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 has 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 of your prayer.

Again. Your prayers may be answered, though the thing prayed for be withheld, yea, although 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, Dan. ix. 23; or by suspending the answer for a time, and giving it afterwards, Luke xviii. 7; or by withholding from you that mercy which you ask, and giving you a much better mercy in the room of it, Deut. iii. 24, compared with Deut. xxxiv. 4, 5; or, lastly, by giving you patience to bear the loss or want of it, 2 Cor. xii. 9. Now if the Lord has 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 has shut out your cry.

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. Ah! it is no common loss.

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 be given up 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 obe. dience to the will of your God, whom you love infinitely more.

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 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 flourishes its month, and then fades. This, therefore, should not be reflected on as so great a circumstance to aggravate your trouble.

But if your relation sleeps 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." In this hope you part with them; therefore act suitably to your hopes.

3. O 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 of 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.

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 he died in Christ, then he lived long enough in this world. It is truly said, that he has sailed long enough who has won the harbour; he has fought long enough who has obtained the victory; he has run long enough who has touched the goal; and he has lived long enough upon earth who has won heaven, be his days here never so few.

The sooner your relation died, the less sin has 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.

And whereas, you imagine that 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 has 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.

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 chidren to take comfort in, the loss had not been so great; but to lose all at one stroke is insupportable.

Religion allows not to Christians a liberty of expressing the death of their dear relations by so hard a word as the