The thoughts of my approaching death would comfort me in all my sorrows. This would solace me more than life, with all that worldly safety, and glory, and happiness which thou hast advised me to seek unto God for. I would harden myself in sorrow, i.e. I would bear up myself with more courage and patience under all my torments with the hopes of my death, and that blessedness into which I know I shall after death be admitted, as he more fully speaks, Job 19:26,27, whereas now I pine away in lingering and hopeless miseries. Or, I would burn (i.e. I am content to burn) in sorrow. Or, I would pray (as this word signifies in Hebrew writers; and praying may be here put for praising or worshipping of God, as it is frequently used in Scripture) in, or for, my sorrow or pain; then I would worship God, and say, Blessed be the Lord's name for these afflictions, as I did for the former, Job 1:20,21. Let him not spare; but let him use all severity against me, so far as to cut me off, and not suffer me to live any longer; which will seem to me a cruel kind of patience towards me. Of the Holy One, i.e. of God, who is frequently called the Holy One in Scripture, as Isaiah 40:25 Isaiah 57:15 Habakkuk 3:3, and is so in a most eminent and peculiar manner. The sense is, Therefore I do not fear death, but desire it; and that not only to be freed from my present troubles, but also and especially to put me into the possession of the happiness of the next life; of which I am assured, because I have in good measure performed the conditions of that covenant upon which he hath promised it; for as for the words of God, i.e. that light of sacred truths and precepts which he hath been pleased to impart to me, I have not concealed them, neither from myself by shutting mine eyes against them, or suffering my prejudices, or passions, or worldly interests to blind my mind, lest I should see them, as you think I have done; nor from others; but as I myself have stedfastly believed them, and not wilfully and wickedly departed from them, so I have endeavoured to teach and commend them to others, and have not been ashamed nor afraid boldly to profess and preach the true religion in the midst of heathens who are round about me. And therefore I know that if God doth cut me off, it will be in mercy, and I shall be a gainer by it. Some translate and distinguish the verse thus. Yet this is my comfort, (though, or when, I scorch with pain, and he, i.e. God, doth not spare me, but afflicts me most severely,) that I have not concealed the words of God, but have professed and practised them.

Continues after advertising
Continues after advertising