2. Considerations
Considerations
Consideration 1. Consider, in this day of sorrow, who is the framer and author of this rod by which you now smart; is it not the Lord? And if the Lord hath done it, it becomes you meekly to submit. Psal. 46:10. "Be still, and know that I am God."
Man and man stand upon even ground; if your fellow-creature does any thing that displeases you, you may not only enquire who did it, but why he did it? You may demand his grounds and reasons for what he hath done; but you may not do so here: It is expected that this one thing, The Lord hath done it, should, without any farther disputes or contests, silence and quiet you, whatever it be that he hath done. Job 33:13. "Why dost thou strive against him? For he giveth not an account of any of his matters." The Supreme being must needs be an unaccountable and uncontroulable Being.
It is a shame for a child to strive with his father; a shame for a servant to contend with his master; but for a creature to quarrel and strive with the God that made him, O how shameful is it! Surely it is highly reasonable that you be subject to that will whence you proceeded, and that he who formed you and yours should dispose of both as seemeth him good. It is said, 2 Samuel 3:36. "That whatsoever the king did pleased all the people:" And shall any thing the Lord doth displease you? He can do no wrong. If we pluck a rose in the bud as we walk in our gardens, who shall blame us for it? It is our own, and we may crop it off when we please: Is not this the case? Thy sweet bud, which was cropt off before it was fully blown, was cropt off by him that owned it, yea, by him that formed it. If his dominion be absolute, sure his disposal should be acceptable.
It was so to good Eli, 1 Samuel 3:18. "It is the Lord, let him do what seemeth him good:" And it was so to David, Psal. 39:9. "I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it." O let it be for ever remembered, "That he whose name alone is Jehovah, is the Most High over all the earth," Psalms 83:18. The glorious sovereignty of God, is illustriously displayed in two things, his decrees and his providences: With respect to the first he saith, Romans 9:15. "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy." Here is no ground of disputing with him; for so it is said, ver. 20. "Who art thou, O man, that repliest against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it, why hast thou made me thus?" Hath not the pottter power over the clay? And as to his providences, wherein his sovereignty is also manifested; it is said, Zech. 2:14. "Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord, for he is raised up out of his habitation." It is spoken of his providential working in the changes of kingdoms and desolations that attend them.
Now, seeing the case stands thus, that the Lord hath done it: it is his pleasure to have it so, and that if it had not been his will, it could never have been as it is; he that gave thee (rather lent thee) thy relation hath also taken him: O how quiet should this consideration leave thee? If your landlord, who has many years suffered you to dwell in his house, does at last warn you out of it, though he tells you not why; you will not contend with him, or say he has done you wrong: Much less if he tells you it will be more for his profit and accommodation to take it into his own hand, than let it to you any longer.
Doubtless, reason will tell you, you ought quietly to pack up and quit it. It is your great landlord, from whom you hold (at pleasure) your own, and your relations lives, that hath now warned you out from one of them, it being more for his glory, it may be, to take it in his own hands, by death; and must you dispute the case with him?
Come, Christian, this no way becomes thee, but rather, "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord." Look off from a dead creature, lift up thine eyes to the sovereign, wise, and holy pleasure that ordered this affliction: Consider who he is, and what thou art; yea, pursue this consideration till thou canst say, I am now filled with the will of God.
Consideration 2. Ponder well the quality of the comfort you are deprived of, and remember, that when you had it, it stood but in the rank and order of common and inferior comforts.
Children, and all other relations are but common blessings, which God indifferently betows upon his friends and enemies: and by the having or losing of them, no man knows cither love or hatred. It is said of the wicked, Psal. 77:14 that they are full of children; yea, and of children that do survive them too; for they leave their substance to their babes. Full of sin, yet full of children, and these children live to inherit their parents sins and estates together.
It is the mistaking of the quality and nature of our enjoyments, that so plunges us into trouble when we lose them. We think there is so necessary a connection betwixt these creatures and our happiness that we are utterly undone when they fail us. But this is our mistake; there is no such necessary connection or dependence; we may be happy without these things: It is not father, mother, wife, or child, in which our chief good and felicity lies; we have higher, better, and more enduring things than these; all these may perish, and yet our soul be secure and safe; yea, and our comfort in the way, as well as end, may be safe enough, though these are gone: God hath better things to comfort his people with than these, and worse rods to afflict you with than the removal of these. Had God let your children live and flourish; and given you ease and rest in your tabernacle, but in the mean time inflicted spiritual judgments upon your souls; how much more sad had your case been? But as long as our best mercies are all safe, the things that have salvation in them remain, and only the things that have vanity in them are removed; you are not prejudiced, or much hindered as to the attainment of your last end, by the loss of these things.
Alas! it was not Christ’s intent to purchase for you a sensual content in the enjoyment of these earthly comforts; but to redeem you from all iniquity, purge your corruptions, sanctify your natures, wean your hearts from this vain world, and so to dispose and order your present condition, that, finding no rest and content here, you might the more ardently pant and sigh after the rest which remains for the people of God. And are you not in as probable a way to attain this end now, as you were before? Do you think you are not as likely, by these methods of providence, to be weaned from the world, as by more pleasant and prosperous ones? Every wise man reckons that station and condition to be best for him, which most promotes and secures his last end and Great design.
Well then, reckon you are as well without these things as with them; yea, and better too, if they were but clogs and snares upon your affections; you have really lost nothing if the things wherein your eternal happiness consisteth be yet safe. Many of God’s dearest children have been denied such comforts as these, and many have been deprived of them, and yet never the farther from Christ and heaven for that.
Consideration 3. Always remember, that how soon and unexpected soever your parting with your relations was, yet your lease was expired before you lost them, and you enjoyed them every moment of the time that God intended them for you.
Before this relation, whose loss you lament, was born, the time of your enjoyment and separation was unalterably fixed and limited in heaven by the God of the spirits of all flesh: And although it was a secret to you whilst your friend was with you; yet now it is a plain and evident thing that this was the time of separation before appointed; and. that the life of your friend could by no means be protracted or abbreviated, but must keep your company just so far, and then part with you. This position wants no full and clear scripture authority for its foundation: How pregnant and full is that text, Job 24:5-6. "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee: thou hast appointed him his bounds, which he cannot pass." The time of our life, as well as the place of your habitation was prefixed before we were born.
It will greatly conduce to your settlement and peace to be well established in this truth; that the appointed time was fully come when you and your dear relation parted; for it will prevent and save a great deal of trouble which comes from our after-reflections.
O if this had been done, or that omitted; had it not been for such miscarriages and oversights, my dear husband, wife, or child, had been alive at this day! No, the Lord’s time was fully come, and all things concurred, and fell in together to bring about the pleasure of his will; let that satisfy you: Had the ablest physicians in the world been there, or had they that were there prescribed another course, as it is now, so it would have been when they had done all. Only it must be precautioned, that the decree of God no way excuses any voluntary, or sinful neglects or miscarriages. God over-rules these things to serve his own ends, but no way approves them; but it greatly relieves, against all our involuntary and unavoidable oversights and mistakes about the use of means, or the timing of them; for it could not be otherwise than now it is.
Objection. But many things are alleged against this position, and that with much seeming countenance from such scriptures as these; Psal. 55:23. "Blood-thirsty men shall not live out half their days." Ecclesiastes 7:18. "Why shouldst thou die before thy time." Psal. 102:24. "O my God, take me not away in the midst of my days." Isaiah 27:10. "I am deprived of the residue of my years." And, Proverbs 10:27. "The fear of the Lord prolongeth days, but the years of the "wicked shall be shortened." It is demanded what tolerable sense we can give these scriptures, whilst we assert an unalterable fixation of the term of death.
Solution. The sense of all these scriptures will be cleared up to full satisfaction, by distinguishing death and the terms of it.
First, We must distinguish death into Natural and Violent. The wicked and blood-thirsty man shall not live out half his days; i.e. half so long as he might live, according to the course of nature, or the vigour and soundness of his natural constitution; for his wickedness either drowns nature in an excess of riot and luxury, or exposes him to the hand of justice, which cuts him off for his wickedness before he hath accomplished half his days.
Again, we must distinguish of the term or limit for death, which is either General, or Special. The general limits are now seventy or eighty years, Psal. 90:10. "The days of our years are threescore years and ten, and if by reason of strength they are fourscore years, yet is their strength labour and sorrow." To this short limit the life of man is generally reduced since the flood; and though there are some few exceptions, yet the general rule is not thereby destroyed. The special limit is that proportion of time, which God, by his own counsel and will hath allotted to every individual person; and it is only known to us by the event: This we affirm to be a fixed, and immoveable term; with it all things shall fall in, and observe the will of God in our dissolution at that time. But because the general limit is known, and this special limit is a secret hid in God’s own breast; therefore man reckons by the former account, and may be said, when he dies at thirty, or forty years old, to be cut off in the midst of his days: For it is so, reckoning by the general account, though he be not cut off till the end of his days, reckoning by the special 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 so in all other objected scriptures.
It is not proper at all, in a subject of this nature, to digress into a controversy: Alas! the poor mourner, overwhelmed with grief, hath no pleasure in that; it is not proper for him at this time, and therefore I shall, for the present, wave the controversy, and wind up this consideration with an humble, and serious motion to the afflicted, that they will wisely consider 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 beseech you; the time of your child’s continuance in the womb, was fixed to a minute by the Lord; and when the parturient fulness of that time was come, were you not willing it should be delivered thence into the world? The tender mother would not have it abide one minute longer in the womb, how well soever she loved it; and is there not the same reason we should be willing, when God’s appointed time is come to have it delivered by death out of this state, which, in respect 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 say the death of children is a premature death. God hath ways to ripen them for heaven, whom he intends to gather thither betimes, the which we know not: in respect of fitness, 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 cur relations: And as those seasons cannot be altered, no more can these. All the course of providence is guided by an unalterable decree; what falls out casually to our apprehension, yet falls out necessarily in respect of God’s appointment.
O therefore be quieted in it, this must needs be as it is.
Consider. 4. Hath God smitten your darling, and taken away the delight of your eyes with this stroke? Bear this stroke with patience and quiet submission: 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 say, It is better to weep for ten dead children, than for one living child: A living child may prove a continual dropping, yea, a continual dying to the parent’s heart. What a sad word was that of David to Abishai, 2 Samuel 16:11. "Behold, (saith he) my son, which came out of my bowels, seeketh my life." I remember Seneca, in his consolatory epistle to his friend Marullus, brings in his friend thus aggravating the death of his child.
’O, (saith Marullus) had my child lived with me, to how great modesty, gravity, and prudence, might my discipline have formed and moulded him? But, saith* Seneca, (which is more to be feared) he might have been as others mostly are; for look, (saith he) what children come even out of the worthiest families; such who exercise both their own, and others lusts; in all whose life there is not a day without the mark of some notorious wickedness upon it.’
I know your tender love to your children will scarce admit such jealousies of them; they are for the present, sweet, 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 doubtless Esau, when he was little, and in his tender age, promised as much comfort to his parents as Jacob did; and I question not but Isaac and Rebecca (a glorious pair) spent as many prayers, and bestowed as many holy counsels upon him, as they did upon his brother; But when the child grew up to riper years, then he became a sharp affliction to his parents; for it is said, Genesis 26:34. "That when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Berith the Hittite, which was a grief of mind to Isaac and Rebecca." The word in the original comes from a root that signifies to imbitter†: This child imbittered the minds of his parents by his rebellion against them, and despising their counsels. And I cannot doubt but Abraham disciplined his family as strictly as any of you; never man received a higher encomium from God upon that account, Genesis 18:19. "I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him, and they shall "keep the way of the Lord." Nor can I think but he bestowed as many and as frequent prayers for his children, and particularly for his son Ishmael, as any of you: We find one, and that a very pathetical one, recorded, Genesis 17:18. "O that Ishmael might live before thee:" And yet you know how he proved, a son that yieldeth him no more comfort than Esau did to Jacob and Rebecca.
O how much more common is it for parents to see 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 shining 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 (saith he) lived not to see the noble victory obtained by Themistocles his son; nor Miltiades, to see the battle his son Cimon won in the field; nor Zantippus, to hear his son Pericles preach and make orations. Ariston never heard his son Plato’s lectures and disputations; but men (saith he) commonly live to see their children fall a gaming, revelling, drinking, and whoring: Multitudes live to see such things to their sorrow. And if thou be a gracious soul, O what a cut would this be to thy very heart! to see those (as David spake of his Absalom) that came out of thy bowels, to be sinning against God, that God whom thou lovest, and whose honour is dearer to thee than thy very life! But admit they should prove civil and hopeful children, yet mightest thou not live to see more misery come upon them than thou couldst endure to see? O think what a sad and doleful sight was that to Zedekiah, Jeremiah 50:10. "The king of Babylon brought his children, and slew them before his eyes." Horrid spectacle! and that leads to, Consider. 5. How know you, but by this stroke which you so lament, God hath taken them away from the evil to come? Is it God’s usual way, when some extraordinary calamities are coming upon the world, to hide some of his weak and tender ones out of the way by death, Isaiah 57:1-2 he leaves some, and removes others, but taketh care for the security of all. He provided a grave for Methuselah before the flood. The grave is an hiding-place to some, and God sees it better for them to be under-ground than above ground in such evil days.
Just as a careful and tender father, who hath a son abroad at school, hearing the plague is broke out in or near the place, sends his horse presently to fetch home his son before the danger and difficulty be greater. Death is our Father’s pale horse which he sends 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 miseries and distresses that are here, which is the meaning of Jeremiah 22:10. "Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him; but weep for him that goeth away, for he shall return no more, nor see his native country." And is there not a dreadful sound of troubles now in our ears? Do not the clouds gather blackness? Surely all things round about us seem to be preparing and disposing themselves for affliction. The days may be nigh in which you shall say, "Blessed is the womb that never bare, and the paps that never gave suck."
It was in the day wherein the faith and patience of the saints were exercised, that John heard a voice from heaven, saying to him, "Write, blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth."
Thy friend by an act of favour is disbanded by death, whilst thou thyself art left to endure a great fight of affliction. And now if troubles come, thy cares and fears will be so much the less, and thy own death so much the easier to thee; when so much of thee is in heaven already. In this case the Lord, by a merciful dispensation, is providing both for their safety, and thy own easier passage to them. In removing thy friends before-hand, he seems to say to thee, as he did to Peter, John 13:7. "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." The eye of providence hath a prospect 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 strokes to fell it; but when its roots are loosed before-hand, then an easy stroke lays down upon the earth.
Consider. 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, (saith Basil), had asked you when your child was born, What is that which is born? What would you have answered? Would you not have said, It is a man? And if a man, then a mortal, vanishing thing. And why then are you surprized with wonder to see a dying thing dead?
He, (saith* Seneca), who complains that one is dead, complains that he was a man. All men are under the same condition, to whose share it falls to be born, to him it remains to die.
We are indeed distinguished by the intervals, but equalized in the issue: "It is appointed to all men once to die," Hebrews 9:27. There is a statute law of heaven in the case.
Possibly you think this is the worst time for parting that could be; had you enjoyed it longer, you could have parted easier; but how are you deceived in that? The longer you had enjoyed it, the more loth still you would have been to leave it; the deeper it would have rooted itself in your affection. Had God given you such a privilege as was once granted to the English parliament; that the union betwixt you and your friend should not be dissolved till you yourself were willing it should be dissolved; when, think you, would you have been willing it should be dissolved?
It is well for us and ours that our times are in God’s hand, and not in our own. And how immature soever 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 season," Job 5:26. They that are in Christ, and in the covenant, never die unseasonably, whensoever they die (saith* one upon the text), ’They die in a good old age; yea, though they die in the spring 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 spiritual capacity he never dies before he is ripe; God can ripen him speedily, he can let out such warm rays and beams of his Holy Spirit upon them, as shall soon mature the seeds of grace into a preparedness for glory.’
It was doubtless the most fit and seasonable time for them that ever they could die in, and as it is a fit time for them, so for you also. Had it lived longer, it might either have engaged you more, and so your parting would have been harder; or else have puzzled and stumbled you more by discovering its natural corruption: and then what a stinging aggravation of your sorrow would that have been?
Surely the Lord of time is the best judge of time; and in nothing do we more discover our folly and rashness, than in presuming to fix the times either of our comforts or troubles; as for our comforts, we never think they can come too soon; we would have them presently, whether the season be fit or not, as Numbers 12:13. "Heal her now, Lord." O let it be done speedily; we are in post-haste 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 timeing both of the one and the other to him, whose works are all beautiful in their seasons, and never doth any thing in an improper time.
Consider. 7. Call to mind in this day of trouble, the covenant you have with God, and what you solemnly promised him in the day you took him for your God.
It will be very seasonable and useful for thee, Christian, at this time to reflect upon these transactions, and the frame of thy heart in those days, when an heavier load of sorrow prest thy heart, than thou now feelest. In those your spiritual distresses, when the burden of sin lay heavy, the curse of the law, the fear of hell, the dread of death and eternity beset thee on every side, and shut thee up to Christ, the only door of hope; ah! what good news wouldst thou then have accounted it, to escape that danger with the loss of all earthly comforts! Was not this thy cry in those days? ’Lord, give me Christ, and deny me whatever else thou pleasest. Pardon my sin, save my soul, and, in order to both, unite me with Christ, and I will never repine or open my mouth. Do what thou wilt with me; let me be friendless, let me be childless, let me be poor, let me be any thing rather than a christless, graceless, hopeless soul.’ And when the Lord hearkened to thy cry, and shewed thee mercy; when he drew thee off from the world into thy closet, and there treated with thee in secret, when he was working up thy heart to the terms of his covenant, and made thee willing to accept Christ upon his own terms; O then, how heartily didst thou submit to his yoke, as most reasonable and easy, as at that time it seemed to thee?
Call to mind these days, the secret places where Christ and you made the bargain; have not these words, or words to this sense, been whispered by thee into his ear with a dropping eye, and melting heart?
’Lord Jesus, here am I, a poor guilty sinner, deeply laden with sin; fear and trouble upon one hand, and there is a just God, a severe law, and everlasting burnings, on the other hand; but blessed be God, O blessed be God for Jesus the Mediator, who interposeth betwixt me and it. Thou art the only door of hope at which I can escape, thy blood the only means of my pardon and salvation. Thou hast said, "Come unto me all ye that labour, and are heavy laden." Thou hast promised, that he that cometh to thee, shall in no wise be cast out.
’Blessed Jesus, thy poor creature cometh to thee upon these encouragements: I come, O but it is with many staggerings, with many doubts and fears of the issue; yet I am willing to come and make a covenant with thee this day.
’I take thee this day to be my Lord, and submit heartily to all thy disposals; do what thou wilt with me, or mine, let me be rich or poor, any thing or nothing in this world: I am willing to be as thou wouldst have me, and I do likewise give myself to thee this day, to be thine; all I am, all I have shall be thine, thine to serve thee, and thine to be disposed of at thy pleasure. Thou shalt henceforth be my highest Lord, my chiefest good, my last end.’
Now, Christian, make good to Christ what thou so solemnly promised him: He, I say, he hath disposed of this thy dear relation, as pleased him, and is thereby trying thy uprightness in the covenant which thou madest with him: Now where is the satisfaction and content thou promisedst to take in all his disposals? Where is that covenanted submission to his will? Didst thou except this affliction that is come upon thee?
Didst thou tell him, Lord, I will be content thou shalt, when thou pleasest, take any thing I have, save only this husband, this wife, or this dear child; I reserve this out of the bargain? I shall never endure that thou shouldst kill this comfort. If so, thou didst in all this but prove thyself an hypocrite; if thou wast sincere in thy covenant, as Christ had no reserve on his part, so thou hadst none on thine.
It was all without any exception thou then resignedst to him, and now wilt thou go back from thy word, as one that had out-promised himself, and repents the bargain? Or, at least, as one that hath forgotten these solemn transactions in the days of thy distress? Wherein hath Christ failed in one tittle that he promised thee? Charge him, if thou canst, with the least unfaithfulness; he hath been faithful to a tittle on his part, O be thou so upon thine; this day it is put to the proof, remember what thou hast promised him.
Consider. 8. But if thy covenant with God will not quiet thee, yet methinks God’s covenant with thee might be presumed to do it. Is thy family, which was lately hopeful, and flourishing, a peaceful tabernacle, now broken up and scattered? Thy posterity, from which thou raisedst up to thyself great expectations of comfort in old age, cut off? So that thou art now like neither to have a name, or memorial left thee in the earth.
Dost thou sit alone, and mourn to think whitherto thy hopes and comforts are now come?
Dost thou read over those words of Job, chap. 29. ver. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and comment upon them with many tears; "O that I were as in months past, as in the day when God preserved me! when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness! as I was in the days of my youth, when the secret of God was upon my tabernacle, when the Almighty was yet with me, when my children were about me."
Yet let the covenant God hath made with thee, comfort thee in this thy desolate condition.
You know what domestic troubles holy David met with in a sad succession, not only from the death of children, but, which was much worse, from the wicked lives of his children. There was incest, murder, and rebellion in his family; a far sorer trial than death in their infancy could have been; And yet see how sweetly he relieves himself from the covenant of grace, in 2 Samuel 23:5. "Although my house be not so with God, yet he hath made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure, for this is all my salvation and all my desire, although he make it not to grow."
I know this place principally refers to Christ, who was to spring out of David’s family, according to God’s covenant made with him in that behalf; and yet I doubt not but it hath another, though less principal aspect upon his own family, over all the afflictions and troubles whereof the covenant of God with him did abundantly comfort him. And as it comforted him, although his house did not increase, and those that were left were not such as he desired; so it may abundantly comfort you also, whatever troubles, or deaths, are upon your families, who have an interest in the covenant. For,
First, If you are God’s covenant people, though he may afflict, yet he will never forget you, Psalms 3:5 he is ever mindful of his covenant: You are as much upon his heart in your deepest afflictions, as in the greatest flourish of your prosperity.
You find it hard to forget your child, though it be now turned to a heap of corruption, and loathsome rottenness; O how doth your mind run upon it night and day! your thoughts tire not upon that object: Why surely it is much more easy for you to forget your dear child, whilst living, and most endearing, (much more when dead and undesirable) than it is for your God to forget you. Isaiah 49:15. "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee." Can a woman, the more affectionate sex, forget her sucking child, her own child, and not a nursing child? Her own child, whilst it hangs on the breast, and, together with the milk from the breast, draws love from its mother’s heart; can such a thing as this be in nature? possibly it may, for creature-love is fickle, and variable; But, I will not forget thee; it is an everlasting covenant.
Secondly, As he will never forget you in your troubles, so he will order all your troubles for your good: It is a well-ordered covenant, or a covenant orderly disposed; so that every thing shall work together for your good. The covenant so orders all your trials, ranks and disposes your various troubles so, as that they shall, in their orders and places, sweetly co-operate, and join their united influences to make you happy.
Possibly you cannot see how the present affliction should be for your good; you are ready to say, with Jacob, Genesis 42:36. "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not; and ye will take Benjamin away; all these things are against me." But could you once see how sweetly, and orderly all these afflictions work under the blessing and influence of the covenant, to your eternal good, you would not only be quiet, but thankful for that which now so much afflicts and troubles you.
Thirdly, This covenant is not only well ordered in all things, but sure: the mercies contained in it are called, "the sure mercies of David," Isaiah 55:3. Now how sweet, how seasonable a support doth this consideration give to God’s afflicted under the rod! you lately made yourselves sure of that creature-comfort which hath forsaken you. It may be, you said of your child, which is now gone, as Lamech said of his son Noah, Genesis 5:29. "This same shall comfort us concerning our work, and toil of our hands." Meaning, that his son should not only comfort them, by assisting them in the work of their hands, but also, in enjoying the fruit of their toil and pains for him.
Probably such thoughts you have had, and raised up to yourselves great expectations of comfort in your old age from it; but now you see you built upon the sand, and where were you now, if you had not a firmer bottom to build upon? But blessed be God, the covenant-mercies are more sure, and solid! God, Christ, and heaven, never start or fade, as these things do. The sweetest creature-enjoyments you ever had or have in this world, cannot say to you, as your God doth, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee." You must part with your dear husbands, how well soever you love them; you must bid adieu to the wife of your bosom, how nearly soever your affections be linked, and heart delighted in her. Your children and you must be separated, though they are to you as your own soul. But though these vanish away, blessed be God there is something that abides. ’Though all flesh be as grass, and the goodliness of it as the flower of the grass, though the grass withereth, and the flower thereof fadeth, because the Spirit of the Lord bloweth upon it; yet the word of our God shall stand for ever," Isaiah 40:6-8. There is so much of support contained in this one consideration, that could but your faith fix here, to realize and apply it, I might lay down my pen at this period, and say, the work is done, there needs no more.
Consideration 9. The hope of the resurrection should powerfully restrain all excesses of sorrow in those that do profess it.
Let them only mourn without measure, who mourn without hope. The husbandman doth not mourn when he casts his seed-corn into the earth, because he sows in hope; commits it to the ground with an expectation to receive it again with improvement. Why thus stands the case here, and just so the apostle states it, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-14. "But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope; for if we believe that Jesus died, and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him."
Q. d. Look not upon the dead as a lost generation; think not that death hath annihilated, and utterly destroyed them: O no, they are not dead, but only asleep; and if they sleep, they shall awake again. You do not use to make outcries and lamentations for your children, and friends, when you find them asleep upon their beds. Why, death is but a longer sleep, out of which they shall as surely awake, as ever they did in the morning in this world.
I have often wondered at that golden sentence in Seneca*, "My thoughts of the dead (saith he) are not as others are; I have fair and pleasant apprehensions of them; for I enjoyed them as one that reckoned I must part with them; and I part with them as one that makes account to have them."
He speaks, no doubt, of that enjoyment of them, which his pleasant contemplations of their virtuous actions could give him; for he was wholly unacquainted with the comfortable, and heart-supporting doctrine of the resurrection. Had he known the advantages which result thence, at what a rate may we think he would have spoken of the dead, and of their state; But this you profess to believe, and yet sink at a strange rate. O suffer not Gentilism to outvie Christianity; let not Pagans challenge the greatest Believers, to out-do them in a quiet, and cheerful behaviour under afflictions.
I beseech thee, reader, if thy deceased friend have left thee any solid ground of hope that he died interested in Christ, and the covenant; that thou wilt distinctly ponder these admirable supports which the doctrine of the resurrection affords.
First, That the same body which was so pleasant a spectacle to thee shall be restored again; yea, the same numerically, as well as the same specifically; so that it shall not only be what it was, but the who it was. "These eyes shall behold him, and not another," Job 19:27. The very same body you laid, or are now about to lay in the grave, shall be restored again: Thou shalt find thine own husband, wife, or child, or friend again: I say the self-same, and not another.
Secondly, And farther, this is supporting, that as you shall see the same person that was so dear to you; so you shall know them to be the same that were once endeared to you on earth in so near a tie of relation.
Indeed you shall know them no more in any carnal relation, death dissolved that bond: But you shall know them to be such as once were your dear relations in this world, and be able to single them out among that great multitude, and say, this was my father, mother, husband wife, or child; this was the person for whom I wept and made supplication, who was an instrument of good to me, or to whose salvation God then made me instrumental. For we may allow, in that state, all that knowledge which is cumulative and perfective, whatsoever may enlarge and heighten our felicity and satisfaction, as this must needs be allowed to do. Luther’s judgment in this point,* being asked by his friends at supper the evening before he died, replies thus, What (saith he) befel Adam? He never saw Eve, but was in a deep sleep when God formed her; yet when he awaked and saw her, he asked not what she was, nor whence she came? But saith, she was flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bone. Now, how knew he that? He being full of the Holy Ghost, and endued with the knowledge of God, spake thus: after the same manner we also shall be in the other life renewed by Christ, and shall know our parents, our wives, and children. And this among other things, was that with which† Augustine comforted the lady Italica, after the death of her dear husband, telling her that she should know him in the world to come among the glorified saints. Yea, and a greater than either of these, I mean Paul, comforted himself, that the Thessalonians, whom he had converted to Christ, should be "his joy and crown of rejoicing, in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ at his coming," 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20 which must needs imply his distinct knowledge of them in that day, which must be many hundred years after death hath separated them from each other. Whether this knowledge shall be by the glorified eyes discerning any lineaments or property of individuation remaining upon the glorified bodies of our relations; or whether it shall be by immediate revelation, as Adam knew his wife, or as Peter, James, and John knew Moses and Elias in the mount; as it is difficult to determine, so it is needless to puzzle ourselves about it.
It is the concurrent judgment of sound divines, and it wants not countenance from scripture and reason, that such a knowledge of them shall be in heaven; and then the sadness of this parting will be abundantly recompensed by the joy of that meeting. Especially considering.
Thirdly, That at our next meeting, they shall be unspeakably more desirable, sweet, and excellent, than ever they were in this world. They had a desirableness in them here, but they were not altogether lovely, and, in every respect, desirable; they had their infirmities, both natural and moral; but all these are removed in heaven, and for ever done away: No natural infirmities hang about glorified bodies, or sinful ones upon perfected spirits of the just. O what lovely creatures will they appear to you then, when that which is now sown in dishonour, sball be raised in honour! 1 Corinthians 15:43. And then, to crown all,
Fourthly, You shall have an everlasting enjoyment of them in heaven, never to part again. The children of the resurrection can die no more, Luke 20:36 you shall kiss their pale lips and cold cheeks no more; you shall never fear another parting pull, but be together with the Lord for ever, 1 Thessalonians 4:14. And this the apostle thought an effectual cordial in this case when he exhorted the Thessalonians to "comfort one another with these words."
Consid. 10. The present felicity into which all that die in Christ are presently admitted, should abundantly comfort Christians over the death if such as either carried a lively hope out of the world with them, or have left good grounds of such an hope behind them.
Such there are, that carried a lively hope to heaven with them, who could evidence to themselves and friends, their interest in Christ and in the covenant. Yea, though they had died in silence, yet their conversations would speak for them, and the tenor of their lives leave no ground of doubting touching their death. Others dying in their infancy and youth, though they carried not such an actual hope with them, yet they have left good grounds of hope behind them.
Parents, now ponder these grounds; you have prayed for them, you have many times wrestled with the Lord on their behalf; you have taken hold of God’s covenant for them, as well as for yourselves, and dedicated them to the Lord; and they have not, by any actions of theirs, destroyed those grounds of your hope, but that you may, with much probability, conclude they are with God.
Why, if the case be so, what abundant reason have you to be quiet, and well satisfied with what God hath done? Can they be better than where they are? Had you better provisions and entertainment for them here than their heavenly Father hath above?
There is no Christian parent in the world, but would rejoice to see his child out-strip and get before him in grace, that he may be more eminent in parts and services than ever he was: And what reason can be given, why we should not as much rejoice to see our children get before us in glory, as in grace? They are gotten to heaven a few years before you, and is that matter of mourning? Would not your child (if he were not ignorant of you) say, as Christ did to his friends, a little before his death, when he saw them cast down at the thoughts of parting, John 14:28. "If ye loved me, ye would rejoice, because I go to the Father." q. d. Do not value your own sensible comfort, from my bodily presence with you, before my glory and advancement in heaven. Is this love to me? Or is it not rather self-love? So would your departed friend say to you: ’You have professed much love all along to me, my happiness seemed to be very dear to you. How comes it to pass, then, that you mourn so exceedingly now? This is rather the effect of a fond and fleshly, than of a rational and spiritual love; if you loved me with a pure spiritual love ye would rejoice that I am gone to my Father. It is infinitely better for me to be here, than with you on earth, under sin and sorrow. Weep not for me, but for yourselves.’
Alas! though you want your friends company, he wants not yours; your care was to provide for this child, but Jesus Christ hath provided infinitely better for it than you could; you intended an estate, but he a kingdom for it; you thought upon such or such a match, but Christ hath forbid all others, and married your child to himself. Would you imagine an higher preferment for the fruit of your bodies? A King from heaven hath sent for your friend, and do you grudge at the journey? O think, and think again, what an honour it is to you, that Christ hath taken them out of your bosom, and laid them in his own; stript them out of those garments you provided, and cloathed them in white robes, washed in the blood of the Lamb. Let not your hearts be troubled, rather rejoice exceedingly, that God made you instruments to replenish heaven, and bring forth an heir for the kingdom of God. Your child is now glorifying God, in an higher way than you can, and what though you have lost its bodily presence for a time; yet, I hope you do not reckon that to be your loss, which turns to God’s greater glory. When Jacob heard his Joseph was lord of Egypt, he rather wished himself with Joseph, than his Joseph with him in wants and straits; so should it be with you: You are yet rolling and tossing upon a tempestuous sea, but your friend is gone into the quiet harbour; desire rather to be there than that he were at sea with you again.
Consideration 11. Consider how vain a thing all your troubles and self-vexation is; it no way better’s your case, nor eases your burden. As a bullock, by wrestling and sweating in the furrow, makes his yoke to be more heavy, and galls his neck, and spends his strength the sooner, and no ways helps himself by that: Why thus stands the case with thee; if thou be as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, What Christ saith of caring, we may say of grieving, (Matth. 6:27.) "Which of you, by taking thought can add one cubit to his stature?"
Cares may break our sleep, yea, break our hearts, but they cannot add to our stature, either in a natural, or in a civil notion: So our sorrowing may sooner break our hearts, than the yoke God hath laid on you.
Alas! what is all this but as the fluttering of a bird in the net, which, instead of freeing, doth but the more entangle itself. It was therefore a wise resolution of David in this very case, when the will of God was signified in the death of his child, 2 Samuel 12:23. "But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me." Can I bring him back again? No; I can no more alter the purpose and work of God, than 1 can change the seasons of the year, or alter the course of the sun, moon and stars, or disturb the order of the day and night; which are all unalterably established by a firm constitution and ordinance of heaven. As these seasons cannot be changed by man, so neither can this course and way of his providences be changed. Job 23:13. "He is of one mind, and who can turn him? And what his soul desireth, "even that he doth." Indeed, while his pleasure and purpose are unknown to us, there is room for fasting and prayer, to prevent the thing we fear: But when the purpose of God is manifested in the issue, and the stroke is given, then it is the vainest thing in the world to fret and vex ourselves, as David’s servants thought he would do, as soon as he shoul dhear the child was dead: But he was wiser than so, his tears and cries to God before had the nature and use of means to prevent the affliction: but when it was come, and could not be prevented, then they were of no use, to no purpose in the world: "Wherefore should I fast?" Q. d. To what end, use, or purpose will it be now.
Well then, cast not away your strength and spirits to no advantage; reserve them for future exercises and trials: Time may come, that you may need all the strength you have, and much more, to support greater burdens than this.
Consideration 12. The Lord is able to restore all your lost comforts in relations double to you, if you meekly submit to him, and patiently wait upon him under the rod. When Esau had lost his blessing, he said, "Hast thou but one blessing, my father?" Genesis 27:38. But your Father hath more blessings for you than one: his name is the "Father of mercies," 2 Corinthians 13:11. He can beget and create as many mercies for you as he pleaseth; relations, and the comforts of them, are at his command.
It is but a few months, or years past, and these comforts, whose loss you now lament were not in being; nor did you know whence they should arise to yon, yet the Lord gave the word, and commanded them for you; and, if he please, he can make the death of these but like a scythe to the meadow that is mown down, or a razor to the head that is shaved bare; which, though it lay you under the present trouble and reproach of barrenness, yet doth but make way for a double increase, a second spring with advantage. So that even as it was with the captive church, in respect of her special children, in the day of her captivity and reproach, the Lord made up all with advantage to her, even to her own astonishment. Isaiah 42:20. "The children which thou shalt have, after thou hast lost the other, shall say again in thine ears, the place is too strait for me; Give place to me that I may dwell."
Thus may he deal with you, as to your natural children, and relations; so that what the man of God said to Amaziah, 1 Chronicles 25:9 may be applied to the case in hand. "Amaziah said to the man of God, but what shall we do for the hundred talents? And the man of God answered, the Lord is able to give thee much more than this."
O say not, What shall I do for friends and relations? Death hath robbed me of all comfort in them. Why the Lord is able to give you much more. But then, as ever you expect to see your future blessings multiplied, look to it, and be careful that you neither dishonour God, nor grieve him, by your unsubmissive, and impatient carriage, under the present rod.
God took away all Job’s children, and that at one stroke, and the stroke immediate and extraordinary, and that when they were grown up, and planted (at least some of them) in distinct families; yea, whilst they were endearing each other by mutual expressions of affection. This must be yielded to be an extraordinary trial, yet he meekly receives, and patiently bears it from the hand of the Lord.
You have heard of the patience of Job, (saith the apostle James 5:11) "and seen the end of the Lord." Not only the gracious end, or intention of the Lord in all his afflictions, but the happy end and issue the Lord gave to all his afflictions, of which you have the account, Job 42:10. "The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before." The number of his children was not double to what he had, as all his other comforts were: But though the Lord only restored the same number to him again that he took away, yet it is likely the comfort he had in these latter children was double to what he had in the former. There is nothing lost by waiting patiently, and submitting willingly to the Lord’s dispose.
It is as easy with the Lord to revive, as it is to remove your comforts in relations. There is a sweet expression to this purpose, in Psal. 18:28. "For thou, Lord, will light my candle, the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness."
Every comfortable enjoyment, whether it be in relations, estate, health, or friends, is a candle lighted by providence for our comforts in this world, and they are but candles, which will not always last; and those that last longest will be consumed and wasted at last; but oftentimes it falls out with them as with candles, they are blown out before they are half consumed; yea, almost as soon as lighted up, and then we are in darkness for the present.
It is a dark hour with us, when these comforts are put out; but David’s faith did, and ours may comfort us with this, that he that blew out the candle, can light up another: "Thou, Lord, shalt light my candle, the Lord my God shall enlighten my darkness." That is, the Lord will renew my comforts, alter the present sad state I am in, and chase away that trouble and darkness which at present lies upon me: Only beware of offending him, at whose beck your lights and comforts come and go. Michal displeased the Lord, and therefore had no child unto the day of her death, 2 Samuel 6:23.
Hannah waited humbly upon the Lord for the blessing of children, and the Lord remembered her; he enlightened her condition with that comfort, when she was as a lamp despised. There is no comfort you have lost but God can restore it, yea, double it in kind, if he sees it convenient for you. And if not, then,
Consideration 13. Consider, though he should deny you any more comforts of that kind, yet he hath far better to bestow upon you, such as these deserve not to he named with.
You have an excellent scripture to that purpose, in Isaiah 56:4-5. "For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths; and chuse the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even to them will I give in my house, and within my walls, a place, and a name better than of sons and daughters; I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off."
Men’s names are to be continued in their issue, in their male issue especially, and consequently to fail in such as wanted issue, Numbers 17:4 and a numerous issue is deemed no small honour, Psal. 127:4, 5. God therefore promised here to supply, and make good the want of issue, and whatsoever, either honour here, or memorial hereafter, might from it have accrued to them, by bestowing upon them matter of far greater honour, and more durable; a name better, or before the names of sons or daughters.
It is a greater honour to be the child of God, than to have the greatest honour, or comfort, that ever children afforded their parents in this world.
Poor heart, thou art now dejected by this affliction that lies upon thee, as if all joy and comfort were now cut off from thee in this world. A cloud dwells upon all other comforts, this affliction hath so imbittered thy soul, that thou tastest no more in any other earthly comforts, than in the white of an egg. O that thou didst but consider the consolations that are with God for such as answer his ends in affliction, and patiently wait on him for their comfort! he hath comforts for you far transcending the joy of children. This some hath found when their children have been cut off from them, and that in so eminent a degree, that they have little valued their comfort in children, in comparison with this comfort.
I will therefore set down a pregnant instance of the point in hand, as I find it recorded by the grave and worthy author of that excellent book intitled, The fulfilling of the scripture.
Another notable instance of grace, with a very remarkable passage in his condition, I shall here mention. ’One Patrick Mackewrath, who lived in the west parts of Scotland, whose heart, in a remarkable way the Lord touched, and after his conversion (as he shewed to many Christian friends) was in such a frame, so affected with a new world, wherein he was entered, the discoveries of God, and of a life to come; that for some months together he did seldom sleep, but was still taken up in wondering. His life was very remarkable for tenderness, and near converse with God in his walk; and, which was worthy to be noted, one day, after a sharp trial, having his only son suddenly taken away by death, he retired alone for several hours, and when he came forth did look so cheerfully, that to those who asked him the reason thereof, and wondered at the same in such a time; he told them, He had got that in his retirement with the Lord, that to have it afterwards renewed, he would be content to lose a son every day.’
O what a sweet exchange had he made! Surely he had gold for brass, a pearl for a pebble, a treasure for a trifle; for so great, yea, and far greater is the disproportion betwixt the sweet light of God’s countenance, and the faint, dim light of the best creature-enjoyment. Would it please the Lord to make this sun arise and shine upon you, now when the stars that shined with a dim and borrowed light are gone down, you would see such gain by the exchange as would quickly make you cast in your votes with him we now mentioned, and say, Lord, let every day be such as this funeral day; let all my hours be as this, so that I may see and taste what I now do. How gladly would I part with the dearest and nearest creature-comforts I own in this world. The gracious and tender Lord hath his divine cordials reserved on purpose for such sad hours; these are sometimes given before some sharp trial, to prepare for it, and sometimes after, to support under it.
I have often heard it from the mouth, and found it in the diary of a sweet Christian now with God, that a little before the Lord removed her dear husband by death, there was such an abundant outlet of the love of God unto her soul for several days and nights following, that when the Lord took away her husband by death, though he was a gracious and sweet tempered (and by her most tenderly beloved) husband, she was scarce sensible of the stroke, but carried quite above all earthly things, their comforts, and their troubles: so that she had almost lost the thoughts of her dear husband in God. And had not the Lord taken that course with her, she concluded that blow had not been possible to be borne by her, she must have sunk without such a preparative. A husband, a wife, a child, are great, very great things, as they stand by other creatures; but surely they will seem little things, and next to nothing, when the Lord shall set himself by them before the soul. And how know you, but God hath bidden these earthly comforts stand aside this day, to make way for heavenly ones? It may be, God is coming to communicate himself more sweetly, more sensibly than ever to your souls; and these are the providences which must cast up, and prepare the way of the Lord. Possibly God’s meaning in their death is but this: child, stand aside, thou art in my way, and fillest my place in thy parent’s heart.
Consideration 14. Be careful you exceed not in your grief for the loss of earthly things, considering that Satan takes the advantage of all extremes.
You cannot touch any extreme, but you will be touched by that enemy, whose greatest advantages lie in assaulting you here.
Satan is called, The ruler of the darkness of this world, Ephesians 6:12 i.e. his kingdom is supported by darkness. Now, there is a two-fold darkness, which gives Satan great advantage; the darkness of the mind, viz. ignorance; and the darkness of the condition, viz. trouble and affliction. Of the former the apostle speaks chiefly in that text; but the latter also is by him often improved to carry on his designs upon us. When it is a dark hour of trouble with us, then is his fittest season to tempt. That cowardly spirit falls upon the people of God when they are down and low in spirit as well as state. Satan would never have desired that the hand of God should have been stretched out upon Job’s person, estate, and children, but that he promised himself a notable advantage therein, to poison his spirit with vile thoughts of God. "Do this (saith he) and he will curse thee to thy face."
What the Psalmist observes of natural, is as true of metaphorical darkness, Psal. 104:20. "Thou makest darkness, and it is night, wherein all the beasts of the forest do creep forth, the young lions roar after their prey." When it is dark night with men, it is noon-day with Satan; i.e. our suffering-time is his busiest working-time; many a dismal suggestion he then plants, and grafts upon your affliction, which are much more dangerous to us than the affliction itself.
Sometimes he injects desponding thoughts into the afflicted soul; "Then, said I, I am cut off from before thine eyes," Psal. 31:22 and Lamentations 3:18-19. "My hope is perished from the Lord, remembering my affliction, and my misery, the wormwood and the gall."
Sometimes he suggests hard thoughts of God, Ruth 1:20. "The Lord hath dealt very bitterly with me." Yea, that he hath dealt more severely with us than any other, Lamentations 1:12. "See and behold, if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger." And sometimes murmuring and repining thoughts against the Lord; the soul is displeased at the hand of God upon it. Jonah was angry at the hand of God, and said, "I do well to be angry, even unto death," Jonah 4:9. What dismal thoughts are these? and how much more afflictive to a gracious soul, than the loss of any outward enjoyment in this world. And sometimes very irreligious and atheistical thoughts, as if there were no privilege to be had by religion, and all our pains, zeal, and care about duty, were little better than lost labour, Psal. 73:13, 14. "Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency; for all the day long I have been plagued, and chastened every morning." By these things Satan gets no small advantage upon the afflicted Christian; for albeit these thoughts are his burden, and God will not impute them to the condemnation of his people; yet they rob the soul of peace, and hinder it from duty, and make it act uncomely under affliction, to the stumbling and hardening of others in their sin: beware therefore, lest by our excess of sorrow ye give place to the devil; we are not ignorant of his devices.
Consider. 15. Give no way to excessive sorrows upon the account of affliction, if ye have any regard to the honour of God and religion, which will hereby be exposed to reproach.
If you slight your own honour, do not slight the honour of God and religion too; take heed how you carry it in a day of trouble; many eyes are upon you. It is a true observation that a late worthy* author hath made upon this case: ’What will the Atheist, and what will the profane scoffer say when they shall see this? So sottish and malicious they are, that if they do but see you in affliction, they are straightway scornfully demanding, Where is your God?
’But what would they say, if they should hear you yourselves unbelievingly cry out, Where is our God? Will they not be ready to cry, this is the religion they make such boast of, which you see how little it does for them in a day of extremity: they talk of promises, rich and precious promises; but where are they now? Or to what purpose do they serve? They said they had a treasure in heaven; what ails them to mourn so then if their riches are there?’
O beware what you do before the world; they have eyes to see what you can do, as well as ears to hear what you can say: and as long as your carriage under trouble is so much like their own, they will never think your principles are better than theirs. Carnal worldlings will be drawn to think, that whatever fine talk you might have about God and heaven, your hearts were most upon the same things that theirs were, since your grief for their removal is as great as theirs.
They know by experience what a stay it is to the heart, to have an able, faithful friend to depend upon, or to have hopes of a great estate shortly to fall to them; and they will never be persuaded you have any such ground of comfort if they see you as much cast down as they that pretend to no such matter. By this means the precepts of Christ to constancy and contentment in all estates, will come to be looked upon (like those of the stoics) only as magnifica verba, brave words; but such as are impossible to be practised; and the whole of the gospel will be taken for an airy notion, since they that profess greatest regard to it, are no more helped thereby.
O what a shame is it that religion should, in this case, make no more difference betwixt man and man! wherefore shew to the world (whatever their common censures are) that it is not so much your care to differ from them in some opinions, and a little strictness, as in humility, meekness, contempt of the world, and heavenly-mindedness; and now let these graces display themselves by your cheerful, patient deportment under all your grievances.
Wherefore hath God planted those excellent graces in your souls? but that he might be glorified, and you benefited by the exercises of them in tribulation: should these be suppressed and hid, and nothing but the pride, passion, and unmortified earthliness of your hearts set on work, and discovered in time of trouble, what a slur, what a wound will you give to the glorious name which is called upon by you? And then if your hearts be truly gracious, that will pierce you deeper than ever your affliction which occasioned it did.
I beseech you, therefore, be tender of the name of God, if you will not be so of your own peace and comfort.
Consider. 16. Be quiet, and hold your peace, you little know how many mcrcies lie in the womb of this affliction.
Great are the benefits of a sharp, rousing affliction to the people of God at sometimes, and all might have them at all times, were they more careful to improve them. Holy David thankfully acknowledged, Psal. 119:71. "It is good for me that I have been afflicted." And surely there is as much good in them for you, as for him; if the Lord sanctify them to such ends and uses as his were sanctified unto.
Such a smarting rod as this came not before there was need enough of it, and possibly you saw the need of some awakening providence yourselves; but if not, the Lord did: he took not up the rod to smite you, till his faithfulness and tender love to your souls called upon him to correct you.
You now sit pensive under the rod, sadly lamenting and deploring. the loss of some earthly comfort; your heart is surcharged with sorrow, your eyes run down upon every mention and remembrance of your dear friend: why, if there were no more, this alone may discover the need you had of this rod; for doth not all this sorrow at parting plainly speak how much your heart was set upon, how fast your heart was glewed to this earthly comfort?
Now you see that your affections were sunk many degrees deeper into the creature, than you are aware of: and what should God do in this case by you? Should he suffer you to cleave to the creature more and more? Should he permit it to purloin, and exhaust your love and delight, and steal away your heart from himself? This he could not do, and love you. The more impatient you are under this affliction, the more need you had of it. And what if by this stroke the Lord will awaken your drowsy soul, and recover you out of that pleasant, but dangerous spiritual slumber you were fallen into, whilst you had pillowed your head upon this; pleasant, sensible creature-enjoyment? Is not this really better for you than if he should say, Sleep on: he is joined to idols, let him alone; he is departing from me, the fountain, to a broken cistern; let him go.
Yea, what if by this stroke upon one of the pleasantest things you had in this world, God will discover to you, more sensibly and effectually than ever, the vanity both of that and all earthly comforts, so as that you shall from henceforth never let forth your heart, your hope, your love, and delight to any of them, as you did before? You could talk before of the creature’s vanity, but I question whether ever you had so clear and convincing a sight of its vanity as you have this day: and is not this a considerable mercy in your eyes?
Now, if ever God is weaning you from all fond opinions, and vain expectations from this world; by this your judgment of the creature is rectified, and your affections to all other enjoyments on earth moderated: and is this nothing? O doubtless it is a greater mercy to you, than to have your friend alive again. And what if by this rod your wandering, gadding heart shall be whipped home to God? your neglected duties revived? your decayed communion with God restored? a spiritual, heavenly frame of heart recovered? What will you say then?
Surely you will bless that merciful hand which removed the obstructions, and adore the Divine wisdom, and goodness, that by such a device as this recovered you to himself. Now you can pray more constantly, more spiritually, more affectionately than before. O blessed rod, which buds and blossoms with such fruits as these! Let this be written among your best mercies, for you shall have cause to adore and bless God eternally for this beneficial affliction.
Consider. 17. Suffer not yourselves to be transported by impatience, and swallowed up of grief, because God hath exercised you under a smart rod; for, as smarting as it is, it is comparatively a gentle stroke to what others, as good as yourselves, have felt. Your dear relation is dead; be it so, here is but a single death before you, but others have seen many deaths contrived into one upon their relations, to which yours is nothing.
Zedekiah saw his children murdered before his eyes, and then had those eyes (alas two late) put out. The worthy author of that excellent book before-mentioned, tells us of a choice and godly gentlewoman in the north of Ireland, who when the rebellion broke out there, fled with three children, one of them upon the breast; they had not gone far before they were stripped naked by the Irish, who, to their admiration, spared their lives, (it is like, concluding that cold and hunger would kill them) afterwards going on at the foot of a river which runs to Lochneach, others met them, and would have cast them into the river; but this godly woman, not dismayed, asked a little liberty to pray, and as she lay naked on the frozen ground, got resolution not to go on her own feet, to so unjust a death, upon which having called her, and she refusing, was dragged by the heels along that rugged way, to be cast in with her little ones, and company. But she then turned, and on her knees says, You should, I am sure, be Christians, and men I see you are; in taking away our miserable lives, you do us a pleasure; but know, that as we never wronged you nor yours, you must remember to die also yourselves, and one day give an account of this cruelty, to the judge of heaven and earth. Hereupon they resolved not to murder them with their own hands, but turned them all naked upon a small island in the river, without any provision, there to perish. The next day, the two boys having crept aside, found the hide of a beast which had been killed, at the root of a tree, which the mother cast over them lying upon the snow. The next day a little boat goes by, unto whom she calls for God’s sake to take them in, but they being Irish, refused; she desired a little bread, but they said they had none; then she begs a coal of fire, which she obtained; and thus, with some fallen chips, made a little fire, and the children taking a piece of the hide laid it on the coals, and began to gnaw the leather; but without an extraordinary Divine support, what could this do?
Thus they lived ten days, without any visible means of help, having no bread, but ice and snow, nor drink except water. The two boys being near starved, she pressed them to go out of her sight, not being able to see their death; yet God delivered them as miraculously at last, as he had supported them all that while. But judge whether a natural death, in an ordinary way be comparable to such a trial as this; and yet thus the Lord did by this choice and eminently gracious woman. And Mr. Wall, in his None-but-Christ, relates as sad a passage of a poor family in Germany, who were driven unto that extremity in the famine, that at last the parents made a motion one to the other to sell one of the children for bread to sustain themselves, and the rest; but when they came to consider which child it should be, their hearts so relented, and yearned upon every one, that they resolved rather all to die together. Yea, we read in Lamentations 4:10. "The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children." But why speak I of these extremities? How many parents, yea, some godly ones too, have lived to see their children dying in prophaneness, and some by the hand of justice, lamenting their rebellions with a rope about their necks.
Ah! reader, little dost thou know what stings there are in the afflictions of others! surely you have no reason to think the Lord hath dealt more bitterly with you than any. It is a gentle stroke, a merciful dispensation, if you compare it with what others have felt.
Consideration 18. If God be your God, you have really lost nothing by the removal of any creature-comfort.
God is the fountain of all true comfort; creatures, the very best and sweetest, are but cisterns to receive, and convey to us what comfort God is pleased to communicate to them; and if the cistern be broken, or the pipe cut off, so that no more comfort can be conveyed to us that way, he hath other ways and mediums to do it by, which we think not of; and if he please he can convey his comforts to his people without any of them: And if he do it more immediately, we shall be no losers by that; for no comforts in the world are so delectable, and ravishingly sweet, as those that flow immediately from the fountain. And it is the sensuality of our hearts that causes us to affect them so inordinately, and grieve for the loss of them so immoderately, as if we had not enough in God, without these creature supplements. Is the fulness of the fountain yours? and yet do you cast down yourselves, because the broken cistern is removed; The best creatures are no better, Jeremiah 2:13. Cisterns have nothing but what they receive, and broken ones cannot hold what is put into them. Why then do you mourn, as if your life were bound up in the creature? You have as free an access to the fountain as you had before. It is the advice of an Heathen, (and let them take the comfort of it) to repair, by a new earthly comfort, what we have lost in the former.
"Thou hast carried forth him whom thou lovedst, (saith* Seneca) seek one whom thou mayest love in his stead: It is better to repair than to bemoan thy loss." But if God never repair your loss in things of the same kind, you know he can abundantly repair it himself.
Ah! Christian, is not one kiss of his mouth, one glimpse of his countenance, one seal of his Spirit, a more sweet and substantial comfort, than the sweetest relation in this world can afford you? If the stream fail, repair to the fountain, there is enough still; God is where he was, and what he was, though the creature be not.
Consideration 19. Though you may want a little comfort in your life, yet surely it may be recompensed to you by a more easy death. The removal of your friends before you may turn to your great advantage, when your hour is come that you must follow them. O how have many good souls been clogged and ensnared in their dying hour, by the loves, cares, and fears they have had about those they must leave behind them in a sinful, evil world! Your love to them might have proved a snare to you, and caused you to hang back, as loth to go hence; for these are the things that make men loth to die. And thus it might have been with you, except God had removed them before-hand, or should give you in that day such sights of heaven, and tastes of divine love, as should master and mortify all your earthly affections to these things.
I knew a gracious person, (now in heaven) who, for many weeks in her last sickness, complained that she found it hard to part with a dear relation, and that there was nothing proved a greater clog to her soul than this: It is much more easy to think of going to our friends, who are in heaven before us, than of parting with them, and leaving our desirable and dear ones behind us. And who knows what cares and distracting thoughts you may then be pestered and distracted with upon their account? What shall become of these when I am gone? I am now to leave them, God knows to what wants, miseries, temptations, and afflictions in the midst of a deceitful, defiling, dangerous world.
I know it is our duty to leave our fatherless children, and friendless relations with God; to trust them with him that gave them to us: And some have been enabled cheerfully to do so when they were parting from them.* Luther could say, "Lord, thou hast given me a wife and children, I have little to leave them; nourish, teach, and keep them; O thou Father of the fatherless, and Judge of the widow." "But every Christian hath not a Luther’s faith; some find it a hard thing to disentangle their affections at such a time: But now, if God has sent all yours before you, you have so much the less to do; death may be easier to you than others.
Consideration 20. But if nothing that hath been yet said will stick with you, then, lastly, remember that you are near that state, and place which admits no sorrows, nor sad rejections, upon any such accounts as these.
Yet a little while, and you shall not miss them, you shall not need them, but you shall live as the angels of God: We now live partly by faith, partly by sense, partly upon God, and partly upon the creature; our state is mixed, therefore our comforts are so too. But when God shall be all in all, and we shall be as the angels of God in the way and manner of our living; how much will the case be altered with us then, from what it is now?
Angels neither marry, nor are given in marriage, neither shall the children of the resurrection; when the days of our sinning are ended, the days of our mourning shall be so too. No graves were opened till sin entered, and no more shall be opened when sin is excluded. Our glorified relations shall live with us for ever; they shall complain no more, die no more; yea, this is the happiness of that state to which you are passing on, that your souls being in the nearest conjunction with God, the fountain of joy, you shall have no concernment out of him. You shall not be put upon these exercises of patience, nor subjected to such sorrows as you now feel, any more. It is but a little while, and the end of all these things will come. O therefore bear up, as persons that expect such a day of jubilee at hand. And thus I have finished the second general head of this discourse, which is a dissuasive from the sin of immoderate sorrow.
3. I now proceed to the third thing proposed, namely, to remove the pleas and excuses for this immoderate grief. It is natural to men, yea, to good men, to justify their excesses, or at least to extenuate them, by pleading for their passions, as if they wanted not cause, and reason enough to excuse them. If these be fully answered, and the soul once convinced, and left without apology for its sin, it is then in a fair way for its cure, which is the last thine designed in this treatise. My present business, therefore is, to satisfy those objections, and answer those reasons which are commonly pleaded in this case, to justify our excessive grief for lost relations. And though I shall carry it in that line of relation to which the text directs, yet it is equally applicable to all others.