But I must add, in the fifth place, it is the gospel of Christ that brings believers to the final possession of heaven. Then, and not till then, is the salvation perfect, it is the gospel that has given us an unchangeable promise of heaven, when our state of trial is ended here on earth, and Christ is bound to fulfil it. The gospel assures us, that when we are absent from the body, we shall be present with the Lord. When we see the heavens open at the death of Stephen the first martyr, and Jesus Christ, standing there to receive his departing spirit; we believe that the same Jesus will fulfil the same kind office to us also, and receive our spirits, if we have been found faithful to the death. The same gospel also gives us a more distant hope and glorious assurance of the resurrection of our bodies from the prison of the grave. When we behold the body of our blessed Saviour rising from the tomb, and ascending to glory, and when we are told, that his resurrection is a pledge and pattern of ours; then with a joyful expectation we wait for the same blessedness. The gospel lays an obligation upon Christ himself to raise his saints from the dead; for he himself tells us, that it is the will of his Father, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, should have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day; John vi. 40. Hence it comes to pass, that the believer triumphs over death under the influence of these hopes. “Now, saith the saint, I can venture to die; for my spirit shall be received to dwell with my Saviour among the spirits of the just that are made perfect. These feeble and withering limbs of mine I can chearfully commit them to dust and the grave; for the great trumpet must sound, the dead must arise, my Redeemer will call my flesh from its dark prison; I shall arise to meet the Lord in the air, and dwell with him for ever in unknown worlds of blessedness.” Thus I have shewn you the first thing I proposed, _viz._ how the gospel in its own nature has a very proper and powerful tendency in a moral or persuasive way towards the salvation of the soul, as it insures pardoning grace and final blessedness to believers. II. I come now to shew how the gospel is made powerful to the salvation of sinners by the accompanying influence of the Spirit of God, and this is supernatural and sovereign. If I should run over all the particulars I have just before mentioned, I might make it appear in each of them, how the Spirit of God by the word of his gospel, works this salvation.