I had wings like a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be at rest."
This being by no means an uncommon sentiment, I will shew,
I. What are the occasions which usually give rise to this wish —
The wish itself necessarily presupposes a state of trouble ; and it may arise in the bosom,
1. From temporal troubles — [Afflictions do not lose their nature when they visit the godly. Piety may soften their pungency; but it does not divest them of their proper qualities : " they are not joyous to any, but grievous ;" as God has condescended to declare. How grievous David's trial was, may be seen in all the preceding context: " Give ear to my prayer, O God ; and hide not thyself from my supplication. Attend unto me, and hear me! I mourn in my complaint and make a noise : my heart is sore pained within me ; and the terrors of death are fallen upon me. Fear- fulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me." Nor do we wonder at this language, when we consider that his own son had driven him from his throne ; that many of his subjects were in rebehion against him; and that there was about to be a conflict between two portions of them, the one headed by himself, and the other led on by his son ; and that, whichever might be victorious, it must be the blood of his subjects only that must flow. Well might he wish to withdraw from such a distressing scene, and well might he express himself in those mournful terms, " O that I had wings Hke a dove ! for then would I fly away, and be at rest. Lo, then would I wander far off", and remain in the wilderness. I would hasten my escape from the stormy wind and tempest." And though such scenes are rare, it is by no means uncommon to find in families troubles of such an overwhelming nature, as to make life itself a burthen to those who are affhcted by them. Husbands and wives, parents and children, who ought to be sources of the sublimest happiness to each other, are not unfrequently occasions to each other of the deepest woe ; a woe that embitters their whole lives, and makes them pant for death as a relief And where there is no particular evil committed either by the head or members, there will often arise, from the dispensations of Providence, such afflictions as prove an insup- portable burthen to the mind. In Job, for instance, we see, from his accumulated trials, the same effect produced as from the afflictions of David. He wished that in his early infancy he had been consigned to the grave, " where the wicked cease