Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children

Once more; let us consider how many invaluable Blessings are given us by this Covenant, and then judge whether we have not the utmost Reason to acquiesce in such an Event of Providence. “If I am in Covenant with God,” may the Believer say, “then he hath pardoned my Sins, and renewed my Heart, and hath made his blessed Spirit dwelling in me, the sacred Bond of an everlasting Union between him and my Soul. He is leading me through the Wilderness, and will, ere long, lead me out of it to the heavenly Canaan. And how far am I already arrived in my Journey thither, now that I am come to the Age of losing a Child! And when God hath done all this for me, is he rashly to be suspected of Unkindness? He that spared not his own Son⁴⁸, he that gave me with him his Spirit and his Kingdom, why doth he deny, or why doth he remove, any other Favour? Did he think the Life of this Child too great a Good to grant, when he thought not Christ and Glory too precious? Away with that Thought, Oh my unbelieving Heart, and with every Thought which would derogate from such rich amazing Grace, or would bring any thing in comparison with it. Art thou under these Obligations to him, and wilt thou yet complain? With what Grace, with what Decency canst thou dispute this, or any other Matter, with thy God? What Right have I yet to cry any more to the King?⁴⁹ ” Would any of you, my Brethren, venture to say, “What tho’ I be a Child of God, and an Heir of Glory, it matters not, for my Gourd is withered; that pleasant Plant which was opening so fair and so delightful, under the Shadow of which I expected long to have sate, and even the Rock of Ages cannot shelter me so well? I can behold that beloved Face no more, and therefore I will not look upward to behold the Face of God, I will not look forward to Christ and to Heaven?” Would this, my Friends, be the Language of a real Christian? Nay, are there not many abandon’d Sinners who would tremble at such Expressions? Yet is it not in effect the Language of our tumultuous Passions, when, like Rachel, we are mourning for our Children, and will not be comforted, because they are not⁵⁰? Is it not our Language while we cannot, like the pious Shunamite in the Text, bring our afflicted Hearts to say, It is well?

III. Pious Parents, in such a Circumstance, have farther Reason to say, It is well,—as they may observe an apparent Tendency in such a Dispensation to teach them a Variety of the most instructive and useful Lessons, in a very convincing and effectual Manner.

’Tis a just Observation of Solomon, that the Rod and Reproof give Wisdom⁵¹ ; and ’tis peculiarly applicable to such a Chastisement of our heavenly Father. It should therefore be our great Care to bear the Rod and him that hath appointed it⁵² ; and so far as it hath a Tendency to teach us our Duty, and to improve the divine Life in our Souls, we have the highest Reason to say, that it is indeed well.

Every Affliction hath in its Degree this kind of Tendency, and ’tis the very Reason for which we are thus chastened, that we may profit by our Sorrows, and be made Partakers of God’s Holiness⁵³. But this Dispensation is peculiarly adapted, in a very affecting Manner,—to teach us the Vanity of the World,—to warn us of the Approach of our own Death,—to quicken us in the Duties incumbent upon us, especially to our surviving Children,—and to produce a more intire Resignation to the Divine Will, which is indeed the surest Foundation of Quiet, and Source of Happiness.

shall insist a little more particularly on each of these; and I desire that it may be remembered, that the Sight and Knowledge of such mournful Providences as are now before us, should, in some Degree, be improved to these Purposes, even by those Parents whose Families are most prosperous and joyful: May they learn Wisdom and Piety from what we suffer, and their Improvements shall be acknowledged as an additional Reason for us to say, It is well.

1. When God takes away our Children from us, it is a very affecting Lesson of the Vanity of the World.

There is hardly a Child born into it, on whom the Parents do not look with some pleasing Expectation that it shall comfort them concerning their Labour⁵⁴ . This makes the Toil of Education easy and delightful: And truly ’tis very early that we begin to find a Sweetness in it, which abundantly repays all the Fatigue. Five, or four, or three, or two Years, make Discoveries which afford immediate Pleasure, and which suggest future Hopes. Their Words, their Actions, their very Looks touch us, if they be amiable and promising Children, in a tender, but very powerful Manner; their little Arms twine about our Hearts; and there is something more penetrating in their first broken Accents of Indearment, than in all the Pomp and Ornament of Words. Every Infant-Year increases the Pleasure, and nourishes the Hope. And where is the Parent so wise and so cautious, and so constantly intent on his Journey to Heaven, as not to measure back a few Steps to Earth again, on such a plausible and decent Occasion, as that of introducing the young Stranger into the Amusements, nay perhaps, where Circumstances will admit it, into the Elegancies of Life, as well as its more serious and important Business? What fond Calculations do we form of what it will be, from what it is! How do we in Thought open every Blossom of Sprightliness, or Humanity, or Piety, to its full Spread, and ripen it to a sudden Maturity! But, oh, who shall teach those that have never felt it, how it tears the very Soul; when God roots up the tender Plant with an inexorable Hand, and withers the Bud in which the Colours were beginning to glow! Where is now our Delight? Where is our Hope? Is it in the Coffin? Is it in the Grave? Alas! all the Loveliness of Person, of Genius, and of Temper, serves but to point and to poison the Arrow, which is drawn out of our own Quiver to wound us. Vain, delusive, transitory Joys! “And such, Oh my Soul,” will the Christian say, “such are thine earthly Comforts in every Child, in every Relative, in every Possession of Life; such are the Objects of thy Hopes, and thy Fears, thy Schemes, and thy Labours, where Earth alone is concerned. Let me then, once for all, direct mine Eyes to another and a better State. From these broken Cisterns, the Fragments of which may hurt me indeed, but can no longer refresh me, let me look to the Fountain of living Waters⁵⁵ . From these setting, Stars, or rather these bright but vanishing Meteors, which make my Darkness so much the more sensible, let me turn to the Father of Lights. Oh Lord, What wait I for? my Hope is in thee⁵⁶, my Pure Abode, my everlasting Confidence! My Gourds wither, my Children die; but the Lord liveth, and blessed be my Rock, and let the God of my Salvation be exalted⁵⁷. I see, in one Instance more, the sad Effects of having over-loved the Creature; let me endeavour for the future, by the Divine Assistance, to fix my Affections there where they cannot exceed; but where all the Ardor of them will be as much my Security and my Happiness, as it is now my Snare and my Distress.”

2. The Removal of our Children by such awful Strokes may warn us of the Approach of our own Death.

Hereby God doth very sensibly shew us, and those around us, that all Flesh is as Grass, and all the Glory and Loveliness of it like the Flower of the Field⁵⁸. And when our own Habitations are made the Houses of Mourning, and ourselves the Leaders in that sad Procession, it may surely be expected that we should lay it to Heart, so as to be quicken’d and improved by the View. “Have my Children died in the Morning of their Days, and can I promise myself that I shall see the Evening of mine? Now perhaps may I say, in a more literal Sense than ever, The Graves are ready for me⁵⁹. One of my Family, and some of us may add, the First-born of it, is gone as it were to take Possession of the Sepulchre in all our Names; and ere long I shall lie down with my Child in the same Bed; yea perhaps many of the Feet that followed it shall attend me thither. Our Dust shortly shall be blended together; and who can tell but this Providence might chiefly be intended as a Warning Blow to me, that these concluding Days of my Life might be more regular, more spiritual, more useful than the former?”

3. The Providence before us may be farther improved to quicken us in the Duties of Life, and especially in the Education of surviving Children.

It is, on the Principles I hinted above, an Engagement, that whatever our Hand findeth to do, we should do it with all our Might, since it so plainly shews us that we are going to the Grave, where there is no Device, nor Knowledge, nor Working⁶⁰: But permit me especially to observe, how peculiarly the Sentiments we feel on these sad Occasions, may be improved for the Advantage of our dear Offspring who yet remain, and quicken us to a proper Care in their religious Education.

We all see that it is a very reasonable Duty, and every Christian Parent resolves that he will ere long apply himself to it; but I am afraid, great Advantages are lost by a Delay, which we think we can easily excuse. Our Hands are full of a Variety of Affairs, and our Children are yet very young: We are therefore ready to imagine ’tis a good Husbandry of Time to defer our Attempts for their Instruction to a more convenient Season⁶¹ , when they may be able to learn more in an Hour, than the Labour of Days could now teach them; besides that we are apprehensive of Danger in over-loading their tender Spirits, especially when they are perhaps under Indisposition, and need to be diverted, rather than gravely advised and instructed.

But I beseech you, my Friends, let us view the Matter with that Impartiality, which the Eloquence of Death hath a Tendency to produce. “That lovely Creature that God hath now taken away, tho’ its Days were few, tho’ its Faculties were weak, yet might it not have known a great deal more of Religion than it did, and felt a great deal more of it too, had I faithfully and prudently done my Part? How did it learn Language so soon, and in such a Compass and Readiness? Not by multiplied Rules, nor labour’d Instruction, but by Conversation. And might it not have learn’d much more of Divine Things by Conversation too, if they had been allowed a due Share in our Thoughts and our Discourses; according to the Charge given to the Israelites, to talk of them going out and coming in, lying down and rising up⁶² ? How soon did it learn Trifles, and retain them, and after its little way observe and reason upon them, perhaps with a Vivacity that sometimes surprized me! And had I been as diligent as I ought, who can tell what Progress it might have made in Divine Knowledge? Who can tell but, as a Reward to these pious Cares, God might have put a Word into its dying Lips, which I might all my Life have recollected with Pleasure, and out of its feeble Mouth might have perfected Praise⁶³?”

My Friends, let us humble ourselves deeply before God under a Sense of our past Neglects, and let us learn our future Duty. We may perhaps be ready fondly to say, “Oh that it were possible my Child could be restored to me again, tho’ it were but for a few Weeks or Days! how diligently would I attempt to supply my former Deficiencies!” Unprofitable Wish! Yet may the Thought be improved for the good of surviving Children. How shall we express our Affection to them? Not surely by indulging all the Demands of Appetite and Fancy, in many early Instances so hazardous, and so fatal; not by a Solicitude to treasure up Wealth for them, whose only Portion may perhaps be a little Coffin and Shrowd. No; our truest Kindness to them will be to endeavour, by Divine Grace, to form them to an early Inquiry after God, and Christ, and Heaven, and a Love for real Goodness in all the Forms of it which may come within their Observation and Notice. Let us apply ourselves immediately to this Talk, as those that remember there is a double Uncertainty, in their Lives, and in ours. In a Word, let us be that with regard to every Child that yet remains, which we proposed and engaged to be to that which is taken away, when we pleaded with God for the Continuance of its Life, at least for a little while, that it might be farther assisted in the Preparations for Death and Eternity. If such Resolutions be formed and pursued, the Death of one may be the Means of spiritual Life to many; and we shall surely have Reason to say it is well, if it teach us so useful a Lesson.