Part 68

Wherefore I will say to such, as one wiser than Solomon said to the Jews when they superstitiously magnified the gift, in counting it more honorable than the altar, "Ye fools and blind; for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?"

If the altar be greater than the gift, and yet the gift so great a thing as the very humanity of Christ, can it--I will now direct my speech to the greatest fool--can that greater thing be the cross? Was the cross, the wooden cross, the cursed tree that some worship, greater than the gift, to wit, the sacrifice which Christ offered, when he gave himself for our sins? O idolatry! O blasphemy!

But what then was the altar?

The divine nature of Christ, that eternal Spirit, by and in the assistance of which "he offered himself without spot, to God." "He through the eternal Spirit offered himself."

And it must be this, because, as was said, the altar is greater than the gift; but there is nothing but Christ's divine nature greater than his human. To be sure, a sorry bit of wood, a tree, the stock of a tree, is not.

It must be this, because the Scripture says plainly, the altar sanctifies the gift, that is, puts worth and virtue into it. But was it the tree, or the godhead of Christ, that put virtue and efficacy into this sacrifice that he offered to God for us? If thou canst but count thy fingers, judge.

Let the tree then be the tree, the sacrifice the sacrifice, and the altar the altar; and let men have a care how, in their worship, they make altars upon which, as they pretend, they offer the body of Christ; and let them leave off foolishly to doat upon wood and the works of their hands.

XXIV. DEATH.

Seeing man was taken from the ground, he is neither God nor angel, hut a poor earthen vessel, such as God can easily knock in pieces and cause to return to the ground again.

And the time of need is the day of death, when I am to pack up all to be gone from hence, the way of all the earth. Now the greatest trial is come, except that of the day of judgment. Now a man is to he stripped of all but that which cannot be shaken. Now a man grows near the borders of eternity. Now he begins to see into the skirts of the next world. Now death is death, and the grave the grave indeed. Now he begins to see what it is for soul and body to part, and what to go and appear before God. Now the dark entry and the thoughts of what is in the way from a death-bed to the gate of the holy heaven, come nearer the heart than when health and prosperity do compass a man about.

Some men are cut off like the tops of the ears of corn, and some are even nipped by death in the very bud of their spring; but the safety is when a man is ripe, and shall be gathered to his grave as a shock of corn to the barn in its season.

DEATH OF THE SINNER.

Death is the axe which God often useth, therewith to take the barren fig-tree out of the vineyard, out of a profession, and also out of the world at once. But this axe is now new-ground; it cometh well edged to the roots of this barren fig-tree. It hath been whetted by sin, by the law, and by a formal profession, and therefore must and will make deep gashes, not only in the natural life, but in the heart and conscience also of this professor. The wages of sin is death, the sting of death is sin. Wherefore, death comes not to this man as he doth to saints, muzzled, or without his sting, but with open mouth, in all his strength; yea, he sends his first-born, which is guilt, to devour his strength and to bring him to the king of terrors.

The dark entry which the barren professor is to go through will be a sore amazement to him, for "fears shall be in the way," yea, terrors will take hold on him when he shall see the yawning jaws of death gape upon him, and the doors of the shadow of death open to give him passage out of the world. Now, who will meet me in this dark entry? How shall I pass through this dark entry into another world?

There is no judgment to be made by a quiet death of the eternal state of him that so dieth. Suppose one man should die quietly, another should die suddenly, and a third should die under great consternation of spirit; no man can judge of their eternal condition by the manner of any of these kinds of death. He that dies quietly, suddenly, or under consternation of spirit, may go to heaven, or may go to hell; no man can tell whither a man goes by any such manner of death. The judgment, therefore, that we make of the eternal condition of man, must be gathered from another consideration, to wit, Did the man die in his sins? Did he die in unbelief? Did he die before he was born again? He that is a good man, a man that hath faith and holiness, a lover and worshipper of God by Christ, according to his word, may die in consternation of spirit; for Satan will not be wanting to assault good men upon their death-bed. But they are secured by the word and power of God, yea, and are also helped, though with much agony of spirit, to exercise themselves in faith and prayer; the which he that dieth in despair can by no means do.

DEATH OF THE CHRISTIAN.

Let dissolution come when it will, it can do the Christian no harm, for it will be but only a passage out of a prison into a palace; out of a sea of troubles into a haven, of rest; out of a crowd of enemies to an innumerable company of true, loving, and faithful friends; out of shame, reproach, and contempt, into exceeding great and eternal glory.

Another improvement of Christ's death for us was this: by it he slew for us our infernal foes; by it he abolished death; by death he destroyed him that had the power of death; by death he took away the sting of death; by death he made death a pleasant sleep to saints, and the grave for a while an easy house and home for the body.

We change our drossy dust for gold, From death to life we fly: We let go shadows, and take hold Of immortality.

Blood takes away the guilt; inherent grace weakens the filth; but the grave is the place, at the mouth of which sin and the saved must have a perfect and final parting. Not that the grave of itself is of a sin-purging quality, but God will follow Satan home to his own door, for the grave is the door or gate of hell, and will there, where the devil thought to have swallowed us up, even there by the power of his mercy, make us shine like the sun and look like angels.

THE CHRISTIAN WISHING TO DEPART.

"I have a desire to depart, and to be with Christ."

The strength of this desire is such that it is ready, so far forth as it can, to dissolve that sweet knot of union that is betwixt body and soul--a knot more dear to a reasonable creature than that can be which is betwixt wife and husband, parent and child, or a man and his estate; for even all that a man hath will he give for his life, and to keep body and soul firmly knit together. But now, when this desire comes, this silver cord is loosed, is loosed by consent. This desire delightfully grants to him that comes to dissolve this union, leave to do it. "We are confident and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."

The strength of this desire shows itself in this, that it is willing to grapple with the king of terrors, rather than to be detained from that sweet communion which the soul looks for when it comes into the place where its Lord is. Death is not to be desired for itself; the apostle chose rather to be clothed upon with his house which is from heaven, that mortality might be swallowed up of life.

But yet rather than he would be absent from the Lord, he was willing to be absent from the body. Death, in the very thought of it, is grievous to flesh and blood; and nothing can so master it in our apprehensions as that by which we attain to these desires. These desires do deal with death, as Jacob's love to Rachel dealt with the seven long years which he was to serve for her. It made them seem few, or but a little time; so do these desires deal with death itself. They make it seem little, nay, a servant, nay, a privilege, because by that a man may come to enjoy the presence of his beloved Lord. I have a desire to depart, to go from the world and relations, to go from my body, that great piece of myself--I have a desire to venture the tugs and pains, and the harsh handling of the king of terrors, so I may be with Jesus Christ. These are the desires of the righteous.

Are not these therefore strong desires? Is there not life and mettle in them? Have they not in them power to loose the bands of nature, and to harden the soul against sorrow? Flow they not, think you, from faith of the finest sort, and are they not bred in the bosom of a truly mortified soul? Are these the effect of a purblind spirit? Are they not rather the fruits of an eagle-eyed confidence? Oh, these desires! they are peculiar to the righteous.

Christ in glory is worth the being with. If the man out of whom the Lord Jesus cast a legion, prayed that he might be with him notwithstanding all the trials that attended him in this life, how can it be but that a righteous man must desire to be with him, now he is in glory?

To see Jesus Christ, to see him as he is, to see him as he is in glory, is a sight that is worth going from relations and out of the body and through the jaws of death to see; for this is to see him Head over all, to see him possessed of heaven for his church, to see him preparing mansion-houses for those his poor ones that are now by his enemies kicked to and fro like footballs in the world: and is not this a blessed sight?