Page images
PDF
EPUB

having lost his dear and only son, got to his closet, there poured out his soul freely to the Lord; and when he came down to his friends that were waiting below to comfort him, and fearing how he would bear the stroke, he came from his duty with a cheerful countenance, telling them he would be content to bury a son, if it were possible, every day, provided he might enjoy such comforts as his soul had found in that private hour.

Go thy way, Christian, to thy God: get thee to thy knees in the cloudy and dark day. Retire from all creatures, that thou mayest have thy full liberty with thy God, and there pour out thy heart before him, in free, full, and brokenhearted confessions of sin. Judge thyself worthy of hell, as well as of this trouble. Justify God in all his smartest strokes. Beg him, in this distress, to put under thee the everlasting arms. Entreat one smile, one gracious look, to enlighten thy darkness, and cheer thy drooping spirit. Say, with the prophet, "Be thou not a terror to me: thou art my hope in the day of evil." Try what relief such a course will afford thee. Surely, if thy heart be sincere in this course, thou shalt be able to say with

that holy man in Psalm xciv. 19, in the multitude of my thoughts which I had within me, thy comforts have delighted my soul.

4. If you would bear the loss of your dear relations with moderation, eye God in the whole process of the affliction more, and secondary causes and circumstances of the matter less.

Consider the hand of the Lord in the whole matter, and that as a sovereign hand, which has right to dispose of thee and all thy comforts without thy leave or consent, Job xxiii. 13.-Consider it is also as a father's hand, correcting thee in love and faithfulness. "Whom the Lord loveth he correcteth, as a father the son in whom he delighteth." O! if once you could but see affliction as a rod in a father's hand, proceeding from his love, and intended for your eternal good, how quiet would you then be! And surely, if it draws your heart nearer to God, and mortifies it more to this vain world, it is a rod in the hand of a special love. If it ends in your love to God, doubt not but it comes from God's love to you. Consider it as a just and righteous hand. Hast not thou procured this to thyself by thine own folly? Yea, the Lord is just in

all that is come upon thee. Whatever he has done, he has done thee no wrong.

-Consider it as a moderate and merciful hand, one that punished thee less than thine iniquities deserve. He who has cast thee into affliction, might justly have cast thee into hell. It is of the Lord's mercy that thou art not consumed. "Why doth a living man complain?"

5. If you will bear your affliction with moderation, compare it with the afflictions of other men ; and that will greatly quiet your spirits.

You have no cause to say that God has dealt bitterly with you, and that there is no sorrow like your sorrow. Look round about you, and impartially consider the condition that others are in; and they nothing inferior to you in any respect. You had one dear child taken from you; Aaron had two at a stroke, Job all at one; and both these by an immediate stroke from the hand of God. Some godly parents have lived to see their children die in their sin by the hand of justice; others have seen them live to the dishonour of God, and the breaking of their own spirits, and would have esteemed it a mercy if they had died from the womb, and given up the ghost when they

came out of the belly, as Job speaks. In what misery have some parents seen their children die! God holding them as so many terrible spectacles of misery before their eyes; so that they begged the Lord with importunity to let loose his bands, and cut them off-death being, in their esteem, nothing to those continual agonies in which they have seen them lie from day to day. O! you little know what a bitter cup others have given them to drink! Surely, if you compare, you must say, the Lord has dealt gently and graciously with me.

6. Carefully shun and avoid whatsoever may renew your sorrow or provoke you to impatience.

Increase not your sorrow by the sight of, or discourses about sad objects; and labour to avoid them, as occasions presented by the enemy of your souls to draw forth the corruptions of your heart.

I told you before, why Jacob would not have the child of which Rachel died called after the name his wife had given, Benoni, the son of my sorrow; lest it should prove a daily occasion of renewing his trouble for the loss of his dear wife; but he called his name Benjamin. Your impatience is like tinder, or gunpowder;

so long as you can prevent the sparks from falling on it, there is no great danger; but you, who carry such dangerous prepared matter in your own hearts, cannot be too careful to prevent them. Do by murmuring as you do by blasphemous thoughts; think quite another way, and give no occasion.

7. In the day of your murmuring for the death of your friends, seriously consider your own death as approaching, and that you and your dead friend are separated by a small interval and point of time, "I shall go to him," 2 Sam. xii. 23.

Surely the thoughts of your own death as approaching, will greatly allay your sorrows for the dead that are gone before you.

We are apt to fancy that a long life in the world, and then the loss of those comforts, from which we promised ourselves so much of the sweetness and comforts of our lives, is an intolerable thing; but would you realize your own death more, you would not be so deeply concerned for the death of others as you are. Could you but look into your own grave more seriously, you would be able to look into your friend's grave more composedly. And thus I have finished what I de

« PreviousContinue »