fhall rejoice if I may contribute, though but a mite, to your comfort. Were I, indeed, acquainted with the peculiar circumstances of your lofs, I should employ particular confiderations: but a paper like this can have only a general aim; which is to acquaint the heart, at a favourable moment, with its grand concerns:-to give it a ferious impreffion when foftened; and an heavenly direction when agitated.-Let us, therefore, fit down humbly together in this house of mourning-If the heart of the wife is found here, your experience I hope will prove that here alfo it is formed:-and let us calmly contemplate fome momentous Objects intimately connected with it, and viewed with peculiar advantage from it. OUR GOD is the firft; with whom we feldom form any clofe acquaintance till we meet him in trouble.-He commands filence Eccl. vii. 4. now, now, that He may be heard; and removes intervening objects, that He may be seen. -A Sovereign DISPOSER appears, who, as Lord of all, hath only refumed what he lent ;-whofe will is the law of his creatures; and who exprefly declares his will in the prefent affliction. We fhould seriously confider that all allowed repugnance to the determinations of his government (however made known to us) is fin: and that every wish to alter the appointments of his wifdom is folly: —we know not what we ask. When GOD discovers himself in a concern, those who know him, will keep filence before him Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty inftruct him?-how excellent was the reply; • Behold I am vile !—what shall I answer thee? I will lay my hand upon my mouth.' с The Scriptures which so strongly inculcate the difpofition of a child, variously exemplify it. There we meet one, looking from • Hab. ii. 20. a Job xl. 2, 4. A 3 his his fmitten fons to his God and holding his peace-another filencing his heart with "It "is the Lord"-a third crying "I was "dumb, because thou didst it ":" and a fourth bleffing the name of him who took away as well as gave".—May we be numbered with fuch! But the Sovereign Difpofer is also the Compaffionate FATHER.-Among other instances of his tenderness you must have observ→ ed the peculiar fupports he affords under peculiar trials. Let us mark, and acknowledge the hand which mingles mercy with judgment, and alleviation with diftrefs.-The parents I have just mentioned loft their children under circumftances far more diftreffing than ours ;-The defire of your eyes (if not the idol of your heart) was, perhaps, almost a ftranger:-you ftrove hard to detain it, but He who took the young children into his arms and bleffed them, took yours; and taking it, • Lev. x. 3. f 1 Sam. iii. 18. & Pf. xxxix. 9. h Job. i. 21. feemed k feemed to fay, what I do, thou knowest not now, but thou fhalt know hereafter1;—patiently fuffer this little one to come unto me, for of fuch is my kingdom composed :-Verily I fay unto you that in heaven their angels do always behold the face of my Father'.-" If I take away your "child, I take it to myfelf-Is not this infi nitely beyond any thing you could do for it? "Could you fay to it, if it had lived thou "shalt weep no more,—the days of thy mourn ing are ended?-Could you fhew it any ་་ thing in this world like the glory of God and of "the lamb" ?-Could you raise it to any ho"nour here like receiving a crown of life° ?" The voice of the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort speaks as distinctly in the death, as in the birth of an infant. A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping; Rachel weeping for her children, refufed to be comforted for her children, because they were not. Thus faith the Lord, refrain 1 Matth. xviii. 10. James i. 12. the thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears, 'for there is hope in thine end, faith the Lord, that thy children fhall come again to their own border.—It is not the will of your heavenly "Father that one of thefe little ones fhould perish.” Is it a pious Friend that has just yielded up his breath-The fame voice feems to fay ⚫ turn from him, or rather turn from his clay, -his faded garment, he himself is taken from • the evil to come ;-he fhall enter into peace.' Whatever notions one who lives without God in the world' may form of dying, we should learn of Him to regard it merely as a Tranflation, a change, in which nothing is loft, which is really valuable.-As furely as we believe that Jefus died and rofe again; fo furely do we believe that them alfo which fleep in Jefus, will God bring with him".-Taught of God, we fhould view Loffes, Sickness, Pain, and Death, but as the feveral trying Matth. xviii. 14. .Ifa. lvii. 1. 2. a Jer. xv. 17. ftages |