Of all solemn realities, in the wide universe of God's creation, there is none more awful than that of Death. Looked at in the light which God's most holy word casts upon it, as to its origin, development and termination, the subject is one full of solemn import. And to a creature who is fallen it must be so; because it contains the thoughts and truth of the living, eternal, unchanging God-His explanation of the fallen state of a creature who has cast off its dependance upon Himself.
I desire to say a few words upon this subject, under the guidance, I trust, of God; and desiring that what I write should be received or rejected according to its agreement or non-agreement with the Scriptures of truth. For I write as one who has known Him through whose word, blessed be God, it is said-" Life and immortality are brought to light by the Gospel."
Scripture, as a revelation of God, is a revelation given to man. This truth limits and checks many an inquiry which the human mind might like to entertain; and it would condemn many a flight which fallen human reason might like to take as to the bearing of certain subjects upon other parts of creation beside man. I have felt this as to Death—but I desire to check myself, and to keep within that field, the field of human responsibility, to which the Word directs me.
" In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Gen. 2:1717But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:17)), is the first intimation on the subject which is met with in Scripture. 'It was the warning of the Lord God, in 'His wisdom and goodness, addressed to Adam, as to the sure consequences of disobedience; and the words were addressed to him as to a living soul. For "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul " (Gen. 2:77And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)). What was the difference, the distinction, between Adam as thus made, and the cattle, the birds, and the fish? Both were expressions of creative power; but how different the modes in which this creative power wrought forth in the two I How different the intentions and objects of the Creator in the two cases! how different this last creature from all the rest! The essential difference, at least, is easily felt, when the peculiar deposit made to Adam in Eden (chap. 2) is weighed. None but Adam was counted competent to recognize the Giver of all goodness, and to know himself as a creature responsible to Him—-able to honor and able to dishonor Him, if it would. This power of recognizing God as the source and up-holder, and the alone proper end of one's being, man alone possessed. The Law, looked upon as a standard, and explanation of what man ought to be, throws light upon the subject, and gives us a development of no little importance. To love God with all the heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love one's fellow, as set by God near one, as oneself-this is what man should do and. should be. Not to be, not to be able to do, thus-in man-is the proof of his being, as a creature, not in dependance upon God-is morally, as to what he is inwardly, death. To be unable to have God in all his thoughts, proves a man to be dead in soul. True, there is the solemn realizing of what such a state is in other ways; but where, from a man's state, God cannot be in all his thoughts-when the energy is such as to put into action thoughts in which God is not, what but death is shown to be there. The creature, made to be dependent upon its Creator, if it ceases to hold that place, may, nay must, be dependent upon another. And in that death " in trespasses and sins," which we read of in the New Testament, we find, as in passages innumerable, that Satan gets possession of man fallen from God, and fills him with all evil and wickedness. Or, again, the effects of this death within may be showed out in more ways than one; " the wages of sin is death," and "He that has the power of death" is the enemy-even " death" as to the body;-but while this is quite true, and while it is true that there is such a thing as the second death, still I judge that the creature (in the widest sense of the term) is dead when it naturally acts, or puts into action, a will, a thought independently of God. To a creature, separation from its Creator is death. The will of a serpent-beguiled Eve opened the door, when she took of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and did eat. The doing so was a practical taking of a place of being without God. The effects of the knowledge of good and evil upon such an assumed place became soon evident, in the sense of nakedness,-of broken responsibility,—of suspicion of God, and a quiet self-complacent assumption of competency to guard against God. But alas I self-complacency which can delude man to think that he is competent, not only to settle matters with God, but competent also to protect himself against God, with whom he feels himself to be at issue, act as it may outside of His presence, has only to feel that he may be near to be forced to confess its own insufficiency. This we see in Adam after the fall-charging God foolishly; and charging his fellow quickly follows; and the stream of delusive lying soon brings in murder also. The likeness and image of Adam the first, as made after the likeness and image of God, soon disappear. And, in the progeny and exile of Adam, we find rather the traces of the hand of him who had been a murderer and a liar from the beginning, than of aught else. Surely moral death-death in trespass and sin-may be found in Gen. 3 although man never saw death in a human body until Cain murdered his brother Abel-and although (we may add) man will not see what all this really means, until, before the great white throne, the root of sin, in all its shoots and fruits, has been finally judged before the Son of Man. Then shall man, as man, know and see, the second death there fully discovered, what the contrast is of subjection to God, and of subjection to God's enemy.
It is wonderful, but so it is: man's will and man's plan for bettering himself in independency of God-beguiled to it as he was by Satan-opened the way for Satan's condemnation. And when all was ruined in Eden, it then came out that God's will and God's plans could not be escaped from. Who should anticipate God? Was any one before Him? Creation, ruined by man through the guile of Satan, was to become the turning point of Satan's condemnation, and of the display of redemption among men-the seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent. The question is no longer about Adam, or about his state or his obedience or non-obedience; he is left clean out; Satan and the seed of the woman are the parties between whom the whole is made now to rest by the Divine mind. Creation was exhausted as to a remedy; there was none in creation. But if Satan had shaken creation, and man the center of the fair system here below, he had not, he could not shake God. Him he could not change; to him' he could not say: " In Thy wisdom, and power, and goodness there is no answer." Irremediable ruin he had brought, but only upon himself, and those who should cleave to his interests among men, and set themselves, and persevere to the end, in opposition to the interests of this seed of the poor beguiled Eve.
A state of severance from its Creator, would seem to me to be death in man as a creature. One may look at the state itself; at that to which it exposes man; morally or bodily, or as to his whole being; and one may look at it as not only what is true as to man, but as that which has become an occasion for God to display Himself by, as to man, between the time of its entering and the time of His fully acting as to man, a sinner, upon the alone ground of this sin, namely, in the judgment; when banishment from the presence of God, banishment in God's own eternity, forever, of all those who have taken part with the old serpent against the seed of the woman, shall be finally executed; and they that are such shall then be driven to the place prepared for the devil and his angels. And O how justly driven shall every human tongue then confess; for not only is our sin against our Creator, but against a Creator who stooped from Divine glory to the cross, due to us, that He might win us for Himself and for God from Satan.
But if almighty wisdom and almighty power could not be outwitted by Satan or man, none but He who was wise and powerful to perfection could solve the enigma, or show how, without a compromise to His own government and character, yea to the very rendering of both more honorable, the difficulty could be met. His way we know, a way in which a trait in His character, which never had yet been displayed, but yet was not new in Him-mercy-could be unfolded; a way in which, while stooping down to that which was in its nature and doing the very opposite of all that He loved, He could yet say to it, " For my own name's sake, and by the power of what I am, be blessed!" and give to it a new life, incorruptible and, in its source, nature, and tendencies, altogether above all that the mere creature, as set in the garden of Eden, was or bad; and He could, and did give it, too, in such a way as to clear Himself in so dealing with the sinner, and to give to the new man-to the divine nature so communicated-perfect freedom from all the consequences of the fallen condition and state of the vessel in which it was put, and power also over that vessel. In. the wonders of His own way, too, the blessing should be so given as to leave the receiver free, daily to renounce, not only Satan and the world, but its ownself for the sake of the Redeemer.
What an appeal to the heart of a sinner is found in the picture of the descent of the Son of God, as given us in the second chapter of Philippians! What true moral power! What superiority of self to circumstances! What expression of a just appreciation of the value of mercy as in the Father's bosom! What a dignity in the recognition that himself was indeed the only one (He the only begotten Son of the Father), who by His own down-stooping could take up the 'controversy, and, as the champion of God, by humiliation of Himself, turn all the chaos of confusion to a scene in which mercy should yet rejoice against judgment.
Himself he knew no sin; Satan had, not only, nothing in Him; but also He was holy, undefiled, separate from sinners, and there was in Him the full outflowing of that which showed that God was all in all to Him. "Lo, I come to do Thy will," was the very motto of the being of this faithful servant. Such He was, and such He was proved to be, when most fiercely tried. But what could the world, out of course and full of evil, lay hold of in Him, who, separate from all its evil, was in it to pour forth the streams of blessing to its present need, and was about to die for the sins of those who sought His life. What could Satan do; what hold could even he lay of Him whose heart and mind and soul and strength were all and alone for God? What could God Himself find amiss or short-coming in Him who was ready to be obedient unto death-the death of the cross, in all the full import of the contents of the cup which His Father had prepared for Him to drink there? He was light in the midst of darkness-light as to what man should be and should do-light as to what God was and is. But when all the active energy of His goodness had fully expressed God and His goodness, and been rejected, He was willing passively to be led as a lamb to the slaughter, and to die for the rejector. Was ever perfectness like this? Was ever such a triumph in service, deep, self-renouncing service as this?
And when He came to the cross, He found there, not merely death, not merely a painful kind of death -one to which the Jewish law had attached a legal curse-but He found there that which He well knew He would find there, namely, the effects in full-in full as He alone could appreciate and bear them-of what, in all His perfectness it was to stand as one who had undertaken to be a substitute for the guilty in the presence of God. His very perfectness, His every apprehension of how His personal position, as forsaken of all below, appealed to God, must \have enhanced to His righteous mind the sorrow of heart and soul, when He cried out, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?"
We are sinners; the root of sin bears daily fruit, to-wards God, of sins, but hitherto God has, in long-suffering patience, refused to act towards us as such. He, the Christ, was not a sinner; there was no root, no fruits of sins towards God in or from Him; but in the very hour when all His perfectness was most displayed, and most touchingly displayed-perfection toward God and toward us-then Jehovah was pleased to act towards Him as though all our sins and iniquities were laid upon Him. Such a forsaking never had been; never once had God so forsaken any, so effectually withdrawn the light of His countenance from any one.
No adequate measure of God's feelings about sin, no estimate of it can ever be found but this. He that tries to measure sin will find, for he is finite, no just measure. God presents to us here an infinite measure, a perfect estimate. And they that have to do with troubled consciences, will-find that nothing but an infinite measure will ever suit conscience when it is in God's presence. But there the Infinite God was perfectly expressing His thought about sin. His own beloved Son and faithful servant could not introduce it, when it was only vicariously laid upon Him, into God's presence, and into the light of God's countenance. God's delight was in His servant; His heart might yearn over Him, but He could not give the light of His countenance where sin was. That God and sin can never meet to be together, was better told in the cross of the Lord Jesus, even than it will be hereafter in the banishment of the wicked from the presence of God.
Worms found in rebellion, voluntary slaves of God's great enemy, in character and works hateful, in every respect the contrast of the beloved Son, to chase them from that presence where is fullness of joy for evermore, seems natural. They might be left to their own inward feelings without being hurried away by the blast of the wrath of God, to get as far off as possible from Him. His holiness, their position, character, work, the scene then present-all, all seems to make their sinking down in that day into the lake of fire and brimstone natural. How should they' not depart? How could they stay? But not so when we turn to the cross-to the cross of the faithful servant, of the beloved Son of God. Sin was but imputed to Him; He was in all His native beauty and perfectness as to. Himself; He did but stand as the just one in the place of the unjust to bear the consequences of sin. All the wonder here is on the other side; and the perfectness of God's holiness, and the exceeding sinfulness of sin, stand fully manifested, because He, even He, could not have light then and there. "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" was the true, deep experience of His righteous soul when thus He took the place of us to bear the judgment due to us.
And how wondrous an anticipation, too, is found in that cross! He who shall hereafter be Judge of quick and dead-who shall, when Judge, bruise the head of Satan, and lay all that has opposed itself to God low- He on the cross tasted death for every man. The infinite and eternal Son of God, as the servant of God, took, as the just one, the place of the many unjust, and bare sin in His own body on the tree. Death was in His case the expression and the revelation of His perfectness and of who He was. It was not the mere letting of Him out of the body into a world to Him known and loved; or, as it is in fallen man's case, into a world unknown and dreaded. His death was, in a certain sense, too, an act of His own; for " He gave up the ghost," after committing His spirit unto His Father. He alone had power to lay down His life, and power to take it again; this commandment had He received of the Father. The wrath was past, the judgment had spent itself; that which 'would have sunk a world to hell, there through eternity to abide, without having exhausted the wrath which assigns to rebellion a lake of fire, where their worm dieth not, and where their fire is not quenched-that wrath against our sins, when laid upon Him, was exhausted, and while upon Him drew forth the most perfect expressions of what He was. Who can read the twenty-second Psalm without being struck with the moral perfectness of the sufferer? and with another thing, too, and that is, that the spring of His communion with, and faithfulness to God, was not merely that of a creature? A creature, in its dependance, can give back nothing but what it receives from God; it has in itself no springs; but when all inflowing of light from above was interrupted, light flowed out still from Him. If God forsook Him for our sins' sake, He did not forsake God. When most suffering under wrath, His faithfulness most shined out. He bore the full penalty of our guilt and sins.
Now this alone would change everything as to the article of death, the death of the body. The judgment of the great white throne has been anticipated, and is magnified. He to whom men shall give account then and there for deeds done in the body, which were expressions of their association with the old serpent—He Himself, in that day the Judge of all-He has borne the penalty of our sins, and won for Himself by this obedience unto death, the death of the cross, the glory of universal Lordship: " Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name: that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil. 2:9-119Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; 11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (Philippians 2:9‑11)). This takes away to them that are His the bitterness of death; for they know Him who hath said, " Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life" (John 5.24). They know Him who said of Himself, " I am the resurrection and the life: lie that believeth in me, though he -were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die" (John 11:25,2625Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: 26And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this? (John 11:25‑26)); and they can say, "Thanks be to God -which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 15:5757But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:57)).
Death of the body is a most humbling fruit of sin to man; and it has most justly been looked at by fallen man as the king of terrors. It is the debt which fallen human nature owes, and has a sting in it, as the grave has a terror in it, which the human mind can never evade. " All their lifetime subject to bondage through fear of death," has been the experience of many; and well may it be, for he that has the power of death is the devil. As the tree falleth, so shall it lie; beyond the grave there is no repentance; " death, and after that the judgment," are all of them truths calculated to make it terrible.
Death is the challenger of men's thoughts. What answer can we render to ourselves about this? Is it only that, in fullness of selfishness, in a world that is godless, a man that is godless can make himself happy? Not caring for God, he cares not that he is morally dead as to God, so long as he can stay in a world which Satan has filled with follies to amuse the godless soul, and make it able to kill time as it flies with a light heart. But when death appears, or is thought of, then the end of the dream is seen too. Aye, death, into what abyss will it let man fall? And as surely as there is a God, then " after death the judgment." Death is in this way the detector of darkness within to many a godless sinner-the shadow cast before it, too, of judgment to come. In the field of fallen human nature, what a humbling fact is death; and what a center, too, is it to motives, causes, consequences and results, which might well humble the pride of man, if aught in nature could!
There is another thing to be remarked, and it is, the effect which the death of our Lord Jesus Christ had as to the effects of death upon the minds of the people of God on earth. First, until He came and had died, death -death of the body-had not a full answer given to it in revelation. It was not that the soul taught of God did not know His mercy and grace, or could not trust itself blindfold to Him; but the way was not yet made manifest: and, " How shall these things be?"-had not its answer until life and immortality were brought to light through the Gospel. Moreover, God was dealing with a people whose blessings and hopes were, as a people, " of the earth, earthy;" and the eternal blessedness at God's right hand was not the subject of testimony, as it has be-come since man rejected Christ, and God raised Him again from the dead. Now, in the death of the Lord Jesus Christ we have the full expression of God's judgment, and judgment past, too. God, in -wisdom and goodness, had not permitted men to live from the fall to the final judgment. Death had cut down those that were morally dead, and of those in whom moral death was, one individual after another; and as the tree fell, so should it lie. Yet this stroke of the ax was not the last or the worst of God's wrath against the morally dead; for the general resurrection, where the fullest expression which God can give of judgment against the serpent and his seed will take place, is yet future. But in Christ's death there was an anticipation by God of His full and final judgment against sinners.
But there is another thing to be remarked as a fruit of His death. Not only is there the negation of what is bitter, dreadsome, dark, and gloomy in the grave found in His death, but there is a positive decking of the grave for us who believe-the lamp of His love has gilded its passage. To the thief upon the cross he said, " Verily, I say unto thee, This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise. A garden of delights to the poor thief it was to be, and good the company in which he should find himself there. How blessedly has that path, unknown to us, of the soul separate from the body, been experimented by Him that has saved us. Not only as Son of God does He know the passage and the state right well, but has made his experience of both one and the other as Son of Man. It was needful, for death was the goal of his course here below. His body lay in the grave-His spirit, commended to His Father's keeping, was in Paradise-three days and three nights was there; and when He awoke and arose, He led captivity captive; for the grave was burst to faith, and He would mark it to be so. " And many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after His resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many" (Matt. 27:52, 5352And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, 53And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many. (Matthew 27:52‑53)). Surely, if we knew no more than this, we could see and say that His death and resurrection have given to the grave a light-shown it to be, for His people, only a place of passing through to blessing. But, as to the blessing, these were but first-droppings of a cloud of fatness. For we have nothing apart from Himself-our clearing from judgment was by His bearing the penalty for us-" our righteousness"-it is Himself; " as He is, so are we in this world."
What a blessed fullness is in that word, 1 Cor. 15.20: "But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept." A Stephen's death is a practical commentary on the words, " O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?"
He, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of God" (Acts 7:55,5655But he, being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God, 56And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. (Acts 7:55‑56)).... "And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit! And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep" (ver. 59, 60).
So again, we find in Paul no shrinking from death. Taste it he knew he should not; Christ had tasted it for him; he, as a believer, should not taste it; his mind was not held by such a thought, but by quite others.
1st. He wanted his death, if he died, to taste to God of Christ, and he had boldness that it should do so. " According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death" (Phil. 1:2020According to my earnest expectation and my hope, that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but that with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ shall be magnified in my body, whether it be by life, or by death. (Philippians 1:20)). " Christ to be magnified" was the aim of his being; and he had no timid, pious feeling of half hope, half fear, about his own passing through the valley of the shadow of death, and not being lost or terrified by the way; that would have been to have lived for himself. Christ had settled all that for him. His eye was on another thing, that all he was should magnify Christ. And as to this, he had earnest expectation, hope, and boldness; and well he might: for, as it is added (and it was no private behest to him, but his as being of the body of Christ, and a consistent member of it), "For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I wot not. For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. And hailing this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith" (Phil. 1:21-2521For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labor: yet what I shall choose I wot not. 23For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better: 24Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you. 25And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith; (Philippians 1:21‑25)).
Death is gain. That is settled to a believer. It is to be with Christ, which is far better. Paul, walking in the Spirit, could so act on this as to drop self entirely, and see what as to life or death in his own case would most serve the present interests of the saints, and as that was to live a little longer, he knew he should do so, and was willing to have it so.
How blessedly does the believer's assurance express itself in 2 Cor. 5:6-86Therefore we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: 7(For we walk by faith, not by sight:) 8We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6‑8): " Therefore 'we are always confident, knowing that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord: (for we walk by faith, not by sight): we are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord."
And the ground on which this assurance rests is most sure, namely, the desire of Christ, and the call to us of God to be confident, single-eyed, and full of Christ in dying or in living. " He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again."
In Stephen's case, dying was an act of his life: to the believer it is always an act of the new life and not of the old. " For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord.: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that He might be Lord both of the dead and living " (Rom. 14:7-97For none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself. 8For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord: whether we live therefore, or die, we are the Lord's. 9For to this end Christ both died, and rose, and revived, that he might be Lord both of the dead and living. (Romans 14:7‑9)).
AS sin has reigned to death, so did grace propose to reign through righteousness unto eternal life. And we know that He, who is the Resurrection and the Life, is He that liveth, though once He died, and He has the keys of hell and of death.
In Him life and death, all are ours (1 Cor. 3:2222Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; (1 Corinthians 3:22)); and though in deaths oft (2 Cor. 11:2323Are they ministers of Christ? (I speak as a fool) I am more; in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft. (2 Corinthians 11:23)), Paul found that neither death nor life could separate from the love of God which was in Christ Jesus.
There has been, I fear, a displacing of the blessing of the truth that -the grave is not now a tasting of death, but absence from the body to be present with the Lord.
Perhaps, in our selfishness, with some of us, the desire to depart was too strong, and savored more of love of personal, individual blessing, than of fellowship with the Lord's thoughts. If so, one can well understand how the discovery that, not death, but resurrection glory is the hope of the individual heart (which came to many of us with the truth of Christ's hope being, to possess His church in the heavens, and to rule the earth for God), should have made one forget the blessedness of absence from the body and presence with the Lord. For selfish hope lives not in the light. But admitting and thankfully owning that Christ is the center and end of all God's dealings, can one not say: If God's will is for me to leave the wilderness and wait for the Lord's descent to the heavenlies, not here (amid sorrow and sin) but above in the presence of my blessed Lord, how blessed for me the change! Is not a Paul, a Stephen, a Timothy, etc., in more present enjoyment than I? And let me say another word: Can not brethren beloved, after reading 1 Thess. 4 understand a man's saying, " If it were revealed that 'Christ should come this night; still, if called to fall asleep ere He does come, I shall have experienced, as it were, extra displays of a guardian care on His part in the passage; and I shall be found at His coming in a position not the most unsuited to that faithful love, which ever thinks first and most of that which is weakest of all."
Time would fail me if I here attempted to enter, in detail, upon one part of the subject. I name it in closing, and a blessed topic it is, to one who is acting now upon God's principle of death and resurrection. I mean the way that "death" is presented as a spoil to adorn the seed of the woman, the Lord of all glory, in that glory heavenly and earthly, which is prepared for Him. It is the Lamb that was slain, alive forever more, who is, amid all the glories, connected with the Lord God Almighty-the Savior God.