A funeral sermon on the death of that pious gentlewoman Mrs. Judith Hamond Late…

2. This limitation of death to be overcome, to such a subject only, connotes the extent of it to the whole of that subject, as that is composed of an inner and an Outer man, 2 Cor. 4. 16. It were frigid, and comfortless to suppose, if it were supposable, that this glorious Conquest of death should extend no further than the giving us a fair specious outside; and that our Mind and Spirit should not partake, or be nothing the better for it. 'Tis plain the Apostles scope through' this Chapter is more to assert the future subsistence ⟨p. 7⟩of the Soul, than the recomposure of the Body, as his Arguments show; though what was necessary to be said concerning the future state of that also, is not neglected. But what he is now saying in this part of the Chapter concerns not what is common to men, but what is peculiar to Good and Holy Men. And therefore, as it respects their nobler part, must intend More than its mere subsistence in another state, which is common to good and bad, and signify the perfection of the Holy Divine life, which shall be at last entirely victorious, and Swallow up Death, in its utmost extent, and specially as it was opposite to that life. Death I mean, as it was so heavily incumbent upon the Minds and Spirits of Good Men themselves, and was their most intolerable burden; extorting from them such groans as that Rom. 7. 24. O wretched man that I am who shall deliver me from this body of death. Nor indeed is this death sensible or grievous, or ever felt, but where the opposite life hath some place. Total death knows no grievances, makes no complaints. They that lye buried in the Earth, are in their own Element, where no such thing weighs upon them; a terrene, carnal Mind is no burden to such Souls, as are quite dead in Trespasses and Sins. I hope I need not tell you that tho' the Souls of men are Universally immortal in the natural sense, they are not so in the moral. Morality comprehends the means and end, Virtue and Felicity; or in terms more agreeable to our Christian Ethics, or that are oftener heard by them that live under the Gospel, Holiness, and Blessedness. These are signified by Spiritual Life, or life in the spiritually-moral sense. And so are Sin, and Misery, by the opposite death. And no man hath reason to think it strange that Life ⟨p. 8⟩