....4..4..

thy face, I am troubled. The world in vain tries to entertain me. All it can offer is like a jest to dying men, or like recreation to those in mifery. On thy favour alone my tranquillity depends. Were I to be deprived of that, I fhould figh for happiness in the midst of paradife. Thy loving-kindness is better than life. I have, in feafons of darkness, waited for the renewed manifeftations of it, more than they that watch for the morning. The returns of the light of thy countenance are more welcome than the springing day-light, after the horrors of a gloomy and melancholy night; more welcome than ease to the fick, than cold water to the thirsty soul, or than reft to the weary and fatigued traveller."

When that gracious Being, with whom is the fountain of life, fhews his reconciled face, the drooping foul revives, like the opening flowers at the rifing of the fun. How heavenly, how divine are its comforts and joys! What indeed is the heaven we are waiting for, but the bleffed, the uninterrupted vifion of God? When the heirs of glory are admitted into his prefence-chamber, and behold the King in his beauty, they will need nothing more to complete their happiness. "We now see through a glafs darkly; but then face to face. As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be fatisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness."

......《ར..ར་

'Tis heav'n on earth to tafte thy love,

To feast upon thy grace;

And that for which I hope above,

Is but to fee thy face.

3. The favour of God may be confidered, in fome respects, as the rule of life. The will of God, as revealed in his holy law, is, properly speaking, the rule of our conduct, and ferves as a lamp to our feet, and a light to our paths. But does not a good man regulate his life and his actions with a confcientious regard to the divine approbation? When the apostle Paul fays, "We labour, that whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him,” he does not speak fo directly of perfonal acceptance to eternal life; for of that he expreffes the fulleft fatisfaction in the context, 2 Cor. v. 9. But it was his concern, and that of his fellow faints, that all their labours, fervices, and sufferings, might find gracious acceptance with God through Chrift; that fo they might enjoy the fupporting and confolatory manifeftations of his favour in all. A truly good man would undertake nothing in which he might not warrantably hope for the favourable approbation of the Moft High. We may obferve this in the cafe of Mofes, the man of God. His words are these, when pleading with the Almighty for the tokens of his favour; "Now therefore I pray thee,

if

�་པོËརམཾ་

if I have found grace in thy fight, fhew me now thy way, that I may know thee, that I may find grace in thy fight." He dreaded the thought of taking one ftep forwards in the journey through the wildernefs, without the prefence and favourable smiles of that God in whom he trufted. Thus again he prays in that pfalm which bears his name, "Let thy work appear unto thy fervants, and thy glory unto their children; and let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." It gives fome men no concern, whether their Maker is pleafed or difpleafed with their proceedings; but it is not fo with those who put fuch a value on his favour as to account it their life. They have, in a measure, the fame mind in them which was also in Chrift Jefus, who faid of his divine Father, "I do always thofe things which please him." This is what I mean by saying, that the favour of God is the rule of life. In connection with this I add,

4. The favour of God is the end of life. His pleasure is the due and proper end of the lives and actions of his creatures. "For thy pleasure they

are, and were created." They are fubordinate to him, as their end; for " of him, and through him, and to him are all things." All should tend to him,

as

1

་

....4..4..

as the lines in a circle to one common centre. The labours of man in his calling are for the fupport and comfort of his natural life; in like manner the holy exercises and duties in which a child of God is engaged, have for their end the enjoyment of his favour. He attends the folemnities of public devotion, that he may behold the beauty of the Lord, while he inquires in his temple; that he may see his power and his glory in the fanctuary. And why fo? "Because," fays he, "thy loving-kindness is better than life; it is better than my existence, the life which I live, for that would do me little good without it.

When the church, as represented in Solomon's divine pastoral, had loft the sweet sense of God's favour, through negligence and floth, fhe took great pains in seeking the restoration of her former comforts. She quitted her bed of floth, she rose and went about the city, in the streets and broad ways thereof; that is, fhe renewed her diligence in the public ordinances of divine worship; fhe inquired of the watchmen upon the walls of the city, "Saw ye him whom my foul loveth?" And fhe rested not till he had restored unto her the joys of his falvation. What is it that a child of grace would not do, what is it that he would not endure, for the enjoyment of a fenfe of God's favour? It is

more

P.54་!

more to him than all the world without it. In prayer, in hearing and reading the divine word, in meditation, in approaching to the Lord's table, ftill his cry is," Lord, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon me."

Thus, the favour of God is the cause, the object, the rule, and the end of a good man's life.

III. The third general head of our discourse is, to confider to whom God's favour is life, and at what particular seasons it is fo.

To the preservation of natural life, the providential favour of the great Governor of the universe, is neceffary to every one, and necessary every hour, every moment. But I would particularly speak of his special favour, as more immediately intended

in our text.

All the children of God moft certainly know that his favour to them is life, and they know it is fo at all times, particularly in religious duties, under trying dispensations, and even when they are in the full enjoyment of created comforts. But there are some special seasons when they will not only acknowledge this as a truth revealed in the fcriptures, but when they will lie under a strong conviction and impreffion of it.

This