Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A67687
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The holy mourner. Or An earnest invitation to religious mourning in general with a large declaration of the divine comforts, and the blessed effects which attend the performance of it. But more particularly to mourning in private, for our own personal iniquities, and the publick crying sins of the nation. To which are added, forms of devotion fitted to that pious exercise. By Erasmus Warren, rector of Worlington in Suffolk.
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Warren, Erasmus.
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1698
(1698)
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Wing W967; ESTC R218442
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210,205
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385
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Discourse which perswades to Holy Mourning from the Blessedness that arises from the Comforts annexed to it is grounded upon the Second Beatitude let none surmise that it is at all improperly built upon it as if by Mourning there Mourning for Sin to which our Discourse especially leads were not meant For tho' Grotius and some others from or with him restrain it to Mourning in Adversity or under Affliction which is one very good and approvable Sense that we not only allow but use it in where we urge to Mourning in General yet learned Expositors do commonly understand it of Mourning for Sin Lugentes peccata vel sua vel aliena Mourning for Sins either their own or other Mens Pol. Synop. in loc S. Chrysostom also interprets it of Mourning for Sins and so does S. Jerome S. Ambrose Cyril Hilary Lyra Brugensis Spanhemius Piscator Maldonate c. not to omit the English Annotations Mourning we are upon For as Poverty in Spirit or Lowliness of Mind is set before it so Meekness and eager desire of Righteousness Mercifulness and Purity in Heart the Pacific Temper and patient Sufferance of Persecution and Martyrdom are put after it And when the Adorable Author of our Faith and Religion being just laying the Ground-work of the same made Holy Mourning a chief piece in the Superstructure of it and placed it high amongst the aforesaid Excellencies indispensably necessary to the Christian Life as to make it almost the very first of them this may convince us that it is as good and needful as other choice pieces of that divine Religion which He hath taught us and consequently as pleasing and acceptable unto GOD. And is not this great ACCEPTABLENESS of it another Obligation to Holy Mourning Is it not a mighty and should it not be an â—rresistible Motive to the Exercise CHAP. VI. A Third Motive to Holy Mourning in General It entitles us to divine Comforts in this Life As appears from the Nature of GOD from the Word the Office and the Disposition of CHRIST and from the Mission of the HOLY GHOST OUR precarious manner of existing in the World does sufficiently evince that we are not Authors of our own Beings but that we had them Originally from GOD who is the Source or Fountain of all Essence both to Himself and to all Creatures And we being wholly derived from Him we must of Necessity depend upon Him And this our Entire dependance upon Him must give Him absolute Dominion over us And so whatever He signifies to be His Will in reference to us we are indispensably obliged most heartily to Comply with according to our several Measures and Capacities And as every such Compliance with regard to His Sovereignty is an instance of our Duty so His Goodness hath made it an instrument of our Happiness For when at any time we yield Obedience to His MAJESTY He hath not only promised to accept it Himself but moreover to recompence it graciously unto us And as we shall have Reward for every Piece of Obedience so we shall not miss of one for Holy Mourning provided we be but faithful in the Performance And truly a most excellent Reward it shall be as consisting of Divine COMFORTS from above And that they shall attend upon Holy Mourning as a fair Remuneration of it in this present Life we have good Assurance For there are many irrefragable Arguments to prove it tho' I shall name but these that follow 1. The Nature of GOD. 2. The Word the Office and Disposition of CHRIST And 3. The Mission of the HOLY GHOST First The Nature of GOD. As we have learnt already out of Isai 57.15 the Holy Mourner is GOD's Habitation And where He dwells who is the GOD of all Comfort what Consolations can be wanting Divine Comforts do as naturally and necessarily attend His gracious Presence as radiant Brightness does the Body of the Sun And that we know where-ever it goes casts a Sphere of glorious Light about it and is able to make even Noon-day it self where before there was darkest Midnight Nor is GOD where thus present the Cause of these Comforts naturally only but if we may use the Distinction intentionally too by seconding the Efficacy of His Nature in the Case by the Power of His Will and so making the Comforts he sheds down upon His Servants to be the Issues of his Kindness as well as of his Residence And accordingly He proclaims in the cited Text that the very End of His abode with the Humble and Contrite is to revive their Hearts and to revive their Spirits The Consequence of which is as Happy as Obvious for the Beams of GOD's Favour being darted into Mourners by a double Efficacy that of His Nature and His Will at once they must needs enter with a double Force and so chear good Souls both with the sweeter and the stronger Influence The certain Consequence of which again will be that Men may as well freeze in the midst of Fire as holy Mourners can be destitute of divine Comforts I mean ordinarily tho' for some special and extraordinary Reasons GOD sometimes may yea often does suspend and withdraw his Comforts from them But then I say the Dispensaton must be lookt upon as extraordinary and will be different from and contrary to the usual Methods of His Procedure and the Common Measures of his Dealings with Mourners And yet they need not be troubled at it neither For however GOD may withhold His Consolations from them for a Time they are sure notwithstanding to enjoy them at last And even that intermediate want which they feel shall be better to them some way or other than the Fruition of them could have been Secondly That Holy Mourners shall be comforted we have farther Assurance from the Word the Office and the Disposition of CHRIST His Word to our purpose is most Express and Memorable For 't is that which He spake in the Days of His Flesh when He preacht the best Sermon that ever was heard * Mat. 5.4 Blessed are they that mourn for they shall be comforted So that true Spiritual Mourning entitles those that are serious in it to true Spiritual Comforts It must minister effectually to them and it can do no otherwise our SAVIOUR having said it Did He ever break His Word to His Proselytes Was He ever guilty of the Least Inconstancy Are not all the Promises in Him * Heb. 1.20 Yea and in Him Amen Where-ever He is pleased then to assert a thing so plainly Where-ever He is pleased to promise it so positively as He does that Mourners shall be comforted there is no colour for doubting or questioning it in the Least as coming from the very Truth it self And besides His Word we have the Mediatory Office of the LORD JESUS to ascertain divine Comforts to holy Mourners An Account of part of this Office is set down in the Beginning of the 61st of Isaiah Some Learned Expositors and Grotious for one would
strangely satisfy us Yet just such is that River that River of Comforts which flows in GOD's House When our Souls drink of it it inebriates them as I may say with holy Joys and fills them with Pleasures and divine Delights like those at GOD's Right Hand for ever Which considered we need not by the way wonder at that strange Passion which raged in King David and transported Him with desire of joining in GOD's Worship when He was in Exile and under unhappy Exclusion from it * ver 2. My Soul longeth yea even fainteth for the Courts of the LORD my Heart and my Flesh cry out for the living GOD. And in another place †Psal 42.1 2. As the Hart panteth after the Water-brooks so panteth my Soul after Thee O GOD. My Soul thirsteth for GOD for the Living GOD when shall I come and appear before GOD And again ‖ Psal 63.1 2. O GOD my Soul thirsteth for Thee my Flesh longeth after Thee in a dry and thirsty Land where no water is to see Thy Power and Glory so as I have seen thee in the Sanctuary Now how came it to be thus with the King of Israel What occasion'd these extraordinary Affections and Emotions of his In all likelihood at present he was banisht And being unfortunately driven out of his Territories his Mind one would think might have been taken up with that sad calamity Or else the busy thoughts of recovering his Crown and Kingdom from which he was forced should have ingross'd it in a manner entirely to themselves Yet we plainly see that it stood quite another way even to GOD's Worship and the Place where it was publicly celebrated The loss of these was that which he lamented and the Reinjoyment of them was that which he desired For these he longed for these he thirsted and that so violently that his very Soul panted and even fainted for them But why so There must be some good Reason for so great Eagerness some mighty Cause of so marvellous an Effect And truly he more than insinuates what it was where he tells us as before was noted that his Soul thirsted to see GOD's Power and Glory as he had seen it in the Sanctuary There 's an Answer to the Query which may well satisfy us without seeking farther The excellent Prince as he was a constant frequenter of GOD's House so he was throughly acquainted with that River of Pleasures which flowed in it He had very often been very sensible of those truly Powerful and Glorious Comforts which there descend upon the Servants of GOD and this made him so passionately and impatiently desirous of joining with them in public Duties Now if such measures of divine Comforts as produced these Effects came down upon the Religious in their public Performances under the Law what Fulness of Comforts must rest upon those in their sacred Offices who are faithful Professors of the Gospel For as betwixt the Legal and Evangelical Dispensations there is as much difference as there is between Moses and CHRIST so between the respective Comforts of each there is as great Difference as there is betwixt the cloudiest and the clearest Day or betwixt the rising and the meridian Sun But then hence it will follow that Christians who exceed the Jews in comforts should excell them as to Duties and the Service of GOD as having more excellent Incouragements to the same And so in Truth they do The matchless Comforts which they there meet with do greatly indear GOD's House and Ordinances They make them forward to them and also pleased with and in them beyond all Measure and Expression When in outward communion with the great GOD they feel themselves affected with inward Consolations with deep Sensations of Divine Pleasure and ineffable Perceptions of ravishing Delights the high Satisfactions they find in His Ordinances do strangely captivate their very Souls and most sweetly enamour them on the same So sweetly and passionately that if all this World and a thousand better were profer'd to draw them from those Ordinances they would be no Temptation in the Least to them to relinquish and desert them They would refuse any thing they would reject every thing and that with holy Rage and scornful Indignation rather than choose to be barred from GOD's Ordinances * In Sancto magna est consolatio in Psal 36.8 where they perceive such an affluence of Comforts For as S. Austin says in the Sanctuary there is great Consolation And this I must add That the plenty of divine Comforts which they there meet with are not only happily felt by themselves but are sometimes plainly seen by others in lively Symptoms or Indications hard to be conceal'd Thus I have observ'd of zealous Christians that after their Converse with GOD in Duty particularly at His own Mysterious Table a more than ordinary lightsom pleasant Air hath appeared in their Faces Their hidden Joys have shined in their Countenances and that they abounded with inward Consolations was outwardly manifest in their sprightly Visages I could discern methoughts that they had received JESUS by the serious graceful Gayness of their Aspects and the Spirits have danc'd so chearfully in their Eyes as if their heavenly LORD taken into their Hearts had looked out at those sparkling Windows Now where such mighty Comforts as these fall in with holy Duties Private and Public they must strangely invigorate the Performers of them and bring in such Accessions of Heavenly Strength as will effectually conduce to their Settlement in Religion And they that are fixt in true Religion may well pass for blessed here on Earth So they were accounted and ever esteemed by the best of Men and so they must be according to the Word of the infallible GOD. For the HOLY GHOST speaking of such a one in the first Psalm describes him thus His delight is in the Law of the LORD and in His Law doth he meditate Day and Night He is so well grounded and confirmed in Religion that he is always studying the Law of Heaven in order to the conscionable Keeping of it That is his Temper but what 's His Condition No less than Blessed as the first Word of that Psalm informs us Nor is He there called Blessed only but * 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Blessednesses As if He were Blessedness it self in the very abstract an Heap or aggregate Body of Beatitudes The least that can be meant is that he is Blessed in all respects or Capacities In his Soul in his Body in his Duties in his Estate c. But then remember we must that this Blessedness proceeds from Confirmation in Religion and that Confirmation flows from Spiritual Comforts and that those Comforts come in by Holy Mourning And so it is necessary as necessary for us to Mourn piously as it is for us to take the readiest Course to be thus Blessed that Exercise being a grand Instrument of this Beatitude CHAP. X. A Sixth Motive to Mourning in General