A second volume of discourses or sermons on several scriptures

¹Thirdly, This Death, though so much dreaded, is no other than a quiet Sleep. So the Scripture often represents it to us, under the Notion of Sleep. Them that sleep in Jesus shall God bring with him. Sleep is the natural resemblance of Death. Sleep and Death are very near ⟨p. 21⟩a-kin: When we are asleep, we see not, we hear not, all our Senses are locked up from the enjoyment of any worldly Delights; we take no comfort in our Friends, in our Riches, or Estates; all these are cancelled out of our Minds: and what more doth Death do than cancel these things out of Men's Memories? And yet the weary Labourer lays himself down with contentment, to take his Sleep until the Morning; and why may not we also lay down our selves with the same peace and contentment in our Graves, to take our Rest and Sleep until the Morning of the Resurrection? Indeed the Sleep of Death is different from natural Sleep, since that deprives us of natural Light; but this Sleep of Death brings us to the vision of true inaccessible Light. What then is there in death, that we should stand in dread of it? Why should that be feared by those for whom the sting of it is already taken out? Such may safely take this Serpent into their bosoms; for though it hiss at them, yet it cannot wound or hurt them; nay, instead of wounding them, it is reconciled to them, and become one of their party. The Apostle therefore reckoning ⟨p. 22⟩up the Inventory of a Christian, reckons this among them;² Whether Life or Death, all is yours. And in another place he tells us,³ That to him to live was Christ, and to die was Gain. And well may a Christian account Death among his Gains; for it is the Hand of Death that draws the Curtain, and lets him in to see God face to face in Heaven, that Palace of inestimable Pleasure and Delight, where the strongest Beams of Glory shall beat fully upon our Faces, and where we shall be made strong enough to bear them. Neither doth Death bring any detriment to our Bodies, since they shall be new moulded at the Resurrection;⁴ when this Mortal shall put on Immortality, and this Corruptible put on Incorruption; when these dull Lumps shall become impassible as the Angels, subtle as a Ray of Light, bright as the Sun, nimble as Lightning. Who is there that hath hopes of Heaven, that would have this Law of Death reversed?