idea of _two distinct states_--one a
state of _freedom_, the other a state of _bondage_: in one of which, a
person is serving with his consent for wages; in the other of which a
person is serving without his _consent_, according to his master's
pleasure.

Again, in Job iii, Job expresses the strong desire he had been made by
his afflictions to feel, that he had died in his infancy. "For now,"
says he, "should I have lain still and been quiet, I should have slept:
then had I been at rest. There (meaning the grave) the wicked cease from
troubling, and there the weary be at rest. There the prisoners rest
together; they hear not the voice of the oppressor. The small and the
great are there, and the servant is free from his master."--Job iii: 11,
13, 17, 18, 19. Now, I ask any common-sense man to account for the
expression in this connection, "there the servant is free from his
master." Afflictions are referred to, arising out of _states_ or
_conditions_, from which _ordinarily_ nothing but _death_ brings relief.
_Death_ puts an end to afflictions of body that are incurable, as he
took his own to be, and therefore he desired it.

The troubles brought on good men by a wicked persecuting world, last for
life; but in _death_ the wicked cease from troubling,--_death_ ends that
_relation_ or _state_ out of which such troubles grow. The prisoners of
the oppressors, in that age, stood in a _relation_ to their _oppressor_,
which led the oppressed to expect they would hear the voice of the
_oppressor_ until _death_. But _death_ broke the _relation_, and was
desired, because in the grave they would hear his voice no more.

All the distresses growing out of inequalities in human condition; as
wealth and power on one side, and poverty and weakness on the other,
were terminated by death; the grave brought both to a level: the small
and the great are there, and there, (that is, in the grave,) he adds,
the servant is free from his master; made so, evidently, by _death_. The
_relation_, or _state_ out of which his oppression had arisen, being
destroyed by _death_, he would be freed from them, because he would, by
_death_, be freed from his master who inflicted them. This view of the
case, and this only, will account for the use of such language. But upon
a supposition that a _state_ or _relation_ among men is referred to,
that is _voluntary_, such as that between a _hired servant_ and his
_employer_, that can be _dissolved_ at the pleasur