THE JOY OF THE DEAD. GILES FLETCHER. NO SORROW now hangs clouding on their brow, And if a sullen cloud, as sad as night, Burning in melting gold his watery head, What lustre superexcellent will He Lighten on those that shall his sunshine see, In that all-glorious court in which all glories be? BUT the salvation of the righteous is of the Lord; he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them; he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him. PSALM XXXIX. THE HOPE OF A RESURRECTION. LAVEL. LET those mourn without measure, who mourn without hope. The husbandman does not mourn, when he casts his seed into the ground. He expects to receive it again, and more. The same hope have we, respecting our friends who have died in faith. 'I would not have you ignorant,' says Paul, 'concerning them who are asleep, that ye sorrow not as others who have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also who sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.' He seems to say, 'Look not on the dead as lost. They are not annihilated. Indeed, they are not dead. They only sleep; and they sleep to awake again.' You do not lament over your children, or friends, while slumbering on their beds. Consider death as a longer sleep, from which they shall certainly awake. Even a heathen philosopher could say, that he enjoyed his friends, expecting to part with them; and parted with them, expecting to see them again. And shall a heathen excel a Christian in bearing affliction with cheerfulness? - If you have a well-grounded hope that your deceased friend was interested in Christ, ponder, I intreat you, the precious supports afforded by the doctrine of the Resurrection of the just. WHY SHOULD WE MOURN OUR WHY should we mourn departing friends, Or shake at death's alarms? 'Tis but the voice that Jesus sends To call them to his arms. Are we not tending upward too, Nor would we wish the hours more slow, Why should we tremble to convey Their bodies to the tomb? There the dear flesh of Jesus lay, And left a long perfume. The graves of all the saints he blessed, Where should the dying members rest, But with the dying head. THE DEATH OF A CHILD NO CAUSE OF DESPONDENCY. DEJECTED mourner, bereft, as you seem, of all joy, you have no cause for despondency. O that you realized what blessings God has to bestow on those who submissively wait on him in their affliction! He has consolations far transcending the joy of children. So others have found. An eminently pious man, having lost an only son, retired for some hours to his closet, and then came forth with such a cheerful countenance, that all who saw him were filled with surprise. Being asked an explanation of this, he replied, that he had enjoyed, in his retirement, that which, if renewed, might well reconcile him to part with a son every day. O how great the disproportion between the light of God's countenance, and the best, the sweetest of created enjoyments! SET your affections on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with him in glory. EPISTLE TO THE COLOSSIANS. WHY DOST THOU WEEP. O child of grief, why weepest thou? What deep, sad sorrow lingers there? In all the varying scenes of woe, Still lift thy tearful eye above, And hope in God-for God is love. THE RECEPTION OF TRIALS. LADY BLESSINGTON. THE spirit in which we receive trials either increases or diminishes their bitterness: fortitude and resignation disarm them of their sharpest darts, while anger and vindictiveness only augment their poignancy. |