but it is good to do by them as men ufe to do by young colts, ride them up to that which they fright at, and make them fmell to it, which is the way to cure them. "Look, as bread, "faith one, is more neceffary than other food, fo the medita"tion of death is more neceffary than many other meditati"ons." Every time we change our habitations, we should realize therein our great change: our fouls must shortly leave this, and be lodged for a longer feafon in another man fion. When we put off our cloaths at night, we have a fit occafion to confider, that we must strip nearer one of these days, and put off not our cloaths only, but the body that wears them too.

Holy Job had, by frequent thoughts, familiarized death and the grave to himself, and could speak of them as men ufe to fpeak of their houses and dearest relations, Job xvii. 14. "I have "faid to corruption, Thou art my father; to the worm, Thou art my mother and fifter." But it needs much grace to bring, and hold the heart to this work; and therefore Moses begs it of God, Pfal. xc. 12. "So teach us to number our days;" and David, Pfal. xxxix. 4. Lord, make me know "my end." Yea, the advantages of it have been acknowledged by men, whofe light was lefs, and diverfions more than ours. The Jews, for this ufe and end, had their fepulchres built before-hand, and that in their gardens of pleasure too; that they might féafon the delights of life with the frequent thoughts of death, John xix. 41.

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Philip of Macedon would be awakened by his page every morning with this fentence, memento te effe mortalem; Remember, O king, that thou art a mortal man. A great emperor of Conftantinople, not only at his inauguration, but at his great feafts, ordered a mafon to bring two ftones before him, and fay,

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Chufe, O emperor, which of the two ftones thou wilt for thy tomb-ftone." Reader, thou wilt find mental feparation much easier than real separation: it is easier to think of death, than it is to feel it; and the more we think of it, the lefs we are like to feel it.

Propofition 2. Actual feparation may be confidered either in fieri, in the previous pangs, and foregoing agonies of it; or in facto effe, in the last feparating ftroke, which actually parts the

Sicut panis neceffarius eft præ cæteris elementis, ita intenta mortis meditatio neceffaria eft præ cæteris donis et exercitiis. Dionyf.

Elige ab his faxis ex quo, invictifime Cæfar, tibi tumulum' me fabricare velis.

foul and body afunder, lays the body proftrate, and dead at the feet of death, and thrufts the foul quite out of its antient and beloved habitation.

Let it be confidered in the previous pangs and forerunning agonies, which commonly make way for this actual diffolution: and to the people of God, this is the worst and bitterest part of death (except those conflicts with Satan, which they fometimes grapple with on a death-bed) which they encounter at that time. There is (laith one) no poinard in death itself, like those in the way or prologue to it. I like not to die, (faid another) but I care not if I were dead; the end is better than the way. The conflicts and fruggles of nature with death are bitter and fharp pains, unknown to men before, whatever pains they have endured: nor can it be expected to be otherwife, feeing the ties and engagements betwixt the foul and body are so strong, as we fhewed before.

The foul will not easily part with the body, but difputes the paffages with Death, from member to member, like refolute foldiers in a ftormed garrifon, till at laft it is forced to yield up the fort-royal into the hands of victorious Death, and leave the dearly beloved body a captive to it.

This is the dark side of death to all good men; and though it be not worth naming, in comparison with the dreadful confequents of death to all others, yet in itfelf it is terrible.

* Separation is not natural to the foul, which was created with an inclination to the body; it is natural indeed to clasp and embrace, to love and cherish its own body; but to be divided from it, is grievous and preternatural.

The agonies of death are expreffed in fcripture, by a † word which fignifies the travailing pains of a woman," yea, by the fharpeft and moft acute pains they at that time feel, Acts ii.

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And yet all are not handled alike roughly by the hands of Death; fome are favoured with a defirable sudavária, gentle and cafy death.

It is the privilege of fome Chriftians to have their fouls fetcht out of their bodies, as it were by a kifs from the mouth of God, as the Jewish Rabbins use to exprefs the manner of Mofes his death. Mr. Bolton felt no pain at his death, but the cold hand

Seeing the feparation made by death is not natural, nor even violent, it follows, from the approved opinion of philofophers, that it may be called preternatural, Conimb.

† Tas adivas te duvare, partus dolorem.

of his friend, who asked him what pain he felt. Yea, holy Bayneham in the midst of the flames, profeffed it was to him as a bed of roses.

Every believer is equally freed from the fting and curfe of death; but every one is not equally favoured in the agonies and pains of death.

2. Separation from the body is to be confidered in facto esse, i. e. in the refult and iffue of all thofe bitter pangs and agonies, which end in the actual diffolution of foul and body. “* Death, "or actual feparation, is nothing elfe but the diffolving of the tie, or loofing of the bond of union betwixt the foul and bo "dy." "Some call it the privation of the fecond act of the foul, that is, its act of informing or enlivening the body." Others, according to fcripture-phrafe, the departing of the foul from the body. So Peter ftiles it, 2 Pet. i. 15. pela TAY » sodor, after my departure, i. e. after my death. Auguftine ‡ calls it the laying down of a heavy burden, provided there be not another burden for the foul to bear afterwards, which will fink it into hell.

In refpect of the body, which the foul now forfakes, it is called "the putting off this tabernacle," 2 Pet. i. 14. and, "the diffolving the earthly house or tabernacle," 2 Cor. v. I.

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In respect of the terminus a quo, the place from which the foul removes at death, it is called our departure hence, Phil. i. 23. or our weighing anchor, and loofing from this coaft or shore, to fail to another.

In refpect of the terminus ad quem, the place to which the fpirits of the just go at death, it is called our going to, or being with the Lord, Phil. i. 23. To conclude, in refpect of that which doth moft lively resemble and fhadow it forth, it is called our falling asleep, Acts vii. 6. our fleeping in Jefus, 1 Thef. iv. 14. This metaphor of fleep must be ftretched no further than the Spirit of God defigned in the choice of it, which was not to favour and countenance the fancy of a fleeping foul after death, but to reprefent its state of placid rest in Jesus's bosom, if it refer at all to the foul; for I think it most properly refpects the body and thence the fepulchres, where the bodies of the

*

Θάνατος εσι ψυχης και σώματος διάλυσις, vel anima a cor fore difceffus. Vives.

Privatio actus fecundum ejufdem anima, id eft, informationis feu unionis erga corpus. Conimb.

Relictio corporis depofitio farcina gravis, modo alio farcina non patietur, qua homo præcipitetur in gehennam. Auguft.

faints were laid, got the name of nonin, dormitories, or fleeping places II.

This is its laft farewel to this world, never more to return to a low animal life more. Job vii. 9, 19. "For as the cloud is "confumed and vanifhed away, fo he that goeth down to the

grave fhall come up no more; he fhall return no more to his "houfe, neither fhall his place know him any more." The foul is no more bound to a body, nor a retainer to the fun, moon or stars, to meat, drink and fleep, but is become a free, fingle, abstracted being, a feparate and pure fpirit, which the Latins call lemures, manes, ghofts or fouls of the dead, and my text, Spirits made perfect; a being much like unto the angels, who are duvaus nowμales, bodilefs beings. An angel, as one speaks, is a perfect foul, a foul is an imperfect angel: I do not say, that upon their separation they become angels, for they will still remain a diftinct fpecies of fpirits. Angels have no inclination to bodies, nor were ever fettered with clogs of flesh, as fouls were*. And by this you fee what a vast difference there is betwixt these two confiderations of death: how ghastly and affrighting is it in its previous pangs!, how lovely and defirable in the iffue and refult of them! which is but the change of earth for heaven, men for God, fin and mifery, for perfection and glory.

Propofition 3. The feparation of the foul and body makes a great and wonderful change upon both, but especially upon the foul. There is a twofold change made upon man by death, one upon his body, another upon his foul. The change upon the body great and vifible to every eye. A living body is changed into a dead carcase a beautiful and comely body into a loathfome fpectacle that which was lately the object of delight and love, is hereby made an abhorrence to all fleth; "Bury my dead out of my fight," Gen. xxiii. 4.

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What the fun is to the greater, that the foul is to the lesser world. When the fan fhines comfortably, how vegete and chearful do all things look! how well do they thrive and profper! the birds fing merrily, the beafts play wantonly, the whole creation enjoyeth a day of light and joy: but when it departs, what a night of horror followeth! how are all things

Locus fepulturæ confecratus, noipentapsov, hoc eft, dormitorium appellatur.

* Semper a corporis compedibus et nexibus liberi, (i. e.) Always free from the clogs and fetters of the body.

: VOL. III.

Mm.

wrapt up in the fable mantle of darknefs! or if it but abate its heat, as in winter, the creatures are, as it were, buried in the winding-heet of winter's froft and fnow: just so it is with the body, when the foul fhineth pleasantly upon it, or departs from it.

That body which was fed fo affiduously, cared for fo anxiQufly, loved fo paffionately, is now tumbled into a pit, and left to the mercy of crawling worms. The change which judgment made upon that great and flourishing city Niniveh, is a fit emblem to fhadow forth that change which death makes upon human bodies that great and renowned city was once full of people, which thronged the streets thereof; there you might have feen children playing upon the thresholds, beauties fhewing themselves through the windows, melody founding in its palaces: but what an alteration was made upon it, the prophet Zephaniah defcribes, chap. ii. 14. "Flocks fhall lie down in the mid "of her, all the beafts of the nations; both the cormorant and "the bittern fhall lodge in the upper lintels of it; their voice "fball fing in the windows; defolation fhall be in the thresh"olds, for he thall uncover the cedar-work."

Thus it is with the body when death hath diflodged the foul: worms neftle in the holes where the beautiful eyes were once placed; corruption and defolation is upon all parts of that stately structure. But this being a vulgar theme, I shall leave the body to the dust from whence it came, and follow the foul, which is my proper fubject, pointing at the changes which are made on it.

The effence of the foul is not deftroyed or changed by the body's ruin; it is fubftantially the felf-fame foul it was when in the body. The fuppofition of an effential change, would diforder the whole frame and model of God's eternal defign for the redemption and glorification of it, Rom. viii. 29, 30. But yet, though it undergo no fubftantial change at death, yet divers great and remarkable alterations are made upon it, by fundering it from the body. As,

1. It is not where it was: it was in a body, immers'd in matter, married unto flesh and blood; but now it is out of the body, uncloathed, and ftript naked out of its garments of flesh, like pure gold melted out of the ore with which it was commixed; or as a bird let out of her cage into the open fields and woods. This makes a great and wonderful change upon it.

2. Being free from the body, it is confequently discharged and freed from all thofe cares, ftudies, fears, and forrows to which it was here enthralled and fubjected, upon the body's account: it

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