February 8

the most important, or a connexion for life. It may lead us into temptation; and we may be ensnared by error or vice. It may produce trials and losses the most painful; and we may return, compelled to say, "I went out full, and the Lord hath brought me home again empty." Perhaps when we leave home, we unconsciously take leave of our house, and field, and garden, to return no more; and the places that once know us will know us no more for ever!

Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help. Happy he who can rejoice in the promise: "Behold, I am with thee, and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest."

FEBRUARY 8.—"The body is dead because of sin."—Romans 8:10.

THE language is striking; for the Apostle does not say, the body will die, but the body "is dead." The reason is, because the sentence is passed, and when the judge has condemned the criminal, we say, he is a dead man. In the case before us too, the execution of the sentence is commenced. And when a man is old, or infirm, or diseased, we say, he is as good as dead; he has one foot in the grave. Owing to the casualties of our condition, and the frailties of our frame, there is but a step between us and death. We are not only mortal in destination, but in state. We decay while we receive support. Before we reach our journey's end, our strength is weakened in the way, our senses lose their efficiency, and desire fails. Before the tabernacle is completely taken down, some pin is taken out, some cord is loosened, some rents or wearings away in the canvass are visible. We talk of a dying hour; but we die daily. When a bottle is discharged of its contents, there is a last drop; but every preceding drop emptied it as well as the last. Young says, "our cradle rocks us to the tomb." And Watts tells us, "the moment we begin to live, we all begin to die." Who thinks of this?

But how profitable would the meditation be! Pamper not that dying body—"meats for the belly and the belly for meats, but God will destroy both it and them." Be not proud of thy beauty and charms. The coral is leaving thy lips; the tints are fading from thy cheeks; the grave, the worms are ready for thee. The body is dead—insult not the poor carcass by dressing it up in vanity and gayety of attire. The pilot goes to the very end of the vessel to steer it: and you must repair to the end of life to conduct it. Hence the exclamation, and the prayer of Moses: "O that they were wise! that they understood this! that they would consider their latter end!" "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."

But the Apostle remarks the cause or the reason of the event. "The body is dead because of sin." Death is not therefore, as it is foolishly called, a debt due to nature, but to the justice of God. Sin is the introducer of death. We die not from any physical necessity, like plants and animals: God indeed could have rendered these ever-during, but he did not make them to be so. Man only was made immortal, but he forfeited his immortality; and therefore, though all

creatures die as well as man, he only is called mortal, (for we never speak of a mortal bird or beast,) as if in reproach for his becoming so by disobeying the command of God, and voluntarily incurring the penalty threatened: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." What a murderer is here! Survey all the myriads of the dead, and ask, "Who slew all these?" And hear the decision of Truth itself; "By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death hath passed upon all men because all have sinned."

But in the case of a Christian, and of such Paul is speaking, there is another reason for the assertion, and the body is dead not only because of the desert of sin, but the removal of it. During life there is an internal war in believers: the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary the one to the other, so that they cannot do the things that they would. Death ends the strife, by killing one of the parties, and making the other more than a conqueror. The Apostle speaks of the sin that dwelt in him: and such is the inherency of this evil, that the body which is the residence of it, resembles the house of leprosy which was to be taken down to get rid of the infection. And this will serve to explain a difficulty. For it may be asked, if Christ has redeemed them, bearing their sin in his own body on the tree; and they are justified by his blood, and saved from wrath through him; why do they yet die? To which we answer, they die, as they suffer affliction. Affliction is not a judicial infliction, but is only corrective and medicinal; and though like all natural evil derived originally from sin, is, as God employs it, the effect and token of his love. So Christ has abolished death as far as it is a curse: and thus the Christian does not die: there is nothing penal in his death; yea, death is a privilege, a deliverer. It delivers him not only from a world lying in wickedness, but from the plague of his own heart, from his inbred corruptions, and even from the flesh and blood which cannot without change and renovation inherit the kingdom of God. Thus the enemy is converted into a friend. The sting is taken out of the Lee, but the honey remains. The lion is not only slain, but out of the eater comes forth meat, and out of the strong sweetness.

Abasuerus issued a decree, that all the Jews should be destroyed, and as no law of the Medes and Persians could be changed, the decree could not be revoked; but it could be superseded. The people were apprized of their danger, and called upon to defend themselves, and furnished with the means of safety and victory; and thus the day of their destruction was turned into a day of triumph and joy, and they made it a festival which they still observe. Thus it is appointed unto men once to die; and the sentence is irreversible. Believers themselves cannot escape the decree, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." But by the resources of the Gospel the curse is turned into a blessing, and to die is gain. And if there be a period on which the spirits of just men made perfect reflect with peculiar pleasure and praise, it is the time of their escape from earth to heaven. The approach of it had often alarmed them; but the consequences are inconceivably great; and these they always viewed with desire—