possible with God. Though by sin man has lost his original righteousness: God, by an act of his own grace, provided a JUSTIFIER in the person of his Son Jesus Christ, adequate to the precepts of his violated law, and the demands of his provoked justice. By the virtue and merit of the life, obedience, sufferings and atoning death of this Saviour, for us, and in our room, we are justified, and made righteous in the sight of God. To produce the personal knowledge and benefit of this great truth, God, by the influences of his Spirit upon the soul of man, first convinces him of his unrighteousness, and then, grants energetic faith to rest in Christ, as, the Lord our righteousness. Nor is this all; the Spirit in the same soul, forms a new and righteous nature, fraught with principles of truth, holiness and love, by which it is in heart and life, adorned with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God. This therefore is God's gracious work; and this forms the righteous and innocent character, find such where you may. Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered! Blessed is the man unto whom the Lord imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile! Psm. 32.1.2. These truths have been recited, not only as necessary to the subject, but because, I m certain, they formed the hope and character of MTM Roome; and which produced in her breast, the liveliest expressions of joy to her latest hour.

Adverting to the figurative language of the text it will aid us to a few additional remarks upon this part of our subject. It points to a well ripened harvest. We all know, that unless the grain is sown, there cannot possibly be a harvest to reap. Neither, unless the seeds of grace be sown in the heart, and ripened in the life, can we expect a harvest of joy in glory.— Our Lord therefore, in one of his most plain and familiar parables, teacheth us, by the growth of corn, the origin, growth, and perfection of this righteous and christian character. And he said, so is the kingdom of God, as if a man should cast seed into the ground, and should sleep, and rise night and day, and the seed should spring and grow up, he knoweth not how. For the earth bringeth forth fruit of herself; first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear. But when the fruit is brought forth, immediately he putteth in the sickle, because the harvest is come. Mark 4. 26. 29. How perfectly consonant is this parable to the subject of the text: and upon it, may be received as a most valuable explanation. The good seed of divine grace is sown in the heart of a sinner; gradual in its advances; its stages are strongly marked; and the fulness of its perfection clearly ascertained by the heavenly husbandman; who applies the sickle of death, and gathers the soul to his bosom for ever! This may be considered a practical explanation of the subject.

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II. How such righteous, innocent persons come to the grave, is the next inquiry. Thou shalt come to thy grave, said Eliphaz. The ancients were particular in preparing and preserving family burial places; and although on many other accounts, it is immaterial where a corpse is deposited I cannot but commend that ancient practice, as it is an expression of their family union and affection while living. Whether Job had such a family burial place, which might have directed Eliphaz to say thy grave, or not, is to us immaterial. For, as by sin came death, so death and sin are the procuring cause of preparing a grave, the house appointed for all living; and of course, eventually, a grave will be ready to receive the bodies of all now present. To come to the grave, is the common lot both of the righteous and the wicked; and the same class of diseases, or casualties may be the means of terminating their earthly course. But, the assurance of Eliphaz to Job, has something in it of a peculiarly interesting nature, as immediately connected with a righteous character. Not like the wicked, who are driven away in their wickedness, as with a storm, but, with gradual, cool, deliberate, pious steps, they walk down the hill of life, anticipating the delightful composure of David, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.The time of his coming to his grave, is said to be in a full age. If this be taken naturally, ac

cording to Moses in the 90th Psalm, it means, three score years and ten; or four score years. But Job lived 140 years. Long life, like the grave, is equally common to the evil and to the good; it must therefore mean much more than length of days and years. The text is unquestionably connected with a godly character; and the similitude is that of corn, which is not fit for the harvest until it be fully ripe; or as our Lord expresses it in his parable, the full corn in the ear. This is what Paul calls, walking worthy of the Lord, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God. Col. 1. 10. David died in a good old age, and full of days, when he arrived only to his seventieth year. There is therefore a visible, and an intrinsic difference between being merely full of days, and arriving to a good old age, filled up with personal and active piety. All this perfectly accords with that charming promise: They shall still bring forth fruit in old age, they shall be fat and flourishing; to shew that the Lord is upright, and there is no unrighteousness in him. Psm. 92. 14. 15.

III. The last part of the text, is to show the comparison by which Eliphaz assured Job of a joyful end. It is by the similitude of a shock of corn coming in, in its season, fully ripe, and placed in a state of security. Corn is not reaped until it arrives to a certain state of maturity: children by death,

and God does not gather his

until he knows they are ripe for the harvest.

Eliphaz in his address to Job, perfectly corresponds with nature, for, as Solomon says, there is a time to sow, and a time to reap.

You perhaps

know that the season of harvest, is different from that mild temperature of air in which usually the seed is sown, vegetates, and makes its first appearance. The time of harvest is generally attended with intense heat, storm and tempest, and so, God generally reserves the hotest and most stormy afflictions for his children to the last; and which are made subservient to the ripening of their souls for eternity. We therefore justify Eliphaz in making this applicatory address to Job, while under the severity of his affliction, and while longing for death. It is the pure grain which by the sickle is separated from the stalk; like the body of the righteous, which meets the stroke of death, while the soul is preserved in its valuable state, and looses nothing. but its cumbrous mortality. The corn is not cut down with a scythe, like grass, and laid upon the earth, but with the sickle the husbandman separates the sheaf, lifts it up, as the word in the text signifies, infolds it in his arm, and presses it to his bosom. Thus the Lord separates the spiritual part from the mortal, till the final time of lifting up, in the morning of the resurrection, when body and soul shall be re-united to inherit everlasting felicity, while saints and angels with united voices shall shout the harvest home !It cannot but be consoling to every pious christian, whether in sickness, or under the weakness