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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2022
To a Father on the Loss of his Son, who died under Age.
My dear Friend,
Your Lot, I confess, is hard, exceeding hard, to lose so promising and so hopeful a Child as that dear Boy was, who so much engrossed the Affections of yourself and Spouse: and a suitable Grief on so trying an Occasion ought to be indulged. But yet not so, as if you were bereft of all Comfort, and insensible to those other great Mercies, which God has bestowed upon you. This, my dear Friend, would be a sinful Rejection of those Blessings which remain to you, as if, like froward
Children, you would have nothing, because you could not have every thing you wish’d.
Look upon all the great Families of the Earth, upon all your Neighbours round you; and see if they have not almost every one shed Tears on this very Occasion, and then judge of the Unreasonableness of too great a Grief, and what Pretension you have to be exempted from those Accidents, to which Royalty itself is liable. I will not, to alleviate your Grief, remind you of a Topick, which is however no less important than too frequently the Case, that he might not always have been so hopeful; but might, as he grew up, many ways have administered Bitterness to you. But I think it surpasses all other Comforts, even those you hoped for from him, that he is taken away at an Age, at which God's Mercy renders his eternal Happiness unquestionably certain; and you and your mourning Spouse have the Pleasure to reflect, that ye have been the happy Means of adding one to the Number of the Blest above; and that he is gone before you, but a little while, to that Place, where all Tears shall be wiped away, and whither, thro’ the same infinite Mercy, you will in time follow him, and enjoy him for ever.
You have this Comfort, that he dy’d a natural Death; that the Work was God Almighty’s, who gave him to you, and has but taken back what he lent you: That you saw every thing done for his Recovery, that could be done; and that it pleased God not to grant him to your Prayers; and why should you repine at the Dispensation, when you know the Dispenser?
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