View the righteous man under the representation of a _traveller_. A sinful world is the place, from whence he sets out: heaven, the country to which he is bound. Satan and sin are the great enemies that oppose him in his journey; and many a wearisome step he takes, before he gains the point in view. Temptations from his own heart’s corruptions, as well as from the world and Satan, are the storms he meets with in the way; but Christ is his sun and shield, to illuminate and defend. After having, perhaps, borne the burden and heat of the day, death at last arrives, a welcome messenger, to relieve him from his toil, and usher him into his heavenly Father’s kingdom. “The rest of a laboring man,” says Solomon, “is sweet.” How much more delectable must rest in the placid bosom of the tomb be to him, whose labors have been great in proportion to the greatness of the cause in which he embarked! and all the powers of whose body and soul were exerted in the arduous toil! But after the fatigue of the day, how sweet the approach of the season of repose! Even in the prospect of it, the believer anticipates a degree of heaven; and an assurance that his light afflictions will, as it were in a moment, come to a period, alleviates every present cross, and enables him, in the view of future trials, to take no anxious thought for to-morrow. When death actually comes, he finds him prepared for his arrival. Clad with the whole armour of God, and washed from every defilement in the Mediator’s blood, he shouts, “O death where is thy sting? O grave where is thy victory?” With intrepidity of soul, he touches the _sting_ of death, and feels it not only blunted, but also free from poison. He then examines the whole strength of the _quiver_ of death, and finds there is not one shaft in it that can penetrate his shield of faith and wound his soul; and then he shouts again, “Thanks be to God, who giveth me the victory through my Lord Jesus Christ!” And as soon as death executes his commission; that fatal blow of the King of terrors, which, by a judicial sentence, cuts down the wicked as cumberers of the ground, and is only a prelude to the transplantation of the righteous from this desert to the celestial Eden; his body then drops into its original dust, and is consigned to the silent grave; where “it lieth down and riseth not, till the heavens be no more.” Job, xiv. 12. There the wicked cease from “troubling, and there the weary are at rest.” Chapter iii. 17. Then his mortal part “enters into peace,” being exempt from every thing that could give pain, or cause trouble. There