ed, and casts up nothing but the froth of vain and useless complaints of our misery, or the dirt of sinful and wicked complaints of the dealings of the Lord with us.

The rod of affliction goes round, and visits all sorts of persons, without difference. It is upon the tabernacles of the just and the unjust, the righteous and the wicked; both are mourning under the rod. The godly are not so to be minded, as that the other be wholly neglected; they have as strong and tender, though not as regular affections to their relations, and must not be wholly suffered to sink under their unrelieved burdens.

Here, therefore, I must have respect to two sorts of persons, whom I find in tears on the same account, the loss of their dear relations—the regenerate, and the unregenerate. I am a debtor to both, and shall aim at their support and assistance; for even the unregenerate call for our help and pity, and must not be neglected and wholly slighted in their affictions. We must pity them who cannot pity themselves. The law of God commands us to help a beast, if fallen under its burden; how much more a man sinking under a load of sorrows!

I confess, uses of comfort to the unregenerate are not ordinarily in use among us; and it may seem strange whence any thing of support should be drawn for them who have no special interest in Christ or the promises. I confess also that I find myself under great disadvantages for this work. I cannot offer them those reviving cordials which are contained in Christ and the covenant for God's afflicted people; but yet such is the goodness of God, even to his enemies, that they are not left wholly without support or means to allay their sorrow. If this therefore be thy case, who readest these lines-afflicted and unsanctified, mourning bitterly for thy dead friends, and more cause to mourn for thy dead soul, Christless and graceless, as well as childless or friendless; no comfort in hand, nor yet in hope, full of trouble, and no vent by prayer or faith to ease thy heart-poor creature, thy case is sad; but yet do not wholly sink and suffer thyself to be swallowed up of grief. Thou hast laid thy dear one in the grave, yet throw not thyself headlong into the grave after him; that will not be the way to remedy thy misery; but sit down awhile, and ponder these three things:

1. That of all persons in the world, thou hast most reason to be tender over thy life and health, and careful to preserve it; for if thy troubles destroy thee, thou art eternally lost. undone for ever. "Worldly sorrow worketh death;" and if it works death, it works thy damnation also; for hell follows that pale horse, Rev. vi. 8. If a believer die, there is no danger of hell to him; the second death has no power over him; but woe to thee if it overtake thee in thy sin? Beware, therefore, what thou doest against thy health and life. Do not put the candle of sorrow too near that thread by which thou hangest over the mouth of hell. O it is far better to be childless or friendless on earth, than hopeless and remediless in hell.

2. Own and admire the bounty and goodness of God manifested to thee in this affliction; that when death came into thy family to smite and carry off one, it had not fallen to thy lot to be the person. Thy husband, wife, or child is taken, and thou art left. Had thy name been in the commission, thou hadst been now past hope.

O the sparing mercy of God, the wonderful long-suffering of God towards

thee! Possibly that poor creature that is gone, never provoked God as thou hast done. Thy poor child never abused mercies, neglected calls, treasured up the ten thousandth part of guilt which thou hast done; so that thou mightest well imagine that death should rather have cut thee down, that hadst so provoked God, than thy poor little one. But O, the admirable patience of God! O, the riches of his long-suffering! Thou art only warned, not smitten by it. Is there nothing in this worth thankful acknowledgment? Is it not better to be in black for another on earth, than in the blackness of darkness for ever? Is it not easier to go tr the grave with thy dead friend, and weep there, than to go to hell among the damned, where there is "weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth."

3. This affliction for which thou mournest, may be the greatest mercy to thee that ever yet befel thee in this world. God has now made thy heart soft by trouble, shewed thee the vanity of this world, and what a poor trifle it is which thou madest thy happiness: there is now a dark cloud spread over all thy worldly comforts. Now, O now, if the Lord would but strike in with this affliction,

Ꭰ

and by it open thine eyes to see thy deplorable state, and take off thy heart for ever from the vain world, which thou now seest has nothing in it, and cause thee to choose Christ, the only abiding good, for thy portion: if now thy affliction may but bring thy sin to thy remembrance, and thy dead friend may but bring thee to a sense of thy dead soul, which is as cold to God and spiritual things, as his body is to thee, and more loathsome in his eyes, than that corpse is, or shortly will be, to the eyes of men; then this day is certainly a day of the greatest mercy that ever yet thou sawest. O happy death, that shall prove life to thy soul !

Why this is sometimes the way of the Lord with men ; "If they be bound in fetters, and holden in cords of affliction, then he sheweth them their work and their transgression, that they have exceeded he openeth also their ear to discipline, and commandeth them that they shall return from iniquity," Job xxxvi. 8, 9.

O consider, poor pensive creature, that which stole away thy heart from God is now gone; that which ate up thy time and thoughts, that there was no