But however dear to each other, the union must be dissolved; the bands and ligaments, by which soul and body are united, must be separated; this earthly house must be dissolved;--this tabernacle must be removed--its cords unpinned--its stakes pulled up--and the whole must be taken down. "Knowing," saith the apostle, "I must put off the earthly house of this my tabernacle." Death is represented as a departure--it is going from one house to another--it is a loosing from port, and launching into the ocean.--Death is the ship or boat which wafts us over to the shores of eternity. It is going the way of all the earth--going a journey to man's long home--to an invisible world--through a dark valley, where we need a guide; and a Covenant God has promised to guide us through.--It is going to sleep in hope of waking again, sweetly refreshed in the morning of the resurrection; fresh, lively, active, and divinely fitted for heavenly exercises. The shipwrecked mariner has gained the shore;--the weary traveller--the fatigued labourer--the afflicted child, is at rest. Death, through covenant mercy, is the full, the final deliverance. And John is commanded, by God the Holy Spirit, to write it down, and send it to the churches: "Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, even so saith the spirit, for they rest from their labours, and their works of faith and love do follow them." Like Abraham leaving his native country at the command of God;--like Jacob leaving Padan Aram, with all his substance, to return to his kindred. Such the believer's death. Perhaps, indeed, a thousand alarms may seize his spirit, hearing that Esau, with his armed men, is coming out against him; but by prayer and faith he obtains the blessings, and meets Esau with comfort. For when a man's ways, through grace, by prayer and faith, thus please the Lord, he makes even death to be at peace with him. Death is the enemy to our natures, although it is a covenant blessing. The last enemy that shall be destroyed, is death: but its enmity is slain in the death of Christ. Here that serpent that crawled up the hill of Calvary, and entwined round the cross, left his sting in the sacred body of a dying Saviour: nor can all the powers of darkness, all the sins, backslidings, and infirmities of God's people, ever unite the sting to death again. Sin is abolished; the guilt is gone.--It has been said, that when a bee has fastened its sting in a man's flesh, it is lost for ever after, and becomes a drone. Death, like such a bee, can only hum and affright, but never sting or hurt: it may, it must destroy the body, but it cannot hurt; like a fierce dog, whose teeth are broken out, it can bark and tear a mere tattered coat, but it cannot bite to the bone. What a feeble weak enemy is death, since it took a walk to Mount Calvary! Unatoned guilt is the sting of death. But the Lord's dear people are led, in some degree, to see for