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covenant. I will go down with thee into Egypt, and I will alfo furely bring thee up again. I will ranfom thee from the power of the grave, I will redeem thee from death. O death, I will be thy plague, O grave, I will be thy deftruction. The hour is coming in which all that are in the grave shall hear the voice of the Son of God, and fhall come forth. I faw the dead fmall and great ftand before God, and the feagave up the dead which were in it, and death and hell gave up the dead which were in them. I would not have you ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are afleep, that ye forrow not even as others which have no hope, for if we believe that Jefus died and rofe again, even fo them alfo which fleep in Jefus will God bring with him.

WITH thefe and fuch like promises does God affure our hearts against the

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fear of death: And we need them all; for when the vital ftream retires from its wonted current, have we not fome reafon to apprehend it may totally withdraw itself, and leave us without any confcioufnefs of existence? What fh..ll we then oppofe to the ftrong conviction of fenfe and feeling? What but the ftronger evidence of the word of God: For though the mountains depart and the hills be removed, my kindnefs fhall not depart from thee, neither the covenant of my peace be removed, faith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Zion hath faid, the Lord hath forfaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me; but can a woman forget her fucking child, that fhe fhould not have compaffion on the fon of her womb; yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee. When my father and my mother forfake me, the Lord taketh me up. Though he flay me, yet will I put my trust in him.

HAPPY he, like aged Jacob, who, as life draws towards its close, can turn upon his bed and worship God; who, all his worldly affairs being settled, has nothing more to do, but to poffefs his foul in patience till it shall please God to receive it. Calm and refigned he goes down to the grave in peace, as the fun fets without a cloud: Sure as that fun shall rise again, is his hope; nay furer ftill, for we have only a natural probability for the one, but the promise of God for the other. Sure as the night is followed by the morning, fo fure shall the night of death be followed by the morning of the refurrection: Heavinefs may endure for a feafon, but joy cometh in the morning.

But here, let us take notice, It is only the righteous that hath this hope in his death. To the wicked, no gleam

of fun-fhine gild the dark chambers black and difmal is his

that

of the grave. profpect, as the gloomy fepulchre that awaits his breathlefs corpfe. Egypt is his burying-place; his hopes and his wifhes all centre in this world, and must be buried with him: In that heavenly Canaan, that promised rest which remaineth for the people of God, he hath neither portion or lot. Shall he plead the gospel covenant of mercy? covenant he hath fhamefully broken and violated: He is no fon of Abraham's faith, no heir with Jacob of the inheritance of his fathers; driven away from his present poffeffions and without any future hope in reversion! Would we escape his end, we muft fhun those evil courses that lead to it; like Jacob, we muft confider our present life, as a pilgrimage; the world in which we live, as a ftrange country, through.

which we have to pass, before we find

our home;

and Heaven, as the land of our inheritance, purchafed for us, promised to us, and of which, nothing but our own wilfulness and obftinacy can deprive us.

THE happiness of the righteous is thus defcribed by the Pfalmift Blef fed is the man whofe ftrength is in thee, in whofe heart are thy ways; who going through the vale of mifery ufe it for a well, and the pools thereof are filled with water; they will go on from ftrength to ftrength, and unto the God of Gods appeareth every one of them in Sion. The plain meaning of which words is thus given by an able commentator" The prefent "world is to us this vale of misery; in "our paffage through it, we are re"freshed by the ftreams of divine

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grace flowing from the great foun

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