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 Son_[w], 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?_[x]" 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 not_[y]? 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 Wisdom_[z]; 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 it_[a]; 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._