ó60 BAFtTY IN THE CRAVE, tDISC. Xt. Reflection III. This one thought, that the " grave is God's hiding-place," should, compose our spirits to si. lence, and abate our mourning for the loss of friends, who have given sufficient evidence that 'they are the children of God. Their heavenly Father has seized them from the midst of their trials, dangers and difficulties, and given them a secure refuge in his own appointed place of rest and safety. Jesus has opened the door of the grave with his golden key, and bath let them into a chamber of re- pose : Ile has concealed them in a silent retreat, where temptationand sin cannot reach them, and where anguish and misery never come. When I have lost therefore a dear and delightful relative or friend, or perhaps many of them in a short season are called successively down to the dust, let me say thus within myself, " It is their God and my God has done it : He sawwhat new temptations were ready to surround them in the circumstances of life wherein they stood : He beheld the trials ' and difficulties that were ready to encompass them on all sides, and his love ruade a way for their escape : He opened the dark retreat of death, and hid them there from a thousand perils which might have plunged them into guilt and defilement. He be- held this as the proper season togive thema release from aworld of labour and toil, vanity and vexation, sin and sorrow : They are taken away from the evil to come, and I will learn to complain no more. The blessed Jesus, to whom they had devoted themselves, well knew what allurements of gaiety and joy might have been too pre- valent over them, and he gave them a kind escape lest their souls should suffer any real detriment, lest their strict profession of piety should be soiled or disho- noured : He knew how much they were able to bear, and he would lay upon them no further burden : He saw rising difficulties approaching, and new perils coming upon them beyond their strength, and he fulfils his own promises, and glorifies his own faithfulness, by open- ing the door of his well known hiding- place, and giving them a safe refuge there. He keeps them there in secret from the corruptions of a public life, and the multiplied dangers of a degenerate age, which might have divided 'their hearts fromGod and things heavenly : And perhaps be guards them also in that dark retreat from some long
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