3. Pleads
Pleads
Plea 1. You press me by many great considerations to meekness and quiet submission under this heavy stroke of God; but you little know what stings my soul feels now in it. The child was a child of many prayers, it was a Samuel begged of the Lord, and I concluded when I had it, that it brought with it the returns and answers of many prayers. But now I see it was nothing less; God had no regard to my prayer about it, nor was it given me in that special way of mercy, as I imagined it to be: My child is not only dead, but my prayers in the same day shut out and denied.
Answer 1. That you prayed for your children before you had them was your duty; and if you prayed not for them submissively, referring it to the pleasure of God to give, or deny them, to continue or remove them, as should seem good to him, that was your sin: You ought not to limit the Holy one of Israel, nor prescribe to him; or capitulate with him, for what term you shall enjoy your outward comforts: If you did so, it was your evil, and God hath justly rebuked it by this stroke. If you did pray conditionally, and submissively referring both the mercy asked and continuance of it to the will of God, as you ought to do; then there is nothing in the death of your child that crosses the true scope and intent in your prayer.
Answer 2. Your prayers may be answered, though the thing prayed for be with-held, yea, or though it should be given for a little while, and snatched away from you again. There are four ways of God’s answering prayers, by giving the thing prayed for presently, Daniel 9:23 or by suspending the answer for a time, and giving it afterwards, Luke 18:7 or by with-holding from you that mercy which you ask, and giving you a much better mercy in the room of it, Deuteronomy 3:24 compared with Deuteronomy 34:4-5. Or, lastly, by giving you patience to bear the loss, or want of it, 2 Corinthians 11:9.
Now, if the Lord have taken away your child, or friend, and in lieu thereof given you a meek, quiet, submissive heart to his will, you need not say he hath shut out your cry.
Plea. 2 But I have lost a lovely, obliging, and most endearing child, one that was beautiful and sweet; it is a stony heart that would not dissolve into tears for the loss of one so desirable, so engaging as this was: Ah! it is no common loss.
Answer 1. The more lovely and engaging your relation was, the more excellent will your patience and contentment with the will of God in its death be: the more loveliness, the more self-denial, the more grace. Had it been a thousand times more endearingly sweet than it was, it was not too good to deny for God. If therefore obedience to the will of God do indeed master natural affections, and that you look upon patience and contentment as much more beautiful than the sweetest and most desirable enjoyment on earth, it may turn to you for a testimony of the truth and strength of grace: that you can, like Abraham, part with a child whom you so dearly love, in obedience to the will of your God, whom you love infinitely more.
Answer 2. The loveliness and beauty of our children and relations, though it must be acknowledged a good gift from the hand of God; yet it is but a common gift, and often times becomes a snare, and is, in its own nature, but a transitory, vanishing thing, and therefore no such great aggravation of the loss as is pretended.
I say, it is but a common gift; Eliab, Adonijah, and Absalom had as lovely presences as any in their generation. Yea, it is not only common to the wicked, with the godly, but to the brute animals, as well as men, and to most that excel in it, it becomes a temptation; the souls of some had been more beautiful and lovely, if their bodies had been less so. Besides, it is but a flower which nourishes in its mouth, and then fades. This therefore should not be reflected on as so great a circumstance to aggravate your trouble.
Answer 3. But if your relation sleep in Jesus, he will appear ten thousand times more lovely in the morning of the resurrection, than ever he was in the world. What is the exactest, purest beauty of mortals, to the incomparable beauty of the saints in the resurrection? "Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father," Matth. 13:43. In this hope you part with them, therefore act suitably to your hopes.
Plea 3. Oh! but my child was nipped off by death in the very bud; I did but see, and love, and part: Had I enjoyed it longer, and had time to suck out the sweetness of such an enjoyment, I could have borne it easier; but its months or years with me were so few, that they only served to raise an expectation which was quickly, and therefore the more sadly disappointed.
Answer 1. Did your friend die young, or was the bond of any other relation almost dissolved as soon as made? Let not this seem so intolerable a load to you; for if you have ground to hope they died in Christ, then they lived long enough in this world*. It is truly said, he hath sailed long enough that hath won the harbour; he hath fought long enough that hath obtained the victory; he hath run long enough that hath touched the goal; and he hath lived long enough upon earth that hath won heaven, be his days here never so few.
Answer 2. The sooner your relation died, the less sin hath been committed, and the less sorrow felt: What can you see in this world but sin or sorrow? A quick passage through it to glory is a special privilege. Surely the world is not so desirable a place, that Christians should desire an hour’s time longer in it for themselves, or theirs, than serves to fit them for a better.
Answer 3. And whereas you imagine the parting would have been easier if the enjoyment had been longer, it is a fond and groundless suspicion: The longer you had enjoyed them, the stronger would the endearments have been. A young and tender plant may be easily drawn up by a single hand, but when it hath spread and fixed its root many years in the earth, it will require many a strong blow, and hard tug to root it up. Affections like those under-ground roots, are fixed and strengthened by nothing more than consuetude and long-possession; it is much easier parting now, than it would be hereafter, whatever you think. However, this should satisfy you, that God’s time is the best time.
Plea 4. O but I have lost all in one, it is my only one, I have none left in its room to repair the breach, and make up the loss: If God had given me other children to take comfort in, the loss had not been so great; but to lose all at one stroke is insupportable.
Answer 1. Religion allows not unto Christians a liberty of expressing the death of their dear relations by so hard a word as the loss of them is; they are not lost but sent before you*: And it is a shameful thing for a Christian to be reproved for such an uncomely expression by a heathen; it is enough to make us blush to read what an heathen said in this case†, ’Never say thou hast lost any thing (saith Epictetus) but that it is returned. Is thy son dead? He is only restored. Is thy inheritance taken from thee? It is also returned.’ And a while after he adds, Ει τουτο θεοις φιλον τουτο γενεσθω, i.e. ’Let every thing be as the gods would have it.’
Answer 2. It is no fit expression to say you have lost all in one, except that one be Christ; and he being once yours, can never be lost. Doubtless, your meaning is, you have lost all your comfort of that kind; and what though you have? Are there not multitudes of comforts yet remaining, of a higher kind, and more precious and durable nature? If you have no more of that sort, yet so long as you have better, what cause have you to rejoice!
Answer 3. You too much imitate the way of the world in this complaint; they know not how to repair the loss of one comfort but by another of the same nature, which must be put in its room to fill up the vacancy: But have you no other way to supply your loss? Have you not a God to fill the place of any creature that leaves you? Surely this would better become a man whose portion is in this life, than one that professes God is his all in all.
Plea 5. O but my only one is not only taken away, but there remains no expectation or probability of any more: I must now look upon myself as a dry tree, never to take comfort in children any more, which is a cutting thought.
Answer 1. Suppose what you say, that you have no hope nor expectation of another child remaining to you; yet if you have a hope of better things than children, you have no reason to be cast down: Bless God for higher and better hopes than these. In Isaiah 56:4-5 the Lord comforts them that have no expectations of sons or daughters with this; "That he will give unto them in his house, and within his walls, a place and a name better than of sons and daughters; even an everlasting name that shall not be cut off." There are better mercies, and higher hopes than these; though your hopes of children, or from children, should be cut off, yet if your eternal hopes are secure, and such as shall not make you ashamed, you should not be so cast down.
Answer 2. If God will not have your comforts to lie any more in children, then resolve to place them in himself, and you shall never find cause to complain of loss by such an exchange: You will find that in God which is not to be had in the creature; one hour’s communion with him, shall give you that which the happiest parent never yet had from his children; you will exchange brass for gold, perishing vanity for solid and abiding excellency.
Plea 6. But the suddenness of the stroke is amazing, God gave little or no warning to prepare for this trial: Death executed its commission as soon as it opened it. My dear husband, wife, or child, was snatched unexpectedly out of my arms, by a surprizing stroke; and this makes my stroke heavier than my complaint.
Answer 1. That the death of your relation was so sudden and surprizing, was much your own fault, who ought to have lived in the daily sense of its vanity, and expectation of your separation from it; you knew it to be a dying comfort in its best estate, and it is no such wonderful thing to see that dead, which you knew before to be dying: Besides, you heard the changes ringing about you in other families; you frequently saw other parents, husbands, and wives, carrying forth their dead: and what were all these but warnings given to you to prepare for the like trials?
Surely, then, it was your own security and regardlessness that made this affliction so surprizing to you; and who is to be blamed for that, you know.
Answer 2. There is much difference betwixt the sudden death of infants, and that of grown persons; the latter may have much work to do; many sins actually to repent of, and many evidences of their interest in Christ to examine and clear, in order to their more comfortable death; and so sudden death may be deprecated by them. But the case of infants, who exercise not their reason, is far different; they have no such work to do, but are purely passive: All that is done in order to their salvation, is done by God immediately upon them; so it comes all to one, whether their death be more quick, or more slow.
Answer 3. You complain of the suddenness of the stroke: but another will be ready to say, had my friend died in that manner, my affliction had been nothing to what now it is; I have seen many deaths contrived into one; I saw the gradual approaches of it upon my dear relation, who felt every thread of death as it came on toward him, who often cried with Job, chap. 3. ver. 21, 22. "Where fore is light given to him that is in misery, and life to the bitter in soul? Which long for death, but it cometh not, and dig for it more than for hid treasures: Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they can find the grave." That which you reckon the sting of your affliction, others would have reckoned a favour and privilege. How many tender parents, and other relations, who loved their friends as dearly as yourselves, have been forced to their knees, upon no other errand but this, to beg the Lord to hasten the separation, and put an end to that sorrow, which to them was much greater than the sorrow for the dead.
Plea 7. You press me to moderation of sorrows, and I know I ought to shew it; but you do not know how the case stands with me, there is a sting in this affliction, that none feels but myself; and, O! how intolerable is it now! I neglected proper means in season to preserve life, or miscarried in the use of means. I now see such a neglect, or such a mistake about the means, as I cannot but judge greatly to contribute to that sad loss which I now, too late, lament.
O my negligence, O my rashness, and inconsiderateness! how doth my conscience now smite me for my folly! and by this aggravate my burden beyond what is usually felt by others. Had I seasonably applied myself to the use of proper means, and kept strictly to such courses and counsels as those that are able and skilful might have prescribed, I might now have had a living husband, wife, or child: whereas I am now not only bereaved, but am apt to think I have bereaved myself of them. Surely there is no sorrow like unto my sorrow.
Answer 1. Though it be an evil to neglect, and slight the means ordained by God for recovery of health, yet it is no less evil to ascribe too much to them, or rely too much on them? the best means in the world are weak and ineffectual, without God’s assistance and concurrence, and they never have that his assistance or concurrence, when his time is come; and that it was fully come in your friend’s case, is manifested now by the event. So that if your friend had had the most excellent helps the world affords, they would have availed nothing. This consideration takes place only in your case, who see what the will of God is by the issue, and may not be pleaded by any whilst it remains dubious and uncertain, as it generrally doth in time of sickness.
Answer 2. Do you not unjustly charge, and blame yourselves for that which is not really your fault, or neglect! How far you are chargeable in this case, will best appear by comparing the circumstances you are now in, with those you were in when your relation was only arrested by sickness; and it was dubious to you what was your duty, and best course to take.
Possibly you had observed so many to perish in physicians hands, and so many to recover without them, that you judged it safer for your friend to be without those means, than to be hazarded by them. Or, if divers methods and courses were prescribed, and persuaded to, and you now see your error, in preferring that which was most improper, and neglecting what was more safe, and probable; yet as long as it did not so appear to your understanding at that time, but you followed the best light you had to guide you at that time, it were most unjust to charge the fault upon yourselves, for choosing that course that then seemed best to you, whether it were so in itself, or not. To be angry with yourselves for doing, or omitting what was then done, or omitted, according to your best discretion, and judgment, because you now see it by the light of the event, far otherwise than you did before; it is to be troubled that you are but men, or that you are not as God, who only can foresee issues and events; and that you acted as all rational creatures are bound to do, according to the light they have, at the time and season of action.
Answer 3. To conclude, Times of great affliction are ordinarily times of great temptation, and it is usual with Satan then to charge us with more sins than we are guilty of, and also make those things to be sins, which, upon impartial examination, will not be found to be so.
Indeed, had your neglect or miscarriage been known or voluntary, or had you really preferred a little money (being able to give it) before the life of your relation, and did deliberately choose to hazard this, rather than part with that; no doubt, then, but there had been much evil of sin mixed with your affliction; and your conscience may justly smite you for it, as your sin; but in the other case, which is more common, and I presume yours; it is a false charge, and you ought not to abet the design of Satan in it.
Judge by the sorrow you now feel by your friend, in what degree he was dear to you, and what you could now willingly give to ransom his life, if it could be done with money. Judge, I say, by this, how groundless the charge is that Satan now draws up against you, and you are but too ready to yield to the truth of it.
Plea 8. But my troubles are upon a higher score, and account: my child or friend is passed into eternity, and I know not how it is with his soul; were I sure my relation were with Christ, I should be quiet; but my fears of the contrary are overwhelming; O it is terrible to think of the damnation of one so dear to me.
Answer 1. Admit what the objection supposes, that you have real grounds to fear the eternal condition of your dear relation; yet it is utterly unbeseeming you, even in such a case as this, to dispute with, or repine against the Lord.
I do confess it is a sore and heavy trial, and that there is no cause more sad, and sinking to the spirit of a gracious person: their death is but a trifle to this; but yet if you be such as fear the Lord, methinks his indisputable sovereignty over them, and his distinguishing love and mercy to you, should at least silence you in this matter.
First, His indisputable sovereignty over them, Romans 9:20. "Who art thou, O man, who disputest with God?" He speaks in the matters of eternal election and reprobation. What if the Lord will not be gracious to those that are so dear to us? Is there any wrong done to them or us thereby? Aaron’s two sons were cut off in the act of sin, by the Lord’s immediate hand, and yet he held his peace, Leviticus 10:3. God told Abraham plainly, that the covenant should not be established with Ishmael, for whom he so earnestly prayed, O let Ishmael live before thee! and he knew that there was no salvation out of the covenant, and yet he sits down silent under the word of the Lord.
Secondly, But if this do not quiet you, yet methinks his distinguishing love and mercy to you should do it. O what do you owe to God, that root and branch hath not been cast 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 stop your mouth, and quiet your spirit, though you would have grounds for this fear.
Answer 2. But pray examine the grounds of your fear, whether it may not proceed from the strength of your affections to the eternal welfare of your friend, or from the subtilty of Satan, designing here by to overwhelm and swallow you up in supposed, as well as from just grounds and causes? In two cases it is very probable your fear may proceed only from your own affection, or Satan’s temptation.
First, If your relation died young, before it did any thing to destroy your hopes. Or,
Secondly, If grown, and in some good degree hopeful; only he did not in life, or at death, manifest, and give evidence of grace, with that clearness as you desired. As to the case 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 exercise charity towards them; the scripture speaks very favourably of them. And as for the more adult, who have escaped the pollutions of the world, and made conscience of sin and duty, albeit they never manifested what you could desire they had; yet in them, as in young Abijah, "may be found some good things toward the Lord," which you never took notice of. Reverence of your authority, bashfulness, and shame-facedness, reservedness of disposition, and many other things, may hide those small and weak beginnings of grace that are in children, from the observations of the parents. God might see that in them that you never saw; he despiseth not the day of small 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 sinned in this relation, and God hath punished my sin in dissolving it. O saith one, my heart was set too much upon it, I even idolized it, that was my sin: and, saith another, I wanted due affections, and did not love my relation, at least not so spiritually as I ought; that was my sin. Now God is visiting me for all the neglects and defects that hath been in me towards my relation.
Answer 1. There is no man so thoroughly sanctified, as not to fail, and come short in many things pertaining to his relative duties: and to speak, as the thing is, the corruptions of the holiest persons are as much discovered in this, as any other thing whatsoever; and it is a very common thing for conscience, not only to charge these failures upon us, but to aggravate them to the utmost when God hath made the separation. So that this is no more than what is usual, and very common with persons in your case.
Answer 2. Admit that which the objection supposes, that God had afflicted you for your sin, and removed that comfort from you, which you idolized, and too much doted on; yet there is no reason you should be so cast down under your affliction: For all this may be, and probably is the fruit of his love to, and care of your soul, Revelation 3:19. He tells the afflicted, for their comfort, "Whom I love, I rebuke and chasten." How much better is it to have an idolized enjoyment taken from you, in mercy, than if God should say concerning you, as he did of Ephraim, Hosea 4:17. "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 say as he doth to some, let them go on, I will not hinder them in, or rebuke them for their sinful courses; but will reckon with them for all together in hell at last.
Answer 3. And as to what you now charge upon yourself, that the neglect of duty did spring from the want of love to your relation; your sorrow at parting may evidence that your relation was rooted deep in your affection; but if your love was not so spiritual and pure, to love and enjoy them in God; that was undoubtedly your sin, and is the sin of most Christians, for which both you, and all others, ought to be humbled.
Plea 10. God hath blessed me with an estate, and outward comforts in the world, which I reckoned to have left to my posterity; 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 blasted by this stroke in an hour. How are the pains and cares of many years perished.
Answer 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 estates too? If he have left you those outward comforts, you ought to acknowledge his goodness therein, and not to slight these because he hath deprived you of the other.
Answer 2. Though your children are gone, vet God hath many children left in the world, whose bowels you may refresh with what he hath bestowed upon you; and your charity to them will doubtless turn to a more considerable account, than if you had left a large estate to your own posterity.
Surely we are not sent into this world to heap up great estates for our children: and if you have been too eager in this design, you may now read God’s just rebuke of your folly. Bless 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 distribute to the necessity of the saints, that the blessings 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.
Answer 1. Let it rather lift up your hearts to God in praise that gave you so desirable a child, than fill your heart with discontent at his hand in removing it. How many parents are there in the world whose children God hath deprived of reason and understanding, so that they only differ from the beasts in external shape and figure? And how many shew betimes so perverse a temper, that little comfort can be expected from them.
Ánswer 2. These are but small circumstances, and trivial things in themselves; but by these little things Satan manages a great design against your soul, to deject or exasperate it: And surely this is not your business at this time; you have greater things than the words and actions of children to mind; to search out God’s ends in the affliction, to mortify the corruption it is sent to rebuke, to quiet your hearts in the will of God; this is your work.
Plea 12. Lastly, 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 case more deplorable, greatly afflicted, and sadly deserted.
Answer 1. Though you want at present sensible comfort, yet you have reason to be thankful for gracious supports. Though the light of God’s countenance shine not upon you, yet you find the everlasting arms are underneath you; the care of God worketh for you, when the consolations of God are withdrawn from you.
Answer 2. To have God hide his face in the time of trouble, is no new or unusual thing; God’s dearest saints, 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, sensible influences of comfort from God, which had always filled his soul formerly. If Christ cry in extremity, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me!" Then sure we need not wonder, as if some strange thing had happened to us.
Answer 3. May not your submissive carriage under the rod provoke God to hide his face from you. Pray consider it well, nothing is more probable than for this to be the cause of God’s withdrawment from you. Could you, in meekness and quietness, receive that cup your Father hath given you to drink; accept the punishment of your iniquities; say, Good is the word of the Lord, It is the Lord, let him do what he will: You would soon find the case altered with you; but the comforting spirit finds no delight, or rest, in a turbulent and tumultuous breast. And thus I have satisfied the most considerable pleas urged, in justification of our excesses.
4. I come now to the last thing proposed, namely, the means of curing and preventing these sinful excesses of sorrow for the death of our dear relations.
And, although much hath been said already to dissuade from this evil, and I have enlarged already much beyond my first intention; yet I shall cast in some farther help and assistance towards the healing of this distemper, by prescribing the following rules: