DISCOURSE XI. 245 only took them out of the way of temptation and danger, and concealed them for a season in his safe hiding -place : I mourned in the day-time for a lost son or a lost daughter, and in the night my couch was bedewed with my tears : I was scared with mid- night dreams on their account, and the visions of the grave ter- rified me because my children were there : I gave up myself to sorrow for fear of the displeasure of my God both against them and against me : But how unreasonable were these sorrows ? How groundless were my fears ? How gloriously am I disap- pointed this blessed morning ? I see my dear offspring called out of that long retreat where God had concealed them, and they arise to meet the divine call. I hear them answering with joy to the happy summons. My eyes behold them risen in the image of my God and their God ; they are near men they stand with me at the right -hand of the Judge; now shall we rejoice toge- ther in the sentence of eternal blessedness from the lips of my Lord, my Redeemer and their Redeemer." Amen. Among tiny papers I have found a speech spoken at a grave, which I transcribed almost fifty years ago, and which de- serves to be saved from perishing. It was pronounced many years before at the funeral of a pious person, by a minister there present, supposed to be the Rev. Mr. Peter Sterry; and the subject of it being suited to this discourse, I thought it not improper to preserve it here. as CHRISTIAN friends, though sin be entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned; Rom v. 12. yet it.seems not wholly suitable to our christian hope, to stand by and see the grave with open mouth take in, and swallow down any part of a precious saint, And not bring some testimony against the devourer. And yet that our witness may be in righteousness, we must first own, acknowledge, and accept of that good and serviceableness that is in it. r° For through the death and resurrection of our dear Re- deemer, death and the grave are become sweetened to us, and sanctified for us : So that as death is but a sleep, the grave through his lying down in it and rising again, is become as a bed of repose to them that are in him, and a safe and quiet hiding- place for his saints till the resurrection. as And in this respect we do for ourselves, and for this our dearly beloved in the Lord, accept of thee, O grave, and readily deliver up her body to thee; it is a body that hath been weak- ened and wearied with long affliction and anguish, we freely give it into thee : receive it, and let it have in thee a quiet rest from all its labours; for thus we read it written of thee ; There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary- be at rest ; Job iii. 17. g 3
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