268 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [1789 



tality and a world to come, that the soul, or heavenly spark within us, 

 could not s".bsist of itself, nor act without some kind of body or vehicle ; 

 and therefore the followers of his doctrine contend for an intermediate 

 state between death and the resurrection, and think that the body, upon 

 its dissolution by death, is immediately clothed upon, or changed into 

 some other fit vehicle for the soul. 



St. Paul, however, gives no countenance to this doctrine, in the text. 

 The celestial clothing, which he speaks of, is something peculiar to the 

 saints who shall be with the Lord ; and not to be looked for till after 

 the redemption of the body, and that blessed period of the resurrection, 

 "when this mortality shall be swallowed up of life; — when the trumpet 

 shall sound, and the dead shall be raised, and this corruptible must put 

 on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality." 



Most comfortable to us, when we go to the house of mourning, is 

 either of those doctrines; but we are to understand St. Paul in the 

 latter sense, and then by the due use of reason, enlightened by the 

 blessed considerations and doctrines of our text, after the example of 

 the apostles and saints, and pure professors of Christianity in every age; 

 death might be disarmed of his sting and spoiled of his victories. For, 

 however terrible death may appear to the sinner with all his engines of 

 destruction about him ; yet to those who have sought and found an in- 

 terest in Christ Jesus, death hath lost his mighty terrors : and although 

 the grave itself, which (considered as the door of another world, the en- 

 trance into eternity) appears so gloomy and awful to mere flesh and 

 blood; yet to the just, — to those who live by faith, earnestly longing 

 and groaning to be clothed upon with their heavenly house, the grave 

 appears more beautiful than the gates of paradise itself; for at the gates 

 of paradise, upon the banishment of our guilty first parents, the angry 

 cherubim, with his flaming sword, was placed to forbid all future en- 

 trance to any of mortal race ; but angels of peace and love stand round 

 the graves of the just, to shield them from harm and conduct them to 

 glory. ... 



We are now assembled to pay the last funeral honors to a minister of 

 the altar, who has for many years been conspicuous in his station, both 

 in public and in private life; and much might be said as applicable to 

 the sudden and melancholy occasion of his death. And though the sus- 

 picion of flattery too often accompanies the funeral characters of the 

 present day, yet it is for the interest of virtue and mankind that they 

 should not be brought wholly into disuse. The tribute of our praise and 

 thankfulness to God is due for those who have, in some degree, been of 

 benefit to the world, either in a civil or religious capacity, and who may 

 be truly said not to have " lived to themselves but for their country — 

 her rights, her laws, and her liberties, religious and civil; and, there- 

 fore, at whatever stage of life they have died, they have died unto the 

 Lord." They have died for us also, so far as we may improve their 



