yet there may be ways of unhallowing Marriage and turning that into a sin which was at first ordained for the greatest Blessing For if only Interest or Humour or Lust be the chief foundation and ingredient of our Choice or if some sinful pre-ingagement or lewd Amours make Marriage necessary for the hiding our shame or if any of these things do cause a Contract or make up the match we may expect that God in justice may blast and curse the fruits of our Body for the sin of our Soul and for the sins of our flesh too An instance whereof we have in Gods decreeing the death of Davids Child which though it was born in Marriage yet God utterly dislik'd the Conjunction the first occasion and grounds thereof being laid in Adulterous Embraces David making no scruple to murder the Husband that he might obtain the Wife But when David heard that heavy sentence against his Child that he should surely die for his sin might not he have confest himself altogether in the fault and desired to suffer wholly himself and have said as in another Case 1 Chron. 21. 17. It is I have sinned and done evil indeed but as for this Lamb this Innocent Babe what has it done Let thy hand be upon me or my Fathers House and not on this Child that that should be plagued I say one would think that David should have set himself to deprecate Gods displeasure against his Child upon his account and desired to have sustained the burthen of his own sin But the sentence was gone out and what was written was written and there was no reversing the Decree And therefore all they that intend to change their condition and desire that they may leave their Inheritance to their Children had best look to it and have a care that they do not make Lust or any sinful Pre-ingagement a Preamble and Introduction to Marriage for fear God disappoint them in their hopes and desires and either write them Childless or take away their Children in wrath for their folly and wickedness For though God spared David and gave him a grant of his own life that he should not die yet there is no begging the life of his Child the Prophet reading its Destiny the Child that is born shall surely die So that for people to couple together in a scandalous and sinful way and to make Lust the basis and foundation of Marriage is to murther their Children in the Womb and in a manner to predestinate them to destruction But then when David heard that his Child should not live but was under a sentence of Death and that according to the words of the Prophet it presently fell sick and was desperately ill How then did he behave himself Truly like a very kind and indulgent Father for it was no sooner struck with sickness but David besought God for the Child And David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the Earth and the Elders of the House arose and went to him to raise him up from the Earth but he would not neither did he eat bread with them in the 16 and 17. v. of this Chapter Here we see David in a sad and mournful posture expressing all the symptoms and signs of a mighty sorrow and being earnest in Prayer to God for it which if all Parents would do the like upon the same occasion when their Children are sick or any ways afflicted they would find their Prayers to be a more efficacious way than all the Drugs of the Apothecary or the numberless prescriptions of the Physicians for the recovery of their Children For the effectual fervent Prayer of the Righteous availeth much But then we may consider that David had great reason to bewail the sickness of the Child as first being the effect and punishment of his sin and secondly upon the account of natural affection First He had a great deal of reason to grieve and be troubled at the sickness of his Child it being sent as a punishment for his own personal sin and therefore when he saw it in misery and pain and great anguish and considered that it suffered all this principally for his sake that he had the greatest hand in bringing all this trouble and sorrow upon it and that he was the great Actor in the Tragedy and this his sin occasion'd this great scene of sorrows How could he do otherwise than lay the sickness of it to heart and take on bitterly to think that by the murder of Vriah he had caus'd the Death of his Child and that by committing folly with Bathsheba he had brought such an affliction upon their Issue I say such a consideration must needs wound David to the very heart and cause him to make great Lamentations over the Child And truly the same sorrows would become even the best Parents and it might not be amiss for them to make some like Reflections For the Parents are generally apt to impute the Distempers the Sickness the Death of their Children either to want of due care in their Nurses or to the badness of the Air or the unwholesomness of the Season or ill diet or the irregular course of the Physician I say though we are apt to ascribe the sickness and Death of our Children to these outward and secondary Causes yet we should do well to suspect our sins as the cause of their misery and sufferings and to believe that there is something more than ordinary in the afflictions of such harmless and innocent Creatures Surely the Parents have sin'd though these poor Lambs suffer and therefore it is good and convenient that all Parents do examine themselves and see whether they need go any further than themselves to find out the true cause and original of those many weaknesses and distempers which they see in their Children and for which they seem so much concern'd and troubled How mightily are some Parents troubled to see their Children grow crooked and deform'd and yet little consider that possibly their Children are the unhandsomer for their being so proud of themselves and glorying in their Beauty others are griev'd to see their Children prove such Punies so feeble and infirm and of such a weak Constitution and do not reflect upon the debaucheries of their life and how they have lost their strength in Dalilahs Lap. And it is a general complaint and observation that every Age declines more and more in strength and virility and that the latter Generation of men are dwindled almost into Pigmies in comparison of what they were formerly and yet men do little consider that Luxury and riotous Living may be assigned as the grand Causes and Reasons of this great Degeneracy And we also see that new and strange Diseases do creep up daily and multiply and invade humane Bodies and yet we seldom impute these decays and breakings of nature to the vices of our Progenitors Whereas we have just reason to grieve at the sight of those many Diseases which
the dead give hearty thanks to God that it hath pleased him to deliver our Dear Friends and Relations out of the miseries of this sinful World which may furnish us with another consideration that might possibly incur into Davids mind and help to suspend and allay his sorrowing for his dead Child and that is this That it was remov'd far above the power of sin and temptation We at present as the Apostle Paul complains carry about us a Body of sin and death We are subject to manifold sins and temptations and have brought with us into the World those corruptions which in time will ripen into and sally forth in great actual transgressions Job makes a kind of wonder at it that any man should think he can be perfectly pure and innocent in this body of flesh For what is man that he should be clean or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Job 15. 14. and so David tells us Psal 51. 5. That sin is the Inheritance of our Parents that we are infected with it in the Womb and that we are born with propensions to evil Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me So that the seeds of disobedience are lodged in our nature and the ground-work of sin is laid deep within us and there is nothing wanting but time and opportunity to make it bring forth in abundance So that when our Children die very young and go early to their Graves we may comfort our selves with this consideration that we lose them in good time and before they have added any actual to original sin and that if they had liv'd much longer they would have contracted a new and further guilt and perhaps have advanc'd in sin as they did in Years for 't is certain that the strength of nature gives strength to our sins too and 't is only Age that qualifies and fits us for great and notorious wickedness So that that sin which was only in Embryo in our infancy comes within a few years to a perfect shape and our propensions to evil in a small process of time are reduced to real and visible acts My meaning is that although there is a natural aptness and proclivity in Mankind to sin and err from the Laws of our Maker yet sin does lie hid and brooding in the time of our infancy and is only hatcht into perfection by the addition of longer time and although we have all the principles of wickedness inherent in us at the very first moment of our Nativity yet we are too impotent to commit evil and to offend God at that rate as when we come to a full stature in Years and knowledge We may be full of bad inclinations when we are young and Children but 't is only Age that can make us capable of doing mischief and to be workers of iniquity and we cannot so highly provoke God when we are ignorant and childish and know nothing of him as when we come to the perfect use of reason and to know his will and yet run Counter to it And therefore the Death of our Children may be a happy prevention of their sining and if they live so long as to receive the benefit of Baptism and to be regenerate and born anew of Water and the Holy Ghost and so be made lively members of Christs Church we are bound to thank God for the mercy of their Regeneration and that they had their sins wash'd away in the laver of Holy Baptism so as that they go much purer out of the World than they came into it whereas if they had liv'd longer in the World they would have contracted a greater guilt and had more sins to answer for they would have been continually liable to temptations and in danger of falling into great and grievous sins and to be corrupted by the bad examples which abound in all places of the World And therefore there is no reason why Parents should so much lament their Childrens leaving them so soon if they do seriously consider that 't is a naughty World we live in and that mens love and practice of wickedness is exceeding great and that 't is impossible to escape all the pollutions that are in it and if they do further consider how much humane nature is tainted with original sin and corruption which prompts us on to evil continually and what a subtile and vigilant Adversary we have who is always seeking to beguile and destroy us and how thick set the World is with snares and temptations I say if this consideration did but enter into our minds it would be of great force and power to asswage our Passion and to allay our sorrow for the death of our Friends and Relations it being a very comfortable thing to contemplate the happiness and priviledge of those that have shook of the clogs and fetters of the flesh and let fall their Bodies the troublesome Mantles of their Souls and are now expatiating in Regions of Bliss and Happiness and live in the pure Element of Goodness and where 't is impossible that any temptation should approach or sin have any Dominion over them Lastly Another thing which might stop Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration that it was the will of God it should be so He considered that it was altogether foolish and in vain to enter into any controversie with God about his dealings with his Child or to stand expostulating the justice of God in taking it away For he was convinc'd that Gods will ought to be a Law unto us and that there is no need of disputing the Righteousness and Equity thereof it being always rul'd and determin'd by his wisdom and justice and goodness For though God be of an infinite and uncontroulable power and can do whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth yet there is a Maxime in Theology as well as Policy That the King of Heaven can do no wrong It must be acknowledg'd by us all that our life and being is the gift and blessing of God and so is the life of our Children too and therefore when God does in mercy give us Children so he may with justice take them away For may not he dispose of his gifts and do with his own as he pleases God lent us Children for a little time on purpose to please us shall we be troubled when he resumes them to himself or griev'd when he requires them back we are to observe that there is a great difference between Gods way of disposing his gifts and that of mens For though it be common with men to make a Deed of Gift and to transfer their own right to a thing wholly to another so as to lose all propriety in it yet God does not make the same disposition of his gifts in that absolute manner but when he gives us Riches or Honour or Children or any other gifts he does not make over to us all
very hopeful and pregnant Youths and of great expectations in the World Octavia she laid so much to heart the death of her Marcellus that she could not endure the least mention of his name but was ready to sink whenever she heard it and would not admit that the least word of comfort should be spoken unto her Talis sayes Seneca per omnem vitam fuit qualis in funere she mourn'd and took on at the same rate all her life-time as she did at the time of the Funeral But Livia she behaved her self quite otherwise and though she lost her Drusus who was a great man at present and rising to be a Prince yet she beheld the pompous Funeral that was made for him and how his Death was lamented by the whole Nation as a publick and general loss without falling into any great fit of Passion and as Seneca phrases it ut primum intulit tumulo simul illum dolorem suum posuit she buried all her sorrow in his Grave and laid aside her grief as soon as he was laid in the ground And having propounded these Examples to Marcia he refers it to her wisdom and discretion which of them she would chuse to follow But I dare not make any such proposition to your Ladyship or make the least question which way your choice is determined being well assured that you steer all the actions of your life by the compass of Reason and Religion So that I need not tell you that Moderation is the Christians Motto and that there is quaedam dolendi modestia A Rule of Decency to be observ'd in our very Mourning And therefore if your Ladyship will be pleased to pardon the trouble and presumption of this Dedication I shall add little more but only to make some Apology and to acquaint you with the reason why this Discourse was presented no sooner to your hands And truly I can give you no other reason but what the Excellent Cicero and Seneca have given long before to excuse their writing their Tracts of Consolation so late to their Friends viz. that I thought a Comforter would hardly be admitted or very welcome to you when you were in the Zenith of your sorrows and that it was improper as Physicians think it in other Cases to apply a Remedy or administer Physick till the Fit was over But now that your sorrows have had a considerable time to spend themselves and that the flood of your tears as may be presum'd is pretty well abated I thought that this Discourse would come at the most opportune and convenient time to have your Consideration and to put a full stop to your Mourning And now that I have given your Ladyship the reason why this Discourse came so late perhaps others may require a reason why it came so soon and why I would venture to expose it to publick especially in such a Critical Age wherein the most Correct Discourses can hardly pass muster with some captious Wits and escape their censure and reflection But the most that I can say for my self why I have publisht such a slender Discourse is this That although there is a great plenty of Authors who have written excellently well upon this subject of the great unreasonableness of intemperate Mourning for the Dead yet few have so confined themselves as to handle it with a particular respect to the loss and Death of Children which being a common and daily Calamity and the sorrows thereupon so mightily prevailing and judged to be not only natural but highly reasonable I thought with my self that it might not be amiss to endeavour to obviate this vulgar Error and to lay down such Arguments as might be a perpetual fence against all inordinate sorrowings for the loss of Children And I hope that my good intentions herein will make some Atonement for the failings of my Pen. And that it will be a great Provocation to some able and judicious Divines to set upon providing and furnishing the World with better and more substantial Arguments against this sort of Passion which is often so violent and outragious both in Parents and others upon the loss of their Children and Relations to the great scandal both of their reason and their Christian Belief I have as your Ladyship may easily see avoided all flowery Expressions or to deck up this Discourse with the paint and varnish of Oratory as considering that the plainer it was the more suitable to wait upon a Lady in Mourning But after all it must be confess'd that you have had a great affliction and a deplorable loss in the Death of your only Child and only Son But I doubt not but God will give you a better Name than that of Sons and Daughters and that by your eminent Example and practice of true Virtue and Piety you will entail a greater blessing upon your Family than if you left behind you a large and numerous Progeny Now that you and your Relations may live long to bless the World with your Excellent and Pious Examples and when you leave this troublesome Place may be translated to a Kingdom of Joy and Peace and rest Eternally in a Bosom of Blessedness is and shall ever be the Ardent Prayer of Your Ladyships Most humble and devoted Servant JOHN OWEN COMFORT FOR PARENTS UPON THE DEATH OF THEIR CHILDREN 2 Sam. xii 21 22 23. 21. Then said his servants unto him What thing is this that thou hast done Thou didst fast and weep for the Child while it was alive but when the Child was dead thou didst rise and eat bread 22. And he said While the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the Child may live 23. But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me BEfore I fall directly upon the words in the Text it may be convenient and necessary to give you some previous account of the occasion of the Death of the Child which David had by Bathsheba in the time of whose sickness David mourn'd exceedingly and was much cast down and took on heavily and after whose Death he seem'd to be comforted and to take heart which occasion'd these words that I have now read unto you Now in the Chapter immediately before this we have a sad story and relation of Davids Adultery and Murder how that from the temptation of his own idleness and Bathsheba's Beauty he committed Folly with her and drew aside the Curtains of her Husbands Retirements and when he had overcome and corrupted the Wife there is mention of the great Artifices which he used to bring Vriah the Husband to cloak and cover this foul and shameful sin of his and when Vriah out of pure Loyalty and a hearty Zeal for his service refus'd to take that ease and pleasure which David under a colour of love and
friendship advis'd him to and when all those little arts and ignoble devices of entertaining him in his Palace and at his Table and making him drunk would not bring Vriah to his purpose then how basely and unworthily does he plot and contrive his Murder by giving Orders to his General to set him in the most dangerous place in the Front of the Battel which poor Innocent Vriah might possibly take for an Honour and interpret it an Argument and esteem of his greater Courage when in truth he was onely plac'd there as a mark to be shot at and to fall a Sacrifice to his Sovereigns Lust Which accordingly hapned Vriah being slain upon the spot and dying in that station where it was not likely he should live And when David had thus secretly in his heart designed Vriahs Death yet when news was brought to him that Vriah was dead he cunningly and slily pretends to look upon it as no other than a Casualty the misfortune of War saying with himself that such chances will come and bid the Messenger tell Joab that there was no reason why he should be troubled or concern'd at the Death of Vriah for there was no saving any mans life in Battel none could be priviledg'd from Death in Warlike Encounters and that the Arrows or Bullets made no distinction and that all are alike liable to destruction and that Vriah might as well fall and be slain as any other in the Army which is the sence of those very words which David caus'd to be return'd to Joab in the 25. ver of the foregoing Chapter Then David said unto the Messenger Thus shalt thou say unto Joab Let not this thing displease thee For the Sword devoureth one as well as another And lastly When David had thus dispatcht and caus'd the Innocent Husband to be made away he then takes the guilty Wife into his possession and marries her and expects to live many happy and pleasant days in mutual endearments But though David thought that the marrying her would legitimate their love and take off the old scandal of their former Embraces yet it was an act highly offensive to God and is so exprest in the last v. of the Chapter And when the mourning was past David sent and fet her to his House and she became his Wife and bare him a Son but the thing which David had done displeased the Lord. But then notwithstanding that David had committed those two horid sins of Adultery and Murder yet he had not any true sense and feeling of his guilt nor that remorse of Conscience which he should have had for sins of that Crimson die but he rubs on a considerable time without any regret or sign of repentance which insensibility and hardness of heart we may justly ascribe to his living in ease and enjoying the Charms of Bathsheba's Beauty which at first inticed him to sin and afterwards made him forget it whilst his Soul was steep'd in pleasure and triumphing in the injoyment of his new Spouse But whilst David was in his Nuptial jollity and swallowed up in fond Caresses and doting upon that Beauty which had formerly bewitcht him God stirs up his Prophet Nathan to give him some check and interruption in his solaces by propounding something that might bring his late horrid sins to his remembrance And accordingly the Prophet does his office and propounds to him the Parable of the poor man with his little Ewe-Lamb How that this was his only Companion his only Darling his Bosom Friend that he had nothing else to love and delight in nor that he could call his own but this one poor Innocent Creature and yet there was a rich man which had a numerous Flock and enough to make a Feast for any Friend or Stranger whatsoever and yet was guilty of so much incivility and injustice as to take away this single Lamb from a poor man with a pretence that he needed it to make an Entertainment which he might have done without the least wrong or detriment to himself as having such a number of his own and so many which he might well have spar'd Which Parable was no sooner propounded to David but he resents the Act with a great deal of indignation and delivers his opinion against him that should do such a fact as an unpardonable offender and that he was guilty of such a high piece of injustice that he was not fit to live For him that had enough of his own and yet to invade the right and property of a poor man and to rob him of his little All was in Davids Judgment an unsufferable wrong and injury and that he that did it deserv'd nothing less than Death for so are the words in the fifth ver of this Chapter And Davids anger was greatly kindled against the man And he said to Nathan As the Lord liveth the man that hath done this thing shall surely die And he shall restore the Lamb fourfold because he did this thing and because he had no pity So just and severe was David in condemning the robbing of a poor man and taking away the small substance he had But then when the Prophet took upon him to make a nearer Representation of the case and to bring it home to himself and point-blank to charge him with the like injustice which he had so severely condemned in another saying Thou art the man We must needs think that David was much startled when the guilt recoil'd upon himself and that his own Conscience made the rebound But then when it was brought so close to him that there was no avoiding his own self-Condemnation David presently makes an ingenuous Confession saying I have sinned against the Lord. And such we may observe are the mercies of God that his pardon follows immediately upon his Confession And Nathan said unto David The Lord hath also put away thy sin thou shalt not die in the 13. v. Howbeit in the next v. says the Prophet Because thou hast by this deed given great occasion to the Enemies of the Lord to blaspheme the Child also that is born unto thee shall surely dy Where we may observe that although God was pleased to grant him the greatest pardon of his life yet he does not give him a general pardon from other Punishments but assures him at the same time that he granted him his life that he should have such a punishment wherein he might read the nature and deserts of his sins The Child that is born unto thee shall surely die From whence it may not be unuseful to observe that God is pleased sometimes to lay the Punishment due to the Parents sin upon their Children and so here David had sinned and the Child must die for it which may be of great use and moment to make people more wary and deliberate how they enter into the Holy State of Matrimony For though it be a Divine Institution and ordained of God in Paradise and the State of Mans Innocency
has perform'd greater Cures and greater Recoveries and done greater wonders than all the Elixirs or Proprietates or Nostrums of the most skilful and renown'd Physicians It was Prayer that restored Hezekiah from a dangerous sickness and prolong'd his Days it was Prayer which supported David under all his troubles and gave him ease in his greatest extremities it was Prayer that opened the eyes of the blind and ejected the Devils and did the most glorious things to all Admiration and therefore we must apply our selves to God and depend upon our Prayers as the most proper and specifick remedy in afflictions We must be fervent and frequent and importunate in Prayers to God on the behalf of our Friends and Relations and who can tell whether God will be gracious to us that our Friends may live But then may some reply and say it was in vain for David to use Prayer or any other means it was to no purpose for him to expect the recovery of his Child or that God should answer him though he pray'd never so much For he knew that God had decreed the Death of his Child and told him in as plain words as could be by his Prophet that the Child should surely die and why then should David flatter himself so as to imagine that he could do the Child any good by his Prayers or prevail with God for his Recovery Why should he use that dubious Language as who can tell 't is possible or it may be that the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live Why should he stand doubting or supposing a possibility of a thing when God had positively declared the contrary To which I Answer That God declared by his Prophet Jonah the destruction of the Ninevites and prefixt the time to just forty days and this was declared with as great positiveness as the Death of Davids Child by the Prophet Nathan and the Prophet Jonah try'd and said Yet forty days and Nineveh shall be overthrown in the 3. of Jonah and 4. v. and yet after the delivery and promulgation of this sentence the Ninevites did not despond or utterly despair of Gods mercy but fell to repentance and humbling themselves and put the success to the same venture that David did and much in the same Language saying in the 9. v. Who can tell if God will return and repent and turn away from his fierce anger that we perish not And what was the Issue of their Repentance and Humiliation and using the best means they could to divert Gods Judgments Why the Issue was that by their Repentance they stav'd off the judgment and put it back as we may see in the 10. and last ver And God saw their works that they turned from their evil ways and God repented of the evil that he had said that he would do unto them and did it not And so in the 20. Ch. of the 2. of Kings God ordered the Prophet Isaiah to go and carry to Hezekiah the same message of Death and to acquaint him that he must expect no other than Death Thus saith the Lord Set thine House in order for thou shalt die and not live Could any thing be more absolute and positive than these words and yet Hezekiah instead of melancholizing himself with the thoughts of Death or expecting it every hour turned his face to the Wall and prayed unto the Lord saying I beseech thee O Lord remember now how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart and have done that which is good in thy sight and Hezekiah wept sore in the 3. ver And what good will you say could Hezekiah's praying and weeping and appealing to the Righteousness of his life do him Could that or any thing else save him and prevent his dying when God had so solemnly Decreed yes truly his Prayer and Repentance did him so much good as to prevail with God to grant him a longer Lease of his life and ordered the same Prophet that had just now told him of his Death to return forthwith and acquaint him also that he had reverst the fatal sentence Turn again and tell Hezekiah the Captain of my people Thus saith the Lord the God of David thy Father I have heard thy Prayer I have seen thy tears behold I will heal thee on the third day thou shalt go up unto the House of the Lord. And I will add unto thy days fifteen years What then shall we say that there is any change in the Divine Decrees or any inconstancy in God or that he is worse than his word when he thus positively denounces judgment and yet suspends it God forbid says the Apostle yea let God be true but every man a lyar as it is written that thou mightest be justified in thy sayings And therefore for the clearing of God from all imputation of falshood or mutability in these instances of his judgments denounced against sinners without any actual execution we are to understand that those threatnings of God in Scripture which run in an absolute form have a condition imply'd that is Nineveh shall be destroyed and Hezekiah shall die except they repent So that God does still reserve a power of revocation and puts in a conditional clause of repentance which though it be not exprest yet is always to be understood and therefore where Gods threatnings of death and destruction seem most peremptory and final we are yet to attempt the diverting and preventing them by our Prayers and repentance we are to use the means and as we say leave the success to God For who knows but the Lord may be gracious But if God will not hear our Prayers nor accept our Repentance as he did neither in the present Case of Davids Child yet we are to use the most proper means and to try all the ways imaginable to pacify Gods anger and to appease his wrath and still to go on praying and repenting as David did We are not to despond of mercy or to despair of success but at the very last push and the utmost extremity of affliction to say who can tell but the Lord will be gracious And thus I have delivered to you the just reasons why David mourn'd so exceedingly for his Child when it lay upon a Bed of sickness and languishing As first considering that his own sin was the chief and declared cause of his Child 's grievous and desperate sickness and secondly upon the account of that natural affection which is in all Parents toward their Children which moves their bowels to pity and bewail them when they are in misery and distress But then the great wonder is that the Father which was so much concern'd and deeply immerst in sorrow for the sickness of his Child should give over mourning upon the death and loss of it that his sorrow should expire and be at an end as soon as the Child was departed and had given up the Ghost But now he is dead why
Job and 8. v. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off and in the 3. ch and 20. v. He speaks much to the same purpose Saying Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more than for hid treasures Which rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave and in the 7. ch 3 4 and 5. vers He declares how uneasy and restless he was through the greatness and violence of his Diseases and how severely he was handled So am I made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become loathsome and in the 13. ch and 14. v. He professes that he had so little joy and comfort in his life that he would esteem it a mercy to die saying My Soul chuseth Death and strangling rather than life Nay he goes further and says that he was quite out of conceit with living and would not be immortal on Earth for never so much they are his own words I loath it I would not live always let me alone for my days are vanity and in the 10. ch and the 1. v. His afflictions seem to have been so great and lasting that they almost wore out his patience and he could not endure them any longer which makes him speak like a man in great extremity and a desperate condition Saying My soul is weary of my life and so David in the 6. Ps and 6. v. utters himself in the same manner Saying I am weary with my groanings And therefore David might well cease sorrowing for the loss of his Child when he consider'd the manifold Diseases that mankind is liable unto and that it often happens and that he himself had so experienc'd it that men meet with such sorrows and afflictions that make them weary of the World and exceedingly imbitter their lives and why then should he be troubled at the death of his Child and that it did not live to be in danger of enduring all the Diseases in the Bill of Mortality And how did he know but that if it had liv'd it might have prov'd of a sickly and weak Constitution and perhaps might bring those Infirmities into the World with it as were past all Cure and might be a sorrow to the Parents and a misery to their Child as long as it liv'd And besides Children run many risques and hazards whilst they are young and come oftentimes to great mischances and either they contract a lameness by a fall or lose one Eye or both by the small Pox or are drown'd or burnt or kill'd unfortunately any of which would prove matter of greater sorrow to Parents than a bare natural Death And therefore seeing God was pleased to take it away so very young and that it dropt off with its first sickness there was a great mixture of mercy in this sad Providence and little reason to be griev'd at such an early Death when it was so natural and perhaps prevented the meeting many sad mischances and a Troop of Diseases which are incident to this frail and perishing life And truly all Parents have the same reason which we suppose David had to comfort up themselves after the loss of their Children when they die very young as considering that an early death may prevent a miserable life and that it is much better to die young than to live longer and have such Diseases grow and hang upon us as shall make life a burthen to us And indeed though we are extreamly desirous of living and are sad and melancholy when we think of dying yet we may live so long as that we may have enough of it and may meet with such sore Diseases as may rob us of all pleasure and comfort in living and spoil our taking any contentment in the greatest injoyments this World does afford us we know how the case stood with Job and how that afflictions crowded in so thick upon him that as he often professes they made him even weary of his life And there is none of us that has any priviledge or exemption or greater security from Diseases than Job nor have we Bodies of Brass or Sinews of Iron more than he but we have Bodies subject to the same Infirmities and liable to be invaded by the same Diseases if God to make an experiment of our patience shall think fit to handle us as severely as he did Job and to inflict the same Diseases upon us And therefore we need not so much desire long life and length of days as commonly we do Because it may so happen that before we run out half our race or come to the middle of our Course besides the troubles that are from without we may meet with such a numerous train of bodily afflictions that may make us more covetous of death than ever we were of life and we may live to know so much sorrow and pain before we die that like Job we may be ready to curse our Birth Day and wish that we had never been born And therefore we should not be so very unwilling to depart and leave the World at any time though never so soon because we may suppose that the longer we continue in it the worse it may be for us and although we are in health at present and enjoy our selves finely yet Diseases may within a little time overtake and grow upon us which may make our life a perfect torment to us and cause us to consume our days in misery To speak compendiously all Parents and others have little reason to ingulph themselves in sorrows for the Death of their Friends and Relations and more especially if it be early and natural because when they are taken away so soon they happily miss of those sore and grievous distempers which in running out the whole stage of life do seize upon oftentimes and render this present life extreamly bitter and unacceptable And indeed what comfort is there to see our Friends often sick or roaring with the Stone or the Gout or some acute pain or to have them of an ill habit of Body or of a broken health and to be ever crazy and lingring with some fixt and incurable Disease What pleasure is it to see our Relations rotten and unsound and patcht up with Medicines and supported with the Arts of Physick and kept alive by nice and superstitious observations of diet or what delight can we take in injoying our Friends when they cannot enjoy themselves And what reason then have we to lay so much
the title to and interest in them but reserves to himself a power of Revocation so as that he may demand them back at pleasure he only gives us the use and comfort of them for a time but never parts with the propriety or resigns up all his claim to them And besides we should consider that although God does put those Children into our power and under our jurisdiction which he is pleas'd to give us yet that Parents have not that absolute power over their Children that God has nor are they wholly at their disposal as to the great Issues of Life and Death which are only in Gods Hands And therefore though we may look upon our Children as our own as being flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone though we may appropriate them to our selves and reckon we have the best title to them of all our Possessions yet still God retains the supream right and has the first and oldest title to them and we are only deputed by God to be the Overseers and Guardians of our Children and therefore as God is pleased to commit our Children to our care for some time yet when he does not like they should be any longer under our tuition he does in mercy and kindness to them take them away when he sees it not good for them to continue with us he then to shew his Authority removes them from us and calls them home And therefore Parents would do well to consider that God has more right to their Children than themselves and that they are absolutely at his disposal but not at theirs that they have not that power of Life and Death over their Children which God has And therefore Parents have no reason to be in that Hurricane and storm of Passion upon the loss of their Children unless they are troubled that God should have his will more than they have theirs unless they are grieved that God should take upon him to dispose of their Children without their consent and liking which argues a great impiety of mind as if they thought that God was either unjust in taking away the Children from their right Owners or unmerciful in not sparing of their lives which was a greater comfort to them than all other enjoyments whereas it would be much better and tend to hush and silence all the sorrows of Parents for the loss of their Children to consider that they are but under-Proprietors of their Children and that they came first from God before they came to them and that as God is the donour of them so he may well be allow'd the disposal of them whether for Life or Death And besides it should be consider'd that Gods will is and ought to be supream and Master of ours and that we should patiently leave them to Gods will and pleasure when he does not think fit to leave them to ours It was an excellent saying and submissive speech of Jobs ch 1. 21. who when God was pleased to bereave him of all his Children by violent and unnatural Deaths and of all his Worldly goods too yet submitted to his great misfortunes with an invincible patience and mildness saying Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thither the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord. Here is an Example beyond Example of Patience and quiet submission to the will of God in one of the greatest and severest trials imaginable here indeed is an Example fit for our imitation and should be drawn into practice upon the like occasion And it would highly become Parents and others and indeed is the duty of all to lay themselves at the will of God and with all humble Prostrations resign up their wills to his and to resign up their Children and Relations freely to him who first gave them freely to them And to say in like manner with Job God has indeed blessed us with Children but has not thought fit to continue them to us and though we could have been well content to have enjoy'd them if God had so pleas'd yet we are content to want them being he has thought it better both for them and for us to take them away The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord. Seneca will teach us otherwise in words to this purpose that we ought not to reckon all that we enjoy our own or to look upon our Children as a sure Inheritance and entailed upon us but consider that they are of the same uncertain hold and tenure as other outward blessings are that they are given us but for an uncertain time and that we must not promise to our selves any long or certain enjoyment of them if we are allow'd the use and benefit and comfort of our Children for a time 't is not fitting that we should mutter or think much to part with them when God demands his own and requires back what he only committed to us by way of lone but rather be in a readiness to part with our Children and all other blessings when God will not trust us with them any longer Having thus shew'd upon what considerations David might well cease sorrowing for his dead Child and which may be of excellent use and service to support and comfort others under the like losses and to prevent all excessive mourning for the Death of their Friends and Relations especially when they die young I shall now winde up the whole Discourse with a word or two First By way of Reproof Secondly By way of Exhortation First By way of Reproof to all those that are apt to quarrel with Providence and to entertain hard thoughts of God as if he were either unjust or unmerciful when he takes away their nearest and dearest Relations from them and do often in the bitterness of their Souls and the great anguish of their spirits charge God foolishly and speak unadvisedly with their lips and think they do well like Jonah to fret against the Almighty in that he deals with them after such a manner and will not suffer them to enjoy the desire of their Eyes and the joy of their Hearts so long as they wish and desire They assert with a great deal of sorrow that their Soul was wrapt up in the life of such and such a Child that it was an Absolom for its Beauty and a Solomon for its Wisdom and a Moses for its meekness and good nature that it was very pregnant and a great Wit and gave great and lively Specimens of future Vertue and Wisdom and therefore for God to deprive them of a Child that had naturally such Charms and whose vertuous temper and disposition did presage so much comfort to themselves and so great a benefit to the World must needs make deep and melancholy impressions upon their Spirits and put them into an extream Passion And thus Parents and others are apt to clamour against and censure the
appropriate to the future state would be the same fondness as to attempt to illustrate a Star with my Finger But yet for our great comfort and incouragement at present the Scripture gives us this plain notice and information of a glorious transformation as to our vile and terrestrial part How that then our vile Bodies shall be chang'd and made like unto Christs glorious Body that this mortal shall put on immortality and this corruptible incorruption How then can we that have this Hope faint in our mind or so much as shed a tear at the departure of our Friends out of this miserable Life seeing it will be so much for their advantage so very much for their preferment to leave us For they that are accounted worthy to obtain that World and the Resurrection from the Dead shall strangely exceed themselves and surpass all the excellencies of humane Nature at present and be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 equal to the Angels and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 bear the Image and Form of Christ himself And this equality to Angels and likeness to Christ is no more than what we have sure and certain grounds to hope for from the plain and positive words of Scripture and therefore we seem either not to believe or else to envy the happiness of those that depart this Life when we are in such extream Agonies of sorrow for their removal from us Wherefore let this Hope be always our support and comfort that Death is a certain advantage to our Friends that have so lived as to die the Death of the Righteous and that they are freed from the least touch or feeling of those sicknesses and pains and Diseases and Imperfections and from those toils and hardships which this mortal frail condition exposes us unto And having this Hope and belief of a better life hereafter Let us rather bless God for delivering our dearest Friends from this present evil World and taking them away from the evil to come Let us I say bless God for doing that singular favour to our Friends whom we lov'd so well as to translate them to Glory and Happiness before us and in giving them such an early possession of that Crown of Life which we all so much strive and pray to attain rather than repine at Gods Providence in not letting them stay any longer with us in this Valley of Tears Let us look upon Death rather as a mercy than a Judgment to our Friends which die in the Lord for they shall rest from their Labours and have all Tears wip't away from their Eyes and shall never know the meaning of a sorrow or trouble any more in a word Let us look upon Death as a Friend rather than an Enemy to our Relations which puts a period to the days of their Pilgrimage which are but few and evil at the best and esteem it a blessed change which is the term of their Bondage the end of their Cares the conclusion of their Sorrows and the beginning of endless Happiness and which passes them through the Gates of Death to the Kingdom of Glory FINIS * Deinde plus me habiturum autoritatis non dubitabam ad excitandum te si prius ipse consurrexissem Seneca ad Helviam * At filium unicum Q. Fabius praeterea Consularem qui jam magnas res gesserat majores cogitabat amisit neque solum non doluit quod fortissimus animus fuit sed etiam mortuo laudationem in foro dixit c. * Non enim vereor quin si minus in ipso Doloris aestu remediis utendum Homines censeant certè cùm modicè Dolor resederit ac se paulùm quasi remittere coeperit ad exstinguendas Doloris reliquias monita praeceptaque nostra adhibeantur Cicero de Consolatione Dolori tuo dum recens saeviret sciebam occurrendum non esse ne illum ipsa solatia irritarent accenderent Nam in morbis quoque nihil est magis periculosum nec perniciosum quà m immatura Medicina Seneca ad Helviam * Ita non est quod nos suspiciamus tanquam inter nostra positi mutuo accepimus Vsus fructus noster est cujus tempus ille arbiter muneris sui temperat Nos oportet in promptu habere quae in incertum diem data sunt appellatos sine querela reddere Pessimi est Debitoris Creditoris facere convitium Omnes ergo nostros quos superstites lege nascendi optamus quos praecedere justissimum ipsorum votum est sic amare debemus tanquam nihil nobis de perpetuitate immo nihil de diuturnitate eorum promissum est Sen. cap. x. ad Man