been more beautiful and lovely, if

bodies had been f their b So. Besides, it is but a flower which florishes its month, and then fades. This therefore should not be reflected on as so great a circumstance to aggravate your trouble.

But if your relation sleep in Jesus, he will appear ten thousand times more lovely in the morning of the resurrection, than ever he was in the world. What is the exactest, purest beauty of mortals, to the incomparable beauty of the saints in the resurrection?" Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father." In this hope you part with them; therefore act suitably to your hopes.

3. O but my child was nipped off by death in the very bud! I did but see, and love, and part. Had I enjoyed it longer, and had time to suck out the sweetness of such an enjoyment, I could have borne it easier; but its months or years with me were so few, that they only served to raise an expectation which was quickly, and therefore the more sadly disappointed..

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

The sooner your relation died, the less sin has been committed, and the less sorrow felt. What can you see in this world but sin or sorrow? A quick passage through it to glory is a special privilege. Surely the world is not so desirable a place, that Christians should desire an hour's time longer in it for themselves or theirs, than serves to fit them for a better.

And whereas you imagine that the parting would have been easier if the enjoyment had been longer, it is a fond and groundless suspicion. The longer you had enjoyed

them, the stronger would the endearments have been, A young and tender plant may be easily drawn up by a single hand, but when it has spread 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 those under-ground roots, are fixed and strengthened by nothing more than consuetude and long possession. It is much easier parting now, than it would be hereafter, whatever you think. However this should satisfy you, that God's time is the best time.

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 loss. If God had given me other children to take comfort in, the loss had not been so great; but to lose all at one stroke is insupportable..

Religion allows not to Christians a liberty of expressing the death of their dear relations by so hard a word as the loss of them is; they are not lost, but sent before you. And it is a shameful thing for a Christian to be reproved for such an uncómely expression by a heathen; it is enough to make us blush to read what a heathen said in this case; "Never say thou hast lost any thing," says Epictetus, "but that it is returned. Is thy son dead? He is only restored. Is thy inheritance taken from thee? It is also returned." And a while after he adds, "Let every thing be as the gods would have it."

It is no fit expression to say you have lost all in one, except that one be Christ; and he being once yours, can never be lost. Doubtless your meaning is, that you have lost all your comfort of that kind; and what though you have? Are there not multitudes of comforts yet remaining, of a higher kind, and of a more precious and durable nature? If you have no more of that sort, yet so long as you have better, what cause have you to rejoice!

You too much imitate the way of the world in this complaint; they know not how to repair the loss of one comfort but by another of the same nature, which must be put in its room to fill up the vacancy; but have you no other way to supply your loss? Have you not a God

to fill the place of any creature that leaves you? Surely this would better become a man whose portion is in this life, than one who professes that God is his all in all.

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

Suppose what you say, 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 reason to be cast down. Bless God for higher and better hopes than these. In Isa. lvi. 4, 5, the Lord comforts them who have no expectations of sons or daughters, with this, that he will give unto them "in his house and within his walls, a place and a name better than of sons and daughters; even an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." There are better mercies and higher hopes than these. Though your hopes of children or from children should be cut yet if your eternal hopes are secure, and such as shall not make you ashamed, you should not be so cast down.

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If God will not have your comforts to lie any more in children, then resolve to place them in himself, and you shall never find cause to complain of loss by such an exchange. You will find that in God which is not to be had in the creature. One hour's communion with him, shall give you that which the happiest parent never yet had from his children; you will exchange brass for gold, perishing vanity for solid and abiding excellency.

6. But the suddenness of the stroke 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 snatched unexpectedly out of my arms, by a surprising stroke; and this makes my stroke heavier than my complaint.

The the death of your relation was so sudden and surprising, was much your own fault, who ought to have lived in the daily sense of its vanity, and expectation of your separation from it. You knew it to be a dying comfort in its best estate, and it is no such wonderful

thing to see that dead, which you knew before to be dying. Besides, you heard the changes ringing about you in other families; you frequently saw other parents, husbands, 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 security and regardlessness that made this affliction so surprising to you; and who is to be blamed for that?

There is much difference betwixt the sudden death of infants, and that of grown persons; the latter may have much work to do, many sins actually to repent of, and many evidences of their interest in Christ to examine and clear, in order to their more comfortable death; and so sudden death may be deprecated by them. But the case of infants, who exercise not their reason, is far different. They have no such work to do, but are purely passive. All that is done in order to their salvation, is done by God immediately upon them; it comes therefore all to one) whether their death be more quick or more slow.

You complain of the suddenness of the stroke; but another will be ready to say, Had my friend died in that manner, my affliction had been nothing to what now it is; I have seen many deaths contrived into one; I saw the gradual approaches of it upon my dear relation, who felt every tread of death as it came on toward him, who often cried with Job, "Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul; which long for death, but it cometh not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures; which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave?" That which you reckon the sting of your affliction, others would have reckoned a favor and privilege. How many tender parents and other relations, who loved their friends as dearly as yourselves, have been forced to their knees on no other errand than this, to beg the Lord to hasten the separation, and put an end to that sorrow, which to them was much greater than the sorrow for the dead!

7. You press me to moderation of sorrows, and I know. I ought to show it; but you do not know how the case stands with me. There is a sting in this affliction, that

none feels but myself; and O how intolerable is it now! I neglected proper means in season to preserve life, or miscarried in the use of means. I now see such a neglect or such a mistake about the means, as I cannot but judge greatly to contribute to that sad loss which I now, too late, lament. O my negligence, my rashness, my inconsiderateness! How does my conscience now smite me for my folly, and aggravate my burden beyond what is usually felt by others! Had I seasonably applied myself to the use of proper means, and kept strictly to such courses and counsels 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 my self of them. Surely there is no sorrow like unto my

sorrow.

Though it is an evil to neglect and slight the means ordained by God for recovery of health, yet it is no less evil to ascribe too much to them, or rely too much on them. The best means in the world are weak and ineffectual, without God's assistance and concurrence, and they never have his assistance or concurrence, when his time is come; and that it was fully come in your friend's case, is manifest now by the event. So that if your friend had had the most excellent helps the world affords, they would have availed nothing. This consideration takes place only in your case, who see what the will of God is by the issue, and may not be pleaded by any whilst it remains dubious and uncertain, as it generally does in time of sickness.

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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 case, will best appear by com→ paring the circumstances you are now in, with those you were in when your relation was only arrested by sickness; and it was dubious to you what was your duty, and best course to take. Possibly you had observed so many to perish in physicians' hands, and so many to recover without them, that you judged it safer for your friend to be without those means, than to be hazarded by them. Or if divers methods and courses were prescribed and Div. No. XX.

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