1. Learn froin hence the vanity of the creature, the emptiness, and nothingness of the best things here below. How hath God made your best comforts on earth to shrink up and vanish into nothing f How do your fancies varnish and gild over these empty bubbles ? What great expectations are we apt to raise from them ? How apt to fall asleep in the bosoms or la})S of earthly enjoyments, and say with Job, " I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand?^* When lo, in a moment, the projects and expectations of many years are overturned. O what a difference will you find betwixt hope founded in Christ, comforts drav/n out of the promises, and the flattering comforts and vain hopes founded in the creature, whose breath is in its nostrils ?
It is time for you, and for us all, to wean off from this vain world ;
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mortify your fancies and affections to it, and place them where they shall not be capable of disappointment.
2. Guard carefully, I beseech you, against those temptations which probably may accomplish this affliction. It may be Satan will suggest to your heart, what he once put into their lips; I\Ial. iii. 14. " What profit is it that we have kept his ordinances, and walked " mournfully before him .?" Where is the fruit of prayer ? What good have I seen of fasting ? What hath religion availed ? Do not prayerless and ungodly families thrive and prosper ? Beware of this. Madam, I doubt not but you will acknowledge, there liave been sins and provocations within your walls, yea, within your heart, for which God may as justly and severely judge your house as he did Eli's. Remember the rewai'ds of religion are not in this world ; and should we speak thus, we shall offend against the generation of his children. All we must expect from religion, is to save our souls by it.
3. Call not the love of God into question to yourself, or yours, because of these severe strokes of God upon you and them : You know Josiah was dear to God^ yet he died in the prime of his daysj by a violent hand, remote from his own home, and was brought home in the second chariot to Jerusalem ; a spectacle of far greater sorrow than your dear husband was ; and yet, notwithstanding all these sad circumstances of his death, the promise of his God was punctually performed to him, that he should die in peace, and not behold the evil that was to come. " There is a vanity (saith Solomon) which " is done upon the earth, that there be just men unto whom it hap- *' peneth according to the work of the wicked : Again, there be " wicked men, to whom it happeneth according to the work of the *' righteous," Eccl. viii. 14. But then remember, that it is but in the earth ; here, or no where, God must chastise his children.
4. See that you maintain that holy course of religious exercises in your family, and in your closet, wherein he walked so exemplarily before you. Let religion live, though he be dead ; and convince the world, I pray you, that it was God's influence, and not your husband's only, which was the spring and principle of this holy course.
5. Strive not with your Maker, nor fret against the Lord under this irksome and painful dispensation : Remember, there is a woe hanging over this sin ; Isa. xlv. 9, 10. Woe to him that striveth with his Maker. There is a twofold striving of men with God, one law- ful and commendable ; when we strive with him upon the knee of importunity in prayer ; thus Jacob wrestled with God, and prevail- ed, Hos. xii. 4. The other is highly sinful and dangerous, when we presume to censure, or accuse any of his works, as defective in wis- dom or goodness. He that reproveth God, let him answer it, i. e. At his peril be it. This sinful striving with God is twofold ; either I'ocal or mental.
1. Vocal. When men, in bold blasphemous language, arraign the Vol. VI. I
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wisdom, power, goodness, or faithfulness of the Lord, at the bar of tlieir own reason ; and there condemn them, setting their mouths against the heavens, Ps. Ixxiii. 8, 9- This is the sin of the wicked, yea, of the first-born sons of wickedness.
2. Mental. In inward frets, murmurs, repinings against God ; Prov. xix. 3. " The foolishness of man perverts his way, and his heart ^' fretteth against the Lord." The heart may cry out impatiently against God, when the tongue is silent : And if the frets and mur- murs of the heart be (as indeed they are) interpretatively no better than a striving with our Maker ; then this sin would be found more common among good men in the jmroxisms of affliction than we imagine. It will be necessary therefore, for your sake, and for the sakes of many more in a like state of affliction with you, to stay a while on this head, and consider these following queries.
Qiiei-y I. How far may we enquire of God, expostulate, and com- plain in times of affliction, without sin ?
Query II. Wherein lies the sinfulness and danger of exceeding these bounds ?
Query III. What considerations are most proper and powerful to restrain the afflicted soul from this sinful excess ?
Query 1. How far may we enquire of God, expostulate with him^ and complain to him in times of affliction, without sin .?
Sol. 1. We may humbly enquire into the causes and reasons of God's displeasure against us, not to seek matter for owx justification^ but direction in the work of our humiliation : so David enquired about the three years famine, and the Lord informed him, for whose sake, and for what sin it was, 2 Sam. xxi. 1. And thus Job addressed to him in the day of his affliction, Job x. 2. Shew me wherefore thou contendest with me ; i. e. convince me, what special sin it is, for which I am thus afflicted. This is so far from being our sin, that it is both our duty, and the excellency of our spirits : it is a child-like temper, willing to know, that we may be particularly humbled for that sin, and for ever the more careful to shun it. " That which I see not, " teach thou me ; if I have done iniquity, I will do so no more," Job xxxiv. 32. Thus far we are safe.
2. We may plead by prayer, and put him in mind of his mercies, relations, and promises, in order to the change of his providential dis- pensations towards us : Wc may say to him under the smartest rod, as the church did, " Doubtless thou art our Father,"" Psalm Ixxiv. 20. Have respect to the covenant; or as Jacob, Gen. xxxii. 9, 12. " Thou saidst, I will surely do thee good."
3. We may complain to God under our sufferings, and spread them before him in all their circumstances and aggravations, as Job, Heman, Asaph, Hezekiah and David did. He allows his children to complain to him, bat not of him : " I poured out my complaint before " him ; I shewed before him my trouble," Psal. cxlii. 2. To whom
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sliould a child make his complaint, but to his father ? So far we are safe.