436 MEMOIRS OF MR BOSTON. fhining beauty in the conduót of Providence, that we are not always fed with honey, nor yet is our cup always filled with gall and wormwood. There is a wife mixture in our lot of light and (hale, as there is in' ourfelves of fleth and fpirit; there is the mixture of anger and love in the trials of the Lord's chil- dren, not the anger of an enemy intending ruin and hurt, as flowing from hatred and revenge; but the anger of a father, which is guided by wifdom, and tempered by love, intending the good of his offending child. It is a piece of prerogative - royal, to have the power of life and death, which Gods reíerves to hmfelf. He only knows when the appointed work is finifhed ; the alone is fit to give the failing-orders, and affign the time when the fore toffed and fhattered veffel !hall be laid up in a fafe harbour.Very dear sir, yours very atlèótionately, H. DAVIDSON, (4) Very dear Sir, Galafhiels, Feb. 25. 1732. YOUR feveral letters came fafe to hand, and were very ac- ceptable. This comes to inform you, that the good old woman my mother went home to her own, the better country, this morning betwixt three and four o'clock. She took her bed up- on the Lord's day evening; had a fever pretty high, but re- tained all her fences to her dying hour. How cruel is our love ! how blind and inconfiderate is our affeétion ! we would prefer the fmall advantages or greater gains we reap from their abode with us, to their entire fatisfaé ion and compleat happinefs ; a very great but common folecifm in true friendfhip we are often guilty of. However frightful and ill-favoured death appear to the eye of fenfe, it is viewed by faith as the meffenger of our heavenly Father ; and when the Chriftian opens its hard cold hands, and looks into them, there are to be found gracious let- ters full of love, bearing an invitation"to comehome, a call from the new Jerufalem to come up and fee. When death with the one hand covers our eyes, and deprives of the light of the ftars, with the other it rends in pieces the vail, and fo makes way for our being fet immediately under the refrefhing beams of the Sun of righteoufnefs, without the leaft appearance of a cloud through.the long days of eternity. Now that his ways is in the teas and his-path in the deep waters, and his foofleps are not known, we mutt believe loving- kindnefs in all the mvftèrious paffages of Providence : we fhall in due time fee a wheel in the wheel, and be taught how to decipher the dark charaóters we °íhall, with an agreeable furprife, perceive an all-wife Providence in all its intricate, oblique, and feemingly, contrary motions, to have been a faithful fervant to the divine promife ; fo that we mutt: fay Amen to Heaven's difpofals, and cry out in the dark and gloomy night, Hallelujah. I fhould certainly make an apology for giving you fo much trouble, but allow it to be writ-
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