Anfaver 2. The loveliness and beauty of our children and relations, though it must be acknowledged a good gift from the hand of God; yet it is but a common gift, and oftentimes becomes a fnare, and is, in its own nature, but a tranfitory, vanishing thing, and therefore no fuch great aggravation of the lofs as is pretended.

I fay, it is but a common gift; Eliab, Adonijah, and Abfalom had as lovely prefences as any in their generation. Yea, it is not only common to the wicked, with the godly, but to the brute animals, as well as men, and to moft that excel in it, it becomes a temptation; the fouls of fome had been more beautiful and lovely, if their bodies had been lefs fo. Befides, it is but a flower which nourishes in its mouth, and then fades. This therefore should not be reflected on as fo great a circumftance to aggravate your trouble.

Answer 3. But if your relation fleep in Jefus, he will appear ten thousand times more lovely in the morning of the refurrection, than ever he was in the world. What is the exacteft, pureft beauty of mortals, to the incomparable beauty of the faints in the refurrection? "Then fhall the righteous fhine forth as the fun in the kingdom of "their Father," Matth. xiii. 43. In this hope you part with them, therefore act fuitably to your hopes.

Plea 3. Oh! but my child was nipped off by death in the very bud; I did but fee, and love, and part: Had I enjoyed it longer, and had time to fuck out the fweetness of fuch an enjoyment, I could have borne it eafier; but its months or years with me were fo few, that they only ferved to raise an expectation which was quickly, and therefore the more fadly difappointed.

Anfwer 1. Did your friend die young, or was the bond of any other relation diffolved almost as soon as made? Let not this seem so intolerable a load to you; for if you have ground to hope they died in Christ, then they lived long enough in this world*. It is truly faid, he hath failed long enough that hath won the harbour; he hath fought long enough that hath obtained the victory; he hath run long enough that hath touched the goal; and he hath lived long enough upon earth that hath won heaven, be his days here never fo few.

Afwer 2. The fooner your relation died, the lefs fin hath been committed, and the less forrow felt: What can you fee in this world but fin or forrow? A quick paffage through it to glory is a special privilege. Surely the world is not fo defirable a place, that Chriftians fhould defire an hour's time longer in it for themselves, or theirs, than ferves to fit them for a better.

Anfwer 3. And whereas you imagine the parting would have been eafier if the enjoyment had been longer, it is a fond and groundless fufpicion: The longer you had enjoyed them, the ftronger would the endearments have been. A young and tender plant may be easily

• Vide Mr Baxter's Epiftle to the life of Mr John Janeway.

drawn up by a fingle hand, but when it hath fpread and fixed its root many years in the earth, it will require many a strong blow, and hard tug to root it up. Affections, like thofe under-ground roots, are fixed and strengthened by nothing more than confuetude and long-poffeffion; it is much eafier parting now, than it would be hereafter, whatever you think. However, this fhould fatisfy you, that God's time is the best time.

Plea 4. O but I have lost all in one, it is my only one, I have none left in its room to repair the breach, and make up the lofs: If God had given me other children to take comfort in, the lofs had not been fo great; but to lofe all at one ftroke is infupportable.

Anfwer 1. Religion allows not unto Chriflians a liberty of expreffing the death of their dear relations by fo hard a word as the lofs of them is; they are not loft, but fent before you*: And it is a fhameful thing for a Chriftian to be reproved for fuch an uncomely expreffion by a heathen; it is enough to make us blush to read what an heathen faid in this cafe, Never fay thou haft loft any thing (faith Epictetus) but that it is returned.' Is thy fon dead? He is ⚫ only restored. Is thy inheritance taken from thee? It is also re• turned.' And a while after he adds, E. TUTO GEOIS Qiλor TBTO YEVLDÜM, i. e. Let every thing be as the gods would have it.'

Anfwer 2. It is no fit expreffion to fay you have loft all in one, except that one be Chrift; and he being once yours, can never be loft. Doubtlefs, your meaning is, you have loft all your comfort of that kind; and what though you have? Are there not multitudes of comforts yet remaining, of a higher kind, and more precious and durable nature? If you have no more of that fort, yet so long as you have better, what cause have you to rejoice!

Anfwer 3. You too much imitate the way of the world in this complaint; they know not how to repair the lofs of one comfort but by another of the fame nature, which must be put in its room to fill up the vacancy: But have you no other way to fupply your lots? Have you not a God to fill the place of any creature that leaves you? Surely this would better become a man whofe portion is in this life, than one that profeffes God is his all in all

Plea 5. O but my only one is not only taken away, but there remains no expectation or probability of any more: I muft now look upon myself as a dry tree, never to take comfort in children any more, which is a cutting thought.

Anfwer 1. Suppofe what you fay, that you have no hope nor expectation of another child remaining to you; yet if you have a hope of better things than children, you have no reafon to be caft down: Blefs God for higher and better hopes than thefe. In Ifa. Ivi. 4, 5. the Lord comforts them that have no expectations of fons or daugh. ters with this; "That he will give unto them in his house, and with

• Non amiituntur fed præmittuntur.

+ Epiel. Enchirid. cap. 15.

"in his walls, a place and a name better than of fons and daughters; " even an everlasting name that fhall not be cut off." There are better mercies, and higher hopes than thefe; though your hopes of children, or from children, fhould be cut off, yet if your eternal hopes are fecure, and fuch as fhall not make you afhamed, you should not be fo caft down.

Anfwer 2. If God will not have your comforts to lie any more in children, then refolve to place them in himself, and you shall never find caufe to complain of lofs by fuch an exchange: You will find that in God which is not to be had in the creature; one hour's communion with him, fhall give you that which the happiest parent never yet had from his children; you will exchange brafs for gold, perifhing vanity for folid and abiding excellency.

Plea 6. But the fuddennefs of the ftroke is amazing, God gave little or no warning to prepare for this trial: Death executed its commission as soon as it opened it. My dear husband, wife, or child, was fnatched unexpectedly out of my arms, by a furprizing stroke; and this makes my stroke heavier than my complaint.

Anfwer 1. That the death of your relation was fo fudden and furprizing, was much your own fault, who ought to have lived in the daily fense of its vanity, and expectation of your separation from it; you knew it to be a dying comfort in its beft eftate, and it is no fuch wonderful thing to fee that dead, which you knew before to be dying: Befides, you heard the changes ringing about you in other families; you frequently faw other parents, hufbands, and wives, carrying forth their dead; and what were all these but warnings given to you to prepare for the like trials?

Surely, then, it was your own fecurity and regardlessness that made this affliction fo furprizing to you; and who is to be blamed for that, you know.

Anfwer 2. There is much difference betwixt the fudden death of infants, and that of grown perfons; the latter may have much work to do; many fins actually to repent of, and many evidences of their interest in Chrift to examine and clear, in order to their more comfortable death; and fo fudden death may be deprecated by them.

But the cafe of infants, who exercise not their reason, is far different; they have no fuch work to do, but are purely paffive: All that is done in order to their falvation, is done by God immediately upon them, fo it comes all to one, whether their death be more quick, or more flow.

Anfwer 3. You complain of the fuddennefs of the ftroke: but another will be ready to fay, had my friend died in that manner, my affliction had been nothing to what now it is; I have feen many deaths contrived into one; I faw the gradual approaches of it upon my dear relation, who felt every thread of death as it came on toward him, who often cried with Job, chap. iii. ver. 21, 22. "Where"fore is light given to him that is in mifery, and life to the bitter in

"foul? Which long for death, but it cometh not, and dig for i " more than for hid treafures: Which rejoice excee lingly, and are "glad when they can find the grave."

That which you reckon the fting of your affliction, others would have reckoned a favour and privilege. How many tender parents, and other relations, who loved their friends as dearly as yourselves, have been forced to their knees, upon no other errand but this, to beg the Lord to haften the feparation, and put an end to that forrow, which to them was much greater than the forrow for the dead.

Plea 7. You prefs me to moderation of forrows, and I know I ought to fhew it; but you do not know how the cafe stands with me, there is a fting in this affliction, that none feels but myfelf; and, 0! how intollerable is it now! I neglected proper means in feafon to preferve life, or miscarried in the use of means. I now fee fuch a

neglect, or such a miftake about the means, as I cannot but judge greatly to contribute to that fad lofs which I now, too late, lament,

O my negligence, O my rafhnefs, and inconfideratenefs! how doth my confcience now fmite me for my folly! and by this aggravate my burden beyond what is ufually felt by others. Had I feafonably applied myself to the use of proper means, and kept strictly to fuch courfes and counfels as those that are able and skilful might have prescribed, I might now have had a living husband, wife, or child: whereas i am now not only bereaved, but am apt to think I have bereaved myfelf of them. Surely there is no forrow like unto my forrow.

Anfwer 1. Though it be an evil to neglect, and flight the means ordained by God for recovery of health, yet it is no less evil to afcribe too much to them, or rely too much on them: the best means in the world are weak and ineffectual, without God's affiftance and concurrence, and they never have that his affiftance or concurrence, when his time is come; and that it was fully come in your friend's cafe, is manifested now by the event. So that if your friend had had the moft excellent helps the world affords, they would have availed nothing. This confideration takes place only in your cafe, who see what the will of God is by the iffue, and may not be pleaded by any whilst it remains dubious and uncertain, as it generally doth in time of fickness.

Anfwer 2. Do you not unjustly charge, and blame yourselves for that which is not really your fault, or neglect! How far you are chargeable in this cafe, will beft appear by comparing the circumftances you are now in, with thofe you were in when your relation was only arrested by sickness; and it was dubious to you what was your duty, and beft courfe to take.

Poffibly you had obferved fo many to perish in physicians hands, and fo many to recover without them, that you judged it safer for your friend to be without thofe means, than to be hazarded by them.

Or, if divers methods and courfes were prescribed, and perfuaded to, and you now fee your error, in preferring that which was moft improper, and neglecting what was more fafe, and probable: yet as long as it did not fo appear to your understanding at that time, but you followed the beft light you had to guide you at that time, it were most unjust to charge the fault upon yourselves, for chufing that course that then feemed best to you, whether it were fo in itself, or

not.

To be angry with yourselves for doing, or omitting what was then done, or omitted, according to your best discretion, and judgment, because you now fee it by the light of the event, far otherwife than you did before; it is to be troubled that you are but men, or that you are not as God, who only can foresee iffues and events; and that you acted as all rational creatures are bound to do, according to the light they have, at the time and feafon of action.

Anfwer 3. To conclude, Times of great affliction are ordinarily times of great temptation, and it is ufual with Satan then to charge us with more fins than we are guilty of, and alfo make those things to be fins, which, upon impartial examination, will not be found to be fo.

Indeed, had your neglect or miscarriage been known or voluntary, or had you really preferred a little money (being able to give it) before the life of your relation, and did deliberately chufe to hazard this, rather than part with that; no doubt, then, but there had been much evil of fin mixed with your affliction; and your conscience may juftly fmite you for it, as your fin; but in the other cafe, which is more common, and I prefume yours; it is a false charge, and you ought not to abet the defign of Satan in it.

Judge by the forrow you now feel by your friend, in what degree he was dear to you, and what you could now willingly give to ranfom his life, if it could be done with money. Judge, I fay, by this, how groundless the charge is that Satan now draws up against you, and you are but too ready to yield to the truth of it.

Plea 8. But my troubles are upon a higher score, and account my child or friend is paffed into eternity, and I know not how it is with his foul: were I fure my relation were with Chrift, I should be quiet; but my fears of the contrary are overwhelming; O it is terrible to think of the damnation of one so dear to me.

Answer 1. Admit what the objection fuppofes, that you have real grounds to fear the eternal condition of your dear relation; yet it is utterly unbefeeming you, even in such a cafe as this, to dispute with, or repine against the Lord.

I do confefs it is a fore and heavy trial, and that there is no caufe more fad, and finking to the spirit of a gracious perfon: their death is but a trifle to this; but yet if you be fuch as fear the Lord, methinks his indifputable fovereignty over them, and his diftinguishing love and mercy to you, fhould at leaft filence you in this matter. VOL. V. 4 P