A Saint Indeed

1. Argu. First the harmlessness of death to the people of God. T•ough it keep its dart, it hath lost its sting: a Saint (to ⟨p. 173⟩allude to that, Isai. 11. 8.) May play upon the hole of this asp, and put his hand into the Cockatrices den. Death is the Cockatrice, or Asp; the grave is his hole or den: a Saint need not fear to put his hand boldly into it: it hath left and lost its sting in the sides of Christ; 1 Cor. 15. 55. O death! where is thy sting? why art thou afraid? O Saint! that this sickness may be thy death, as long as thou knowest that the death of Christ is the death of death? indeed, if thou didst dye in thy sins as Joh. 8. 21. If death as a King did reign over thee, Rom. 5. 14. if it could •eed upon thee, as the Lyon doth upon the prey he hath taken, as Psal. 49. 14. If hell followed the pale horse as it is, Rev. 6. 8. Then thou mightest well startle and shrink back from it; but when God hath put away thy sins from thee, as far as the East is from the West, Psal. 103. 12. As long as there is no other evil left in death, for thee to encounter with; but bodily pain: as long as the Scriptures represent it to thee under such harmless and easy notions, as the putting off thy clothes, 2 Cor. 5. 2. And lying down to sleep upon thy bed, Isai. 57. 2. Why shouldest thou be afraid? there is as much difference betwixt death to the people of ⟨p. 174⟩God, and others; as betwixt the Unicorns horn when it is upon the head of that fierce beast, and when it is in the Apothecaries shops; where it is made salubrious and medicinal.