The Fountain of Life Opened Up

I answer, nothing of that work which Christ did remains for you to do, but there is other work for you to do, yea, store of work lying upon your hands. You must work as well as Christ, though not for the same ends Christ did. You want all his life long to work out a righteousness to justify you before God, but you must work to obey the commands of Christ into whose right you are come by redemption. You must work to testify your thankfulness to Christ for the work he finished for you. You must work to glorify God by your obedience. Let your light so shine before men. For these and divers others such ends and reasons, your life must be a working life. May God preserve all his people from the gross and vile opinions of antinomian libertines who cry up grace and decry obedience. Reader, be thou a follower of Christ. Imitate thy pattern. Yea, let me persuade thee as ever thou hopest to prove thine interest in him. Imitate him in such particulars as these that follow. Christ began early to work for God. He employed the morning of his life, even the very beginning of it. How is it, said he to his parents when he was but a child about twelve years old, that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my father's business? Reader, if the morning of thy life be not gone, O devote it to the work of God as Christ did. If it be, fly thy work the closer in the afternoon of thy life. As Christ began early, so he followed his work closely. He was up early, and he wrought hard, so hard that he forgot to eat bread. John 4, verses 31 and 32 So zealous was he in his father's work that his friends thought he was beside himself. Mark 3, 21 So zealous that the zeal of God's house consumed him. Christ often thought upon the shortness of his time, and wrought diligently because he knew his working time would be but little. I must work the works of him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh when no man can work. John 9, verse 4 O in this be like Christ, rouse your heart to diligence. If a man have much to write, and is almost at the end of his paper, he will put much matter in a little room. He did much work for God in a very silent manner. He labored diligently, but did not spoil his work when he had wrought it by vain ostentation. When he had expressed his charity in acts of mercy and bounty to men, he would humbly seal up the glory of it with this charge, See ye, tell no man. Matthew 8, verse 4 He effected no popular air. O imitate your pattern, work hard for God, and let not pride blow upon it when you have done. It is difficult for a man to do much, and not value himself too much for it. Christ carried on his work for God resolvidly. No discouragements could beat him off, though never any work met more from first to last. How did scribes and Pharisees, Jews, Gentiles, yea devils, set upon him by persecutions and reproaches, violent oppositions, and subtle temptations? Yet he goes on with his father's work. He is deaf to all discouragement. So it was foretold of him, He shall not fail, nor be discouraged. Isaiah 42, verse 4 O that more of the Spirit of Christ were in his people! O that in the strength of love to Christ, and zeal for the glory of God, you may pour out your hearts in his service, and like a river, sweep down all discouragements before you. He continued working while he continued living. His life and labor ended together. He fainted not in his work, nay, the greatest work he did in this world was his last. O be like Christ in this, be not weary of well-doing, give not over the work of God, while you can move hand or tongue to promote it, and see that your last works be more than your first. O let the motions of your soul after God be, as all natural motions are, swiftest when nearest the center. Say not it is enough, while there is any capacity of doing more for God. In these things, Christians, be like your Savior. Number 6 Did Christ finish his work? Look to it, Christians, that ye also finish your work, which God hath given you to do, that you may with comfort say, when death approaches, as Christ said, I have glorified thee on the earth, I have finished the work thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self. John 17 verse 4 Christ had a work committed to him, and he finished it. You have a work also committed to you. O see that you may be able to say, it is finished, when your time is ended. O work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, and that I may persuade you to it, I beseech you to lay to heart these considerations. If your work be not done before you die, it can never be done. There is no work, nor knowledge, nor device in the grave, whither thou goest. Ecclesiastes 9 verses 5 and 10 They that go down to the pit cannot celebrate the name of God. Isaiah 38 verse 18 Death binds up the hand from working any more, strikes dumb the tongue, that it can speak no more. The body, which is the soul's instrument to work by, is broken and thrown aside. The soul itself presented immediately before the Lord to give an account of all its works. The night cometh, make haste, and finish your work. If you finish not your work, the season of mercy, as well as the season of working, will be over at death. Do not think, you that have neglected Christ all your lives, you that could never be persuaded to a laborious holy life, that every your cries and entreaties shall prevail with God for mercy when your season is past. No, it is too late. Will God hear his cry when trouble cometh upon him? Job 27 verse 9 The season of mercy is then over, as the tree falls, so it lies. Then he that is holy shall be holy still, and he that is filthy shall be filthy still. Alas, poor souls, you come too late. The master of the house is risen up, and the door is shut. Luke 13 verse 25 The season is over. Happy had it been if ye had known the day of your visitation. If your work be not finished when you come to die, you can never finish your lives with comfort. He that hath not finished his work with care can never finish his course with joy. O, what a dismal case is that soul in that finds itself surprised by death unprepared, to lie shivering upon the brink of the grave, saying, Lord, what will become of me? O, I cannot, I dare not die. For the poor soul to shrink back into the body and cry, O, it were better for me to do anything than die. O, I dare not go before the awful judgment seat. If I had in season made Christ sure, I could then die with peace. Lord, what shall I do? How dost thou like this, reader? Will this be a comfortable close? When one asked a Christian that spent six hours every day in private devotion, why he did so, he answered, O, I must die, I must die. Well then, live to it that you finish your work as Christ also did his. Chapter 36, page 436 The Last Saying of Christ on the Cross And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And having said thus, he gave up the ghost. Luke 23, verse 46 These are the last words of our Lord Jesus Christ upon the cross, with which he breathed out his soul. They were David's words before him, Psalm 31, verse 5, and for substance, Stephen's after him, Acts 7, verse 59. They are words full both of faith and comfort, fit to be the last breathings of every gracious soul departing from this world. Number 1 The person here acting is the Lord Jesus Christ, who in this, as well as in other things, acted as the head of the church. This must be remarked carefully, for therein lies no small part of a believer's consolation. When Christ commends his soul to God, he solemnly presents our souls with his, to his Father's acceptance. Jesus Christ neither lived nor died for himself, but for believers. What he did in this very act refers to them as well as to his own soul. You must look, therefore, upon Christ in this last and solemn act of his life as gathering all the souls of the elect together and making a solemn tender of them all with his own soul to God. Number 2 The person to whom he commits this precious treasure was his own father. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Father is a sweet, encouraging, assuring title. Well may a son commit any concern, however dear, into the hands of a father, especially such a son into the hands of such a father. Number 3 The thing committed into his hand, my spirit, was his soul, now upon the very point of separation from the body. The soul is the most precious of all treasures. A whole world is but a trifle if weighed for the price of one's soul. Matthew 16, 29 This inestimable treasure he now commits into his father's hands. Number 4 The act by which he puts it into that faithful hand, I commend, was in Christ an act of faith, a most special and excellent act intended as a precedent for all his people. Number 5 The last thing observable is the manner in which he uttered these words with a loud voice. He spoke that all might hear, and that his enemies who judged him, now destitute and forsaken of God, might be convinced that he was not so, but that he was dear to his father still and could put his soul confidently into his hands. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Taking then these words, not only as spoken by Christ ahead of all believers, and so commending their souls to God with his own, but also as a pattern, teaching them what they ought to do themselves when they come to die, we observe that dying believers are warranted and encouraged by Christ's example, believingly to commend their precious souls into the hands of God. Thus the apostle directs Christians to commit their souls to God's fatherly protection when they are going to prison or to the stake for Christ. Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing as unto a faithful creator. 1 Peter 4, 19 We will consider what is implied in the souls thus commending itself to God by faith and what warrant or encouragement gracious souls have for so doing. Roman numeral 1 What is implied in a believer's commending his soul into the hands of God at death? Number 1 It evidently implies that the soul outlives the body. It feels the house in which it dwelt dropping into ruins and looks out for a new habitation with God. Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. The soul knows itself to be more noble than the corruptible body which it is now to leave in the dust. It understands its relation to the father of spirits and from him expects protection and provision in its disembodied state and therefore commits itself into his hands. If it vanished and did not survive the body if it were annihilated at death it were but mocking God to say when we die Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Number 2 It implies the soul's true rest to be in God. See which way its motions and tendencies are not only in life but in death. Father, into thy hands God is the center of all gracious spirits. While they tabernacle here they have no rest but in the bosom of their God. When they go hence their expectation and earnest desires are to be with him. It had been working after God by gracious desires before. It had cast many a longing look heavenward but when the gracious soul comes near its God as it does in the dying hour then it even throws itself into his arms as a river that after many turnings and windings pours itself into the ocean. Nothing but God can please it in this world and nothing but God can satisfy it when it goes hence. Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none on earth that I desire in comparison of thee. Psalm 73 verse 25 Number 3 It also implies the great value believers place upon the soul. This is the precious treasure and their main solicitude and chief care is to see it secured in a safe hand. Father into thy hands I commit my spirit. These words express the believer's care for his soul that it may be safe whatever becomes of the vile body. A believer when he comes nigh to death spends but few thoughts about his body where it shall be laid or how it shall be disposed of. He trusts that in the hands of friends. But as his great care all along was for his soul so he expresses it in these his very last breathings in which he commends it into the hands of God. It is not Lord Jesus receive my body take care of my dust but receive my spirit. Lord secure the jewel when the casket is broken. Number 4 These words imply the deep sense that dying believers have of the great change that is coming upon them by death when all visible and sensible things are shrinking away from them and failing. They feel the world in the best comforts of it failing and the soul cleaves more closely than ever to God. Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. Not that the soul cleaves to God merely because it has then no other support. No it chose God for its portion when it was in the midst of all its outward enjoyment and had as good security as other men have for the long enjoyment of them. True though gracious souls have chosen God for their portion and do truly prefer him to the best of their comforts yet in this imperfect state they live not wholly upon God but partly by faith and partly by sense partly upon things seen and partly upon things not seen. Earthly objects had some interest in their hearts alas too much but now all these are vanishing. I shall behold man no more with the inhabitants of the world said sick Hezekiah. The soul now turns itself from them all and casts itself upon God expecting now to live upon its God entirely like the blessed angels. Number 5 It implies faith in the atonement of God and his full reconciliation to believers by the blood of the great sacrifice else they durst never commit their souls into his hands for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. Hebrews 10.31 That is, of God unappeased by the offering up of Christ. The soul dare not more cast itself into the hands of God without such an atoning sacrifice than it dare approach consuming fire and indeed the reconciliation of God by Jesus Christ as it is the ground of all acceptance with God for we are made accepted in the beloved so it is plainly implied in the order or manner of the reconciled souls committing itself to him it first casts itself into the hands of Christ and then into the hands of God by him. So Stephen cried when dying Lord Jesus receive my spirit. Number 6 It implies both the efficacy and excellency of faith in supporting and relieving the soul at a time when nothing else can. Faith is its conductor when in the greatest perplexity and distress it secures the soul when it is turned out of the body when heart and flesh fail this leads it to the rock that fails not it remains by the soul till it sees it safe through all the territories of Satan and safe landed upon the shore of glory and then is swallowed up in vision. Many a favor hath faith conferred upon the soul while in the body. The great service it did was in the time of its espousals to Christ. This is the marriage knot the blessed bond of union between the soul and Christ. Many a relieving sight and sweet support hath faith afforded since the soul's espousals but surely its first and last work are its most glorious works. By faith it first ventured itself upon Christ threw itself upon him in the deepest sense of its own vileness and utter unworthiness when sense, reason and multitudes of temptations stood by contradicting and discouraging. By faith it now casts itself into his arms when it is launching out into vast eternity. They are both noble acts of faith but the first no doubt is the greatest and most difficult for when once the soul is interested in Christ it is easy still to commit itself into his hands. It is easier for a child to cast himself into the arms of his own father in distress than for one that hath been both a stranger and an enemy to him to cast itself upon him that he may be a father and a friend to it. But Roman numeral 2 What warrant or encouragement have gracious souls to commit themselves at death into the hands of God? I answer much every way all things encourage and warrant their so doing for number 1 The God to whom the believing soul commits itself at death is its creator the father of its being. He created and inspired it and so it hath the relation of a creature to a creator yea of a creature now in distress to a faithful creator. Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing as to a faithful creator. 1 Peter 4.19 To this single relation in itself gives no encouragement to a creature that has sinned. It is a people of no understanding therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them and he that formed them will show them no favor. Isaiah 27.11 But now grace brings that relation into repute. Holiness ingratiates us again and revives the remembrance of this relation so that believers only can plead this. Number 2 Again as the gracious soul is his creature so it is his redeemed creature one that he hath bought and that with a great price even the precious blood of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 1.18-19 This greatly encourages the departing soul to commit itself into the hands of God. Into thy hand I commit my spirit thou hast redeemed me O Lord God of truth. Psalm 31.5 Lord I am not only thy creature but thy redeemed creature one that thou hast bought with a great price. For my sake Christ came from thy bosom and at the expense of his precious blood redeemed me. Will thou at last exclude me? Shall the ends both of the creation and redemption of this soul be lost together? Will God form such a soul in which are so many wonders of the wisdom and power of its creator? Will he when sin has marred the frame and defaced the glory of it recover it to himself again by the death of his own dear son and after all this cast it away? Father into thy hands I commend my spirit. I know thou wilt have respect to the work of thy hands especially to a redeemed creature upon which thou hast expended so great love. Number 3 Nay, this is not all. The gracious soul is his renewed creature. This lays a firm ground for the believer's confidence and acceptance. Not that it is the proper cause or reason of its acceptance but is the soul's best evidence that it is accepted with God and shall not be refused by him when it comes to him at death. For in such a soul there is a double workmanship of God both glorious though the last exceeds in glory. A natural workmanship in the excellent frame of that noble creature the soul and a gracious workmanship upon that again a new creation upon the old glory upon glory. We are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus Ephesians 2.10 The Holy Ghost came down from heaven on purpose to create this new workmanship to frame this new creature and indeed it is the chief of all God's works of wonder in this world and must give the believer abundant encouragement to commit himself to God. By this we are made meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light Colossians 1.12 It is also the design and end of him that wrought it. Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God. 2 Corinthians 5.5 Had he not designed thy soul for glory the spirit would never have come down to sanctify it. Surely it shall not fail of a reception into glory when it is cast out of this tabernacle. Such a work was not wrought in vain neither can it ever perish. Sanctification so roots itself in the soul that where the soul goes it goes. Gifts indeed die all natural excellency and beauty depart at death Job 4.21 but grace ascends with the soul it is sanctified when a separate soul. And will God shut the door of glory upon such a soul that by grace is made meet for the inheritance oh it cannot be. Number 4 As the gracious soul is a renewed soul so it is also a sealed soul. God has sealed it in this world for that glory into which it is now to enter at death. All gracious souls have those works of grace wrought on them which evince their title to glory and many the spirit helps clearly to discern their interest in Christ and all the promises. This boast secures heaven to the soul in itself and becomes also an earnest or pledge of that glory in the unspeakable joys and comforts it produces in the soul. Who hath sealed us and given us the earnest of the spirit in our hearts. 2 Corinthians 1.22 How can the soul that hath found all this fear a rejection by its God when at death it comes to him? Surely if God hath sealed he will not refuse you. If he hath given his earnest he will not shut you out. 5. Moreover every gracious soul may confidently cast itself into the arms of its God when it goes hence with Father into thy hands I commit my spirit for as much as it is in covenant with God and God stands obliged by his covenant and promise to such not to cast them out when they come unto him. 6. As soon as thou didst become his by regeneration that promise became thine I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. 7. And will he leave the soul at a time when it has more need of his support than it ever had? 8. Every gracious soul is entitled to that promise I will come again and receive you to myself. John 14 verse 3 9. And will he fail to make it good when the time of the promise is come as at death it is? It cannot be. 10. When he sees a poor soul that he hath made redeemed sanctified sealed and by solemn promise engaged himself to receive coming to him at death firmly depending upon his faithfulness saying as David in 2 Samuel 23 verse 5 11. Though, Lord, there be many defects in me yet thou hast made a covenant with me well ordered in all things and sure and this is all my salvation and all my hope. How can God refuse such a soul? How can he cast it off when it so casts itself upon him? 12. But this is not all the gracious soul sustains many intimate and dear relations to the God into whose hands it commends itself at death. It is his spouse and the consideration of such a day of espousals may well encourage it to cast itself into the bosom of Christ its head and husband. It is a member of his body flesh and bones Ephesians 5 30 It is his child and he its everlasting father Isaiah 9 verse 6 It is his friend henceforth that saith Christ I call you not servants but friends John 15 15 What confidence may these and all the other dear relations Christ owns to the renewed soul begin in such an hour as death? What husband can throw off the dear wife of his bosom who in distress casts herself into his arms? What father can shut the door upon a dear child that comes to him for refuge saying Father into thy hands I commit my spirit John 15 15 The unchangeableness of God's love to his people gives confidence that they shall in no wise be cast out. They know Christ shall be the same to them at last as he was at first the same in the pangs of death as in the comforts of life. Having loved his own which were in the world he loved them unto the end. John 13 verse 1 He does not love as the world loves only in prosperity but they are as dear to him when their beauty and strength are gone as in their greatest prosperity. If we live we live to the Lord and if we die we die to the Lord so then whether we live or die we are the Lord. Romans 14 verse 8 Now consider all these things and weigh them both apart and together and see whether they amount not to a full evidence of the truth of this point that dying believers are warranted and encouraged to commend their souls into the hands of God whether they have not every one of them cause to say as the apostle did I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day. 2nd Timothy 1 verse 12 Inference number 1 Are dying believers only warranted and encouraged thus to commend their souls into the hands of God? How sad then the state of all dying unbelievers! Such souls will fall into the hands of God but that is their misery not their privilege. They are not reposed by faith in the hands of mercy but fall by sin into the hands of justice. Not God but the devil is their father. John 8 verse 44 Whither should the child go but to its own father? They have not one of the above mentioned encouragements to cast themselves into the hands of God except the mere relation they have to him as their creator and that is of no avail without the new creation. If they have nothing but this to plead for their salvation the devil has as much to plead as they. It is the new creature that brings the first creation into repute again with God. O dismal O deplorable case! A poor soul is turned out of house and home and knows not where to go. It departs and immediately falls into the hands of justice. Little, ah little do the friends of such a one think while they are honoring his dust by a splendid and honorable funeral. What a poor state the soul is in and to what fearful straits and extremities it is now exposed. He may cry indeed that he may die will not die. He will not die but he will not die but he will but he will but he will not die but he will not die but he but he but he will but he but he but he will not die but he haste, you shall be surely supplied. He that remembers your souls will not forget your bodies. But we live by sense and not by faith. Present things strike our affections more powerfully than invisible things to come. The Lord humble his people for this. Number four. Is it the privilege of believers to commit their souls to God in a dying hour? Then how precious, how useful a grace is faith to the people of God, both living and dying. While we live and converse here in the world, all our comfort and safety is from it. For all our union with Christ, the fountain of mercies and blessings, is by faith. That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith. Ephesians 3.17. All our communion with Christ is by it. He that cometh to God must believe. Hebrews 11.6. The soul's life is wrapped up in this communion with God and that communion in faith. All communications from Christ, all quickening, comfort, joy, strength, and whatsoever serves the well-being of the life of grace, are through that faith which first unites us to Christ and still maintains our communion with Christ. Believing, we rejoice. 1 Peter 1.8. The inner man is renewed while we look to the things which are not seen. 2 Corinthians 4.18. And as our life and all its supports and comforts here depend on faith, so in our death the safety and comfort of our souls then depends upon our faith. He that hath no faith cannot commit his soul to God, but rather shrinks from God. Faith can do many precious offices for your souls upon a deathbed when the light of this world is gone and all joy ceases on earth. It can give us sights of invisible things in the other world, and those sights will breathe life into our souls amidst the very pangs of death. Reader, do but think what a comfortable foresight of God and the joys of salvation thou wilt have when thine eyestrings are breaking. Faith can not only see that beyond the grave which will comfort, but it can cleave to its God and clasp Christ in a promise when it feels the ground of all sensible comfort trembling and sinking under thy feet. My heart and my flesh fail, but God is the strength or rock of my heart and my portion forever. Reads fail, but the rock is firm footing. Yea, and when the soul can no longer tabernacle here, it can cast itself upon God. With, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. O precious faith! 5 Do the souls of dying believers commend themselves into the hands of God? Then let not the surviving relations of such sorrow as those that have no hope. A husband, a wife, a child is rent by death out of your arms. Well, but consider into what arms, into what bosom they are commended. Is it not better for them to be in the bosom of God than in yours? Could they be spared so long from heaven as to come back again to you, but an hour? How would they say to you, as Christ said to the daughters of Jerusalem, Weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. I am in safe hands. I am out of the reach of all storms and troubles. O did you know what their state is who are with God? You would be more than satisfied about them. 6 Is it the privilege of dying believers to commend their souls into the hands of God? Then as ever you hope for comfort or peace in your last hour, see that your souls be such as may then be commended into the hands of a holy and just God. See that they be holy souls. God will never accept them if they be not holy. Without holiness no man shall see God. Hebrews 12 verse 14 He that hath this hope, namely to see God, purifyeth himself even as he is pure. 1 John 3 verse 3 Endeavors after holiness are inseparably connected with all rational expectations of blessedness. Will you put an unclean filthy defiled thing into the pure hands of the most holy God? O see that thy soul be holy and already accepted in the beloved, or woe to it when it shall take its leave of the tabernacle it now inhabits. The gracious soul may then confidently say, Lord Jesus, into thy hands I commend my spirit. O let all that can say so then now say, Thanks be to God for Jesus Christ. Chapter 37 page 449 Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner of the Jews is to bury. Now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden, and in the garden a new sepulcher, wherein was never man yet laid. There laid they Jesus therefore because of the Jews' preparation day, for the sepulcher was nigh at hand. John 19 verses 40-42 You have heard the last words of the dying Jesus, commending his spirit into his Father's hands. And now the life of the world hangs dead upon a tree. The light of the world, for a time, shut up in a dismal cloud. The Son of Righteousness sat in the region and shadow of death. The Lord is dead. He that conquered death is now himself to be locked up in the grave. All friends and lovers of Jesus are now invited to his funeral. Come, see the place where the Lord lay. Mark 1 The preparations made for it, particularly the begging and perfuming of the body. His body could not be buried till, by begging, his friends had obtained it as a favor from his judge. The dead body was by law in the power of Pilate, who had judged it to death, as the bodies of those that are hanged are in the power of the judge to dispose of them as he pleases. And when they had gotten it from Pilate, they wound it in fine linen clothes with spices. But what need of spices to perfume that blessed body? His own love was enough to embalm it in the remembrance of his people to all generations. But hereby they manifest, as far as they are able, the dear affection they have for him. Mark 2 The bearers that carried his body to its grave were Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, two secret disciples, both men of estate and honor. None could imagine that these would have appeared at a time of so much danger with such boldness for Christ, that they who were afraid to come to him except by night when he was living, would go openly and boldly to manifest their love to him when dead. But now they are inspired with zeal and courage when those that made greater and more open confessions have left him. Mark 3 The attendants who followed the body were the women that attended him out of Galilee, among whom only the two Marys and the mother of Zebedee's children, whom Mark calls Salome, are named. Mark 4 The grave or sepulcher where they laid him was Joseph's new tomb, which he had prepared in a garden near Golgotha, where our Lord died. Two things are remarkable about this tomb. It was another's tomb, and it was a new tomb. It was another's, for as he had not a house of his own to live in, so he had not a tomb of his own to lay his body in when dead. And it was a new tomb, wherein never man was yet laid. Doubtless there was the hand of providence in this, for had any other been laid there before him, it might have proved an occasion of marring the credit and glory of his resurrection, by pretending it was some former body, and not the Lord's that arose. In this also divine providence had a respect to that prophecy, Isaiah 53 verse 9, which was to be fulfilled at his funeral. He made his grave with the rich. 5 No mention is made of the groans and tears with which they laid him in his sepulcher. Yet we may well presume they were not wanting in expressions of their deep sorrow. For as they wept and smote their breath when he died, Luke 23, 48, so no doubt they laid him with melting hearts and flowing eyes in his tomb. 6 The solemnities with which his funeral rites were performed were all suitable to his humbled state. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books. SWRB makes thousands of classic Reformation resources available, free and for sale, in audio, video, and printed formats. Our many free resources, as well as our complete mail-order catalog, containing thousands of classic and contemporary Puritan and Reform books, tapes, and videos at great discounts, is on the web at www.swrb.com. We can also be reached by email at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at s srb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at swrb at s