CHAP. VIII. The believer's triumph over the infirmities of old age. IT is appointed unto all men once to die. The time is fixed by an immutable decree. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and forrow: For it is foon cut off, and we fly away. If some be permitted to live longer, yet the infirmities of old age must arrive, bringing with them labour and forrow, the forerunners of death. Circulation will become languid. The fenfes of the body will grow dull dull and heavy. The faculties of the mind will be impaired, and will discover it by not remembering proper names. In this decline of life believers are subject to the fame infirmities with other men: They have no exemption from pain, or fickness or death : But they have that which keeps up their spirits, and makes them patient and joyful. The confolations of God are then most needed, and he has promised them, and he is faithful: He never failed them, who trusted in him. He has fuited his promises to all the infirmities of age. He knows our frame perfectly, and has described it with an unerring pen, Ecclesiastes chap. xii. that when we feel the figns of old age, we may apply to him for grace to profit by them. The symptoms there there given are infallibly true and just, and are as fo many monitors, warning the man, that the vigour of life is declining, and that the body is returning to the earth from whence it came. Happy is he who takes this warning, and remembers his Creator in the days of his youth, before the wearisome days come, of weakness and pain. He has fled to Jesus for refugeand finds and experiences what he has engaged to do for his people, when heart and flesh begin to fail them. Blessed be his grace for the abundant provision which he has made for their faith and patience: He says to them, "I will be with you, I will never leave you, nor forsake you: So that you may boldly fay, The Lord is our helper, and we need not fear what the infirmities of age can do unto us." I One of them, them, the Christian Hero, thus encouraged himself in the Lord his God-" Thou art my hope, O Lord God, thou art my trust even from my youth: By thee have I been holden up from the womb: Thou art he that took me out of my mother's bowels: My praise shall be continually of thee-I am a wonder unto many, but thou art my strong refuge." This was his truft: And God did not forfake him. He remembered his word unto his servant, wherein he had caused him to depend. There failed not ought of any good thing, which the Lord had spoken unto him. O what great encouragement have believers to follow the steps of his faith! For his God is their God, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, to young and old, who put their trust in him. |