DISCOURSE XI. Safety in the Grave, and 'Joy at the Resurrection. Job xiv. 13, 14, 15. O that thou wouldst hide me in the grave, that thon wouldst keep me seeret until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldst appoint me a set tine and remember me! If a man die, shall he live again ? All the days of. my appointed time will 1 wait till my change come. Thou shalt call, and I will answer thee: thou wilt have a desire to the work of thine hands. BEFORE wè attempt to make any improvement of these words of Job for our present edification, it is necessary that we search out the true meaning of them. There are two generäl senses of these three verses which are given by some of the most considerable interpreters of scripture, and they are exceeding different from each other. The first is this, " Some suppose Job under the extremity of his anguish to long after death here, as he does in some other parts of this book, and to desire that ' God would cut him off from the land of the living, and hide him in the grave, or at least take him away from the present stage of action, and conceal him in some retired and solitary place, dark as the grave is, till all the days which might be designed for his pain and sorrow were finished : And that God would appoint him a time for his restoration to health and happiness again in this world, and raise him to the possession of it, by calling him out of that dark and solitary place of retreat ; and then Job would answer him, and appear with pleasure at such a call of providence." Others give this'sense of the words, " that though Ilse pres- sing and overwhelming sorrows of this good man constrained him to long for death, and he entreated of God that he might be sent to the grave as a hiding- place, and thus be delivered from his present calamities, yet he had some divine glimpse of a re- surrection or living again, and he hopes for the happiness of a future state when God should call him out of the grave. He knew that the blessed God would have a desire to restore the work of his own hands to life again, and Job would answer the call of his God into a resurrection with holy pleasure and joy." Now there are four or five reasons which incline me to prefer this latter sense of the words, and to shew that the comforts and hope which Job aspires to in this place, are only to be derived from a resurrection to final happiness. P$
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