Sad experience made a holy man once to 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: "Behold," saith he, "my son, which came out of my bowels, seeketh my life." I remember Seneca, in his consolatory epistle to his frend 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 mostly others 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 gracious 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

The

to his parents; for it is said, "That when Esau was forty years old, he took to wife Judith the daughter of Beerith the Hittite, which was a great grief to the mind of Isaac and Rebecca. 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: "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 presented as many and frequent prayers for his children, and particularly for his Ishmael, as any of you: we find one, and that a very pathetical one recorded"O that Ishmael might live before thee!" and yet you know how he proved, a son that yielded him no more comfort than Esau did to Isaac 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 a 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, "Neocles," saith he, "lived not to see the noble victory obtained by his son Themistocles; nor Miltiades to see the battle his son Cimon won in the field; nor Xantippus to hear his son Pericles preach and make ora

tions. 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 son 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 him than thou couldst endure to see? O think what a sad and doleful sight was that to Zedekiah-the king of Babylon brought his children and slew them before his eyes. Horrid spec

CONSIDERATION 5. How know you, but by this stroke which you so much lament, God hath taken them away from the evil to come?

It is 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: "Merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come." He leaves some, and removes others, but taketh care for the security of all. He provideth 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 broken 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, "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 are 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 beforehand, he seems to say to thee, as he did to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now, but hereafter thou shalt know it.” The eye of providence hath a prospect far beyond thine: it would be in probability 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 loosened beforehand, then an easy stroke lays it down upon the earth.

CONSIDERATION 6. A parting time must needs come, and why is not this as good as another?

You know before hand, your child or friend was mortal, and that the thread that linketh 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 surprised 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." 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 de