Human nature in its fourfold state ... In several practical discourses

First, Death cuts off all their hopes and prospects of peace and pleasure in this life, Luke xii. 19. Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink and be merry. Ver. 20. But God said unto him. Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? They look for great matters in this world, they hope to increase their wealth, to see their families prosper, and to live at ease; but death comes like a stormy wind, and shakes off all their fond hopes, like green fruit from off a tree. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him? Job xx. 23. He may begin a web of contrivances, for advancing his worldly interest: but before he gets it wrought out, death comes and cuts it out. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth: in that very day his thoughts perish, Psal. cxlvi. 4.

Secondly, When death comes, they have no solid grounds to hope for eternal happiness. For what is the hope of the hypocrite, tho' he hath gamed, when God taketh away his soul? Job xxvii. 8. Whatever hopes they fondly entertain, they are not founded on God's word, which is the only sure ground of hope: if they knew their own case, they would see themselves only happy in a dream. And indeed ⟨p. 232⟩what hope can they have? The law is plain against them, and condemns them. The curses of it (these cords of death) are about them already. The Saviour, whom they slighted, is now their Judge; and their Judge is their enemy. How then can they hope? They have bolted the door of mercy against themselves by their unbelief. They have despised the remedy, and therefore must die without mercy. They have no saving interest in Jesus Christ, the only channel of conveyance, in which mercy flows; and therefore they can never taste of it. The sword of justice guards the door of mercy, so as none can enter in, but the members of the mystical body of Christ over whose heads is a covert of atoning blood the Mediator's blood. These indeed may pass without harm, for justice has nothing to require of them. But others cannot pass, since they are not in Christ: death comes to them with the sting in it the sting of unpardoned guilt. It is armed against them with all the force the sanction of a holy law can give it,