Sermons Preached in the Parish Church of High Wycombe Bucks

fuge to his God. He commits his spirit, his life, into his hands, in the full persuasion that the same power and goodness, which had often redeemed and rescued him before, would rescue him again, and uphold and preserve him. The words of the text then were originally the words of an afflicted saint, committing his natural life to the care and disposal of his God. We shall however, be doing no violence to them, if we consider them as the language of a dying Christian, commending his immortal soul to his heavenly Father. We know that they were thus regarded by Christ, for he made them his last, his dying prayer. Before he gave up the ghost, he cried with a loud voice, " Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." His martyr Stephen too viewed these words in the same light, and fell asleep with them in his mouth. Thousands of Christians also have been heard to utter them on the bed of death. When fleshand heart have failed, they have taken them as their support and their strength, their prayer and their song. Viewing the words of the psalmist in this sacred light, they may lead us to enquire, first, with whom the dying Christian wishes to entrust his soul; secondly, what is implied in his committing his soul into the hand of God; and, thirdly, what warrant or encouragement he has thus to entrust it to him. I. With whom then does the dying Christian wish to entrust his soul ? The text tells us that he is anxious to commit it into the hand of God. Th...