Right thoughts in sad hours representing the comforts and the duties of good men…

Let the Thoughts which have been this day tendered unto our Improvement, gloriously ⟨p. 48⟩compose and settle our Roiled minds under this Affliction. Let us not say, This thing is Against us; but let us say, The Lord that hath given hath also taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. It is indeed very true, That this Affliction is none of the most easy to be born; the Heart of a Parent will have peculiar Passions working in it, and racking of it, at such a time as this. Though there be greater Sorrows than those with which we follow a Child unto the Grave; I bless God, it is a more bitter thing to say, My Sin is mighty, or to say, My Soul is guilty, than it is to say, My Child is Dead; that moan, I have pierced my Saviour, is more Heart-wounding than to Mourn as one mourneth for a Firstborn. Yet few outward Earthly Anguishes are equal unto these. The Dying of a Child is like the Tearing off a Limb, unto us. But, O remember, That if ever we had any Grace in our Souls, we have ere this willingly plucked out a Right Eye, and cut off a Right Hand, for the sake of God. Why should we not then at the Call of God readily part with a Limb, and leave Him room to say, Now I know that thou fearest me, because thou hast not withheld thy Child when I called for it! It was ⟨p. 49⟩from God that we did Receive those dear Pledges our Children, and it is to God that we Return them. We cannot quarrel with our God, if about those Loans he say unto us, Give them up, you have had them long enough! We knew what they were, when first we took them into our Arms: We knew that they were Potsherds, that they were Mortals, that the Worms which usually do kill them, or at least will eat them, are but their Names-sakes, and that a Dead Child is a sight no more surprising than a broken Pitcher, or a blasted Flower.

Let the Thoughts which have been this day tendered unto our Improvement, gloriously ⟨p. 48⟩compose and settle our Royled minds under this Affliction. Let us not say, This thing is Against us; but let us say, The Lord that hath given hath also taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord. It is indeed very true, That this Affliction is none of the most easie to be born; the Heart of a Parent will have peculiar Passions working in it, and racking of it, at such a time as this. Thô there be greater Sorrows than those with which we follow a Child unto the Grave; I bless God, it is a more bitter thing to say, My Sin is mighty, or to say, My Soul is guilty, than it is to say, My Child is Dead; that moan, I have pierced my Saviour, is more Heart-wounding than to Mourn as one mourneth for a Firstborn. Yet few outward Earthly Anguishes are equal unto these. The Dying of a Child is like the Tearing off a Limb, unto us. But, O remember, That if ever we had any Grace in our Souls, we have e're this willingly pluck'd out a Right Eye, and cut off a Right Hand, for the sake of God. Why should we not then at the Call of God readily part with a Limb, and leave Him room to say, Now I know that thou fearest me, because thou hast not withheld thy Child when I called for it! It was