my child or friend is pafled into eternity, and I know not how it is with his foul: were I fure my relation were with Christ, Í fhould be quiet; but my fears of the contrary are overwhelming; it is terrible to think of the damnation of one so dear

to me.

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

I do confefs it is a fore and heavy rial, and that there is no cause more fad, and finking to the fpirit 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 least filence you in this matter.

First, His indifputable fovereignty over them, Rom. ix. 20. "Who art thou, O man, who difputeft with God?" He fpeaks in the matters of eternal election, and reprobation. What if the Lord will not be gracious to thofe that are fo dear to us? Is there any wrong done to them or us thereby? Aaron's two fons were cut off in the act of fin, by the Lord's immediate hand, and yet he held his peace, Lev. x. 3. God told Abra

ham plainly, that the covenant should not be established with Ishmael, for whom he fo earnestly prayed, Olet Ihmael live before thee! and he knew that there was no falvation out of the covenant, and yet he fits down filent under the word of the Lord.

Secondly. But if this do not quiet you, yet methinks his dif tinguishing love and mercy to you fhould do it. O what do you owe to God, that root and branch hath not been caft toge ther into the fire! that the Lord ha.a given you good hope, through grace that it fhall be well with you for ever. Let this ftop your mouth, and quiet your fpirit, though you would have grounds for this fear.

Anfwer 2. But pray examine the grounds of your fear, whe ther it may not proceed from the ftrength of your affections to the eternal welfare of your friend, or from the fubtilty of Satan, defigning hereby to overwhelm and fwallow you up in fuppofed, as well as from just grounds and caufes? In two cafes it is very probable your fear may proceed only from your own affection, or Satan's temptation.

First, If your relation died young, before it did any thing to deftroy your hopes. Or,

Secondly, If grown, and in fome good degree hopeful; only

he did not in life, or at death, manifeft, and give evidence of grace, with that clearness as you defired.

As to the cafe of infants in general, it is none of our concern to judge their condition; and as for those that sprang from covenanted parents, it becomes us to exercife charity towards them; the fcripture fpeaks very favourably of them.

And as for the more adult, who have efcaped the pollutions of the world, and made confcience of fin and duty, albeit they never manifefted what you could defire they had; yet in them, as in young Abijah, thay be found fome good things towards the Lord," which you never took notice of. Reverence of your authority, bashfulnefs, and thame-facednefs, refervednefs of difpofition, and many other things, may hide those small and weak beginnings of grace that are in children, from the obfervations of the parents God might fee that in them that you never faw; he defpifeth not the day of fmall things.

However it be, it is now out of your reach; your concernment rather is to improve the affliction to your own good, than judge and determine their condition, which belongs not to you but to God.

Plea 9. O but I have finned in this relation, and God hath punished my fia in diffolving it. O, faith one, my heart was fet too much upon it, I even idolized it, that was my fin: and, faith another, I wanted due affections, and did not love my relation, at leaft not fo fpiritually as I ought; that was my fin. Now God is vifiting me for all the neglects and defects that hath been in me towards iny relation.

Anfwer 1. There is no man fo thoroughly fanctified, as not to fail, and come thort in many things pertaining to his relative duties and to fpeak, as the thing is, the corruptions of the holieft perfons are as much discovered in this, as any other thing whatfoever; and it is a very common thing for conscience, not only to charge thefe failures upon us, but to aggravate them to the utmost when God hath made the feparation. So that this is no more than what is ufual, and very common, with perfons in your cafe.

Anfwer 2. Admit that which the objection fuppofes, that God had afflicted you for your fin, and removed that comfort from you, which you idolized, and too much doted on; yet there is no reason you fhould be fo caft down under your affliction: For all this may be, and probably is the fruit of his love to, and care of your foul, Rev. iii. 19. He tells the afflicted, for their comfort, "Whom I love, I rebuke and chaften." How VOL. VII.

much better is it to have an idolized enjoyment taken from you, in mercy, than if God fhould fay concerning you, as he did of Ephraim, Hofea iv. 17. "He is joined to idols, let him alone,"

O it is better for you that your Father now reckons with you for your follies with the rod in his hand, than to fay as he doth to fome, let them go on, I will not hinder them in, or rebuke them for their finful courfes; but will reckon with them for all together in hell at last.

Anfwer 3. And as to what you now charge upon yourself, that the neglect of duty did fpring from the want of love to your relation; your forrow at parting may evidence that your relation was rooted deep in your affection; but if your love was not fo fpiritual and pure, to love and enjoy them in God; that was undoubtedly your fin, and is the fin of most Christians, for which both you, and all others, ought to be humbled.

Plea 10. God hath bleffed me with an eftate, and outward comforts in the world, which I reckoned to have left to my pofterity; and now I have none to leave it with, nor have I any comfort to think of it; the purposes of my heart are broken off, and the comfort of all my other enjoyments blafted by this stroke in an hour. How are the pains and cares of many years perished.

Answer 1. How many are there in the world, yea, of our own acquaintance, whom God hath either denied, or deprived both of the comforts of children and estates too? If he have left you thofe outward comforts, you ought to acknowledge his goodness therein, and not to flight these because he hath deprived you of the other.

Anfwer 2. Though your children are gone, yet God hath many children left in the world, whose bowels you may refresh with what he hath bestowed upon you; and your charity to them will doubtlefs turn to a more confiderable account, than if you had left a large eftate to your own pofterity.

Surely we are not fent into this world to heap up great estates for our children: and if you have been too eager in this defign, you may now read God's just rebuke of your folly. Blefs God you have yet an opportunity to ferve him eminently by your charity, and God deny you other executors, let your own hands be your executors, to diftribute to the neceffity of the faints, that the bleffings of them that are ready to perish may come upon you.

Plea 11. O but the remembrance of its witty words, and pret ty actions, is wounding.

Anfwer 1. Let it rather lift up your hearts to God in praise,

that gave you so desirable a child, than fill your heart with difcontent at his hand in removing it. How many parents are there in the world, whofe children God hath deprived of reason and understanding, fo that they only differ from the beafts in external shape and figure? And how many fhew betimes fo perverse a temper, that little comfort can be expected from them.

Anfwer 2. Thefe are but small circumftances, and trivial things in themselves; but by these little things Satan manages a great defign against your foul, to deject or exafperate it: And furely this is not your business at this time; you have greater things than the words and actions of children to mind; to fearch out God's ends in the affliction, to mortify the corrup tion it is fent to rebuke, to quiet your hearts in the will of God; this is your work.

Plea 12. Laftly, It is objected, O but God hides his face from me in my affliction; it is dark within, as well as without, and this makes my cafe more deplorable, greatly afflicted, and fadly deferted.

Anfwer 1. Though you want at prefent fenfible comfort, yet you have reason to be thankful for gracious fupports. Though the light of God's countenance fhine not upon you, yet you find the everlasting arms are underneath you; the care of God worketh for you, when the confolations of God are withdrawn from you.

Anfwer 2. To have God hide his face in the time of trouble, is no new or unusual thing; God's dearest faints, yea, his own Son, hath experienced it, who in the deeps of inward and outward trouble, when wave called unto wave, felt not thofe fweet, fenfible influences of comfort from God, which had always filled his foul formerly. If Chrift cry in extremity, "My God, my God, why haft thou forfaken me!" Then fure we need not wonder, as if fome strange thing had happened to us.

Anfwer 3. May not your fubmiffive carriage under the rod provoke God to hide his face from you. Pray confider it well, nothing is more probable than for this to be the cause of God's withdrawment from you. Could you, in meeknefs and quietnefs, receive that cup your Father hath given you to drink: accept the punishment of your iniquities; fay, Good is the word' of the Lord, It is the Lord, let him do what he will: You. would foon find the cafe altered with you; but the comforting fpirit finds no delight, or rest, in a turbulent and tumultuous breast.

And thus I have fatisfied the most confiderable pleas urged, ią juftification of our exceffes.

4. I come now to the last thing propofed namely the means of curing and preventing thefe finful exceffes of forrow for the death of our dear relations.

And although much hath been faid already to diffuade from this evil, and I have enlarged already much beyond my first intention; yet I fhall caft in fome farther help and affiftance towards the healing of this diffemper, by prescribing the following rules:

Rnie . If you would not mourn exceffively for the loss of creature-comforts, then beware that you fet not your delight and love exceffively, or inordinately, upon them, whilft, you do enjoy them.

Strong affections make ftrong afflictions; the higher the tide, the lower the ebb. According to the meafure of our delight in the enjoyment, is our grief in the loss of these things. The apostle knits these two graces, temperance and patience, together, in the precept, 2 Pet. i. 16. and it is very obfervable how intemperance and impatience are infeparably linked in experience, yea, the experience of the best men You read, Gea. Xxxvii. 3. "Now Ifrael loved Jofeph more than all his children, "because he was the (on of his old age; and made him a coat "of many colours."

66

This was the darling; Jacob's heart was fo exceedingly fet upon him, his very life was bound up in the life of the lad. Now when the fuppofed death of his child was brought to him, how did he carry it? See ver. 34, 35. And Jacob rent his clothes, and put fackcloth upon his loins; and mourned for his fon many days; And all his fons, and all his daughters, "rofe up to comfort him, but he refused to be comforted. And " he said, for I will go down into the grave to my fon mourn"ing. Thus his father wept for him."

Here, as in a glass, are the effects of exceffive love to a child reprefented: Here you may fee what work immoderate love will make, even in a fanctified heart.

O therefore let your moderation be known to all men, in your delights and forrows. about earthly things; for ordinarily the proportion of the one is anfwerable to the other.

Rele 2. If you would not be averwhelmed with grief for the lofs of your relations, be exact and careful in difcharging your duties to them while you have them,

The teftimony of your confcience, that you have laboured in all things to discharget he duties you owed to your relations,