First, His indifputable fovereignty over them, Rom. ix. zo. "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 Abraham plainly, that the covenant fhould not be established with Ifhmael, for whom he fo earnestly prayed, O let Ishmael 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 distinguishing love and mercy to you fhould do it. O what do you owe to God, that root and branch hath not been caft together into the fire! that the Lord hath given you good hope, through grace that it shall 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, whether 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 juft grounds and causes? In two cafes it is very probable your fear may proceed only from your own affection, or Satan's temptation.

Firft, If your relation died young, before it did any thing to destroy 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 manifested what you could defire they had; yet in them, as in young Abijah, "may be found fome good things towards the Lord," which you never took notice of. Reverence of your authority, bashfulness, and fhame-facednefs, refervednefs of difpofition, and many other things, may hide thofe 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 finall 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 punifhed my fin in diffolving it. O faith one, my heart was fet too

much upon it, I even idolized it, that was my fin: and, faith anothers I wanted due affections, and did not love my relation, at least not fo fpiritually as I ought; that was my fin. Now God is visiting me for all the neglects and defects that hath been in me towards my relation.

Anfwer 1. There is no man fo thoroughly fanctified, as not to fail, and come fhort in many things pertaining to his relative duties: and to fpeak, as the thing is, the corruptions of the holiest perfons are as much difcovered in this, as any other thing whatsoever; and it is a very common thing for confcience, 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.

Anfier 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 reafon 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 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 laft.

Answer 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 moft Chriftians, 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 perifhed.

Anfwer 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 eftates too? If he have left you thofe outward comforts, you ought to acknowledge his goodnefs therein, and not to flight thefe becaufe he hath deprived you of the other.

Anfwer 2. Though your children are gone, yet God hath many

children left in the world, whofe bowels you may refresh with what he hath bestowed upon you; and your charity to them will doubtless turn to a more confiderable account, than if you had left a large ef tate to your own posterity,

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 serve 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 pretty actions, is wounding.

Anfwer 1. Let it rather lift up your hearts to God in praise that gave you fo defirable a child, than fill your heart with discontent at his hand in removing it. How many parents are there in the world whofe children God hath deprived of reafon and understanding, fo that they only differ from the beasts in external fhape and figure ? And how many fhew betimes fo perverse a temper, that little comfort can be expected from them.

Anfwer 2. These are but small circumftances, and trivial things in themselves; but by thefe 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 corruption it is fent to rebuke, to quiet your hearts in the will of God; this is your work.

Plea 12. Lafily, 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,

Answer 2. To have God hide his face in the time of trouble, is no new or unufual 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 those sweet, 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 forsaken "me!" Then fure we need not wonder, as if fome ftrange thing had happened to us.

Anfver 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 case altered with you; but the comforting fpirit finds no delight, or reft, in a turbulent and tumultuous breast.

And thus I have satisfied the most confiderable pleas urged, in justification of our exceffes.

4. I come now to the last thing propofed, namely, the means of curing and preventing these 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 firft intention; yet I fhall caft in fome farther help and affiftance towards the healing of this diftemper, by prescribing the following rules:

Rule 1. If you would not mourn exceffively for the loss of creaturecomforts, 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 measure of our delight in the enjoyment, is our grief in the loss of these things. The apoftle knits thefe 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, Gen. xxxvii. 3. "Now Ifrael loved "Joseph more than all his children, because he was the fon of his "old age; and made him a coat of many colours."

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 supposed death of his child was brought to him, how did he carry it? See ver. 34, 35. " And Jacob rent his clothes, and put fack"cloth 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 faid, for I will go down into the "grave to my fon mourning. 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 delight and forrows about earthly things; for ordinarily the proportion of the one is answerable to the other.

Rule 2. If you would not be overwhelmed 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 discharge the duties you owed to your relations whilft they were with you, will prove an excellent allay to your forrows for them when they are no longer yours. It is not fo much the fingle

affliction, as the guilt charged upon us in times of affliction, that makes our load fo heavy.

O what a terrible thing is it to look upon our dead friends, whilst confcience is accufing and upbraiding us for our duties neglected, and fuch or fuch fins committed? O you little think how dreadful a fpectacle this will make the dead body of thy friend to thee!

Confcience, if not quite ftupid or dead, will fpeak at such a time. O therefore, as ever you would provide for a comfortable parting at death, or meet again at judgment; be exact, punctual, and circumfpect, in all your relative duties.

Rule 3. If you would not be overwhelmed by trouble for the loss of dear relations, then turn to God under your trouble, and pour out your forrows, by prayer, into his bofom.

This will eafe and allay your troubles. Bleffed be God for the ordinance of prayer; how much are all the faints beholden to it, at all times, but especially in heart-finking and diftrefsful times? It is fome relief, when in diftrefs, we can pour out our trouble into the bofom of a wife, or faithful friend; how much more when we leave our complaint before the gracious, wife, and faithful God? I told you before of that holy man, who having loft his dear and only ion, got to his clofet, there poured out his foul freely to the Lord, and when he came down to his friends that were waiting below to comfort him, and fearing how he would bear that stroke, he came from his duty with a cheerful countenance, telling them he would be content to bury a fon, if it were poffible, every day, provided he might enjoy fuch comfort as his foul had found in that private hour.

Go thy way, Chriftian, to thy God, get thee to thy knees in the cloudy and dark day; retire from all creatures, that thou mayeft have thy full liberty with thy God, and there pour out thy heart before him, in free, full, and broken-hearted confeffions of fin: Judge thyfelf worthy of hell, as well as of this trouble; justify God in all his smartest strokes, beg him, in this diftrefs, to put under the everlafting arms; intreat one fmile, one gracious look, to enlighten thy darkness, and cheer thy drooping fpirit. Say with the prophet, Jer. xvii. 17. "Be thou not a terror to me; thou art my hope in the day "of evil." And try what relief fuch a courfe will afford thee. Surely, if thy heart be fincere in this courfe, thou shalt be able to fay with that holy man, Pfalm xciv. 29. "In the multitude of my thoughts which I had within me, thy comforts have delighted my foul." Rule 4. If you would bear the loss of your dear relations with moderation, eye God in the whole process of the affliction more, and fecondary caufes and circumftances of the matter lefs.

"I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, because thou didst it," Pfal. xxxix. 9. Confider the hand of the Lord in the whole matter:

And that,

Firf, As a fovereignt hand, which hath right to difpole of thee, and all thy comforts, without thy leave or content, Job xxxiii. 13.