fort under the afflicting loss of their Christian friends and brethren. The saints are not exempted from the ordinary calamities of life; they fall by the same diseases with the rest of mankind, and their bodies are buried in the same common dust. In this respect there is one event to the righteous and to the wicked. But how vast is the difference between them after the moment of dissolution; the righteous man is carried by angels to the delights of the celestial paradise, the sinner descends in all his guilt and deformity to the gloomy mansions of everlasting despair; to the one, death is the messenger of divine grace, sent to introduce him to never-ending felicity; to the other, death is the executioner of divine vengeance, delivering him over to everlasting anguish. The wicked, therefore, may tremble at the approach of the king of terrors; but the saints are happy in their release from this abode of guilt and sorrow; they have left our society for the innumerable company of angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect; they have laid aside their polluted garments, for robes of spotless purity; their eyes shall no longer flow down with tears, nor their tongues again utter the lan guage guage of complaint; all their difficulties are removed, all their clouds are scattered, all their doubts are solved, all their enemies are vanquished; they have obtained the end of their faith, the perfection of their graces, and the complete redemption of their souls; they have no more need of ordinances, for the Lamb is the light of the temple; trials are unnecessary, for they are free from sin; even the word, sacraments, and prayer, these blessed means of communion with Jesus on earth, are in heaven exchanged for intuitive vision, immediate fellowship, and the unceasing praises of redeeming love. Sorrow not, then, as those who have no hope; weep not for them, but for yourselves; they are gone far from you, but they are with Christ, which is far better; they were dear, inexpressibly dear to you while they lived, but now they are gone to dwell with him whose love to them was infinitely more ardent than your tenderest af fections. Their absence renders the world a dreary wilderness to you, and embitters every remaining delight; but your God is not gone, and cannot leave you; he has promised to guide you through the few remaining steps of your weary pilgrimage on earth; and he M 2 calls calls you, by every loss you sustain, to be more disengaged from the world, and more wholly taken up with himself as your portion; he lives and is your God, therefore you have all and abound. Delight yourselves then in God, and long for the time when he will conduct you to the blessed society of your friends who have gone before you to that happy place, where the sorrow of separation shall never be known.. In that glorious hope, say then, with Jacob in the text, "I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" SERMON SERMON IX. TRUE REST ONLY TO BE FOUND IN RELIGION. PSALM CXVI. 7. Return unto thy rest, O my soul! THESE HESE words declare the gratitude which David felt when rescued from a multitude of sorrows, which, like the restless flood, threatened to overwhelm his soul. I love the Lord because he heard my supplications; the sorrows of death compassed me, the pains of hell got hold of me, I found trouble and sorBut thou, Lord, hast delivered my feet from falling, mine eyes from tears, and my soul from death: wherefore return unto thy rest, O my soul! row. The experience of every one of God's servants accords in this respect with the expe rience of David. His people are cast down by sorrow, and brought low by fears. In their straits they cry unto the Lord, he is gracious and delivers, and every deliverance is intended to bind them more closely to himself. He dealt bountifully with you, O believer! when first he brought you into fellowship with himself; nor was his bounty less to be admired, when at his sacred table he spread over you his banner of love, and made you glad in his salvation. But think not that his goodness is confined to such seasons as these. Days of adversity are also his times of love; he wounds but to heal, and depresses that he may exalt. This you have known in times past, and you shall yet see greater things than these; only be it your care to mark his dealings as David did, and ascribe to him all the glory and all the praise. Nay, the language of the text need not even be confined to those whom he delights to honour, nor should the duty it enjoins be thus wholly limited. The backslider in heart, the ungrateful wanderer from his God, daily lives by the bounty of his offended and despised Father: in sparing such, in correcting them, |