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

4. Where such a War and striving ends not in victory, on the one side, they end in victory on the other. This is consequent upon what hath been said of the limited Subject here spoken of. Death is not universally overcome; with some it is left to be conceived, therefore, as a Conqueror. We see how it is with the two Hemispheres of our Globe. When in the One, the Light is chasing the Darkness of the foregoing Night, and we behold the morning gradually spreading it self upon the mountains, and it shines ⟨p. 11⟩brighter, and brighter unto perfect day: So in the other a feebler light doth more and more retire and yield, till at length it be quite swallowed up in the victorious darkness of a black and horrid midnight. 'Tis much after the same rate here, with this difference: that vicissitudes, and alternations cease, and whether darkness and the shadow of death, or the light of life, be finally Victorious, they are so (as hath been said) for ever. With the One sort, i. e. with the righteous, a vital light arises in the midst of darkness. A Type of their Spiritual, and a Prelude to their Eternal State. They have a quickening light within, under all Clouds of present ignominy, and trouble, and an Eternal day awaits them. Now Death worketh in them, and surrounds them on every side, for a while, and gains a temporary victory, over their bodily Life; which while it is doing, and their outward man is perishing, their inward man is renewed day by day. But at length even that vanquished life revives; and that more noble life which is hid with Christ in God, Col. 3. 3. and of which he says, that whosoever lives and believes in him shall never die, Joh. 11. 26. becomes perfect, for it is pure Life; as that is said to be pure, which is plenum sui, & minimum habet alieni; full of it self, without mixture of any thing alien from it; having quite swallowed up whatsoever was opposite or disagreeable. So doth Life in the several kinds and degrees of it flourish with them, in a permanent, perpetual, and most consistent State. And, as Regal Power is often founded in just Conquest, they do even reign in life, by Jesus Christ, Rom. 5. 17—21.

4. Where such a War and striving ends not in victory, on the one side, they end in victory on the other. This is consequent upon what hath been said of the limited Subject here spoken of. Death is not universally overcome; with some it is left to be conceived, therefore, as a Conquerour. We see how it is with the two Hemispheres of our Globe. When in the One, the Light is chasing the Darkness of the foregoing Night, and we behold the morning gradually spreading it self upon the mountains, and it shines