every instance of the Lord's people, where those gracious manifestations from the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are spiritually known, spiritually received, lived upon, and enjoyed from day to day, there cannot fail to be the corresponding affections excited in the breast; and there will be goings forth of that soul in love, and faith, and esteem to each and to all the Persons in the Godhead, as the united source of all blessedness, here in grace, and hereafter in glory. Hence, therefore, the preciousness of the saints' death is equally to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; for the whole Persons of the Godhead take equal interest in all that relates to the Church, in time and Eternity.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Personal Union of Believers in Christ Inseparable in Life and in DeathThe Grave a Chamber of Repose-The Triumphs of Christ in the Resurrection of His People-The Identity of every Member of Christ's Mystical Body Preserved.

From the above foundation as an immovable rock, and on which the whole superstructure of the Church of Christ rests, we may pass to a consideration connected with the same, namely, that the death of the Lord's saints is precious in His sight, from the personal union which every member of Christ's mystical body hath with Christ Himself, the glorious Head. For we are members of His body, of His flesh, and of His bones. Indeed His people stand in a double relation to Him. First, in that we are

married to His Person; and, secondly, in that we are redeemed by His blood. And it is by virtue of this our affinity that all we have, and all we are, and all we ever shall be, derives importance. It is our mercy when we can trace this in all its bearings. The analogy between nature and grace in this particular is very striking; for, as the whole of death, and sin, and condemnation was, and is, in our original nature by the fall of Adam, in which his whole race was involved; so the whole of life, and holiness, and justification which we have by grace was, and is, in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ, in whom his whole seed are alike interested. So God the Holy Ghost most blessedly teacheth in His statement; for, saith the Lord, as by the "offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One, the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life. For as by one man's disobedience, many were made sinners; so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous."* Hence it follows that, as by my connection and relationship in nature to the first Adam so called, I am implicated in all that belonged to him in His Headship; and sin, death, and Eternal misery, are entailed on me by inheritance, and as my just portion: so equally by my union and relationship in grace to the second Adam so called, the Lord Jesus Christ, I am interested in all that belongs to Him, as the Head and Husband of His Church and people; and holiness, life, and immortality are as truly my inheritance and my just right in Christ, as my condemnation before was, and is, from my union with Adam.

*Rom. v. 18, 19.
I

Hence the

Lord Jesus Christ, as Christ, and the Church, as His Church, are never considered in Scripture separately. They have been from Everlasting, and are, and must be, to Everlasting, one in Jehovah's view. The death of the Lord's saints, therefore, is precious in the Lord's sight from their personal union with Christ, and from their interest in Christ. And in no one point of doctrine is the Holy Ghost more particular, than in this oneness of Christ with His Church. In His death, His Church is said to have died with him. In His burial, the whole body of the Church is said to be buried with Him. In His resurrection, the Church is said to have arisen with Him; and in His ascension, to have ascended with Him, and to be "sitting together with Him in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." So that, in all that Christ did, He acted as the Head and Husband of His Church and people; and when death is swallowed up in victory, He will manifest the same Oneness and interest in raising up His members, a part of Himself, and present them to Himself "faultless before the throne of His glory with exceeding joy." All which tends yet further to prove, that “ "precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." The death of the Lord's saints is precious in His sight on another account, which is, because by death the mystical body of Christ is brought into conformity to Christ, their glorious Head, who died also. In death, as in all things else, He must have the pre-eminence. And He could not have been the first begotten from the dead, neither the first fruits of them that sleep, were not His members to follow Him in both. By their death, here is a conformity to His death; and by their sleeping in the

dust, they are prepared for a conformity to His resurrection. There is somewhat very sweet and interesting in this view of the subject. And the Holy Ghost, by the Apostle Paul, very blessedly hath observed on this point, in that striking Scripture, where it is said, "For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate, to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first born among many brethren."* The Church, therefore, according to the Eternal counsel, will, and pleasure of Jehovah, being in all things to be in conformity to her Head and Husband, where a resemblance became attainable; she, by the grace of God, was to follow her Lord to the grave: and the dust which His blood has so sweetly perfumed, she should lie down in, until the resurrection morning. Hence, to the believer in Christ, the very aspect of death is changed. The grave is an asylum, a chamber of repose. It was Jesus's own retiring room, where He himself once lay. Blessed, therefore, is the Church in being here as in other points predestinated to be conformed to the image of her Lord.

"Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints."

But we must not stop here; for if possible an higher cause than even our conformity to our glorious Head, maketh the death of the saints precious in the Lord's sight; namely, in that it becomes the means in the Lord's hand, for the Lord to triumph in His members, as He hath in Himself, over death and the grave. It is very blessed for the Church's happiness to be brought into the smallest conformity to Christ. But it is far more blessed when that conformity is made subservient to Christ's own per

*Rom. viii. 29.

sonal glory. And it is His own personal glory, His triumphs in the resurrection of his members, for He is the sole efficient cause of it. Now, the death of Christ's body, the Church, lays the foundation for these triumphs of Christ in their resurrection, when "He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and admired in all them that believe." The Holy Ghost, by the Apostle Paul, among other mighty events which are to take place in this great day of God, hath described the marvellous change which is to be wrought on the saints of God, that "He shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things unto Himself." Imagination fails to form the smallest conception of what will be the glory of Christ, when these stupendous acts come to be fulfilled. To speak in the language of Holy Scripture-“ Then shall the moon be confounded, and the sun ashamed; when the Lord shall reign in Mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously." What an effulgence of glory must that be, at which the moon and sun both blush, and become pale with dimness; overwhelmed and extinguished as small tapers of the night, by the Infinite brightness of Christ; and what miracles of grace, combined with power, will be wrought that day! The dying saint leaves his body to the care of Him who in Infinite love redeemed it, in full and joyful hope of having it restored to him again, according to the Scriptures, possessed of such qualities as to be adapted to all the spiritual exercises and enjoyments of the mansion of bliss, where the assembly shall never be broken up, † Phil. iii. 21.

* 2 Thess. i. 10.

Is. xxiv. 23.