In the mean time, christians, let us keep up the lively expectation of it, and let what has befallen us draw our thoughts upwards, Perhaps they will sometimes, before we are aware, sink to the grave, and dwell in the tombs that contain the poor remains of what was once so dear to us. But let them take flight from thence to more noble, more delightful scenes. And I will add, let the hope we have of the happiness of our children render God still dearer to our souls. We feel a very tender sense of the kindness which our friends expressed towards them, and think, indeed very justly, that their affectionate care for them. lays a lasting obligation upon us. What love then, and what service do we owe to thee, oh gracious Father, who hast, we hope, received them into thine house above, and art now entertaining them there with unknown delight, though our former methods of commerce with them be cut off! Lord, "should each of us say in such a case," I would take what thou art doing to my child as done to myself, and as a specimen and earnest of what shall shortly be done." It is therefore well. It only remains, that I conclude with a few hints of farther improvement. 1. Let pious parents, who have lost hopeful children in a maturer age, join with others in saying, It is well. My friends, the reasons which I have been urging at large, are common to you with us; and permit me to add, that as your case has its peculiar distress, it has, I think, in a yet greater degree, its peculiar consolations too. I know you will say, that it is inexpressibly grievous and painful, to part with children who were grown up into most amiable friends, who were your companions in the ways of God, and concerning whom you had a most agreeable prospect, that they would have been the ornaments and supports of religion in the rising age, and extensive blessings to the world, long after you had quitted it. These reasonings have, undoubtedly, their weight; and they have so, when considered in a very different view. Must you not acknowledge it is well, that you enjoyed so many years of comfort in them? that you reaped so much solid satisfaction from them? and saw those evidences of a work of grace upon their hearts, which give you such abundant reason to conclude that they are now received into that inheritance of glory, for which they were so apparently made meet? Some of them, perhaps, had already quitted their father's house: as for others, had God spared their lives, they might have been transplanted into families of their own: and if, instead of being removed to another house, or town, or country, they are taken by God into another world, is that a matter of so great complaint; when that world is so much. better, and you are yourselves so near it? I put it to your hearts, christians, would you rather have chosen to have buried them in their infancy, or never to have known the joys and the hopes of a parent, now you know the vicissitude of sorrow, and of disappointment? But perhaps, you will say, that you chiefly grieve for that loss which the world has sustained by the removal of those, from whom it might reasonably have expected so much future service. This is, indeed, a generous and a christian sentiment, and there is something noble in those tears which flow on such a consideration. But do not so remember your relation to earth, as to forget that which you bear to heaven; and do not so wrong the divine wisdom and goodness, as to suppose, that when he takes away from hence promising instruments of service, he there lays them by as useless. Much more reasonable is it to conclude, that their sphere of action, as well as happiness, is enlarged, and that the church above hath gained incomparably more, than that below can be supposed to have lost by their death. On the whole, therefore, far from complaining of the divine conduct in this respect, it will become you, my friends, rather to be very thankful that these dear children were spared so long, to accompany and entertain you in so many stages of your short journey through life, to answer so many of your hopes, and to establish so many more beyond all fear of disappointment. Reflect on all that God did in and upon them, on all he was beginning to do by them, and on what you have great reason to believe he is now doing for them; and adore his name, that he has left you these dear memorials, by which your case is so happily distinguished from ours, whose hopes in our children withered in the very bud; or from theirs, who saw those who were once so dear to them, perishing, as they have cause to fear, in the paths of the destroyer. But while I speak thus, methinks I am alarmed, lest I should awaken the far more grievous sorrows of some mournful parent, whom it will not be so easy to comfort. My brethren and friends, what shall I say to you, who are lamenting over your Absaloms, and almost wishing You had died for them*? Shall I urge you to say it is well? Perhaps you may think it a great attainment, if like Aaron, when his sons Died before the Lord, you can hold your peace t, under the awful stroke. My soul is troubled for + Lev. ş. 3. *2 Sam. xviii. 33. you; my words are almost swallowed up. I cannot unsay what I have elsewhere said at large on that melancholy subject *. Yet let me remind you of this, that you do not certainly know what almighty grace might do for these lamented creatures, even in the latest moments, and have therefore no warrant confidently to pronounce that they are assuredly perished. And if you cannot but tremble in the too probable fear of it, labour to turn your eyes from so dark a prospect, to those better hopes which God is setting before you. For surely you still have abundant reason to rejoice in that grace, which gives your own lives to you as a prey, and has brought you so near to that blessed world, where, hard as it is now to conceive it, you will have laid aside affection of nature, which interferes with the interests of God, and prevents your most cheerful acquiescence in every particular of his wise and gracious determinations. every 2. From what we have heard, let us learn not to think of the loss of our children with a slavish dread. It is to a parent indeed such a cutting stroke, that I wonder not if nature shrink back at the very mention of it: and, perhaps, it would make those to whom God hath denied children more easy, if they knew what some of the happiest parents feel in an uncertain apprehension of the loss of theirs: an apprehension which strikes with peculiar force on the mind, when experience hath taught us the anguish of such an affliction in former instances. But let us not anticipate evils: perhaps all our children, who are hitherto spared, may follow us to the grave: or, if otherwise, we Sorrow not as those who have no hope +. We may have reason still to say, it is well; and, through divine grace, we may also have hearts to say it. Whatever we lose, if we be the children of God, we shall never lose our heavenly Father. He will still be our support, and our joy. And therefore let us turn all our anxiety about uncertain, future events, into an holy solicitude to please him, and to promote religious impressions in the hearts of our dear offspring; that if God should see fit to take them away, we may have a claim to the full consolations, which I have been representing in the preceding discourse. 3. Let us not sink in hopeless sorrow, or break out into clamorous complaints, if God has brought this heavy affliction upon us. A stupid indifference would be absurd and unnatural: God * In the sixth of my sermons to young persons, entitled, The Reflections of a pious Parent on the Death of a wicked Child. and man might look upon us as acting a most unworthy párt, should we be like the Ostrich in the wilderness, which hardenetḥ herself against her young ones, as if they were not hers; because God hath deprived her of wisdom, neither hath he imparted to her understanding. Let us sorrow like men, and like parents; but let us not, in the mean time, forget that we are christians. Let us remember how common the calamity is; few parents are exempt from it; some of the most pious and excellent have lost amiable children, with circumstances perhaps of peculiar aggravation. It is a trial which God hath chosen for the exercise of some who have been eminently dear to him, as we may learn from a variety of instances both ancient and modern. Let us recollect our many offences against our heavenly Father, those sins which such a dispensation may properly Bring to our remembrance+; and let that silence us, and teach us to own, that It is of the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, and that we are Punished less than our iniquities deserve§. Let us look round on our surviving comforts; let us look forward to our future, our eternal hopes; and we shall surely see, that there is still room for praise, still a call for it. Let us review the particulars mentioned above, and then let conscience determine whether it doth not become us, in this particular instance, to say it steadily, and cheerfully too, even this is well. And may the God of all grace and comfort apply these considerations to our mind, that we may not only own them, but feel them, as a reviving cordial when our heart is overwhelmed within us! In the mean time, let me beseech you whose Tabernacles are in peace, and whose Children are yet about you, that you would not be severe in censuring our tears, till you have experimentally known our sorrows, and yourselves tasted the Wormwood and the gall, which we, with all our comforts, must have in a long and bitter remembrance **. 4. Let those of us who are under the rod, be very solicitous to improve it aright, that in the end it may indeed be well. Hear, my brethren, my friends and fellow-sufferers, hear and Suffer the word of exhortation ++. Let us be much concerned, that we may not bear all the smart of such an affliction, and, through our own folly, lose all that benefit which might, otherwise, be a rich equivalent. In proportion to the grievousness of the stroke, should be our care to attend to the design of it. Let us, now God is calling us to mourning and lamentation, be *Job xxxix. 16, 17. 1 Kings xvii. 18. Lam. iii. 22. § Ezra ix. 13. †† Heb. xiii. 82. Searching and trying our ways, that we may turn again unto the Lord. Let us review the conduct of our lives, and the state and tenour of our affections, that we may observe what hath been deficient, and what irregular; that proper remedies may be applied, and those important lessons more thoroughly learnt, which I was mentioning under the former branch of my discourse. Let us pray, that through our tears we may read our duty, and that by the heat of the furnace we may be so melted, that our dross may be purged away, and the divine image instamped on our souls in brighter and fairer characters. To sum up all in one word, let us endeavour to set our hearts more on that God, who is infinitely Better to us than ten children †, who hath Given us a name better than that of sons and daughters, and can abundantly supply the place of all earthly enjoyments with the rich communications of his grace: nay, perhaps, we may add, who hath removed some darling of our hearts, lest to our infinite detriment it should fill his place there, and, by alienating us from his love and service, have a fatal influence on our present peace, and our future happiness. Eternal glory, my friends, is so great a thing, and the complete love and enjoyment of God so unutterably desirable, that it is well worth our while to bear the sharpest sorrows, by which we may be more perfectly formed for it. We may even congratulate the death of our children, if it bring us nearer to our heavenly Father; and teach us, (instead of filling this vacancy in our heart with some new vanity, which may shortly renew our sorrows) to consecrate the whole of it to him who alone deserves, and can alone answer the most intense affection. Let us try what of this kind may be done. We are now going to the table of the Lord §, to that very table where our vows have often been sealed, where our comforts have often been resigned, where our Isaacs have been conditionally sacrificed, and where we commemorate the real sacrifice which God hath made even of his only begotten Son for us. May our other sorrows be suspended, while we Mourn for him whom we have pierced, as for an only son, and are in bitterness as for a first-born. From his blood consolations spring up, which will flourish even on the graves of our dear children; and the sweetness of that cup which he there gives us, will temper the most distasteful ingre * Lam. iii. 40. +1 Sam. i. 8. N. B. This sermon was preached October 3, The child died October 1. ‡ Isa. Ivi. 5. 1736, it being sacrament day. Zech. xii. 10. |