house where there was not one dead_;[255] for thereupon the Egyptians said, _We are all dead men_: the death of others should catechise us to death. Thy Son Christ Jesus is the _first begotten of the dead_;[256] he rises first, the eldest brother, and he is my master in this science of death; but yet, for me, I am a younger brother too, to this man who died now, and to every man whom I see or hear to die before me, and all they are ushers to me in this school of death. I take therefore that which thy servant David's wife said to him, to be said to me, _If thou save not thy life to-night, to-morrow thou shalt be slain_.[257] If the death of this man work not upon me now, I shall die worse than if thou hadst not afforded me this help; for thou hast sent him in this bell to me, as thou didst send to the angel of Sardis, with commission to _strengthen the things that remain, and that are ready to die_,[258] that in this weakness of body I might receive spiritual strength by these occasions. This is my strength, that whether thou say to me, as thine angel said to Gideon, _Peace be unto thee, fear not, thou shalt not die_;[259] or whether thou say, as unto Aaron, _Thou shalt die there_;[260] yet thou wilt preserve that which is ready to die, my soul, from the worst death, that of sin. Zimri _died for his sins_, says thy Spirit, _which he sinned in doing evil; and in his sin which he did to make Israel sin_;[261] for his sins, his many sins, and then in his sin, his particular sin. For my sins I shall die whensoever I die, for death is the wages of sin; but I shall die in my sin, in that particular sin of resisting thy Spirit, if I apply not thy assistances. Doth it not call us to a particular consideration that thy blessed Son varies his form of commination, and aggravates it in the variation, when he says to the Jews (because they refused the light offered), _You shall die in your sin_:[262] and then when they proceeded to farther disputations, and vexations, and temptations, he adds, _You shall die in your sins_;[263] he multiplies the former expression to a plural. In this sin, and in all your sins, doth not the resisting of thy particular helps at last draw upon us the guiltiness of all our former sins? May not the neglecting of this sound ministered to me in this man's death, bring me to that misery, so that I, whom the Lord of life loved so as to die for me, shall die, and a creature of mine own shall be immortal; that I shall die, and the _worm_ of mine own conscience _shall never die_?[264] XVIII. PRAYER.