DISCOURSE XI. 235 continue thee in this mortal life a length of years beyond thy de- sires, and should withhold thee from his secret place of retreat and rest. A constant and joyful readiness at the call of God to depart hence, with a cheerful patience to continue here during his pleasure, is the most perfect and blessed temper that a Chris- tian can arrive at : It gives God the highest glory, and keeps the soul in the sweetest peace. III. This one thought, that the " grave is God's hiding- place," should compose our spirits to silence, and abate our mourning for the loss of friends, who have given sufficient evi- dence that they are the children of God. Their heavenly Father has seized them from the midst of their trials, dangers and diffi- culties; 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 hath let them into a chamber of repose: He has concealed them in a silent retreat, where temptation and 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 suc- cessively down to the dust, let me say thus within myself, " It is their God and my God has done it : He saw what new tempt- ations 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 made a way for their escape : He opened the dark of death, and hid them there from a thousand perils which might have plunged them into guilt and defilement. He beheld this as the proper season to give them a release from a world of labour and toil, vanity and vexation, sin and sorrow : They are taken array 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 preva- lent 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 dishonoured : He knew how much they were able to bear, and he would lay upan them no farther bur- den : He saw rising difficulties approaching, anti new perils com- ing upon them beyond their strength, and he fulfils his own pro- mises, and glorifies his own faithfulness, by opening 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 from God and things heavenly And perhaps he guards them also in that dark retreat from some long and languishing sickness, some unknown distress, some overbearing flood of misery, which was like to come upon them had they continued longer on the stage of life.
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