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.

4. THE Providence before us may have a special Tendency to improve our
Resignation to the Divine Will; and if it does so, it will indeed be
_well_.

THERE is surely no imaginable Situation of Mind so sweet and so
reasonable, as that which we feel, when we humbly refer ourselves in
all Things to the Divine Disposal, in an intire Suspension of our own
Will, seeing and owning the Hand of GOD, and bowing before it with a
filial Acquiescence. This is chiefly to be learn'd from suffering; and
perhaps there is no Suffering which is fitter to teach it, than this.
In many other Afflictions there is such a Mixture of human
Interposition, that we are ready to imagine, we may be allowed to
complain, and to chide a little. Indignation mingles itself with our
Grief; and when it does so, it warms the Mind, tho' with a feverish
Kind of Heat, and in an unnatural Flow of Spirits, leads the Heart
into a Forgetfulness of GOD. But here it is so apparently his Hand,
that we must refer it to him, and it wi