The prophet here pierces through all impediments that nature could object; and, by the victory of faith, he overcomes, not only the common enemies, but the great and last enemy of all, death itself; for this would he say, Lord, I see nothing for thy chosen, but misery to follow misery, and one affliction to succeed another; yea, in the end I see, that death shall devour thy dearest children. But yet, O Lord! I see thy promise to be true, and thy love to remain towards thy chosen, even when death appears to have devoured them: “For thy dead shall live, yea, not only shall they live, but my very dead carcase shall arise;” and so I see honour and glory to succeed this temporal shame, I see permanent joy to come after trouble, order to spring out of this terrible confusion; and, finally, I see that life shall devour death, so that death shall be destroyed, and so thy servants shall have life. This, I say, is the victory of faith, when to the midst of death, through the light of God’s word, the afflicted see life. Hypocrites, in the time of quietness and prosperity, can generally confess, that God is true to his promises; but bring them to the extremity, and there the hypocrite ceases further to trust to God, than he seeth natural means, whereby God useth to work. But the true faithful, when all hope of natural means fail, flee to God himself, and to the truth of his promise, who is above nature; yea, whose works are not so subject to the ordinary course of nature, that when nature fails, his power and promise fail also therewith. Let us further observe, That the prophet here speaks not of all the dead in general, but saith, “Thy dead, O Lord, shall live:” in which words he makes a difference betwixt those that die in the Lord, and those that die in their natural corruption, and in the old Adam. Die in the Lord can none, except those that live in him, (I mean, of those that attain to the years of discretion;) and none live in him, but those that, with the apostle, can say, “I live, and yet not I, but Christ Jesus that dwelleth in me: the life that I now live, I have by the faith of the Son of God.” (Gal. ii.) Not that I mean, that the faithful have at all hours such a sense of the life everlasting, that they fear not the death and the troubles of this life; no, not so; for the faith of God’s children is weak, yea, and in many things imperfect. But I mean, that such as in death, and after death shall live, must communicate in this life with Jesus Christ, and must be regenerated by the seed of life; that is, by the word of the everlasting God, which whosoever despises, refuses life and joy everlasting.