iverance: for the inhabitants of
the world fell not; that is, the tyrants and oppressors of God's people
were not taken away, but still remained and continued blasphemers of God,
and troublers of his church. But because I perceive the hours to pass more
swiftly than they have seemed at other times, I must contract that which
remains of this text into certain points.

The prophet first contends against the present despair; afterwards he
introduces God himself calling upon his people; and, last of all, he
assures his afflicted, that God will come, and require account of all the
blood-thirsty tyrants of the earth.

First, Fighting against the present despair, he saith, "Thy dead shall
live, even my body (or with my body) shall they arise; awake and sing, ye
that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs," verse 19.

The prophet here pierces through all impediments that nature could object;
and, by the victory of faith, he overcomes, not only the common enemies,
but the great and last enemy of all, death itself; for this would he say,
Lord, I see nothing for thy chosen, but misery to follow misery, and one
affliction to succeed another; yea, in the end I see, that death shall
devour thy dearest children. But yet, O Lord! I see thy promise to be
true, and thy love to remain towards thy chosen, even when death appears
to have devoured them: "For thy dead shall live, yea, not only shall they
live, but my very dead carcase shall arise;" and so I see honour and glory
to succeed this temporal shame, I see permanent joy to come after trouble,
order to spring out of this terrible confusion; and, finally, I see that
life shall devour death, so that death shall be destroyed, and so thy
servants shall have life. This, I say, is the victory of faith, when to
the midst of death, through the light of God's word, the afflicted see
life. Hypocrites, in the time of quietness and prosperity, can generally
confess, that God is true to his promises; but bring them to the
extremity, and there the hypocrite ceases further to trust to God, than he
seeth natural means, whereby God useth to work. But the true faithful,
when all hope of natural means fail, flee to God himself, and to the truth
of his promise, who is above nature; yea, whose works are not so subject
to the ordinary course of nature, that when nature fails, his power and
promise fail also therewith.

Let us further observe, That the prophet here speaks not of all the dea