I have been contemplating on the period of all human glory among the tombs in Westminster Abbey. Here the most towering ambition finds its limits; insulting death has fixed the bounds, and pronounced the imperial mandate," Hitherto shalt thou go, and no farther; and here shall thy proud waves be stayed." The wildest boasts of mortal vanity yield to the dreadful conqueror; the glory of nature, with all the accomplishments of art, are humbled together in the dust! Here, in one horrid ruin lies The great, the fair, the young, and wise; I dreamt, that, buried with my fellow clay, my rotting-place, and that is thine. See yonder maker of the dead man's bed, Of hard unmeaning face, down which ne'er stole Hervey COWLEY, DENHAN. EPITAPH. Digs thro' whole rows of kindred and acquaintance, Some passage of his life. Thus hand in hand On this side, and on that, men see their friends At the same time; as if to learn to die To cover our own offspring in their turns, : They, too, must cover theirs. 'Tis here all meet; Men of all climes, that never met before; And of all creeds, the Turk, the Jew, the Christian. And celebrated masters of the balance, Deep read in stratagems and wiles of courts; With all his guards and tools of power about him, Mocks his short arm, and quick as thought escapes Where tyrants vex not, and the weary rest. Or half its worth disclos'd. Strange medley here! And joyful youth of lightsome vacant heart, Whose every day was made of melody, Hears not the voice of mirth. The shrill-tongu'd shrew, BLAIR. Hark! from the grave a doleful sound; "Ye living men, come, view the ground, Princes, this clay must be your bed, In spite of all your towers: The tall, the wise, the reverend head, Must lie as low as ours." Dr. WATTS. Let me say then to you, as the Lord spake to Jacob, Gen. xlvi. "Fear not to go down into Egypt, for I will go down with thee, and I will also bring thee up again." So here, fear not to go down to the grave, for God will be with thee there, and will surely bring thee up thence. This consideration, that Jesus Christ has lain in the grave himself, gives manifold encouragements to the people of God, against the terrors of the grave. First, the grave received, but could not destroy, Jesus Christ: death swallowed him, as the whale did Jonah his type, but could not digest him when it had swallowed him, but quickly delivered him up again. Now Christ's lying in the grave, as the common representative of believers, what comfort should this inspire into their hearts: for, as it fared with Christ's body personal, so shall it with Christ's body mystical: it could not retain him; it shall not for ever retain them. This resurrection of Christ out of his grave, is the very ground of our hope of a resurrection out of our graves. "Christ is risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept." 1 Cor. xv. 20. Secondly, As the union betwixt the body of Christ and the Divine nature was not dissolved, when that body was laid in the grave, so the union betwixt Christ and belivers is not, cannot be dissolved, when their bodies shall be laid their graves. It is true, the natural union betwixt his soul and body was dissolved for a time; but the hypostatical union was not dissolved, no, not for a moment: that body was the body of the Son of God, when it was in the sepulchre. In like manner, the natural union betwixt our souls and bodies is dissolved by death; but the mystical union be tween us and Christ, yea, betwixt our very dust and Christ, can never be dissolved. Thirdly, As Christ's body, when it was in the grave, did there rest in hope, and was assuredly a partaker of that hope; so it shall fare with the dead bodies of the saints, when they lay them down also in the dust: "My flesh also shall rest in hope," saith Christ, Psalm xvi. 9, 10, 11. In like manner the saints commit their bodies to the dust in hope: "The righteous bath hope in his death." Prov. xiv. 32. And as Christ's hope was not a vain hope, so neither shall their hope be vain. Lastly, Christ's lying in the grave before us, hath quite changed and altered the nature of the grave; so that it is not what it was: it was once a part of the curse. "Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return," was a part of the threatening and curse for sin, The grave had the nature and use of a prison, to keep the bodies of sinners against the great assizes, and then deliver them up into the hands of a great and terrible God; but now it is no prison, but a bed of rest: yea, and a perfumed bed, where Christ lay before Which is a sweet consideration of the grave indeed: "They shall enter into peace, they shall rest in their beds." Isa. lvii. 2. 0 then let not believers stand in fear of the grave: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me." Psa. xxiii. 4. us. is Indeed, the grave is a terrible place to them that are out of Christ; death is the Lord's serjeant to arrest them; the grave the Lord's prisoner to secure them. When death draws them into the grave, it draws them thither as a lion doth his prey into the den, to devour it. So you read, Psalm xlix. 14. "Death shall feed (or prey) upon them." Death there reigns over them in its full power. Rom. v. 14. And though at last it shall render them again to God, yet it were better for them to lie everlastingly where they were, than to rise to such an end; for they are brought out of their graves, as a condemned prisoner out of the prison, to go to execu tion. But the case of the saints is not so; the grave (thanks be to our Lord Jesus Christ!) is a privileged place to them, whilst they sleep there; and when they awake, it shall be with singing. When they awake, they shall be satisfied with his likeness. |