Will the wounded and complaining heart go on to groan and murmur still, 'But my son was carried off in the prime of life, or my daughter in her blooming years; they stood flourishing in the vigour of their nature, and it was my delight to behold their growing appearances of virtue and goodness, and that in the midst of ease, and plenty, and prospects of happiness, so far as this world can afford it?'

But could you look through the next year to the end of it? Could you penetrate into future events, and survey the scenes of seven years to come? Could your heart assure itself of the real possession of this imaginary view of happiness and peace? Perhaps the blessed God saw the clouds gathering afar off, and at a great distance of time, and in much kindness he housed your favourite from unknown trials, dangers and sorrows. So a prudent gardener, who is acquainted with the sky, and skilful in the signs of the seasons, even in the month of May, foresees a heavy tempest rising in the edge of the horizon, while a vulgar eye observes nothing but sunshine; and he who knows the worth and the tenderness of some special plants in his garden, houses them in haste, lest they should be exposed and demolished by the sweeping rain or hail.

You say, 'these children were in the bloom of life, and in the most desirable appearance of joy and satisfaction:' But is not that also usually the most dangerous season of life, and the hour of most powerful temptation? Was not that the time when their pas sions might have been too hard for them, and the de

luding pleasures of life stood round them with a most perilous assault? And what if God, out of pure com- passion, saw it necessary to hide them from an army of perils at once, and to carry them off the stage of life with more purity and honour? Surely when the great God has appointed it, when the blessed Jesus has done it, we would not rise up in opposition and say, 'But I would have had them live longer here at all adventures: I wish they were alive again, let the consequence be what it will.' This is not the voice of faith or patience; this is not the language of holy submission and love to God, nor can our souls approve of such irregular storms of ungoverned affection, which oppose themselves to the divine will, and ruffle the soul with criminal disquietude.

There are many, even of the children of God, who had left a more unblemished and a more honourable character behind them, if they had died much sooner. The latter end of life hath sometimes sullied their brightness, and tarnished the glory they had acquired in a hopeful youth: Their growing years have fallen under such temptations, and been defiled and disgraced by such failings, as would have been entirely prevented had they been summoned away into God's hiding-place some years before. Our blessed Jesus walks among the roses and lilies in the garden of his church, and when he sees a wintry storm coming upon some tender plants of righteousness, he hides them in earth to preserve life in them, that they may bloom with new glories when they shall be raised from that bed. The blessed God acts like a tender

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Father, and consults the safety and honour of his children, when the hand of his mercy snatches them away before that powerful temptation comes, which he foresees would have defiled and distressed, and almost destroyed them. They are not lost, but they are gone to rest a little sooner than we are. Peace

be to that bed of dust where they are hidden, by the hand of their God, from unknown dangers! Blessed be our Lord Jesus, who has the keys of the grave, and never opens it for his favourites but in the wisest

season!

Obs. III. God has appointed a set time in his own counsels for all his children to continue in death:" Those whom he has hidden in the grave he remembers they lie there, and he will not suffer them to abide in the dust for ever. When Job entreats of God that he may be hidden from his sorrows in the dust of death, he requests also that "God would appoint a set time" for his release," and remember him." His faith seems to have had a glimpse of the blessed resurrection. Our senses and our carnal passions would cry out, where is Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and the rest of the ancient worthies, who have been long sleepers in their beds of repose for many thousand years? But faith assures us, that God numbers the days and the months of their concealment under ground, he knows where their dust lies, and where to find every scattered atom against the great restoring day. They are unseen indeed and forgotten of nien, but they are under the eye and the keeping of the blessed God: He watches over their sleep

ing dust, and while the world has forgotten and lost even their names, they are every moment under the eye of God, for they stand written in his book of life, with the name of the Lamb at the head of them.

Jesus, his Son, had but three days appointed him to dwell in this hiding-place, and he rose again at the appointed hour. Other good men, who were gone to their grave not long before him, arose again at the resurrection of Christ, and made a visit to many in Jerusalem: Their appointed hiding-place was but for a short season; and all the children of God shall be remembered in their proper seasons in faithfulness to his Son to whom he has given them: The Head is raised to the mansions of glory, and the members must not for ever lie in dust.

Reflection. Then let all the saints of God wait with patience for the appointed time when he will call them down to death, and let them lie down in their secret beds of repose, and in a waiting frame commit their dust to his care till the resurrection. "All the days

of my appointed time (says Job) I will wait till my change come." The word 'appointed time' is supposed to signify warfare in the Hebrew: As a centinal, when he is fixed to his post by his general, he waits there till he has orders for a release. And this clause of the verse may refer either to dying or rising again, for either of them is a very great and important change passing upon human nature, whether from life to death, or from death to life.

It is said by the prophet Isaiah, chap. xxviii. 16. "He that believeth shall not make haste," i. e. he that trusts in the wisdom and the promised mercy of God will not be too urgent or importunate in any of his desires: It is for want of faith that nature sometimes is in too much haste to die, as Job in some of his expressions appears to have been, or as Elijah perhaps discovered himself when he was wandering in the wilderness disconsolate and almost despairing, or as the prophet Jeremiah sufficiently manifested, when he cursed the day of his birth, or as Jonah was, that peevish prophet, when he was angry with God for not taking away his life; but the ground of it was, he was vexed because God did not destroy Nineveh according to his prophecy: These are certain blemishes of the children of God left upon record in his word, to give us warning of our danger of impatience, and to guard us against their sins and follies. And since we know that God has appointed the seasons of our entrance into death, and into the state of the resurrection, we should humbly commit the dis, posal of ourselves to the hand of our God, who will bestow upon us the most needful blessings in the most proper season.

Do not the "spirits of the just made perfect" wait in patience for the great and blessed rising-day which God has appointed, and for the illustrious change of their bodies from corruption and darkness to light, and life, and glory? God has promised it, and that suffices, and supports their waiting spirits, though they know not the hour. The "Father keeps that in