244 THE WORLD TO COME. plained some of his own Psalms into so divine a sense, or Isaiah given such a bright account of his own words of prophecy, as St. Paul has done in several places of the New Testament, where he cites and unfolds them ? Could those illustrious ancients have given us such abundant consolation and hope through the scrip- tures, which they themselves wrote aforetime, as this apostle has done ? Rom. xv. 4. Do you think Job could, have read us such a lecture on his own expressions in this text, or its that bright prophecy in the xix. chapter, as the very meanest among the ministers of the gospel can do by the help of the New Testa- ment ? For in point of clear discoveries of divine truths and graces, the least in the kingdom of the _Messiah is greater than John the baptist and all the prophets, and our blessed Jesus has told us so ; Mat. xi. 11, 13. And by the aid and influences of his Spirit we may be taught yet further to search into these hid- den mines of grace, and bring forth new treasures of glory. Reflection. "Awake, O my soul, and bless the Lord with all thy powers, and give thanks with holy joy for the gospel of his Son Jesus. It is Jesus by his rising from the dead has left a divine light upon the gates of the grave, and scattered much of the darkness that surrounded it. It is the gospel of Christ which casts a glory even upon the bed of death, and spreads a bright- ness upon the graves of the saints in the lively views of a great rising-day. O blessed and surprizing prospect of faith ! O illus- trious scenes of future vision and transport ! When the Son of God shall bring forth to public view all his redeemed ones, who had been long hidden in night and dust, and shall present them all to God the Father in his own image, bright, and holy, and un- blemished, in the midst of all the splendours of the resurrection ! O blessed and joyful voice, when he shall say with divine plea- sure, Here am I, and the children which thou hast given me; Isa. viii. 18. Heb. ii. 13. We have both passed through the grave, and I have made them all conquerors of death, and vested them with immortality according to thy divine commis- sion ! Thine they were, O Father, and thou hast given them into my hands, and behold I have brought them all safe to thy ap- pointed mansions, and I present them before thee without spot or blemish ; John xvii. 6. 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 Sun of righteousness, shall echo with holy joy to the voice of the blessed Jesus, " Lord: here am I, and the children which thou hast given me ; Heb. 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 had cast them away for their transgression ; Job viii. 4. But I am now convinced when he seized them from m-y sight, he
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