On this occasion, Manoah appears the weaker believer. He thought of nothing but death; he expresses his confidence of perishing, and assigns a reason, which, however weak, is sufficiently accounted for by the extreme terror of his mind, and the universal prejudice of that age: "We shall surely die, for we have seen God." Even good men are sometimes tempted to listen to the suggestions of nature, rather than to the assurances of revelation; and to dread as an evil, what in their better moments is anticipated as a good. If death were the extinction of being, it might excite alarm; but, if it be only the means of our purification, and the preparatory process to fit the spiritual character for the felicities of a higher existence, it should, and often does, awaken pleasure. If, even while the shroud is worn by the body, the spirit is clothed with the garments of salvation, and that shroud will soon be exchanged for the white robe of purity and heaven; what is there to prevent our adopting the words of an apostle, "I have a _desire_ to depart, and to be with Christ, which is far better?" If the apprehensions of Manoah had been really well founded, and himself and his beloved partner had yielded Up their spirits on that memorable spot; who can say it would have proved an undesirable exchange? As the servants of the living God, they were prepared for all events, and for either world. Their union could never have been dissolved, and the sphere of their spiritual discoveries would have been amply enlarged. To see God is the antidote, and not the occasion, of death; the hope, and not the terror, of the believer. It is not difficult, however, to ascertain the reason why this prejudice so early and so extensively influenced the pious in primitive times. It arose from a consciousness of guilt, and a dread of merited punishment. As a sinner, man must necessarily tremble at the thought of his approaching God, or at the communication of any message from his throne: when God opens his mouth, he naturally fears the sentence; when tidings arrive from the invisible world, he dreads their purport, and conscience suggests that even the most favourable manifestations may be blended with tokens of displeasure. Every approach of the Deity is liable to excite confusion to a guilty world; and a sense of demerit may lead us not only to expect a war-rant for execution when a reprieve is coming; but at first, like Manoah, to mistake and misinterpret the sign.