George-Whitefield-Field-Preacher

DEATH OF HIS SON 211
knowing what had happened, I inquired concerning the welfare of parent
and child, and by the answer found that the flower was cut down. I
immediately called all to join in a prayer, in which I blessed the Father of
mercies for giving me a son, continuing it to me so long, and taking it
from me so soon. All joined in desiring that I would decline preaching
till the child was buried ; but I remembered a saying of good Mr. Henry,
" that weeping must not hinder sowing," and therefore preached twice the
next day, and also the day following, on the evening of which, just as I
was closing my sermon, the bell struck out for the funeral. At first, I must
acknowledge, it gave nature a little shake, but looking up, I recovered
strength, and then concluded with saying that this text on which I had
been preaching, namely, " All things work together for good to them that
love God," made me as willing to go to my son's funeral as to hear of his
birth.
' Our parting from him was solemn. We kneeled down, prayed, and
shed many tears, but I hope tears of resignation ; and then, as he died in
the house wherein I was born, he was taken and laid in the church where I
was baptized, first communicated, and first preached. . .
There was one sermon, at least, with which he often melted
his vast congregation into tears, which would lose no force of
tenderness and love now that his always affectionate heart,
which might nourish the orphans of other fathers and mothers,
was denied the delight of fondling a child of his own—the
sermon on Abraham's offering up Isaac. All the grief and
struggling of faithful Abraham during the three days' journey
to the land of Moriah, with Isaac, the burnt-offering, by his
side, was henceforth painfully real to Whitefield while, with
trembling voice and glistening eye, he pictured them to his
hearers. All could see the vision of
' The good old man walking with his dear child in his hand, and now
and then looking upon him, loving him, and then turning aside to weep. And,
perhaps, sometimes he stays a little behind to pour out his heart before
God, for he had no mortal to tell his case to. Then methinks I see him
join his son and servants again, and talking to them of the things pertaining
to the kingdom of God, as they walked by the way. . . . Little did Isaac
think that he was to be offered on that very wood which he was carrying
upon his shoulders; and therefore Isaac innocently, and with a holy freedom
.'