have been hurried with a variety of schemes and projects, and we have soon found ourselves bewildered and lost; but then it has been the greatest pleasure to us to apply to our parents, from whose more advanced age, and riper experience, we might well hope for considerable assistance. We were sure they would not upbraid our ignorance, or despise us for our weakness; but would give us their best advice, with endearing tenderness, and a cordial concern for our welfare." I allow, my friends, that if they were wise and good, which we now suppose, they were valuable counsellors indeed; and that it was your duty, and your happiness, to use them as such while living, and as such to lament them, now they are here no more. Yet, were they ever so prudent, you must still acknowledge they were fallible creatures. They could only form probable conjectures concerning the future consequences of things; and as those conjectures were always precarious, so, no doubt, they were sometimes erroneous; and you were, perhaps, in some instances, misled by their mistaken apprehensions: But the only wise God knows the end from the beginning; his views of the most distant futurities are not conjectural, but certain; and his wisdom is far more superior to that of the most sagacious and experienced mortal, than the wisdom of such a mortal can be superior to that of an infant. It is He that teaches man knowledge*, in whatever degree he possesses it. He instructed our parents, that they might instruct us; and he has expressly promised his direction to all those that humbly seek it. The meek will he guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his wayt. You may therefore, according to his own instruction and command, cry unto him, My father, thou art the guide of my youth; and you will find him such a guide, as can give Wisdom to the simple, and to the young man knowledge and discretions.

2. Could your earthly parents have protected you from injuries? God is much more able to do it.

Nature has implanted even in irrational animals such a regard to the safety of their offspring, that many of the most weak and timorous of them become strangely courageous in their defence. The little bird, that will at other times fly from every noise and every motion, will hover over her young, when they are assaulted with danger; and, rather than she will forsake them will share in their ruin. It is easy to perceive the spirit of parents

Psal. xciv. 10. † Psal. xxv. 9.

Jer. iii. 4.

§ Prov. i. 4.

you are satisfied with his paternal care, and how cheerfully you can refer yourselves to his wise and gracious disposal. Our Lord intimates, that we may use such a holy boldness with God, when he teaches us to say, Our Father, which art in heaven; and the apostle farther expresses it, when he speaks of The spirit of adoption, as teaching us to cry, Abba, Fathert.

4. Could your earthly parents have pitied your sorrows and complaints? The like compassions may you expect from God, if you apply to him under the character of a Father.

It is natural for a child, when any thing grieves it, to go to its parents, and complain to them; and if they cannot redress the grievance, at least they will be ready to condole it. Now we are expressly told in the word of God, that, Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him. And how much more valuable are the compassions of God, than those of our earthly parents could possibly have been! In many cases theirs was only a mourning pity, and all, that they could often do for our relief, was to sit down and weep over us; to afflict themselves with us, and to give us their company in distress: But the compassions of an almighty God can redress the grievances which he commisserates. Be our afflictions ever so many or ever so great; in sickness and in pain; in the agonies of conscience, or the agonies of death; when parents and other friends are but Miserable comforters§, he alone can support the soul; can soothe it into serenity and peace; and can exalt it to the most triumphant joy.

5. Could your earthly parents have supplied your wants, and have made provision for your future subsistence? God is infinitely more able and ready to do it for his children.

In our years of infancy, though we had hardly any thing we could call our own, we made ourselves easy in this, that our parents would take care of us; and sometimes the circumstances of families are such, that their care is almost all that the children have to depend upon. When this is the case, none can wonder, that it is considered as a great aggravation of the loss. But surely when God proclaims himself A Father to the fatherless, he intends to suggest some encouragement to such helpless orphans as these; and it becomes them to take the comfort of it.

• Mat, vi. 9. + Rom. viii. 15. ‡ Psal, ciii. 13. § Job xvi. 2.

1 Psal. Ixviii. 5%

Earthly parents may sometimes be so indigent that they cannot, and sometimes so unkind that they will not, relieve their children, at least in such a proportion as their necessities require. But the Most high God is the possessor of heaven and earth*, and his goodness is as extensive as his dominion; we may therefore conclude, that He will not suffer the soul of the righteous to famisht. There is not one parent in ten thousand so unnatural, as that he should stand by, and see his child perish for hunger, while it was in the power of his hand to relieve him. Now our Lord hath taught us to argue thus, If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things unto them that ask him?

God has the estates, and the hearts of all in his hands; and therefore can, with the utmost ease, raise up friends to us in the most abandoned circumstances, who shall act the part of parents to us, and do more for us than they could have done. And it is farther to be remembered, that the bounties of God are far more excellent than those of any mortal friend could possibly be. Their bounty, be it ever so great, cannot reach beyond the grave; but It is our Father's good pleasure to give us a kingdoms, incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not away: In the believing, though distant views of which, we are rich amidst the extremest poverty, and happy in the most miserable circumstances that can be consistent with such a hope.

You see then, on the whole, how much more the good man may find in God, than he can possibly lose in the most valuable earthly parents.

It only remains, that I conclude the discourse with a few reflections on this second observation.

1. Let us thankfully acknowledge the gracious provision, which God has made to support his people under the loss of parents and friends,

We should bless his name, that he does not leave us to sink under the burthen, or at best to collect some uncertain comfort from the precarious conclusions of our unassisted reason; but that, through the blood and righteousness of his Son, he has given his plain and express promise, for the encouragement of such inconsiderable and undeserving creatures.

You, whose parents are living, ought to be thankful, that

Gen. xiv. 19.

+ Prov. x. 3.

Mat. vii 11. § Luke xii. 32. || 1 Pet. i. 4:

God hath provided such reviving cordials for you against the mournful time when they may be taken away.

And we, who have lost our parents, and have found relief in our extremities, from such declarations as these, should recollect it with pleasure, and often repeat our songs of grateful acknowledgment.

And I will farther add, we onght not only to rejoice and to be thankful on our own account, but also on account of those afflicted friends who may receive support from such strong consolations. We pity children that have lost their parents, and it is delightful to see other generous persons rising up to take care of the orphans, and in some respect to make up their loss. But how much more delightful it should be to us, to hear an Almighty God proclaiming himself as their great guardian, and saying, that when their Father and their mother forsake them, he will graciously take them up. How should we rejoice, that when we set ourselves to comfort and encourage them, we cannot only advance our own conjectures, but can thus speak to them in the language of God himself. And indeed this reflection may be applied to all the other promises. We ought to rejoice, that our pious friends have an interest in them, and that God hath consulted their support and consolation, as well

as our own.

And surely, when we are reflecting on such a promise as this, our affectionate thoughts and praises should arise to him, In whom all the promises of God are yea and amen*. It is natural to say, "Whence is it that thou, the holy Majesty of heaven, wilt appear under such indearing and tender characters, to sinful mortals! that thou wilt speak of taking them up of bestowing one gracious look upon them, and much more of extending an arm of mercy to raise them from that helpless condition, in which they naturally lie, like abandoned out-casts! Whence is it that thou wilt take them into thy family now, and into thy kingdom at last!" for all this is intimated in this expression: "Lord," may each of us say, "I humbly ascribe it to the riches of thy gospel-grace. I would declare it to the everlasting honour of Jesus thy Son, that it is Through him we have received the adoption."

2. What an engagement should this be to young persons, to endeavour to secure an interest in God through Christ!

You must own the consolations, which I have now been re

* 2 Cor. i. 20.

presenting, to be far from being small*; and surely, when you consider how soon the best of your mortal friends may fail, you cannot but wish for an interest in them: But you wish it in vain, unless you seek it in the gospel way: unless you deliberately and resolutely chuse God for your Father in Christ, and devote yourselves to them in the bonds of an everlasting covenant. If you refuse this, you have reason to regard him under the character of an enemy; and to fear, that when he removes your friends, it is in judgment that he visits you with such a blow. Your hearts may justly meditate terror, if this be the case; especially when your pious parents are taken away. You are then deprived of their prayers, their exhortations, their advices, and their examples; and so seem to be thrown farther out of the way of repentance and reformation. And let me add, that if Almighty grace doth not prevent it, the trouble which you now feel, in being separated from such dear relations while you continue on carth, will be the smallest part of your unhappiness; for you must finally be separated not only from all the most valuable persons you have ever known here, but, which is infinitely more, from the presence of the blessed God himself; must fall unpitied victims of the divine justice, and be delivered over to dwell with Your father the devil, whose works you have chosen to dot. And oh! how unutterably dread. ful is it to think, that in the awful day, when this sentence is to be pronounced and executed upon you, there will not be one friend to plead in your favour! That though your pious parents be then present, yet, in a most terrible sense, Father and mother will then forsake you indeed, and, instead of interposing their intreaties for you, will applaud the righteous vengeance that dooms you as obstinate rebels to eternal death; to those abodes of distinguished misery, which are prepared for such as have broke through all the peculiar advantages, which will then be found chargeable to your account.

3. Let what I have been saying be considered by parents, as an encouragement cheerfully to leave their religious children. in the hands of God, when providence shall see fit to make the separation.

When, through the riches of gospel grace, a christian parent sees his own eternal concerns so safe in a Redeemer's hands, that he can say, with respect to them, I Desire to depart; yet sometimes he feels reluctance mingling itself with

* Job xv. 11.

+ John viii. 44.

Phil. i. 23.