but infinitely above them, and he sees good to prove the faith of his people by afflictions and losses. We must, therefore, learn to walk by faith, and to wait for him in patience, and with persevering faith and hope and fervent prayer.

The next passage is one of those in which Job, that great pattern of resignation, expresses his religious hope and confidence in God.

"I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another."-Job xix. 25—27.

The book of Job contains so many lively descriptions of the miseries of human life, and the felicity of a religious and holy death, that it has always been esteemed of appropriate use in this service. The old translation of these verses,

which was retained in this office till the last review, was as follows: "I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that I shall rise out of the earth, and shall be covered again with my skin, and shall see God in my flesh; yea, and I myself shall behold him, not with other, but with these same eyes," and in this sense it is an admirable consolation for all that mourn for the loss of friends,namely, to believe with holy Job that the same person we are now laying in the earth, there to crumble and moulder into dust, shall in due time, by the power of God, arise from his grave and live again-we lose indeed the sight of him for a season, but we know that Jesus our Redeemer liveth, who will raise us all from the dust, when both our friends and we shall behold him; and, we may reasonably hope and believe,

know and distinguish each other again with these very eyes-and surely if He, who lived among the Gentiles before the revelation of Christianity, could sustain his spirit with the hopes of a resurrection, it will be no small reproach to us, who have fuller assurance, to be slow in our belief. Job was assured that the promised seed of the woman who was to assume the nature of man, to ransom sinners, and to restore to them their forfeited inheritance, was his Redeemer. He was conscious that he embraced the promise of his coming, and expected salvation through him. He had no doubt that he was at that time a living Redeemer; which accords with the words of Jesus," before Abraham was, I am." He believed also that he would stand at the latter day upon the earth; that in the fulness of time he would appear as the

seed of the woman to bruise the serpent's head, while his own heel would be crushed; that after his resurrection he would stand up as the first fruits of them that sleep in the dust of the earth, and that at the last day he would appear as the judge of the world, to raise the dead, to destroy the earth, and to complete the redemption of his people. He believed that he should certainly behold this Redeemer for himself, as his portion and felicity, not only as the object of mental contemplation, but with his own eyes, in his own body, raised from the dead, and not in another. All this he firmly believed, and assuredly hoped for.

No true believer then will in any possible case be left entirely comfortless; the long-expected Redeemer once stood upon the earth in human nature as our surety, to ransom our souls by his precious

blood, and we are assured that in heaven "he ever liveth to make intercession for us," and at the last day he will again appear in glory to raise the dead and to judge the world; at that solemn season all his enemies shall weep and wail because of him; but his people, raised up incorruptible, immortal, and glorious, shall see him as their God and Saviour, for themselves, in their own persons, and for their complete felicity; being made like him and admitted to be for ever with him. Let us then give diligence that we may be assured he is our Redeemer, and that we shall be "numbered with his saints, in glory everlasting."

In the prospect of this happy consummation, let us solace our minds under the pressure of sickness or poverty, the unkindness of friends or relatives, and in the prospect of death and the