put into a book, and even engraven on the rock for ever! For in all his conferences with his friends, we do not find any words so important.

5. They may be considered, first, as containing the reason of his great confidence in the goodness of his cause; and of his willingness to have the matter depending between him and his friends, published and submitted to any trial. He had a living and powerful Redeemer to plead his cause, and vindicate his person from all their censures, and to give sentence for him. Secondly, they contain a confession of his faith and hope. “ His friends,” says an eminent divine, "had reproached him as a hypocrite, and contemned him as a wicked man; but he appeals to his creed,"-and I add, to his experience of the contents of it, "to his hope, and to the testimony of his own conscience, which not only acquitted him from reigning sin, but comforted him with the expectation of a blessed resurrection." As if he had said, Do you call me a hypocrite, and I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that in my flesh I shall see God?" Surely, these are not the words of one that has a devil, or is a hypocrite. Thirdly, these words also signify what was his chief support and consolation under his most severe and unparalleled trials and afflictions. He knew that his Redeemer lived, and that in his flesh he should see God, and this supported him, and kept his head above water.

6. Inasmuch as he was, in all respects, a blameless character, and, as appears from divers parts of the book, and especially from chap. xxxi. most eminent for good works; inasmuch as God himself had pronounced him a perfect and upright man, and had declared, that there was none like him in all the earth. Some may wonder why he did not look to his well-spent life for comfort and support in this trying hour; why he speaks only of a Redeemer, and grounds his whole expectation of future felicity on an acquaintance with him. But you, my brethren, who know the depravity of human nature, man's sinfulness and guilt, and the insufficiency of his own righteousness to recommend him to God, will not be surprised at this. Nor will you wonder when I tell you, that that eminent saint of God, and laborious servant of the Lord Jesus, on the occasion of whose death I now address you, when, in the awful period of nature's dissolution, he was passing through the watery flood, that divides this mortal from the immortal state, found no support for his confidence or hope, in his protracted life of unwearied labours, nor in the success wherewith God had crowned them, any more than in his holiness, but fixed his foot only on the redemption which is in

258

Christ Jesus. Of this redemption he spoke most feelingly and pathetically, the last time I was favoured with an interview with him, (which was a few days after his arrival at York, in the beginning of July last,) and expressed a wish that it should be held forth, more than ever, in our discourses to the people, as the one foundation of their confidence and hope. This circumstance, I trust, will plead my excuse for choosing to address you on so extraordinarily mournful an occasion from so common a subject.

7. But to return to the case of Job. When in the midst of the calamities that oppressed him, he expressed himself in the language of my text, it is as if he had said, "although I have no knowledge, confidence, or hope of being restored to health, or to prosperity in this life, (which, it is plain, from divers parts of this book he had not,) yet one thing I know, which is much more important and comfortable, and therein I rejoice, yea, and I will rejoice: although I am now a dying man, and in a desperate condition as to this world, yet, "I know that my Redeemer liveth ;-and that in my flesh I shall see God;-whom I shall see for myself, and not for another, and mine eyes shall behold him, although my frail body is going to dust, and my reins are consumed within me." Happy Job, although stript of his earthly all, and reduced to the very last and lowest state of human misery! Although robbed of all his flocks and herds, and earthly possessions, and brought to entire beggary! although deprived of all his children, and cut off from all hope of a posterity; although forsaken, or rather persecuted by all his friends, and even by his own wife; although reduced to a perfect skeleton, as to his body, and covered all over with sores and scabs, so that he takes a potsherd to scrape himself withal; although assaulted by Satan, and that by divine permission, and even by all the powers of darkness, and, for a time, and for wise reasons, left in their hands : yet, in the midst of all, he is enabled to cast anchor within the vail, and is in a condition to be envied, rather than pitied :

"You see the man; you see his hold on heaven!
Heaven waits not the last moment; owns her friends
On this side death; and points them out to men :
A silent lecture, but of sovereign power!

To vice confusion; and to virtue peace."

If we

3. My brethren, the time is approaching when we shall all need this support, and shall be most wretched if we have it not. should escape such troubles as came on Job for his trial; if we should not live to see ourselves stript of all our earthly possessions,

and reduced to beggary; deprived of all our offspring, and written childless; forsaken or persecuted by all our friends, and emaciated with sickness, or tortured with pain in every part of our bodies; yet dust we are, and unto dust we also must return.

"Since our first parents' fall,

Inevitable death descends on all;

A portion none of human race can miss ;-
But that which makes it sweet or bitter, is,

The fear of misery, or certain hope of bliss."

9. And the time, we must recollect, which will put a period to our life on earth, and to all the desires and delights, cares and pursuits of it, is at no great distance. Though appearing, perhaps, afar off, it will be upon us before we are well aware.

"That hour, so late, is nimble in approach,
And, like a post, comes on in full career :
How swift the shuttle flies that weaves thy shroud!
Where is the fable of thy former years?
Thrown down the gulf of time; as far from thee
As they had ne'er been thine. The day in hand,
Like a bird struggling to get loose, is going;-
'Tis scarce possessed, so suddenly 'tis gone;
And each swift moment fled, is death advanc'd
By strides as swift: eternity is all.

But whose eternity? Who triumphs there?
Bathing for ever in the font of bliss!
For ever basking in the Deity!"

Yes!

My brethren, who? Your conscience shall reply. Oh, what would you give then for such confidence and hope as this of Job? Confidence and hope, which, blessed be God, our departed friend and brother, and your late pastor, had; and which you also may have. He, like Job, and in similar language, in the midst of much affliction and pain, his face pale, his body emaciated, and his strength gone, declared from time to time, in the presence of those about him, his faith in the Redeemer, and his confident expectation of future felicity through him. While his way, like that of Job, was fenced up, and his hope, as to the present life, was removed like a tree; yet his spirit was kept from fainting, while he trusted, not in his protracted life of innocence, of labours, or of sufferings, but in his living Redeemer, and "looked for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come." Thus the great apostle of the Gentiles, when the time of his departure was at hand, notwithstanding his immense labours and sufferings, and the success wherewith God had crown

To

ed his efforts to disciple nations, placed his whole confidence on the same foundation, and said, "I know in whom I have believed, and he will keep what I commit unto him safe unto that day. me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." May the Lord give us the like support in the like circumstances! But what is this support? What is implied in this confession and testimony?

I. What is meant here by a Redeemer, and how does it appear that we need, and that we have a Redeemer?

II. What is that knowledge that Job had, and which, as I shall show you, we may have of this Redeemer, and of a title to future felicity and glory with him.

III. Let us observe the confidence and comfort which this knowledge affords in a time of affliction and trial, and at a dying hour.

I. We are to inquire, What is meant by a Redeemer here, and how it appears that we need, and that we have a Redeemer?

1. On this point, I must observe that the Hebrew word ↳, here rendered Redeemer, was primarily used of the nearest kinsman, to whom, under the law of Moses, and according to ancient custom, the right of redemption belonged by virtue of kindred or relationship. If my hearers will be at the pains to read the 3d and 4th chapters of the book of Ruth, they will be fully satisfied on this head. And they may learn partly from these chapters, and partly from sundry passages of the books of Moses, and of other books of the Old Testament, that this kinsman's office was fourfold. 1st. If his relation had sold or mortgaged his estate, and was now dead, it was his kinsman's office to redeem, if he were able, by a price paid, the sold or mortgaged inheritance of his deceased relative. 66 If thy brother be waxen poor, (says Moses, Lev. xxv. 25.) and have sold away his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem it, then shall he redeem what his brother sold.' 2. If his relation were not dead, but in a state of slavery or bondage, it was his duty to redeem him out of this state by price or by power, Psalm lxxiv. 2. and Isaiah xlviii. 20. 3. If his relation's adversary had waylaid and slain him, it belonged to him to avenge his death, whence he was called the avenger of blood, Numb. xxxv. 12. And, 4. If this kinsman's relative had died without issue, it was his place to preserve his name and

honour, by marrying his widow, and raising him up seed, Deut. xxv. 5. Now, in divers respects similar to these, and admirably illustrated by them, we all need redemption.

2. Our inheritance, I mean that which God gave man at his first creation, has been forfeited and lost. This was threefold; 1st. The inheritance of the soul, the favour of God, his image, and communion with him, an inheritance of inestimable value, and yielding the purest and most satisfying enjoyment. Now this, it is well known, our first parents forfeited and lost for themselves and for all their descendants. 66 By nature," as St. Paul assures us, 66 we are all children of wrath." We have been stripped of the image of God, and the image of the beast and of the devil appears upon us. And being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance which is in us, we are shut out from intercourse and fellowship with him, and left dead in trespasses and sins. 2. The inheritance of the body has been forfeited and lost also. When God created man, he gave him the garden of Eden, earth, and all the blessings of this temporal life, as his inheritance, considered as dwelling in an animal body. But man by the fall, having forfeited these, was turned out of paradise, the earth was cursed to him, and his short life upon it was rendered a scene of toil, vanity, and dissatisfaction; and, by and by, death was commissioned to put him out of possession of all, and give him back to the dust out of which he was taken. 3. God, in all probability, had provided for his new-made and highly favoured creature, man, a better world than this, even in its paradisiacal state. He had intended, had man continued in his innocency and allegiance to his Maker, after a proper time of trial, to have translated him, as he afterwards translated Enoch and Elijah, to the heavenly state, without obliging him to taste death. In that case, man would not have been unclothed, as St. Paul's phrase is, but clothed upon, that the earthly and natural might have been swallowed up of the heavenly and spiritual body. But this is also lost. So far from being entitled to eternal life by nature, as we have sinned, and come short of the glory of God, we deserve eternal death, and are, in fact, obnoxious to it. For the wages, the proper wages of sin, that which is strictly deserved by it, and due to it, is death, whereas eternal life is the gift, the unmerited gift of God, through Jesus Christ our Lord. So that our first parents forfeited all for themselves, and for their posterity, and we are reduced to such a state of poverty, as to have absolutely no inheritance left for soul or body, in this world or another.