, of death, when you leave this world, it were better for you that you had never been born. The love of life, and confequently, a reluctance to that diffolution of the intimate union between foul and body, which we call death, feems natural to man. But if there was no hereafter, no state of judgment and retribution to be expected; if there was no confciousness of guilt, no foreboding of confequences upon the mind; if we only confidered death as inevitable, and had no apprehenfions beyond it, death would be divefted of its principal terrors. We fee that when confcience is ftupified, or when the mind is poifoned with infidelity, many people, notwithstanding the natural love of life, are fo difgufted with its difappointments, that a fit of impatience, or the dread of contempt, often prevail on them to rush upon death, by an act of their own will; or to hazard it in a duel, rather than be fufpected of want. ing, what they account, fpirit. But death has a fting, though they perceive it not till they feel it; till they are ftung by it past recovery. But ufually, and where the heart is not quite hardened, men are unwilling and afraid. to die. They have fome apprehenfion of the fting. Death can sting at a distance. How often, and how greatly, does the fear of death, poifon and imbitter all the comforts of |