ho'
my dear Babe be dead, yet my Heavenly Father is just, and he is good
in all. He knows how to bring Glory to himself, and Advantage to us,
from this Stroke. Whether this Application do, or do not succeed,
whether the Child be, or be not restored, _it is_ still _well_; _well_
with him, and _well_ with us; for we are in such wise and such
gracious Hands, that I would not allow one murmuring Word, or one
repining Thought." So that, on the whole, the Sentiment of this good
_Shunamite_ was much the same with that of _Hezekiah_, when he
answered to that dreadful Threatning which imported the Destruction of
his Children, _Good is the Word of the Lord which he hath spoken_[s];
or that of _Job_, when he heard that all his Sons and his Daughters
were crushed under the Ruins of their elder Brother's House, and yet
(in the fore-cited Words) _blessed the Name of the Lord._

Now this is the Temper to which, by divine Assistance, we should all
labour to bring our own Hearts, when GOD puts this bitter Cup into our
Hands, and _takes away with a Stroke_ those dear Little-ones, which
were the _Desire of our Eyes_[t], and the Joy of our Hearts. Let us
not content ourselves, in such Circumstances, with _keeping the Door
of our Lips_[u], that we break not out into any Indecencies of
Complaint; let us not attempt to harden ourselves against our Sorrows
by a stern Insensibility, or that sullen Resolution which sometimes
says, _It is a Grief, and I must bear it_[w]; but let us labour, (for
_a great Labour_ it will indeed be,) to compose and quiet our Souls,
calmly to acquiesce in this painful Dispensation, nay, cordially to
approve it as in present Circumstances every Way fit.

IT will be the main Business of this Discourse, to prove how
reasonable such a Temper is, or to shew how much Cause Christian
Parents have to borrow the Language of the Text, when their Infant
Offspring is taken away, and to say with the pious _Shunamite_, in the
noblest Sense that her Words will bear,--_It is well._

AND here I would more particularly shew,--It is well in the general,
because GOD does it:--It is surely well for the pious Parents in
particular, because it is the Work of their Covenant GOD:--They may
see many Respects in which it is evidently so, by observing what
useful Lessons it has a Tendency to teach them:--And they have Reason
to hope, it is well with those dear Creatures whom GOD hath removed in
their early Days.

THESE are surely convincin