Having lived unto the Lord, we shall die unto the Lord: having continued His property through life, He will claim us as His own in death. The tyrant of the grave shall have no power, no dominion over us; his spear is broken; the battle fought, the victory won: Christ has conquered, and we are “more than conquerors through Him that loved us.” Christ is Lord of the immortal spirit: “He is able to keep that which is committed to Him against that day;” and when the soul escapes from its prison-house, He sends a guardian angel to take the charge, and conduct it safely to Abraham’s bosom, to the rest that remaineth for His people. Brethren, we have the Lord’s own word and authority, for the establishment of our faith and the comforting of our souls. He said to the penitent thief, “To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise.” He admonished those who believed not, that Jehovah was declared to be “the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob” long after their bodies were laid in the grave: and “God is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live unto Him.” In this entire confidence and security, His pious disciples in every age have welcomed their latter end, and fallen asleep sweetly. The first martyr Stephen, full of the Holy Ghost, worshipped and prayed to Jesus in his dying moments, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;” at once a plain indisputable testimony, that Christ is an object of divine worship, and that He does receive the souls of the faithful, when delivered from their earthly tabernacle. And the Apostle, who said, “To me to live is Christ,” said also, in the same breath, “to die is gain:” death could not be gain to him with any thing less than Christ: it is evident, that St. Paul was rapt in the contemplation of the immediate presence of his Lord: whilst living, he was with Christ; when dead, he would be with Him more blessedly still.