Death is the bringing of the soul to bed—to a state of eternal rest.
Death is another Moses: it delivers believers out of bondage, and
from making bricks in Egypt. It is a day or year of jubilee to a
gracious spirit—the year wherein he goes out free from all those cruel
taskmasters which it had long groaned under. The heathen gods held
death to be man's summum bonum, his chief good; therefore, when
one of them had built and dedicated the temple at Delphos, he asked
of Apollo for his recompense the thing that was best for man: the
oracle told him that he should go home, and within three days he
should have it—within which time he died. Thus the very heathens
themselves have consented to this truth, that a man's dying-day is his
best day.
6. Death is a change, which brings the soul to an eternal REST.
Death is the bringing of the soul to bed—to a state of eternal rest.
[Death is a rest from the trouble of our labors, a rest from afflictions,
a rest from persecutions, a rest from temptation, a rest from
desertion, a rest from sin, and a rest from sorrow, Gen. 8:8.] That is
the last demonstration of the point, that a believer's dying-day is his
best day. Now while we are here in this present world, the soul is in a
perpetual agitation. The godliest man in the world—who is highest
and clearest in his enjoyments of God—is too often like to Noah's
dove, which found no rest: either he lacks some temporal mercy or
spiritual mercy—and will do so until his soul is swallowed up in the
everlasting enjoyments of God! Death brings a man to an
unchangeable rest!
Rev. 14:13, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from
now on." Why? "They will rest from their labor." Oh, says he, write it
down as a thing of worth and weight, "Blessed are the dead who die
in the Lord from now on. They will rest from their labor." Death
brings the soul to unchangeable rest.
"The righteous perish, and no one ponders it in his heart; devout
men are taken away, and no one understands that the righteous are
taken away to be spared from evil. Those who walk uprightly enter
into peace; they find rest as they lie in death." Isaiah 57:1-2
Oh, death is a change which brings a soul to unchangeable rest; it
brings a soul to bed. This was that that made Paul long "to be
dissolved, and to be with Christ;" and the Corinthians to groan for
deliverance. [Laurence Saunders kissing the stake, said, Welcome the
cross of Christ, welcome everlasting life. Faninus, the Italian martyr,
kissed him who brought him word of his execution. It was a notable
saying of blessed Cooper, "Many a day have I sought death with
tears; not out of impatience or distrust," says he, "but because I am
weary of sin, and fearful to fall into it." You know how the martyrs
hugged the stake, and welcomed every messenger of death which
came to them, and clapped their hands in the midst of the flames.
Death is a believer's coronation-day, it is his marriage-day. It is a
rest from sin, a rest from sorrow, a rest from afflictions and
temptations, etc. Death to a believer is an entrance into Abraham's