232 THE WORLD TO COME. our heavenly Father beholds this evil advancing forward through all the pleasant smiles of nature, and all the peaceful circumstan- ces that surround us: He hides his children in the grave from a thousand sins, and sorrows, and distresses of this life, which they foresaw not : And even when they are actually beset be- hind and before, so that there seems to he no natural way for their escape, God calls them aside into the chambers of death, in the same sort of language as he uses in another case ; Is. xxvi, 20. Come my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors. about thee, hide thyself as it were for a little moment, untit the indignation be overpassed. And yet perhaps it is possible that this very language of the Lord in Isaiah may refer to the grave, as God's hiding- place, for the verse before promises a resurrection. Thy dead men shall live ; together with my dead body shall they arise: Awake and sing ye that dwell in the dust For thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. And if we may suppose this last verse to have been transposed by any ancient transcribers, so as to have followed originally verse 20; or 21, it is very natural then to interpret the whole paragraph concerning death, as God's hiding -place for his people-and their rising again through the virtue of the resurrection of Christ as their joyful release. Many a time God is pleased to shorten the la- bours, and travels, and fatigues of good men in this wilderness, and he opens a door of rest to them where he pleases, and per - haps surprizes them into a state, of safety and peace, where the weary are at rest, and the wicked cease from troubling; and holy Job seems to desire this favour from his Maker here ; Job. iii. 17. Sometimes indeed, in the históry of this book; he seems to break out into these desires in too rude and angry a manner of expression ; and in a fit of criminal impatience he murmurs against God for upholding him in the land of the living : But at other times, as in this text, he represents his desires with more decency and submission. Every desire to die is not to be con- strued, sinful and criminal. Nature may ask of God, a relief from its agonies and a period to its sorrows, nor does grace utterly forbid it, if there be also a humble submission and resig- nation to the will of God, such as we find exemplified by our blessed Saviour, Father, if it be thy will, let this cup pass from me ; yet not as 1 will, but as thou wilt ; Mat. xxvi 39, 42. On this second observation I desire to make these three re- flections : Reflection I. Though a good man knows that death was ori- ginally appointed as a curse for sin, yet his faith can trust God to turn that curse into a blessing z Ile can humbly ask his Maker to release him from the painful_ bonds of life, to hasten the slow
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