yet there may be ways of unhallowing Marriage and turning that into a sin which was at first ordained for the greatest Blessing For if only Interest or Humour or Lust be the chief foundation and ingredient of our Choice or if some sinful pre-ingagement or lewd Amours make Marriage necessary for the hiding our shame or if any of these things do cause a Contract or make up the match we may expect that God in justice may blast and curse the fruits of our Body for the sin of our Soul and for the sins of our flesh too An instance whereof we have in Gods decreeing the death of Davids Child which though it was born in Marriage yet God utterly dislik'd the Conjunction the first occasion and grounds thereof being laid in Adulterous Embraces David making no scruple to murder the Husband that he might obtain the Wife But when David heard that heavy sentence against his Child that he should surely die for his sin might not he have confest himself altogether in the fault and desired to suffer wholly himself and have said as in another Case 1 Chron. 21. 17. It is I have sinned and done evil indeed but as for this Lamb this Innocent Babe what has it done Let thy hand be upon me or my Fathers House and not on this Child that that should be plagued I say one would think that David should have set himself to deprecate Gods displeasure against his Child upon his account and desired to have sustained the burthen of his own sin But the sentence was gone out and what was written was written and there was no reversing the Decree And therefore all they that intend to change their condition and desire that they may leave their Inheritance to their Children had best look to it and have a care that they do not make Lust or any sinful Pre-ingagement a Preamble and Introduction to Marriage for fear God disappoint them in their hopes and desires and either write them Childless or take away their Children in wrath for their folly and wickedness For though God spared David and gave him a grant of his own life that he should not die yet there is no begging the life of his Child the Prophet reading its Destiny the Child that is born shall surely die So that for people to couple together in a scandalous and sinful way and to make Lust the basis and foundation of Marriage is to murther their Children in the Womb and in a manner to predestinate them to destruction But then when David heard that his Child should not live but was under a sentence of Death and that according to the words of the Prophet it presently fell sick and was desperately ill How then did he behave himself Truly like a very kind and indulgent Father for it was no sooner struck with sickness but David besought God for the Child And David fasted and went in and lay all night upon the Earth and the Elders of the House arose and went to him to raise him up from the Earth but he would not neither did he eat bread with them in the 16 and 17. v. of this Chapter Here we see David in a sad and mournful posture expressing all the symptoms and signs of a mighty sorrow and being earnest in Prayer to God for it which if all Parents would do the like upon the same occasion when their Children are sick or any ways afflicted they would find their Prayers to be a more efficacious way than all the Drugs of the Apothecary or the numberless prescriptions of the Physicians for the recovery of their Children For the effectual fervent Prayer of the Righteous availeth much But then we may consider that David had great reason to bewail the sickness of the Child as first being the effect and punishment of his sin and secondly upon the account of natural affection First He had a great deal of reason to grieve and be troubled at the sickness of his Child it being sent as a punishment for his own personal sin and therefore when he saw it in misery and pain and great anguish and considered that it suffered all this principally for his sake that he had the greatest hand in bringing all this trouble and sorrow upon it and that he was the great Actor in the Tragedy and this his sin occasion'd this great scene of sorrows How could he do otherwise than lay the sickness of it to heart and take on bitterly to think that by the murder of Vriah he had caus'd the Death of his Child and that by committing folly with Bathsheba he had brought such an affliction upon their Issue I say such a consideration must needs wound David to the very heart and cause him to make great Lamentations over the Child And truly the same sorrows would become even the best Parents and it might not be amiss for them to make some like Reflections For the Parents are generally apt to impute the Distempers the Sickness the Death of their Children either to want of due care in their Nurses or to the badness of the Air or the unwholesomness of the Season or ill diet or the irregular course of the Physician I say though we are apt to ascribe the sickness and Death of our Children to these outward and secondary Causes yet we should do well to suspect our sins as the cause of their misery and sufferings and to believe that there is something more than ordinary in the afflictions of such harmless and innocent Creatures Surely the Parents have sin'd though these poor Lambs suffer and therefore it is good and convenient that all Parents do examine themselves and see whether they need go any further than themselves to find out the true cause and original of those many weaknesses and distempers which they see in their Children and for which they seem so much concern'd and troubled How mightily are some Parents troubled to see their Children grow crooked and deform'd and yet little consider that possibly their Children are the unhandsomer for their being so proud of themselves and glorying in their Beauty others are griev'd to see their Children prove such Punies so feeble and infirm and of such a weak Constitution and do not reflect upon the debaucheries of their life and how they have lost their strength in Dalilahs Lap. And it is a general complaint and observation that every Age declines more and more in strength and virility and that the latter Generation of men are dwindled almost into Pigmies in comparison of what they were formerly and yet men do little consider that Luxury and riotous Living may be assigned as the grand Causes and Reasons of this great Degeneracy And we also see that new and strange Diseases do creep up daily and multiply and invade humane Bodies and yet we seldom impute these decays and breakings of nature to the vices of our Progenitors Whereas we have just reason to grieve at the sight of those many Diseases which
the dead give hearty thanks to God that it hath pleased him to deliver our Dear Friends and Relations out of the miseries of this sinful World which may furnish us with another consideration that might possibly incur into Davids mind and help to suspend and allay his sorrowing for his dead Child and that is this That it was remov'd far above the power of sin and temptation We at present as the Apostle Paul complains carry about us a Body of sin and death We are subject to manifold sins and temptations and have brought with us into the World those corruptions which in time will ripen into and sally forth in great actual transgressions Job makes a kind of wonder at it that any man should think he can be perfectly pure and innocent in this body of flesh For what is man that he should be clean or he that is born of a woman that he should be righteous Job 15. 14. and so David tells us Psal 51. 5. That sin is the Inheritance of our Parents that we are infected with it in the Womb and that we are born with propensions to evil Behold I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my Mother conceive me So that the seeds of disobedience are lodged in our nature and the ground-work of sin is laid deep within us and there is nothing wanting but time and opportunity to make it bring forth in abundance So that when our Children die very young and go early to their Graves we may comfort our selves with this consideration that we lose them in good time and before they have added any actual to original sin and that if they had liv'd much longer they would have contracted a new and further guilt and perhaps have advanc'd in sin as they did in Years for 't is certain that the strength of nature gives strength to our sins too and 't is only Age that qualifies and fits us for great and notorious wickedness So that that sin which was only in Embryo in our infancy comes within a few years to a perfect shape and our propensions to evil in a small process of time are reduced to real and visible acts My meaning is that although there is a natural aptness and proclivity in Mankind to sin and err from the Laws of our Maker yet sin does lie hid and brooding in the time of our infancy and is only hatcht into perfection by the addition of longer time and although we have all the principles of wickedness inherent in us at the very first moment of our Nativity yet we are too impotent to commit evil and to offend God at that rate as when we come to a full stature in Years and knowledge We may be full of bad inclinations when we are young and Children but 't is only Age that can make us capable of doing mischief and to be workers of iniquity and we cannot so highly provoke God when we are ignorant and childish and know nothing of him as when we come to the perfect use of reason and to know his will and yet run Counter to it And therefore the Death of our Children may be a happy prevention of their sining and if they live so long as to receive the benefit of Baptism and to be regenerate and born anew of Water and the Holy Ghost and so be made lively members of Christs Church we are bound to thank God for the mercy of their Regeneration and that they had their sins wash'd away in the laver of Holy Baptism so as that they go much purer out of the World than they came into it whereas if they had liv'd longer in the World they would have contracted a greater guilt and had more sins to answer for they would have been continually liable to temptations and in danger of falling into great and grievous sins and to be corrupted by the bad examples which abound in all places of the World And therefore there is no reason why Parents should so much lament their Childrens leaving them so soon if they do seriously consider that 't is a naughty World we live in and that mens love and practice of wickedness is exceeding great and that 't is impossible to escape all the pollutions that are in it and if they do further consider how much humane nature is tainted with original sin and corruption which prompts us on to evil continually and what a subtile and vigilant Adversary we have who is always seeking to beguile and destroy us and how thick set the World is with snares and temptations I say if this consideration did but enter into our minds it would be of great force and power to asswage our Passion and to allay our sorrow for the death of our Friends and Relations it being a very comfortable thing to contemplate the happiness and priviledge of those that have shook of the clogs and fetters of the flesh and let fall their Bodies the troublesome Mantles of their Souls and are now expatiating in Regions of Bliss and Happiness and live in the pure Element of Goodness and where 't is impossible that any temptation should approach or sin have any Dominion over them Lastly Another thing which might stop Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration that it was the will of God it should be so He considered that it was altogether foolish and in vain to enter into any controversie with God about his dealings with his Child or to stand expostulating the justice of God in taking it away For he was convinc'd that Gods will ought to be a Law unto us and that there is no need of disputing the Righteousness and Equity thereof it being always rul'd and determin'd by his wisdom and justice and goodness For though God be of an infinite and uncontroulable power and can do whatsoever he pleases both in Heaven and Earth yet there is a Maxime in Theology as well as Policy That the King of Heaven can do no wrong It must be acknowledg'd by us all that our life and being is the gift and blessing of God and so is the life of our Children too and therefore when God does in mercy give us Children so he may with justice take them away For may not he dispose of his gifts and do with his own as he pleases God lent us Children for a little time on purpose to please us shall we be troubled when he resumes them to himself or griev'd when he requires them back we are to observe that there is a great difference between Gods way of disposing his gifts and that of mens For though it be common with men to make a Deed of Gift and to transfer their own right to a thing wholly to another so as to lose all propriety in it yet God does not make the same disposition of his gifts in that absolute manner but when he gives us Riches or Honour or Children or any other gifts he does not make over to us all
very hopeful and pregnant Youths and of great expectations in the World Octavia she laid so much to heart the death of her Marcellus that she could not endure the least mention of his name but was ready to sink whenever she heard it and would not admit that the least word of comfort should be spoken unto her Talis sayes Seneca per omnem vitam fuit qualis in funere she mourn'd and took on at the same rate all her life-time as she did at the time of the Funeral But Livia she behaved her self quite otherwise and though she lost her Drusus who was a great man at present and rising to be a Prince yet she beheld the pompous Funeral that was made for him and how his Death was lamented by the whole Nation as a publick and general loss without falling into any great fit of Passion and as Seneca phrases it ut primum intulit tumulo simul illum dolorem suum posuit she buried all her sorrow in his Grave and laid aside her grief as soon as he was laid in the ground And having propounded these Examples to Marcia he refers it to her wisdom and discretion which of them she would chuse to follow But I dare not make any such proposition to your Ladyship or make the least question which way your choice is determined being well assured that you steer all the actions of your life by the compass of Reason and Religion So that I need not tell you that Moderation is the Christians Motto and that there is quaedam dolendi modestia A Rule of Decency to be observ'd in our very Mourning And therefore if your Ladyship will be pleased to pardon the trouble and presumption of this Dedication I shall add little more but only to make some Apology and to acquaint you with the reason why this Discourse was presented no sooner to your hands And truly I can give you no other reason but what the Excellent Cicero and Seneca have given long before to excuse their writing their Tracts of Consolation so late to their Friends viz. that I thought a Comforter would hardly be admitted or very welcome to you when you were in the Zenith of your sorrows and that it was improper as Physicians think it in other Cases to apply a Remedy or administer Physick till the Fit was over But now that your sorrows have had a considerable time to spend themselves and that the flood of your tears as may be presum'd is pretty well abated I thought that this Discourse would come at the most opportune and convenient time to have your Consideration and to put a full stop to your Mourning And now that I have given your Ladyship the reason why this Discourse came so late perhaps others may require a reason why it came so soon and why I would venture to expose it to publick especially in such a Critical Age wherein the most Correct Discourses can hardly pass muster with some captious Wits and escape their censure and reflection But the most that I can say for my self why I have publisht such a slender Discourse is this That although there is a great plenty of Authors who have written excellently well upon this subject of the great unreasonableness of intemperate Mourning for the Dead yet few have so confined themselves as to handle it with a particular respect to the loss and Death of Children which being a common and daily Calamity and the sorrows thereupon so mightily prevailing and judged to be not only natural but highly reasonable I thought with my self that it might not be amiss to endeavour to obviate this vulgar Error and to lay down such Arguments as might be a perpetual fence against all inordinate sorrowings for the loss of Children And I hope that my good intentions herein will make some Atonement for the failings of my Pen. And that it will be a great Provocation to some able and judicious Divines to set upon providing and furnishing the World with better and more substantial Arguments against this sort of Passion which is often so violent and outragious both in Parents and others upon the loss of their Children and Relations to the great scandal both of their reason and their Christian Belief I have as your Ladyship may easily see avoided all flowery Expressions or to deck up this Discourse with the paint and varnish of Oratory as considering that the plainer it was the more suitable to wait upon a Lady in Mourning But after all it must be confess'd that you have had a great affliction and a deplorable loss in the Death of your only Child and only Son But I doubt not but God will give you a better Name than that of Sons and Daughters and that by your eminent Example and practice of true Virtue and Piety you will entail a greater blessing upon your Family than if you left behind you a large and numerous Progeny Now that you and your Relations may live long to bless the World with your Excellent and Pious Examples and when you leave this troublesome Place may be translated to a Kingdom of Joy and Peace and rest Eternally in a Bosom of Blessedness is and shall ever be the Ardent Prayer of Your Ladyships Most humble and devoted Servant JOHN OWEN COMFORT FOR PARENTS UPON THE DEATH OF THEIR CHILDREN 2 Sam. xii 21 22 23. 21. Then said his servants unto him What thing is this that thou hast done Thou didst fast and weep for the Child while it was alive but when the Child was dead thou didst rise and eat bread 22. And he said While the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me that the Child may live 23. But now he is dead wherefore should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me BEfore I fall directly upon the words in the Text it may be convenient and necessary to give you some previous account of the occasion of the Death of the Child which David had by Bathsheba in the time of whose sickness David mourn'd exceedingly and was much cast down and took on heavily and after whose Death he seem'd to be comforted and to take heart which occasion'd these words that I have now read unto you Now in the Chapter immediately before this we have a sad story and relation of Davids Adultery and Murder how that from the temptation of his own idleness and Bathsheba's Beauty he committed Folly with her and drew aside the Curtains of her Husbands Retirements and when he had overcome and corrupted the Wife there is mention of the great Artifices which he used to bring Vriah the Husband to cloak and cover this foul and shameful sin of his and when Vriah out of pure Loyalty and a hearty Zeal for his service refus'd to take that ease and pleasure which David under a colour of love and
in And truly all Parents would do well to consider how it has far'd with them what usages and entertainment they have met with in the World what reproaches and slanders what losses and vexations have faln to their share and how troublesome a passage they have had and I do not question but that upon a serious reflexion upon the Calamities in their days and their own private personal sufferings they will be ready to confess with old Jacob that the days of their Pilgrimage have been few and evil and conclude them happiest that are out of it And therefore all Parents have reason to cease mourning for the loss and death of their Children upon the same consideration which we may well suppose David made use of namely that they are past the Waves of this troublesome World and are taken away from the evil to come Fifthly Another thing which might well prevent Davids extream sorrowing for the Death of his Child might be this consideration That it was freed from those sicknesses and diseases which attend this mortal life No doubt but David upon the loss of his Child did consider what innumerable Diseases do continually accost and prey upon humane Bodies as first the many weaknesses and diseases that are natural to and attend our Infancy and Childhood as the great pain of breeding teeth the being subject to the small Pox to ingender Worms to fall into the Rickets and many other distempers which are common and peculiar to Childhood besides the many dangers that Children are apt to run into and the sad accidents that often do befal them whereby they contract either lameness or deformity or come to an untimely end And if we have the good fortune to get safe over our Childhood and to come to riper years yet as we grow strong so our diseases are stronger and in our youth our blood is hot and feavourish and quickly in a flame and our very strength of nature helps to augment our distempers and makes them prove the more fatal to us and when we come to the perfect state of Manhood our very dependance and presumption upon the strength and benefit of nature makes us bold with those Vices which oftentimes help to cut us off in the midst of our days and then if we live to old Age that is a Disease of it self and nothing but sorrow is our Portion and the pains of Death lay hold on us so that if we take a survey of our whole life and of our passage from the Womb to the Tomb we shall find that every stage and period of this mortal life is way-laid and beset with Death And we know that there are certain dangerous seasons in the Age of Man which we call Climacterical Years wherein our life is in great Controversy and we have a push for it whether we shall live or die And truly there are so many Diseases that are of course and many more that are incidental and happen between our infancy and youth that 't is a great wonder that we ever live to be men and much more that we should pass all those casualties and misfortunes which lie all along in our way to the Age of threescore Years and ten And moreover it may be considered what a great fatality Gods Judgments make what a great depopulation and vast havock of Mankind the Plague and Sword and Famine do make and that when these come they sweep away Millions as with the Besom of Destruction But then secondly If we do further observe how many sorts and kinds of Diseases there are in the World how that new Diseases daily start up and that old ones so vary and alter in their circumstances and contract such strange degrees of malignity that they become new too how also that some Diseases are acute others Chronical and that some are rackt with the Stone others tortured with the Gout some are drown'd in a Dropsie others burnt up with a Feavour and that there is scarce a man but has a Disease peculiar to himself and proper to his constitution and dies something a several way from his fellow Mortals I say whoever shall make this observation of the great swarm and multiplicity of Diseases which assault Mankind and that whereas the Diseases now mention'd do kill their thousands so there is a Consumption which kills its ten thousands and deserves the Name of Apollyon the great Destroyer of Mankind must needs grant that the life of man is in jeopardy every moment And that he is obnoxious to a great deal of misery whilst he lives But if my Courage or your Hearts would serve you to go into the Hospital and there turn over the great Volume of Diseases and see what huge havock they make to behold how the Canker has par'd off the side of one mans Face and rotted off anothers Nose and eaten out an Eye and carried away a Limb to see how the Palsy has mortified another and struck him half dead and how many either by natural or vitious Consumptions are turn'd into meer Skeletons and walking Ghosts and are only the shadows of men Here you will say are sad spectacles of mortality here are such sights of humane frailty as are enough to make the hardest heart to bleed and to squeeze tears from a stock Who can forbear weeping and lamenting to see Man that is born of a Woman become the spoils of so many Diseases and to be Anatomized and Dissected even alive Here then we may see the sad and dismal ruins of these fleshly Bodies and what miserable Creatures we are when God is pleas'd to afflict and to lay sore and grievous Diseases upon us And truly we are all subject to various and manifold Diseases which issue forth in effects according to their several kinds and qualities the matter of most Diseases lies lodg'd in our nature and brooding within us and we have the unhappiness to inherit some Diseases by traduction from our Parents and there are many more which are hatcht by our Vices and prove the most deadly and mortiferous Some Diseases are so favourable as to carry off quietly and speedily and others are more cruel and like the Tyrant multiply our Deaths and kill us by piece-meals and nothing is a truer observation than this that we no sooner begin to live but we proceed to die and are every day going forward and stepping towards the Grave But then although life be a sweet and precious thing in it self and it be natural for all men to desire to spin out the thread of life to the utmost length yet God may send those Diseases upon us which may make us weary of our lives and to wish for Death and the Grave and so we find that Job was so pester'd with Diseases that his Life was a burthen to him and he does frequently and passionately beg of God to do him the favour to dispatch him and put an end to his days as we may see in the 6. ch of
reason should not do that which a little time will effect that it should not put a stop to our tears which within a little while will dry up of themselves Multum autem interest utrum tibi permittas moerere an imperes says the same Seneca 't is more honourable to suppress our passions than to let them run themselves out of breath and to sink of their own accord And in another place he tells Marcia that it is wisdom to husband our tears well and not to let them stream too plentifully but to be sparing of them and to reserve some against another time Lachrymae nobis deerunt antequam dolendi causae For if we live in the World we shall meet with many occasions to weep and mourn and shall never want matter of sorrow and trouble And therefore we should make it evident by our ceasing to mourn for the dead in just and convenient time that our reason has that ascendant over our Passion as not to let it run too far or spend it self quite at once whereas there may be great reason and occasion for it at some other time Lastly and to conclude all Let none suspect that this Discourse had any aim to promote or introduce a Stoical Apathy among Christians whose Religion is a compleat body of mercy and a perfect systeme of tender-heartedness and compassions and teaches men to be pitiful and compassionate and melting above the common standard of humanity Let none I say so misconstrue it as because it argues against excessive and immoderate mourning for the dead that therefore it intends to harden mens hearts and to bar them from paying a just tribute of tears and sorrow to the memory of their Deceased Friends or because it declares against effeminate weepings and lamentations that therefore it will not allow us the sense and feeling of men Nec verò credi velim sayes Cicero me quia dolori nimio repugnem idcirco dolorem omni ex parte improbare omnesque illius ex animo filias evellendas existimare c. But our design is chiefly to perswade men to curb and moderate their Passions and sorrows for the Dead by shewing that if they would but listen to the Counsels and Dictates of reason it would inform and convince them of the folly of grieving and afflicting themselves to no purpose and when all the sorrowing in the World will do no good Parcamus Lachrymis sayes Seneca nihil proficientibus and also how contradictory it is to the Faith of a Christian to continue mourning for the Dead as if they were irreversibly gone and lost to all intents and purposes of happiness as if Death were an utter extinction and annihilation of their beings and as if there were no immortality after this short and fading life is ended 'T is true that the Stoicks injoined their Disciples to dam up the current of their natural affections and passions and not to let them forth in the least degree upon any occasion whatsoever And this Apathy they pretended and boasted to be the aim and perfection of their Philosophy whereas the Christian Philosophy is not near so rigid but allows us to give way to our passions in some measure and upon just and solemn occasions We read of the Lamentations of Jeremiah and how that the Death of the good King Josiah was solemniz'd with great mournings and lamentations all Israel mourned for Josiah and Judah lamented Josiah 2 Chro. 35. 24. And that which doth more authorize our Mourning for our Friends is the carriage and practice of those devout men in the Gospel who carried Stephen to his Burial and made great Lamentation over him Acts 8. 2. Nay a further Confirmation of the lawfulness of mourning for our deceased Friends is the Example of our Saviour himself who wept over Lazarus's Grave as we may see John 11. 35. which the standers by made a great Argument of his love and concernment for the Death of Lazarus And 't is very well known that the Jews lookt upon tears and mourning to be so natural and proper at a Funeral that they hired Women called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jer. 9. 17. and so had the Romans their Praeficae for the very same purpose to weep at Burials for the greater solemnity so that rather than there should be any want of tears upon such sad occasions they Celebrated the Obsequies of their Friends with a mercenary sorrow and therefore it was a severe and unnatural Injunction of Tiberius to charge the Friends and Relations of those persons that he put to Death not to mourn for them or so much as shed a tear at their Execution upon pain of his highest displeasure Interdictum ne capite damnatos lugerent Suetonius Whereas our Religion does not require us to put off bowels of pity and compassion as the Philosophy of the Stoicks or the cruelty of the Tyrant did but only prohibits us to pluck up the Sluces or to open the Flood-gate of our Passions so as to let them run with a mighty Torrent and to over-flow the bounds of reason and moderation But then although we are permitted by the Example of our Saviour to sympathize with the sufferings of humane nature and to grieve according to the proportions of humanity for the loss of our Friends and Relations yet we are to have a special care that our sorrows are not unreasonable or immoderate for as no sorrow shews want of humanity so too much shews the want of Religion For by our immoderate grievings we seem to renounce our Creed or at least to distrust the truth of one of its prime and fundamental Articles which is the Resurrection of the Dead And therefore St. Paul seeing the Christians in his days were apt to grow exorbitant in their sorrowings for the Dead thinks fit to give them this instruction 1 Thess 4. 13. But I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep that ye sorrow not even as others which have no hope For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him in which words he does plainly declare that we do in a manner confute and dissolve our Belief of the great Article of the Resurrection if we lay the loss of our Friends so much to heart and ingulph our selves in sorrows as those that have no hope And indeed what can be more unlike or contrary to the Faith and Belief of Christians than that unruly and excessive sorrow of Rachel for the loss of her Children whom the Scripture seems not only to note but to brand and stigmatize for her impatience in that she wept for her Children and would not be comforted because they were not Ah Lord what a sad thing is this to contradict our profession to say we believe a Resurrection and yet sorrow as if there were none But in short either we believe a Resurrection or we do not if we do