At this point he seems to have sobered himself, or perhaps rather to have designedly exhibited the latent soberness and contentedness which had guided him all along. “We are confident,” he says, that is, of good cheer, well comforted, easily bearing what is, patiently waiting for the future; preferring, indeed (if a preference be allowed), to be absent from the body and fully present with the LORD; but still chiefly animated, not by a selfish yearning for the quickest attainment of peace and glory, but by the noble, GOD-adoring ambition, of being and doing that which is divinely approved. “Wherefore, in view of all that is and shall be, we make it our chief aim, we devote ourselves, not so much to reach heaven, to gratify self, as whether on earth or in heaven, to enjoy the approval and favour of God.” “Be silent,” he would say, “ye groans for deliverance; check yourselves, ye eager aspirations for glory; let principle rule rather than desire, and let the principle be, whether we live let us live unto the LORD, whether we die let us die unto the LORD. Let not dying or living be the engrossing thought, but that whether we live or die we may be the LORD’S.” In this, as in so many other respects, our bright exemplar, Paul, shows us both what we may allow and what we should aim at. And first he shows us that even the saint—the approved of GOD—may shrink from the thought of dissolution. “We groan, being burthened, because” (this is the right translation) “we would not be unclothed,” we would not die. I envy not the man—there is something unnatural, yea, and unspiritual, too, in him—who does not shrink from the first thought of death coming to himself or to those whom he loves. For death, in its best form, is a remembrancer of the wrath of GOD against the sinner, and it is in a sense a triumph—no matter that it is short—it is a defiling and withering touch—no matter that it shall soon be wiped away, and its blasting undone—of the foul and fierce enemy of GOD and holy man. It is that, too, which cuts asunder the ties which we are allowed and encouraged to fasten here between ourselves and loved friends and delightful pursuits and pleasing possessions. It is that, too, which abruptly closes the period of probation and preparation for heaven; which stays all cleansing and perfecting, which says imperatively to us, “No more shall you remove, no more shall you acquire—as you are shall you face GOD—stereotyped are you for eternity.” It is that, too, which enthrals and deadens the one half of us, though it liberates and quickens the other, which separates the body from GOD, while it joins the spirit to Him, which, while it exalts the latter to Paradise, consigns the former to the grave, to corruption, to temporary annihilation. Terrible is death to many, awful to all—undesirable even to the saint—and only tolerable because not so much of the soul’s immediate gain as of the body’s future hope.