The Cure of Immoderate Sorrow

4. I nowcome to the last thing proposed, namely, the means of curing and preventing these sinful excesses of sorrow for the death of our dear relations.

And although much hath been said already to dissuade from this evil, and 1 have enlarged already much beyond my first Intention; yet I shall cast in some farther help and assistance towards the healing of this distemper, by prescribing the following rules:

Rule 1. Ifyoi would not mourn excessively for the foss of creature comforts, then beware that you set not your delight and 1 eve ecxessively* or jnordi~ nately, ujpon themi whilst you do enjoy them*

Strong affections make strong afflictions; the higher the tide the lower the ebb. According to the measure of our delight in the enjoyment, is our grief in the loss of these things. The apostle knits these two graces, temperance and patience, together, in the precept Pet. i. 16. and it is very observable how intemperance and impatience are inseparably linked in experience, yea, the experience of the best men. You read, Gen. xxxvii. 3” Now

* Israel loved Joseph more than all his children,” because he was the son of his old age; and

* made him a coat of many colours.”

This was the darling; Jacob’s eart was sj exceedingly set upon him, his very life was bound up in the life of the lad. Now when the supposed death of his child was brought to him, how did he carry it? See vr. 34, 35*

* And Jacob rent his clothes, and put sackloth “upon his loins; and mourned for his son ma-” ny days: And ail his sons, and all his daugh- “ters rose up to comfort him, but he refused to a be comforted. And he said, for I will go” down into the grave to my son mourning. “Thus his father wept for him.”

Here, as in a glass, are the effects of excessive love to a child represented: Here you may gee what work immoderate love will make, even in a sanctified heart.

O therefore let your moderation be known to all men, in your delights and sorrows about earthly things; for ordinarily the proportion of the one is answerable to the other.

Rule 2. If you would not be overwhelmed with grief for the loss of your relations, be endct and careful in discharging your duties to them while you liceoe them.

The testimony of your conscience, that yoa have laboured in all things to discharge the duties you owed to your relations, whilst they were with you, will prove an excellent allay to your sorrows for them when they are no longer yours. It is not so much tha single affliction, as the guilt charged upon us in times of affliction, that makes our load so heavy.

O what a terrible thing is it to look upon our dead friends, whilst conscience is accusing and upbraiding us for our duties neglected, and such or such sins committed? O you little think how dreadful a spectacle this will make the dead body of thy friend to thee!

Conscience, if not quite stupid or dead, wifl speak at such a time. O therefore, as ever you would provide for a comfortable parting at death, or meet again at judgment; be exact, punctual, and circumspect, in all ymv relative duties.

Rule 3. If you would net be overwhelmed by trouble fir the loss of your dear relations, then turn to God under your tr o u ble, and four out your sor ronvs, by prayer, into his bosom*

This will ease and allay your troubles. Blessed be God for the ordinance of prayer; howmuch are all the saints beholden to it, at all times, but especially in heart sinking and distressful times? It is some relief when in distress, we can pour out out trouble into the bosom of a wife, or faithful friend; how much more when we leave our complaint before the gracious, wise, and faithful God? I told you before of that holy man, who having lost his dear and only son, got to his closet, there poured out his soul freely to the Lord, and when he came down to his friends, that were waiting below to comfort him, and fearing how he would bear that stroke, he came from his duty with a cheerful countenance, telling them he would be. content to bury a son, if it were possible

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ever) day, provided he might enjoy such comfort as his soul had found in that private hour.

Go thy way, Christian, to thy God, get thee to thy knees in the cloudy and dark day; retire from ail creatures, that thou mayest have thy full liberty with thy God, and there pour out thy heart before him, in free, full, and broken-hearted confessions of sin: Judge thyself worthy of hell, as well as of this trouble justify God in all his smartest strokes; beg him, in this distress, to put under thee everlasting arms; intreat one smile, one gracious look, to enlighten thy darkness, and cheer thy drooping spirit. Say, with the prophet, Jer. xvii. iY. “Be “thou not a terror to me; thou art my hope” in the day of evil.” And try what relief such a course will afford thee. Surely, if thy heart be sincere in this course, thou shalt be able to say with that holy man, Psalm xciv. 29. “In “the multitude of my thoughts which I had” within me, thy comforts have delighted my “soul.”

Rule 4. If you would bear the loss of your dear relations nv’ith moderation, eye God in the ivkole pro* cess of ilie affliction more, and secondary causes and circumstances of the matter lesu

44 I was dumb, I opened not my mouth, be- 41 cause thou didst it,” Psal. xxxix. 9. Consider the hand of the Lord in the whole matter: And that,

First, As a sovereign hand, which hath right to diposeof thee, and all thy comforts, without thy leave or consent, Job xxxiii. 13.

Secondly, As a father’s hand correcting thee in love and faithfulness. Prov. iii. 11. “Whom 44 the Lord loveth he correcteth, as a father 44 the son in whom he delighteth.” O if once you could bu see affliction as a rod in a father’s hand, proceeding from his love, and intended for jour eternal good; how quiet would you then be?

Ad surely if it draws your heart nearer to God, and mortifies it more to this vain world, it is a rod in the hand of special love: If it end in your love to God, doubt not but it comes from God’s love to you.

Thirdly, As a just and righteous hand. Hast not thou procured this to thyself by thy own folly? Yea, the Lord is just in all that is come upon thee; whatever he hath done, yet he hath done thee no wrong.

. Fourthly Lastly, As a moderate and merciful hand that hath punished thee less than thine iniquities deserve: He that hath cast thee into affliction, might justly have cast thee into hei!. It is of the Lord s mercy that thou art not conr sumed. Why doth the living man complain J

Rule 5. If you would bear your affliction nvith moderation, compare it with the afflictions of other. men, and that ivUl gre itly quiet your spirits.

You have no cause to say God hath dealt bitterly with you, and that there is no sorrowlike your sorrow: Look round about you, and i impartially consider the condition that others are in; and they nothing inferior to you in any respect. You had one dead child, Aaron had two at a stroke, Job all at one stroke; and koth these by an immediate stroke from the hand of God. Some godly parents have lived to see their children die in their sin by the hand of justice; others have seen them live to tho dishonour of God, and breaking of their own spirits, and would have esteemed it a mercy if .they had died from the womb, and given up the ghost when they came out of the belly, as Job speaks.

In what misery have some parents seen their children die! God holding them as so many terrible spectacles of misery before their eyes; so that they have begged the Lord, with importunity, to let loose his hands, and cut them off; death being, in their esteem, nothing to those continual agonies in which they have seen them lie weltering from day to day, O you little know what a bitter cup others have had given thera to drink? Surely, if you compare, you must say, the Lord hath dealt gently and graciously with me.

Rule 6. Carefully shun, and avoid whatsoever may renew your sorrow, or provoke you to impatience*

Increase not your sorrow by the sight of, or discourses about sad objects; and labour to avoid them, as occasions presented by the enemy of your souls, to draw forth the corruptions of your heart.

I told you before, why Jacob woul i not have the child of which Rachel died, called after the name his wife had given, Benoni, the son of my sorrow; lest it should prove a daily occasion of renewing his trouble for the loss of his dear wife; But he called his name Benjamin.

Your impatience is like tinder, or gunpowder, so long as you can prevent tha sparks from felling on it; there is no great danger; but you that carry such dangerous prepared matter” in your own hearts, cannot be too careful to prevent them. Do by murmuring, as you do by blasphemous thoughts; think quite another way, and give no occasion.

Rule 7. In the day of your mourning for the death of your friends, serious fy consider your onvn death as approaching, and that you, and your dead friend are distingulhsed by a sma 11 interval a ‘id point of time, 2 Sam. xi. JfS. I shall go to him. Surely the thoughts of your own death, as approaching also, will greatly allay your sorrows for the dead that are gone before you.

We are apt to fancy a long life in the world, and then the loss of those comforts which we promised ourselves so much of the sweetness and comforts of our lives from, seems an intolerable thing.

But would you realize your own deaths more, yen would not be so deeply concerned for their death as you are. Could you but look into your own graves more seriously, you would be able to look into your friend’s grave more composedly.

And thus I have finished what I designed from this scripture* The Father of merdeSj and

God of all comforts, whose sole prerogative it is to comfort them that are cast down, write all his truths upon your hearts, that they may abide there, and reduce your disordered affections to that frame which best suits the will of God, and the profession you make of subjection and resignation thereunto,