He that appointed the seasons of the year appohitcd the seasons of our comfort in our 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.
0 therefore be quieted in it, this must needs be as it is.
Consider. 4. Hath God smitten your darling, and taken away the de- light of your eyes with this stroke ? Bear this strolce icith patience and quiet submission : For hoxo know you but your trouble mighthave been greater from the life, than it nozv is from the death of your children ?
Sad experience made a holy man once say, It is better to Vv'eep for ten dead children, than for one living child : A living child may prove a continual dropping, yea, a continual dying to the parents heart. What a sad word was that of David to Abishai, 2 Sam. xvi. 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 tobefear- ' ed) he might have been as others mostly are ; for look, (saith lie) ' 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.**
1 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 ques- tion 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, Gen. xxvi. 34. " That when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the " daugliter of Berith the Hittite, wliich was a grief of mind to Isaac " and Ilebecca."" 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. Gen. xviii. 19. " I know him, that he will com- " mand his children and his household after him, and they shall " keep the way of the Lord." Nor can I think but he bestowed ai
Seneca's Epistles, p. 84. f Erat amaritudo animi.
632 A TOKEN FOR MOURNERS.
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 pathe- tical one, recorded, Gen. xvii. 18. " O that Ishmael might live be- *' fore thee :"" And yet you know how he proved, a son that yieldeth him no more conifort than Esau did to Jacob and Rebecca.
O how much more comnion is it for parents to see the vices avA 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 cor- ruption 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 Milti- ades, to see the battle his son Cimon won in the field ; nor Zantip- pus, 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 tliou 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 thv bowels, to be sinning against God, that God whom thou lovest, and w^hose honour is dearer to thee than thy very life !
But admit they should prove civil and hopeful children, yet might- est 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 Ze- dekiah, Jer. 1. 10, " The king of Babylon brought his children, and " slew them before his eyes." Horrid spectacle ! and that leads to,
Consider. 5. How Jcnoio you^ hut hij this stnike 'which you so la- ment, God hath talicn 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, Isa. Ivii. 1,2. he leaves some, and removes others, but taketh care for the security of all. He provided a grave lor 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, w'ho 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 diffi- culty be greater. Death is our Father's pale liorse 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 mi- series and distresses that are here, which is the meaning of Jer. xxii. 10. " Weep not for the dead, neither bemoan him ; but weep for
* Plutarch's Morals, p. 122.
A TOKEN FOR MOURNERS. 633
** 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 hence- " forth.^^