577 / 674
DISC.
xi.]
AND
JOY
AT
TIME
RESURRECTION.
s'Si
he represents
his desires with more decency and submis-
sion.
Every
desire to die
is
not
to
be
construed sinful
and criminal.
Nature
may ask
of
God, a relief
from its
agonies and
a
period
to its sorrows,
nor
does
grace
ut-
terly forbid
it,
if
there
be also a humble submission
and
resignation
to the
will
of
God,
such
as
we
find
exempli-
fied by
our blessed
Saviour,
"
Father,
if
it
be
thy
will,
let this
cup
pass
from
nie
;
yet
not
as
I
will,
but
as
thou
wilt
;"
Mat.
xxvi. 39, 4
:>.
On
this second
observation
k
desire to make
these
three
reflections
:
Reflection I.
"
Though
a
good man knows
that death
was
originally
appointed
as
a curse for
sin,
yet
his
faith
can
trust God
to
turn that
curse
into
a blessing:
He
can
humbly
ask
his
Maker
to release him from
the painful
bonds
of
life,
to
hasten
the
slow
approaches
of
death,
and
to hide him
in
the grave from some
overwhelming
sorrows.
This
is
the glory
of God
in his
covenant
of
grace
with the children
of
men,
that
he
"
turns curses
into
blessings
;"
Deut.
xxiii.
5.
And the grave which
was
designed
as
a prison
fop
sinners,
is
become
a place
of shelter
to
the
saints,
where they
are hidden and se-
cured from rising sorrows
and
calamities.
It
is
God's
known hiding-place for
his
own
children
from
the envy
and
the rage of
men,
from
all
the known.
and unknown
agonies
of
nature, the
diseases
of
the
flesh,
and
the
dis-
tresses
of
human
life,
which
perhaps
might
be
overbearing
and
intolerable.
"
Why, O
my
fearful
soul,
why
shouldst thou be
.
afraid
of
dying
?
Why shouldst thou
be
frighted
at the
dark
shadows
of
the grave,
when thou
art
weary with
the toils
and
crosses
of
the day
?
Hast
thou
not often
desired the shadow
of
the evening, and longed for
the
bed
of natural
sleep,
where
thy fatigues and thy
sorrows
may
be
forgotten for
a season
?
And
is
not
the grave
it-
self
a
sweet sleeping-place for
the
saints, wherein
they
lie down and
forget their distresses and
feel
none
of
the
miseries
of
human
life,
and
especially since it
is
softened
and
sanctified
by
the
Son
of God
lying down
there
Why shouldst thou
be
afraid
to lay thy
head
in
the dust
;
It
is
but entering into God's
hiding- place, into
his
chant-
hers
of
rest and
repose
:
It
is
but committing
thy
flesh,
the
meaner
part of
thy
composition, to
his
care
in
the
dark
for
a
shor,
t
season
:
He
will
hide,
thee
tilere,
and