or the vigour and foundness of his natural conftitution; for his wick edness either drowns nature in an excess of riot and luxury, or ex pofes him to the hand of justice, which cuts him off for his wickednefs before he hath accomplished half his days.

Again, we muft, diftinguish of the term or limit for death, which is either General, or Special.

The general limits are now feventy or eighty years, Pfal. xc. 19. "The days of our years are threefcore years and ten, and if by reason "of ftrength they are fourscore years, yet is their ftrength labour and "ferrow." To this fhort limit the life of man is generally reduced fince the flood; and though there are fome few exceptions, yet the general rule is not thereby deftroyed.

The fpecial limit is that proportion of time, which God, by his own counfel and will, hath allotted to every individual perfon; and it is only known to us by the event: This we affirm to be a fixed, and immoveable term; with it all things fhall fall in, and observe the will of God in our diffolution at that time. But because the general limit is known, and this special limit is a fecret hid in God's own breaft; therefore man reckons by the former account, and may be faid, when he dies at thirty, or forty years old, to be cut off in the midft of his days: For it is fo, reckoning by the general account, though he be not cut off till the end of his days, reckoning by the fpecial limit.

Thus he that is wicked, dies before his time; (i. e.) the time he might attain to in an ordinary way; but not before the time God hath appointed: And fo in all other objected scriptures.

It is not proper at all, in a fubject of this nature, to digrefs into a controverfy: Alas! the poor mourner, overwhelmed with grief, hath no pleasure in that; it is not proper for him at this time, and therefore I fhall, for the prefent, wave the controversy, and wind up this confideration with an humble, and ferious motion to the afflicted, that they will wifely confider the matter. The Lord's time was come, your relations lived with you every moment that God intended them for you before you had them.

O parents! mind this, I befeech you; the time of your child's continnance in the womb was fixed to a minute by the Lord; and when the parturient fuinefs of that time was come, were you not willing it thould be delivered thence into the world? The tender mother would not have it abide one minute longer in the womb, how well foever the loved it; and is there not the fame reason we should be willing, when God's appointed time is come to have it delivered by death out of this ftate, which, in refpect of the life of heaven, is but as the life of a child in the womb, to its life in the open world.

And let none fay the death of children is a premature death. God hath ways to ripen them for heaven, whom be intends to gather thither betimes, the which we know not: in refpect of fitnefs, they die in a full age, though they be cut off in the bud of their time.

He that appointed the seasons of the year, appointed the seasons of our comfort in our relations: And as those feasons cannot be altered, no more can these. All the course of providence is guided by an unalterable decree; what falls out cafually to our apprehenfion, yet falls out neceffarily in refpect of God's appointment.

O therefore be quieted in it, this muft needs be as it is.

Confider. 4. Hath God fmitten your darling, and taken away the delight of your eyes with this ftroke? Bear this ftroke with patience and quiet fubmiffion: For how know you but your trouble might have been greater from the life, than it now is from the death of your children?

Sad experience made a holy man once fay, It is better to weep for ten dead children, than for one living child: A living child may prove a continual dropping, yca, a continual dying to the parent's heart. What a fad word was that of David to Abithai, 2 Sam. xvi. II. "Eehold, (faith he) my fon, which came out of my bowels, "feeketh my life." I remember Seneca, in his confolatory epistle to his friend Marullus, brings in his friend thus aggravating the death of his child.

O, (faith Marullus) had my child lived with me, to how great modefty, gravity, and prudence, might my difcipline have formed and moulded him? But, faith Seneca, (which is more to be feared) he might have been as others moftly are; for look, (faith he) what children come even out of the worthiest families; fuch who exercise both their own, and others lufts; in all whofe life there is not a day without the mark of fome notorious wickedness upon it.' I know your tender love to your children will scarce admit fuch jealoufies of them; they are, for the prefent, fweet, lovely, innocent companions, and you doubt not but by your care of their education, and prayer for them, they might have been the joy of your hearts.

Why doubtlefs Efau, when he was little, and in his tender age, promised as much comfort to his parents as Jacob did; and I queftion not but Ifaac and Rebecca (a glorious pair) fpent as many prayers, and beftowed as many holy counfels upon him, as they did upon his brother: But when the child grew up to riper years, then he became a fharp affliction to his parents; for it is faid, Gen. xxvi. 34. "That when Efau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the "daughter of Berith the Hittite, which was a grief of mind to Ifaac " and Rebecca." The word in the original comes from a root that fignifies to imbitter :† This child imbittered the minds of his parents by his rebellion against them, and defpifing their counfels.

And I cannot doubt but Abraham difciplined his family as ftrictly as any of you; never man received a higher encomium from God upon that account. Gen. xviii. 19. " I know him, that he will "command his children and his household after him, and they fhall keep the way of the Lord." Nor can I think but he beftowed as

many and as frequent prayers for his children, and particularly for his fon Ifhmael, as any of you: We find one, and that a very pathetical one, recorded, Gen. xvii. 18. "O that Ifhmael might live be"fore thee" And yet you know how he proved, a fon that yield: eth him no more comfort than Efau did to Jacob and Rebecca.

O how much more common is it for parents to fee the vices and evils of their children, than their virtues, and graces? And where one parent lives to rejoice in beholding the grace of God fhining forth in the life of his child, there are twenty, it may be an hundred that live to behold, to their vexation and grief, the workings of corruption in them.

It is a note of * Plutarch, in his morals, Nicoles (faith he) lived not to see the noble victory obtained by Themiftocles his fon; nor Mi tiades, to see the battle his fon Cimon won in the field; nor Zantippus, to hear his fon Pericles preach, and make orations. Arifton never heard his fon Plato's lectures and disputations; but men (faith be) commonly live to fee their children fall a gaming, revelling, drinking, and whoring: Multitudes live to fee fuch things to their forrow. And if thou be a gracious foul, O what a cut would this be to thy very heart! to fee thofe (as David fpake of his Abfalom) that came out of thy bowels, to be finning againft God, that God whom thou loveft, and whose honour is dearer to thee than thy very life!

But admit they should prove civil and hopeful children, yet mighteft thou not live to see more mifery come upon them than thou couldft endure to fee? O think what a fad and doleful fight was that to Zedekiah, Jer. 1. 10. "The king of Babylon brought his children, and "flew them before his eyes." Horrid fpectacle! and that leads to Confider. 5. How know you, but by this firoke which you fo lament, God hath taken them away from the evil to come?

Is it God's ufual way, when fome extraordinary calamities are coming upon the world, to hide fome of his weak and tender ones out of the way by death, Ifa. lvii. 1, 2. he leaves fome, and removes others, but taketh care for the fecurity of all. He provided a grave for Methufelah before the flood. The grave is an hiding-place to fome, and God fees it better for them to be under-ground than above ground in fuch evil days.

Juft as a careful and tender father, who hath a fon abroad at fchool, hearing the plague is broke out in or near the place, fends his horfe prefently to fetch home his fon before the danger and difficulty be greater. Death is our Father's pale horfe which he fends to fetch home his tender children, and carry them out of harm's way.

Surely when national calamities are drawing on, it is far better for our friends to be in the grave in peace, than exposed to the miferies and diftreffes that are here, which is the meaning of Jer. xxii.

• Plutarch's Morals, p. 222.

10. "Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep for "him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his na"<tive country."

And is there not a dreadful found of troubles now in our ears? Do not the clouds gather blackness? Surely all things round about us feem to be preparing and difpofing themfelves for affliction. The days may be nigh in which you fhall fay, "Bleffed is the womb that "never bare, and the paps that never gave fuck."

It was in the day wherein the faith and patience of the faints were exercifed, that John heard a voice from heaven, faying to him, "Write, bleffed are the dead which die in the Lord from hence" forth."

Thy friend by an act of favour is disbanded by death, whilft thou thyfelf art left to endure a great fight of affliction. And now if troubles come, thy cares and fears will be fo much the lefs, and thy own death fo much the eafier to thee; when fo much of thee is in hea ven already. In this cafe the Lord, by a merciful difpenfation, is providing both for their fafety, and thy own eafier paffage to them..

In removing thy friends before-hand, he feems to fay to thee, as he did to Peter, 1 John xiii. 7. "What I do thou knoweft not now, "but thou shalt know hereafter." The eye of providence hath a profpect far beyond thine; probably it would be a harder task for thee to leave them behind, than to follow them.

A tree that is deeply rooted in the earth, requires many ftrokes to fell it; but when its roots are loofed before-hand, then an eafy ftroke < lays it down upon the earth.

Confider. 6. A parting time must needs come, and why is not this as good as another? You knew before-hand your child or friend was mortal, and that the thread that linked you together must be cut. If any one, faith Bafil, had asked you when your child was born, What is that which is born? What would you have answered? Would you not have faid, It is a man? And if a man, then a mortal, vanishing thing. And why then are you furprized with wonder to fee a dying thing dead?

He, faith Seneca, who complains that one is dead, complains that he was a man. All men are under the fame condition, to whose fhare it falls to be born, to him it remains to die.

We are indeed diftinguished by the intervals, but equalized in the iffue: "It is appointed to all men once to die," Heb. ix. 27. There is a ftatute law of heaven in the cafe.

Poffibly you think this is the worst time for parting that could be; had you enjoyed it longer, you could have parted eafier; but how are you deceived in that? The longer you had enjoyed it, the more loth ftill you would have been to leave it; the deeper it would have rooted itfelf in your affection.

Bear the law of neceflity with an even mind. How many befides you must forrow? Seneca, Epiftle 99.

Had God given you fuch a privilege as was once granted to the En glish parliament; that the union betwixt you and your friend should not be diffolved till you yourself were willing it fhould be diffolved; when, think you, would you have been willing it fhould be diffolved?

It is well for us and ours that our times are in God's hand, and not in our own. And how immature foever it seemed to be when it was cut down; yet it "came to the grave in a full age, as a shock of "corn in its feafon," Job v. 26. They that are in Chrift, and in the covenant, never die unfeasonably, whenfoever they die (faith one upon the text), They die in a good old age; yea, though they die in the fpring and flower of youth; they die in a good old age; i. e. they are ripe for death whenever they die. Whenever the godly die, it is harvest time with him; though in a natural capacity he be cut down while he is green, and cropt in the bud or blossom; yet in his fpiritual capacity he never dies before he is ripe; God can • ripen his speedily, he can let out fuch warm rays and beams of his Holy Spirit upon them, as fhall foon maturate the feeds of grace into a preparednefs for glory.'

It was doubtlefs the moft fit and feasonable time for them that ever they could die in, and as it is a fit time for them, fo for you also. Had it lived longer, it might either have engaged you more, and fo your parting would have been harder; or elfe have puzzled and ftumbled you more by difcovering its natural corruption: and then what a ftinging aggravation of your forrow would that have been?

Surely the Lord of time is the beft judge of time; and in nothing do we more discover our folly and rafhnefs, than in prefuming to fix the times either of our comforts or troubles; as for our comforts, we never think they can come too foon; we would have them prefently, whether the feafon be fit or not, as Numb. xii. 13. "Heal her now, "Lord." O let it be done speedily; we are in post-hafte for our comforts, and for our afflictions we never think they come late enough; not at this time, Lord, rather at any other time than now.

But it is good to leave the timing both of the one and the other to him, whofe works are all beautiful in their seasons, and never doth any thing in an improper time.

Confider. 7. Call to mind in this day of trouble, the covenant you have with God, and what you folemnly promised him in the day you took him for your God.

It will be very feafonable and ufeful for thee, Chriftian, at this time to reflect upon thefe tranfactions, and the frame of thy heart in thofe days, when an heavier load of forrow preft thy heart, than thou now feeleft.

In thofe your fpiritual diftreffes, when the burden of fin lay hea vy, the curte of the law, the fear of hell, the dread of death and eternity befet thee on every fide, and fhut thee up to Chrift, the on

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