ON the whole, therefore, far from complaining of the Divine Conduct in this Respect, it will become you, my Friends, rather to be very thankful that these dear Children were spared so long; to accompany and entertain you in so many Stages of your short Journey thro' Life, to answer so many of your Hopes, and to establish so many more beyond all Fear of Disappointment. Reflect on all that GOD did in, and upon them, on all he was beginning to do by them, and on what you have great Reason to believe he is now doing for them; and adore his Name, that he has left you these dear Memorials, by which your Case is so happily distinguished from ours, whose Hopes in our Children withered in the very Bud; or from theirs, who saw those who were once so dear to them, perishing, as they have Cause to fear, _in the Paths of the Destroyer._ BUT while I speak thus, methinks I am alarmed, lest I should awaken the far more grievous Sorrows of some mournful Parent, whom it will not be so easy to comfort. My Brethren and Friends, what shall I say to you, who are lamenting over your _Absaloms_, and almost wishing _you had died for them_[m]? Shall I urge _you_ to say _it is well?_ Perhaps you may think it a great Attainment, if, like _Aaron,_ when his Sons _died before the Lord_, you _can hold your Peace_[n], under the awful Stroke. My Soul is troubled for you; _my Words are_ almost _swallowed up._ I cannot unsay what I have elsewhere said at large on this melancholy Subject[*]. Yet let me remind you of this, that you do not certainly know what Almighty Grace might do for these lamented Creatures, even in the latest Moments, and have therefore no Warrant confidently to pronounce that they are assuredly perished. And if you cannot but tremble in the too probable Fear of it, labour to turn your Eyes from so dark a Prospect, to those better Hopes which GOD is setting before _you_. For surely you still have abundant Reason to rejoice in that Grace, which gives your own _Lives to you as a Prey_, and has brought you so near to that blessed World, where, hard as it is now to conceive it, you will have laid aside every Affection of Nature, which interferes with the Interests of GOD, and prevents your most chearful Acquiescence in every Particular of his wise and gracious Determinations. 2. FROM what we have heard, let us learn not to think of the Loss of our Children with a slavish Dread.