storm and from the rain Sometimes they are called Shepherds and the business of a Shepherd is to keep and save the flock Sometimes they are called Angels and Angels are the Guardians of the Lords people They Guard and Cover and Protect a people Now this they do while they instruct them so to walk that wrath may not come upon them while they Intercede with God and stand up in the breach to keep out the indignation that is flowing in upon it A praying Minister and such a one have you lost one that bare you on his heart continually before the Lord as Aaron did the names of Israel on his Breast-plate I say a praying Minister is a protection to the people It s true the fervent prayers of the meanest Saint are an Incredible defence to any place to save it from the strokes of God And therefore even they are stiled Intercessors Isaiah 59. 16 Because they mediate with God when he is Angry and by their zealous Supplications hold his hands But yet however though it be a certaine truth that God hath much respect to the Petitions of his weakest Servants yea though perhaps some private Christians may Excel a holy Minister in prayer yet God hath more regard to the Intreaties of his faithful Ministers who have a special charge and Commission to be his Remembrancers for the good of that people which he committeth to their charge and their Petitions are of more availe and power with God both to procùre his Blessings and avert his Judgments Moses and Aaron among his Priests and Samuel among them that call on his name They called upon the Lord and he answered them Psalm 99. 6. Why doubtless so he heard the prayers of his other Saints But these his holy Priests and Prophets had the Ear of God as special favorites have their Princes Ears and could be heard and Answer'd when others were denied Access and Audience And this is not obscurely Intimated in that protestation of the Lord to Israel concerning their approaching Desolation Ezek. 14. 14. Though these three men Noah Daniel and Job were in it they should deliver but their own souls By which he insinuates that when the absolute decree is once gone forth it can by no means be revok'd so he suggests withall that if it had been feasible these holy Prophets would have done it q. d. were those three men in Israel they would put me to it hard and try me shrewdly to forbear the Land I should be hardly able to deny them He said he would destroy them had not his chosen Moses stood before him in the breach to turn away his warth Psalm 106. 23. Oh how did Moses stand against him and bind the hands of the Almighty when he was about to strike So that the Lord intreats and flatters with him to let him alone Exodus 32. 10. While such as Moses are Intercessors for a people God forbears he holds his hands and restrains his indignation as he that means to strike observes what strength there will be likely to oppose him And when he looks and sees that there is no Intercessor then he goes on with his design Isaiah 59 16. Then his Arm brings salvation to him and he puts on the Garments of vengeance Brethren you are in greater danger then you are aware by the removal of your praying Minister For you have lost one Intercessor if any breach should happen between God and you Yea you have lost your Covering if a storm of wrath should fall So that it may be said of you as it was once of Israel when Moses was away that you are naked And what are you in Laodicea's case indeed do you not know that you are naked Are you naked and are you not afraid Are you naked and not ashamed This would become a state of Innocence indeed in which it was observed of Adam and his Wife that they were both naked and were not ashamed Genesis 2. 5. But will it suit with such a state of sin and danger as the best of you are in do you not find your selves uncovered Have you no sense and feeling of it especially at such a time as this when the Judgments of the Lord are abroad upon the Earth upon the Land upon this very place in which you live more waies then I am able to express Alas alas you are uncovered whether you know it yea or no. And it is perhaps some mercy that you are not quite uncovered Here spend your tears and you shall not misplace your sorrow That is the first branch of Direction Weep for your selves For the sins that you have done and for the Judgments that you may 2. There is a second yet behind and I have done Weep for your children Weep not for me saith Christ but weep for your selves and for your children And why for them Because their children were to bear a share and suffer with them in the wrath that was about to come upon them as you may see Luke 19. 43. For the daies shall come upon thee saith our Saviour that thine enemies shall cast a Trench about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side and shall lay thee even with the ground and thy children within thee Brethren if you have any tears lest drop a few upon your Children you are not able to foresee what miseries your little ones may be reserved for and verily their danger is increased as well as yours by this stroke For you have lost a Catechiser as well as a Preacher you know what care and pains he took and what a gift and faculty he had in instilling holy knowledge into your children and your little ones while he had liberty in Publick and strength with opportunity in Private He took a very great delight to tamper with them and to tole them on to the holy waies of God by all the means that he was able to devise It was his very last design as he was alwaies full of holy projects to take some Course that children might be more generally Principled in the grounds and Fundamentals of Religion then they are And I am very well assured that many of your children have such Liquor poured into them by his means that they will relish of it as long as they have a day to live and it may be bless the Lord and him for it to all Eternity And therefore you have cause enough to weep that you have lost a Minister that was fit and apt to teach not your selves only but your children too and make them know the way of the Lord. Not to feed the Sheep only but to lead the Lambs too and to bear them in his Bosome as the expression is Isaiah 40. 11. I have done with the Directions Weep for your selves and for your children And now for the close of all I say again Weep not for him his sorrow certainly is turned into Joy and therefore so let yours be also He hath receiv'd that blessed Sentence Well done good and faithful Servant enter into thy Masters Joy And let me tell you I speak it upon good assurance he went Triumphantly to Glory an Entrance was ministred to him abundantly into the Heavenly Kingdom As he drew nearer Heaven till his Disease prevailed against his Reason he grew still more Heavenly When Grace and Glory were about to Joyn Grace in him was most Glorious Oh with what Extasies and Ravishments of spirit did he fly away into the Bosome of his Saviour I have but one word to add and it is that of the Apostle Hebrews 13. Remember him that had sometimes the Rule over you who hath spoken to you the word of the Lord whose faith follow considering the end of his conversation And that was a blessed end indeed Remember him to follow him in all that was exemplary in him whether concerning Faith or Life that walking in the holy way that he did you may at last come to the happy end and place where he is FINIS
us and make us capable of good impressions When there is nothing else but mirth we have light and frothy spirits our fancies rove our thoughts and our imaginations wander But when the Lord presenteth nothing else before our eyes but tears and lamentations this calleth home our thoughts it renders us unto our selves and makes us fit for holy motions We see it by experierience that the very men who when they are upon a merry pin are sensless and incapable of any good they have such vain and foolish hearts when they are brought into a melting frame then they are mild and tame as lambs then they are pliable and flexible and tractable so that a little child may lead them If you visit them if you counsel and advise them for their good then you shall have their ears and hearts too 2. And as the times of grief and tears prepare for grace so they increase and further grace Grace will spring and grow the more for such showers as these are It prospers better in a moist and watred then in a dry and barren soyl And if you search the sacred Story you will find the greatest Weepers to have been the greatest Saints As David Peter yea our Saviour Christ himself Indeed this precious Seed delights to have such dews as these the Seed of Prayer of Repentance yea that Immortal Seed the Word of God doth best when it is sown in tears When we repent in tears our hearts relent and melt most When we preach and pray in tears we move our selves and others most Si vis me flere dolendum Est prius ipse tibi This Seed when it is watred thus springs up the faster and bringeth forth the more plentiful increase 2. These times of grief and tears will end at last and end in joy You shall weep saith Christ to his Apostles but your sorrow shall be turned into joy They that sow in tears shall reap in joy and he that goes forth weeping bearing precious seed shall doubtless come again with rejoycing bringing his sheaves with him There is no doubt no question to be made of that and therefore it is bound with an Asseveration which takes away all scruple from it he shall doubtless come again with rejoycing bringing his sheaves with him It is the custome every where to have good chear and to be merry when they reap So it was among the Jews as you may see Deut. 16. 13 14. And therefore this is used in Scripture to express the greatest joy Isa. 9. 3. They shall rejoyce before thee according to the joy of harvest So though the Christian sows in rainy weather in a weeping time all shall be sweet and calm and fair when the reaping time comes He shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the Kingdom of Heaven feeding on the hidden Manna and drinking of the pure and chrystal River of Water of Life proceeding from the Throne of God and of the Lamb and there they shall be merry altogether When once he comes to Gods immediate presence he shall have joy full joy yea the fulness of joy Psal. 16. last In his presence is fulness of joy and pleasures for evermore 3. The joy that is to come will pay for all It will be such so plentiful and overflowing that it will make a full amends for all your present tears and sorrow It will quite overcome the sense and the remembrance of them Alas our trouble here is nothing in comparison it is a light and easie Burthen Our affliction is but short it continues but a moment but the time is drawing nigh when this little light sorrow shall be wholly swallowed up in endless and unutterable joy This short affliction which lasteth but a moment shall end in everlasting and unmixed pleasures 2 Cor. 4. 17. It worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory Oh what transporting comfort is there many times in reaping the first fruits of the Spirit that we are ready to cry out if the first fruits be so sweet what will the Harvest be If the earnest be so great what will the Possession be When we shall be filled and satisfied with the delights that heaven yields to all eternity I could say as Peter once It is good to be here let us build Tabernacles here But I must hasten to another Observation Doct. That we are very subject to misplace our grief and to mistake the Ground and Object of our sorrow So did these Daughters of Jerusalem you see they wept where they should not and they wept not where they should And therefore Christ corrects their sorrow in the Text Daughters of Jerusalem weep not for me but weep for your selves and for your children A great part of the sin and corruption that hath invaded humane nature consists in the disorder and distemper of our passions and affections and lies especially in two things either when we miss the right object or transgress the just measure when they are either ill placed or ill proportioned When we mistake in either of them When we are troubled where we should not or too much troubled where we should we are much to be condemned And both of these we are very subject to The first is pertinent to our purpose we are extreamly apt to grieve and to be troubled where we should not It is no wonder that we find Esau faulty here mistaking in the object of his sorrow He sought Repentance and sought it carefully with tears as you may see Heb. 12. 17. But what Repentance did he seek with tears Alas he missed his mark he sought not his own but his Fathers Repentance feign he would have his Father to Repent of his pouring out the blessing on his younger brother Jacob and consequently to revoke it and to call it back again But when he saw that was not to be done and heard his Father say I have blessed him and he shall be blessed he lifted up his voice and wept Gen. 27. 38 Yea the Apostles and Disciples of our Saviour Christ himself mistook in this that they misapplyed their sorrow They were extreamly grieved and troubled that Christ was ready to depart and to withdraw his fleshly presence from them whereas he tells them plainly It is expedient for you that I go away John 16. 7. It is not only expedient for me but it is expedient for you so that here was no real cause of grief and sorrow And hence our Saviour puts a stop upon it John 14. 1. Let not your hearts be troubled q. d. I see that you misplace your grief Come it must not be so I will not have it to be so let not your hearts be troubled Poor Mary was greatly at a loss in this particular she stood beside the sepulcher of Christ weeping John 20. 11. Why what 's the matter The Body of the Lord is gone Had she found him dead there it seems she had been very well content So that her
grief and so row was indeed although she did not understand it and intend it so that Christ was Risen She should have wept over an unbelieving heart that doubted of the Resurrection of her Saviour and not over an empty Grave from which his Body was deliver'd God having loos'd the pains of Death because it was not possible that he should he holden of it Acts 2. 24. I might add other instances but these may satisfie to clear the point That we are very subject to misplace our grief and to mistake the ground and object of our sorrow And there are two especial causes of it viz. Either because our understanding is misled or our Affections are mislaid Reas. 1. Somtimes we are very Subject to misplace our grief because our understanding is misled We do not Judg aright of that which is Indeed the only or the greatest cause of trouble Some apprehend their tears are fitter to be spent on their Afflictions then their sins They see no great hurt in sin but they feel much in Affliction Affliction is a grievous thing to them but corruption is not so There is a principle in Nature which makes a man averse from penal evil but there is none at all that maketh him averse from sinful evil So that a man needs nothing else but Nature to make him sensible of penal evils of Afflictions but he needs more then Nature to make him sensible of sin And hâ—â—â—e it is because the greater part of men have nothing else but Nature in them that they are so exceedingly affected with the one and so regardless of the other Now these Affections follow apprehensions as they always do They are mistaken in their judgments and so they misapply their passions They look upon their sins as small matters but they amplifie their troubles and afflictions as he in the Poet I am ten times twenty times an hundred times miserable And hence they weep for their Afflictions and will not be comforted while they have not a tear to spend upon their sins And this in probability was Israels case Jer. 30. 15. They were extreamly troubled at the miseries that were upon them but they were little troubl'd at their sins They cry'd because of their Afflictions they did not only sigh and mourn and grieve and weep but more then so they cry'd aloud which shews extemity of sorrow But we hear nothing of any sorrow sor their sins And therefore God comes in and interrupts them why what 's the matter with you can you tell why you take on in this fashion Why criest thou for thine affliction thy sorrow is inourable for the mulitude of thine Iniquity because thy sins are increased And so for penal evils they mistake there too They think that temporal Judgments are greater and heavier then spiritual Judgments They take the bodily plague to be worse then the plague of the heart a famine of corn then the famine of the word and so they grieve more for the one then for they other and they had rather lose their Saviour then their Hogs That is the first reason then why we misplace our grief Because our understanding is misled 2. The second is Because our Affection is mislaid I mean our love For love is the commander of our other passions It is the first and great wheel of the soul that carries all the rest about and governs them as it pleaseth Love is the strongest of the passions and Affections and therefore all the rest yield to it and are greatly sway'd by it And by this means it comes to pass that if we misplace our Love we are in danger to misplace our sorrow For we shall surely grieve for that most which we love best whether it be best or not Oh what a deal of vain unnecessary sorrow do many throw themselves into by misapplying this Affection Their love is settled where it should not be or it is stronger then it ought to be to such a friend to such a comfort to such a relation and when they find a disappointment by the removall or the chang of that which they have set their hearts too much upon their grief is answerable to their love Strong affections especially when they miscarry in the object of them do cast men into strong Afflictions Oh how was David overcome with the death of Absalom though yet indeed the cutting of him off was a great and signal mercy to himself and to his people And therefore Joab even rates him for it 2 Sam. 19. 5. and following verses Saith he Thou hast sham'd this day the faces of all thy servants who have sav'd thy life and the life of thy Sons and of thy Daughters and thy Wves Since thou hast lov'd thine Enemies and hated thy Friends and hast declar'd this day that thou regardest neither Princes nor Servants And I perceive that if Absalom had lived and all we had died this day it would have pleased theewell You see the reason of his immoderate overflowing sorrow for him was his inordinate Affection to him Which was so out of measure great that when he heard the news his passion wrought and he was hasting to a room to give it vent But alas he cannot hold till he come thither but discharges at the stayrs as he is going up 2 Sam. 18. 33. He wept as he went and said O my Son Absalom my Son my Son Absalom would God I had died for thee O Absalom my Son my Son You see then both that and why we are so ready to misplace our grief and to misapply our sorrow Use. The application of the point shall be for Caution and Direction both together To watch our hearts against it that so we lay not out our tears amiss Be circumspect that you do not misplace your grief and that you do not mistake the ground and object of your sorrow like these poor Daughters of Jerusalem who wept where they should not and wept not where they should Oh what a deal of grief do some men waste away when there is no cause at all How do many men take on when they are crost in prosecution of their lusts and hindred in their sins which is indeed a great mercy Oh what floods of tears do some men pour out upon a petty slight occasion at a trifling accident Beloved tears if they be shed aright are precious things God puts them up into his Bottle as if they were of great value And yet some lay them out on nothing How will they weep and grieve at any disappointment in their small affairs any miscarriage in their business any little petty loss any unkindness from their friends or neighbours any affront or provocation in the least degree nay if they be but crossed of their wills though it be best indeed they should All their sorrow is bestowed on little trifling inconsiderable things Why my beloved have ye not other manner of things then these to grieve for what think you of your own