call that man's. If we say, Can this dust live? Perchance it cannot; it
may be the mere dust of the earth, which never did live, never shall. It
may be the dust of that man's worm, which did live, but shall no more.
It may be the dust of another man, that concerns not him of whom it was
asked. This death of incineration and dispersion is, to natural reason,
the most irrecoverable death of all; and yet _Domini Domini sunt exitus
mortis, unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_; and by
recompacting this dust into the same body, and remaining the same body
with the same soul, he shall in a blessed and glorious resurrection give
me such an issue from this death as shall never pass into any other
death, but establish me into a life that shall last as long as the Lord
of Life himself.

And so have you that that belongs to the first acceptation of these
words (_unto God the Lord belong the issues of death_); That though from
the womb to the grave, and in the grave itself, we pass from death to
death, yet, as Daniel speaks, _the Lord our God is able to deliver us,
and he will deliver us_.

And so we pass unto our second accommodation of these words (_unto God
the Lord belong the issues of death_); that it belongs to God, and not
to man, to pass a judgment upon us at our death, or to conclude a
dereliction on God's part upon the manner thereof.

Those indications which the physicians receive, and those presagitions
which they give for death or recovery in the patient, they receive and
they give out of the grounds and the rules of their art; but we have no
such rule or art to give a presagition of spiritual death and damnation
upon any such indication as we see in any dying man; we see often
enough to be sorry, but not to despair; we may be deceived both ways: we
use to comfort ourself in the death of a friend, if it be testified that
he went away like a lamb, that is, without any reluctation; but God
knows that may be accompanied with a dangerous damp and stupefaction,
and insensibility of his present state. Our blessed Saviour suffered
colluctations with death, and a _sadness even in his soul to death_, and
an agony even to a bloody sweat in his body, and expostulations with
God, and exclamations upon the cross. He was a devout man who said upon
his death-bed, or death-turf (for he was a hermit), _Septuaginta annos
Domino servivisti, et mori times?_ Hast thou served a good master
threescore and ten years, and now art th