much better he can judge what is good for us, than we can for ourselves. I own, this is such a happy composure of mind; as few persons are capable of attaining; indeed, none but those, who have a true greatness of soul, whose reason is superior to their passions, and above all, who have a strong and lively sense of religion upon their minds. Thus, we find the servants of David, concluding him to be like other common men, feared to tell him that the child was dead: "For they said, Behold,^

while the child was yet alive, we spake Funto him, and he would not hearken to "our voice: how will he then vex him

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self, if we tell him that the child is "dead?" But, though no man had ever a more tender affection for his children than David had, yet, as no man likewise had a more fervent love of God, so his piety and submission to the will of God prevailed over all worldly ties and engagements, and he truly fulfilled that evangelical precept, “He "that loveth father or another, son or “daughter, more than me, is not worthy "of me." And so we likewise, the greater hold the principles of religion have upon

Our

our minds, the more chearfully shall we acquiesce under all God's dispensations, and the more ready shall we be to part with our dearest friends, whensoever he shall be pleased to call them to himself.

And we shall do this the more readily, if we reflect, thirdly, on the reason which David gives for ceasing to grieve any longer, when the child was actually dead:

Wherefore should I fast? Can I bring "him back again?" Or dare I presume to hope, that the Almighty will work a miracle for my sake? And, who is there amongst us that can pretend to expect a greater favour from God than he did? Must we not see the vanity of all our repinings in such a case as this? That they will much sooner bring us down to the grave, than recall our friends out of it. However, it must be owned, that if no other reason could be given for our ceasing to grieve for our departed friends than this, that our grief cannot, bring them back again, we might justly reply with Augustus, upon the same occasion," it is for that very reason I grieve." For,

what

what can be a greater subject for our grief, than that we have for ever lost our friends, beyond all hopes or possibility of ever being blessed with the sight of them again?

go

We may therefore observe fourthly, That David immediately adds, " I shall to him, but he shall not return to me." And this is one of those passages in the Old Testament, from which we may reasonably infer, that the holy men of old believed in another life after this, though a future state of rewards and punishments was no sanction of the Mosaic Law, nor clearly and expressly revealed in any of the writings of Moses. For David, by saying, "I shall go to him," must suppose that his child, though dead, did still subsist and live in his separate state, and that he himself should hereafter live with him in the same state. The very expres sion" I shall go to him," imports this, and cannot with any sort of propriety be construed to signify only that David should, at his appointed time, be mingled with the same dust, and sink into the same

state

state of insensibility with his child: For this would be going to nothing, or the thing which is not. Besides, it could be no motive with David to give over his lamentations, that he himself should in like manner cease to exist, but rather the contrary: For, if we can only enjoy those whom we love, whilst we live together in this world, then certainly we have great reason to lament the loss of them by death, because then it is a hopeless and irreparable loss. Whereas, in the other sense of the words, it is a most clear and rational topic of consolation, which David here uses: Wherefore should I weep, and make the rest of my life miserable, for the want of my child, when I know that the time will soon come, when we shall live and meet again, never to be parted any more? If David then consoled himself with this consideration, how much more should we Christians do the same in like circumstances; since life and immortality are so much more clearly revealed to us, than they were to those, who lived under the Mosaic Dispensation? We are now as certain, as the word of God can

make us, that we shall live for ever. Jesus Christ himself is become the first fruits of them that slept, a proof and pledge of our own resurrection. Though therefore we may modestly hope that God, in consideration of the infirmity of our natures, will mercifully overlook the first transports of our grief, upon the death of those whom we tenderly loved, yet, after he has given us a sufficient time to recollect ourselves, he hath a right to expect, that we should patiently submit to his will, and comfort ourselves with the assurances he has given us, in his word, of eternal life and happiness. In a word; though we may sorrow for our deceased friends, yet we must not sorrow, as men "without hope: For if we believe that "Jesus died and rose again, even so them also, who sleep in Jesus, will God bring "with him."

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5thly. It may farther be inferred from the words of David, "I shall go to him," that he was persuaded,' not only that he should live in the next world with his child, but also, that he should see and

know