Read Ebook: Submission to Divine Providence in the Death of Children Recommended and inforced in a sermon preached at Northampton on the death of a very amiable and hopeful child about five years old by Doddridge Philip

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"Johnson, they could ask the same question about us with equal justification--or, rather, equal lack of justification."

I was trying to feel my way through the confusion. "Barnes, I know a world could be made of anti-matter but--"

"No, no. Anti-matter is a reversal of changes within the atom. These atoms are the same as ours. It's the organization that is different--regular molecules with a different twist."

"But why should it have killed him then? We absorb starch and reject cellulose which is closely related. But the body just refuses to accept the cellulose. It doesn't necessarily go ahead and die."

AND here I would more particularly shew,--It is well in the general, because GOD does it:--It is surely well for the pious Parents in particular, because it is the Work of their Covenant GOD:--They may see many Respects in which it is evidently so, by observing what useful Lessons it has a Tendency to teach them:--And they have Reason to hope, it is well with those dear Creatures whom GOD hath removed in their early Days.

IT is, indeed, impossible for us to say, how soon Children may be capable of contracting personal Guilt. They are quickly able to distinguish, some Degree, between Right and Wrong; and 'tis too plain, that they as quickly, in many Instances, forget the Distinction. The Corruptions of Nature begin early to work, and shew the Need of sanctifying Grace; yet, without a Miracle, it cannot be expected that much of the Christian Scheme should be understood by these little Creatures, in the first dawning of Reason, tho' a few evangelical Phrases may be taught, and, sometimes, by a happy kind of Accident, may be rightly applied. The tender Heart of a Parent may, perhaps, take a Hint, from hence to terrify itself, and exasperate all its other Sorrows, by that sad Thought, "What if my dear Child be perished for ever? gone from our Embraces, and all the little Pleasures we could give it, to everlasting Darkness and Pain?" Horrible Imagination! And Satan may, perhaps, take the Advantage of these gloomy Moments, to aggravate every little Infirmity into a Crime, and to throw us into an Agony, which no other View of the Affliction can possibly give, to a Soul penetrated with a Sense of Eternity. Nor do I know a Thought, in the whole Compass of Nature, that hath a more powerful Tendency to produce suspicious Notions of GOD, and a secret Alienation of Heart from him.

SURE I am, that this blessed Spirit hath no inconsiderable Work to perform on the most established Christians, to finish them to a complete Meetness for the Heavenly World: Would to GOD, there were no greater Blemishes to be observed in their Character, than the little Vanities of Children! With infinite Ease then can he perfect what is lacking in their unfinished Minds, and pour out upon them, in a Moment, that Light and Grace, which shall qualify them for a State, in Comparison of which, ours on Earth is but Childhood or Infancy.

IT only remains, that I conclude with a few Hints of farther Improvement.

MY Friends, the Reasons which I have been urging at large, are common to you with us; and permit me to add, that as your Case has its peculiar Distress, it has, I think, in a yet greater Degree, its peculiar Consolations too.

Footnotes.

a Heb. iv. 15.--Heb. ii. 18.

b 2 Cor. i. 4.

c Job iv. 3,--5.

d Job xv. 11.

e Isa x. 18.

f Heb. xii. 9.

g Lev. x. 3.

h Job i. 21.

i Math. xxi. 16.

k Luke i. 18.

l Luke i. 38.

m Jon. ii. 2.

n Jon. iv. 9.

o 2 Kings iv. 18, 20.

p 1 Kings xvii. 17, & seq.

q 1 Tim. vi. 11; 2 Tim. iii. 17.

r 2 Kings. iv. 23.

s Isa. xxxix. 8.

t Ezek. xxiv. 16.

u Psal. cxli. 3.

w Jer. x. 19.

x Psal. lxxiv. 22.

y Psal. xxxix. 9.

z 1 Sam. iii. 18.

a Rom. ix. 20.

b Psal ciii. 19.

c Matt. x. 29, 30.

d Psal. cxxi. 4.

e Jer. xv. 7.

f Ezek. xxiv. 16.

g Job xiv. 20.

h Psal. xc. 3.

i Job xxi. 22.

k Job. ii. 5.

l Psal. xcvii. 2.

m Heb. viii. 10.

n Ibid. xii. 9.

o 2 Cor. i. 3.

p John xviii. 11.

q Eccles. v. 2.

r Matt. xxvi. 39.

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