God, under all trials of every kind both in life and death. OBSERVATION V. The saints of God who are resting in their beds of dust will arise joyfully at the call of their heavenly Father. OBSERVATION VI. God takes delight in his works of nature, but much more when they are dignified and adorned by the operations of divine grace. OBSERVATION VII. How much are we indebted to God for the revelation of the New Testament, which teaches us to find out the blessings which are contained in the Old, and to fetch out the glories and treasures which are concealed there. Let us dwell awhile upon each of these, and endeavour to improve them by a particular application. OBSERVATION I. This world is a place wherein good men are exposed to great calamities, and they are ready to think the anger or wrath of God appears in them. This mortal life and this present state of things as surrounded with crosses and disappointments, the loss of our dearest friends, as well as our own pains and sicknesses, have so much anguish and misery attending them, that they seem to be the seasons of divine wrath, and they grieve and pain the spirit of many a pious man, under a sense of the anger of his God. It must be confessed in general, that misery is the effect of sin, for sin and sorrow came into the world together. It is granted also, that God sometimes afflicts his people in anger, and corrects them in his hot displeasure, when they have sinned against him in a remarkable manner: but this is not always the case. Job i. 8. The great God was not really angry with Job when he suffered him to fall into such complicated distresses; for it is plain, that while he delivered him up into the hands of Satan to be afflicted, he vindicates and honours him with a divine testimony concerning his piety. "There is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man one that feareth God, and avoideth evil." Nor was he angry with his Son Jesus Christ, when it pleased the Father to bruise him and put him to grief, when he made his soul an offering for sin, and he was stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted, Isa. liii. To these we may add Paul, the best of the apostles, and the greatest of Christians, who was abundant in labours and sufferings beyond all the rest. dismal catalogue of his calamities, 2 Cor. xi. 23, &c. What variety of wretchedness, what terrible persecutions from men, what repeated strokes of distress came upon him by the providence of God, which appeared like the effects of divine wrath or anger! but they were plainly designed for more divine and blessed purposes, both with regard to God, with regard to himself, and to all the succeeding ages of the Christian church. See a God does not always smite his own people to punish sin and shew his anger; but these sufferings are often appointed for. the trial of their Christian virtues and graces, for the exercise of their humility and their patience, for the proof of their stedfastness in religion, for the honour of the grace of God in them, and for the increase of their own future weight of glory. "Blessed is the man that endures temptation, for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life which the Lord hath promised to them that love him." James i. 12. "The devil shall cast some of you into prison, that you may be tried, and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life." Rev. ii. 10. Our light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor. iv. 17. However, upon the whole, this world is a very troublesome and painful place to the children of God they are subject here to many weaknesses and sins, temptations and follies; they are in danger of new defilements; they go through many threatening perils, and many real sorrows, which either are the effects of the displeasure of God, or, at least, carry an appearance of divine anger in them: but there is a time when these shall be finished, and sorrow shall have its last period: there is a time when these calamities will be overpast, and shall return no more for ever. REFLECTION. Why then, O my soul, why shouldest thou be so fond of dwelling in this present world? why shouldest thou be desirous of a long continuance in it? Hast thou never found sorrows and afflictions enough among the scenes of life, to make thee weary of them? and when sorrow and sin have joined together, have they not grievously embittered this life unto thee? Wilt thou never be weaned from these sensible scenes of flesh and blood? Hast thou such a love to the darknesses, the defilements, and the uneasinesses which are found in such a prison as this is, as to make thee unwilling to depart when God shall call? Hast thou dwelt so long in this tabernacle of clay, and dost thou not groan, being burdened? Hast thou no desire to a release into that upper and better world, where sorrows, sins, and temptations, have no place, and where there shall never be the least appearance or suspicion of the displeasure of thy God towards thee? OBSERVATION II. The grave is God's known hiding-place for his people: It is his appointed shelter and retreat for his favourites, when he finds them overpressed either with present dangers or calamities or when he foresees huge calamities and dangers, like storms and billows, ready to overtake them. Isa. lvii. 1.The righteous is taken away from the evil to come." God our heavenly Father beholds this evil advancing forward through all the present smiles of nature, and all the peaceful circumstances that surround us. He hides his children in the grave from a thousand sins, and sorrows, and distresses of this life, which they foresaw not: and even when they are actually beset behind and before, so that there seems to be no natural way for their escape, God calls them aside into the chambers of death in the same sort of language as he uses in another case, Isa. xxvi. 20. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment till the indignation be overpast.” And yet perhaps it is possible that this very language of the Lord in Isaiah may refer to the grave, as God's hiding-place, for the verse before promises a resurrection. "Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust, for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead." And if we may suppose this last verse to have been transposed by any antient transcribers, so as to have followed originally verse 20, or 21, it is very natural then to interpret the whole paragraph concerning death, as God's hiding-place for his people, and their rising again through the virtue of the resurrection of Christ as their joyful release. Many a time God is pleased to shorten the labours and travels, and fatigues of good men in this wilderness, and he opens a door of rest to them where he pleases, and perhaps surprizes them into a state of safety and peace, "where the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease from troubling ;" and holy Job seems to desire this favour from his Maker here. God for upbut at other desires with Sometimes indeed, in the history of this book, he seems to break out into these desires in too rude and angry a manner of expression; and in a fit of crimi nal impatience he murmurs against holding him in the land of the living times, as in this text, he represents his more decency and submission. Every desire to die is not to be construed sinful and criminal. Nature may ask of God a relief from its agonies and a period to its sorrows; nor does grace utterly forbid it, if there be also an humble submission and resignation to the will of God, such as we find exemplified by our blessed Saviour, "Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but as thou wilt." On this second observation I desire to make these three reflections. REFLECTION 1. Though a good man knows that death was originally appointed as a curse for sin, yet his faith can trust God to turn that curse into a bles sing: he can humbly ask his Maker to release him from the painful bonds of life, to hasten the slow approaches of death. and to hide him in the grave from some overwhelming sorrows. This is the glory of God in his covenant of grace with the children of men, that he turns curses into blessings, Deut. xxiii. 5. And the grave, which was designed as a prison for sinners, is become a place of shelter to the saints where they are hidden and secured from rising sor rows and calamities. It is God's known hidingplace for his own children from the envy and the rage of men, from all the known and unknown agonies of nature, the diseases of the flesh, and the distresses of human life, which perhaps might be overbearing and intolerable. Why, O my fearful soul, why shouldest thou be afraid of dying? Why shouldest thou be frighted at the dark shadows of the grave, when thou art weary |