374 A SPEECH OVER A GRAVE. [DISC. XL, And many a parent of a pious household in that day, when they shall see their sons and their daughters around them, all arrayed with the beams of the Son of'righteous- ness, shall echo with holy joy to the voice of the blessed Jesus, " Lord, here am I, and the children which thou hast given me ;" HHeb. ii. 13. "I was afraid, as, Job once might be when his friends suggested' this fear ; I was afraid that my " children had sinned against God, and he. shad cast them away for their transgression ;" Job viii. 4. But I am now convinced, when he seized therrí from my sight, he only took them out of the way of temptation and danger, and concealed them fora season in his safe hiding -place I mourned in the day-time fora lost son or a lost daughter, and in the night my couch was bedewed with my tears I was scared with midnight dreams on their account, and the visions of the grave ter- rified me because my children were there : I gave up myself to sorrow for fear of the displeasure.of my God both against them and' against me : But' how unreason- able were these sorrows ? How groundless were my fears ? How gloriously am I disappointed this blessed morning ? I see my dear offspring called out of that long retreat where God had concealed them, and they arise to meet the divine call. I hear them answering with joy to the happy summons. My eyes behold them risen in the image of my God and their God ; they are near me, they stand with me at the right-hand of the Judge ; now shall we rejoice together in the sentence of eternal bless- edness from the lips of my Lord, my Redeemer and their Redeemer." Amen. Among my papers I have found a speech spoken at a grave, which I transcribed almost fifty years ago, and .which deserves to be saved from perishing. It was pronounced manyyears before at the funeral of a pious person, by a minister there present, supposed to be the Rev. Mr. Peter Sterry; and the subject of it being suited to this discourse, I thought it not improper to preserve it here. " CHRISTIAN friends, though ` sin be entered into the world, andby sindeath, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned;' .Rona. v. 1g.. yet it seems
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