Isaiah 65:20

"There shall be no more thence an infant of days, nor an old man that hath not filled his days: for the child shall die an hundred years old, but the sinner being an hundred years old shall be accursed. " - Isaiah 65:20

My soul, contemplate this morning the auspicious and blessed effects brought into the circumstances of mankind by the gospel. Not only shall there be new heavens, and a new earth, but new hearts, new minds, new dispositions to enjoy them. "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature. Old things are passed away, and all things are become new." And among the many blessed changes that shall take place in consequence of Jesus's salvation, all untimely deaths are done away. Indeed, there can be no such thing as an untimely death to those who are in Christ: for a voice from heaven pronounces all blessed that die in the Lord. A child new born, if born also in Christ, an ‘infant. of a day, if a gracious day, is as ripe for glory as if an hundred years had passed over him. Indeed, he is an hundred years old in Jesus. Sweet thought! what a blessedness, dearest Jesus, hath thy great salvation introduced into the circumstances of thy people. But what an awful thought - the life of an unawakened, unregenerated sinner, though protracted to an hundred years, is lengthened only to misery. As he came into the world, so he goes through it, and so he goes out of it - an unrenewed sinner. Oh distinguishing grace! Oh great salvation!