is rectified, and your affections to all other enjoyments on earth me derated: and is this nothing? O doubtlefs it is a greater mercy to you, than to have your friend alive again.

And what if by this rod your wandering, gadding heart fhall be whipped home to God? your neglected duties revived? your decayed communion with God reftored? a fpiritual, heavenly frame of heart recovered? What will you say then?

Surely you will blefs that merciful hand which removed the obstructions, and adore the Divine wifdom, and goodness, that by fuch a device as this recovered you to himfelf. Now you can pray morẻ conftantly, more fpiritually, more affectionately than before. O bleffed rod, which buds and bloffoms with fuch fruits as thefe! Let this be written among your best mercies, for you shall have caufe to adore and blefs God eternally for this beneficial affliction.

Confideration 17. Suffer not yourselves to be tranfported by impatience, and fwallowed up of grief, because God hath exercifed you under a fmart rod; for, as fmarting as it is, it is comparatively a gentle ftroke to what others, as good as yourselves, have felt.

Your dear relation is dead; be it fo, here is but a fingle death before you, but others have feen many deaths contrived into one upon their relations, to which yours is nothing.

tures.

Zedekiah faw his children murdered before his eyes, and then had thofe eyes (alas! too late) put out. The worthy author The fulfilling of that excellent book before-mentioned, tells us of a of the Scrip- choice, and godly gentlewoman in the north of Ireland, who when the rebellion broke out there, fled with three children, one of them upon the breaft; they had not gone far before they were stripped naked by the Irish, who, to their admiration, fpared their lives, (it is like, concluding that cold and hunger would kill them) afterwards going on at the foot of a river which runs to Lochneach, others met them, and would have caft them into the river; but this godly woman, not dismayed, asked a little liberty to pray, and as fhe lay naked on the frozen ground, got refolution not to go on her own feet, to fo unjust a death, upon which having called her, and the refufing, was dragged by the heels along that rugged way, to be caft in with her little ones, and company.

But he then turned, and on her knees fays, You fhould, I am fure, be Chriftians, and men I fee you are; in taking away our miférable lives, you do us a pleafure; but know, that as we never wronged you nor yours, you must remember to die alfo yourselves, and one day give an account of this cruelty, to the Judge of heaven and earth. Hereupon they refolved not to murder them with their own hands, but turned them all naked upon a small island in the river, without any provifion, there to perish.

The next day, the two boys having crept afide, found the hide of a beast which had been killed, at the root of a tree, which the mother caft over them lying upon the fnow. The next day a little boat

goes by, unto whom she calls for God's fake to take them in, but they being Irish, refused; the defired a little bread, but they faid they had none; then the begs a coal of hire, which the obtained; and thus, with fome fallen chips, made a little fire, and the children taking a piece of the hide laid it on the coals, and began to gnaw the leather; but without an extraordinary Divine fupport, what could this do?

Thus they lived ten days, without any visible means of help, havThe two ing no bread, but ice and fnow, nor drink except water. boys being near starved, the preffed them to go out of her fight, not Ibeing able to see their death; yet God delivered them as miraculously at laft, as he had fupported them all that while.

But judge whether a natural death, in an ordinary way be comparable to fuch a trial as this; and yet thus the Lord did by this choice and eminently gracious woman.

And Mr Wall, in his None-but-Chrift, relates as fad a paffage of a poor family in Germany, who were driven unto that extremity in the famine, that at laft the parents made a motion one to the other to' fell one of the children for bread to sustain themselves, and the rest; but when they came to confider which child it should be, their hearts fo relented, and yearned upon every one, that they refolved rather all to die together. Yea, we read in Lam. iv. 10. "The hands of "the pitiful women have fodden their own children,"

But why speak I of thefe extremities? How many parents, yea, fome godly ones too, have lived to fee their children dying in prophanenefs, and fome by the hand of justice, lamenting their rebellions with a rope about their necks.

Ah! reader, little doft thou know what ftings there are in the afflictions of others! furely you have no reason to think the Lord hath dealt more bitterly with you than any. It is a gentle ftroke, a merciful difpenfation, if you compare it with what others have felt.

Confideration 18. If God be your God, you have really loft nothing by the removal of any creature-comfort.

God is the fountain of all true comfort; creatures, the very best and sweetest, are but cifterns to receive, and convey to us what comfort God is pleased to communicate to them; and if the ciftern be broken, or the pipe cut off, fo that no more comfort can be conveyed to us that way, he hath other ways and mediums to do it by, which we think not of; and if he please he can convey his comforts to his people without any of them: And if he do it more immediately, we shall be no lofers by that; for no comforts in the world are fo des lectable, and ravishingly fweet, as those that flow immediately from the fountain.

And it is the fenfuality of our hearts that causes us to affect them fo inordinately, and grieve for the lofs of them fo immoderately, as if we had not enough in God, without thefe creature fupple

Is the fulness of the fountain yours? and yet do you caft down yourselves, because the broken ciftern is removed; The best creatures are no better, Jer. ii. 13. Cifterns have nothing but what they receive, and broken ones cannot hold what is put into them. Why then do you mourn, as if your life were bound up in the creature? You have as free an excefs to the fountain as you had before. It is the advice of an Heathen, (and let them take the comfort of it) to repair, by a new earthly comfort, what we have loft in the former.

"Thou haft carried forth him whom thou lovedft, (faith Seneca) "feck one whom thou mayeft love in his flead: It is better to repair "than to bemoan thy lofs."

But if God never repair your lofs in things of the fame kind, you know he can abundantly repair it in himfelf.

Ah! Chriftian, is not one kifs of his mouth, one glimpfe of his countenance, one 'feal of his Spirit, a more fweet and fubftantial comfort, than the sweetest relation in this world can afford you? If the stream fail, repair to the fountain, there is enough ftill; God is where he was, and what he was, though the creature be not.

Confideration 19. Though you may want a little comfort in your life, yet furely it may be recompenfed to you by a more eafy death.

0

The removal of your friends before you may turn to your great advantage, when your hour is come that you must follow them. how have many good fouls been clogged and enfnared in their dying hour, by the loves, cares, and fears they have had about thofe they muft leave behind them in a finful, evil-world!

Your love to them might have proved a fnare to you, and caufed you to hang back, as loth to go hence; for thefe are the things that make men loth to die. And thus it might have been with you, except God had removed them before-hand, or fhould give you in that day fuch fights of heaven, and taftes of divine love, as should mafter and mortify all your earthly affections to these things.

I knew a gracious perfon, (now in heaven) who, for many weeks in her last sickness, complained that she found it hard to part with a dear relation, and that there was nothing proved a greater clog to her foul than this: It is much more eafy to think of going to our friends, who are in heaven before us, than of parting with them, and leaving our defirable and dear ones behind us.

And who knows what cares and ditracting thoughts you may then be pestered and distracted with upon their account? What shall become of thefe when I am gone? I am now to leave them, God knows to what wants, miferies, temptations, and afflictions in the midft of a decitful, defiling, dangerous world.

I know it is our duty to leave our fatherless children, and` friendless relations with God; to truft them with him that gave them to us:

Quem amabas extulifii, quære quem ames : Sattus eft amicum reparare quam fiere.— Senec, Epift. p. 637.

And fome have been enabled cheerfully to do fo when they were parting from them. *Luther could fay, "Lord, thou haft given "f me a wife and children, I have little to leave them; nourish, "teach, and keep them; O thou Father of the fatherless, and "Judge of the widow." But every Christian hath not a Luther's faith; fome find it a hard thing to difentangle their affections at fuch a time: But now, if God has fent all yours before you, you have fo much the lefs to do; death may be easier to you than others.

Confideration 20. But if nothing that hath been yet faid will flick with you, then, laftly, remember that you are near that ftate, and place which admits no forrows, nor fad reflections, upon any fuch accounts as these.

Yet a little while, and you fhall not mifs them, you shall not need them, but you fhall live as the angels of God: We now live partly by faith, partly by fenfe, partly upon God, and partly upon the creature; our ftate is mixed, therefore our comforts are fo too. But when God fhall be all in all, and we shall be as the angels of God in the way and manner of our living; how much will the cafe be altered with us then, from what it is now?

Angels neither marry, nor are given in marriage, neither shall the children of the refurrection; when the days of our finning are ended, the days of our mourning fhall be fo too. No graves were opened till fin entered, and no more shall be opened when fin is excluded.

Our glorified relations shall live with us for ever; they shall complain no more, die no more; yea, this is the happinefs of that state to which you are paffing on, that your fouls being in the nearest conjunction with God, the fountain of joy, you fall have no concernment out of him. You fhall not be put upon these exercises of patience, nor fubjected to fuch forrows as you now feel, any more. is but a little while, and the end of all these things will come. O therefore bear up, as perfons that expect fuch a day of jubilee at hand.

It

And thus I have finifhed the fecond general head of this difcourfe, which is a diffuafive from the fin of immoderate forrow.

3. I now proceed to the third thing propofed, namely, to remove the pleas and excufes for this immoderate grief. It is natural to men, yea, to good men, to justify their exceffes, or at least to extenuate them, by pleading for their paffions, as if they wanted not caufe, and reafon enough to excufe them. If these be fully answered, and the foul once convinced, and left without apology for its fin, it is then in a fair way for its cure, which is the last thing defigned in this treatise. My present business, therefore is, to fatisfy thofe objections, and anfwer thofe reafons which are commonly pleaded in this cafe, to juftify our exceffive grief for loft relations. And tho' I fhall carry it in that line of relation to which the text directs, yet it is equally applicable to all others.

* Melchior Adam, in the life of Luther.

Plea 1. You prefs me by many great confiderations to meekness and quiet fubmiffion under this heavy ftroke of God; but you little know what ftings my foul feels now in it.

The child was a child of many prayers, it was a Samuel begged of the Lord, and I concluded when I had it, that it brought with it the returns and answers of many prayers. But now I fee it was nothing lefs; God had no regard to my prayer about it, nor was it given me in that fpecial way of mercy, as I imagined it to be: My child is not only dead, but my prayers in the fame day fhut out and denied.

Anfwer 1. That you prayed for your children before you had them was your duty; and if you prayed not for them fubmiffively, referring it to the pleasure of God to give, or deny them, to continue or remove them, as should feem good to him, that was your fin: You ought not to limit the Holy One of Ifrael, nor prescribe to him, or capitulate with him, for what term you fhall enjoy your outward comforts: If you did fo, it was your evil, and God hath juftly rebuked it by this ftroke. If you did pray conditionally, and fubmiffively referring both the mercy afked and continuance of it to the will of God, as you ought to do; then there is nothing in the death of your child that crofles the true fcope and intent in your prayer.

Anfwer 2. your prayers may be anfwered, though the thing prayed for be with-held, yea, or though it fhould be given for a little while, and fnatched away from you again. There are four ways of God's anfwering prayers, by giving the thing prayed for prefently, Dan. ix. 23. or by fufpending the answer for a time, and giving it afterwards, Luke xviii. 7. or by with-holding from you that mercy which you afk, and giving you a much better mercy in the room of it, Deut. iii. 24. compared with Deut. xxxiv. 4, 5. Or, laftly, by giving you patience to bear the lofs, or want of it, 2 Cor. xii. 9.

Now, if the Lord have taken away your child, or friend, and in lieu thereof given you a meek, quiet, fubmiffive heart to his will, you need not fay he hath fhut out your cry.

Plea 2. But I have loft a lovely, obliging, and moft endearing child, one that was beautiful and sweet; it is a ftony heart that would not diffoive into tears for the lofs of one fo defirable, fo engaging as this was Ah! it is no common lofs.

infwer 1. The more lovely and engaging your relation was, the more excellent will your patience and contentment with the will of God in its death be; the more lovelinefs, the more felf-denial, the more grace. Had it been a thousand times more endearingly fweet than it was, it was not too good to deny for God. If therefore obedience to the will of God do indeed master natural affections, and that you look upon patience and contentment as much more beautiful than the fweeteft and moft defirable enjoyment on earth, it may turn to you for a teftimony of the truth and ftrength of grace: that you can, like Abraham, part with a child whom you fo dearly love, in obedience to the will of your God, whom you love infinitely more.