attend our Children and those great infirmities which they often labour under and the more reason to be humbled when we reflect upon our selves as the Authors of them The truth is we have laid a train of mischiefs in our Bodies by our Vices which will certainly ruine and blow up our Children we have Created Diseases in our Bodies by trespassing too much upon nature and offering great violencies to our Constitution we have broken and shattered our Bodies by great excess by hard and unseasonable Drinkings and that may be one reason why we deliver down such a weak and crasie Progeny We have turn'd our Bodies into Bogs of uncleanness and putrefaction by our lust and wantonness and that may be a very proper reason why our Children carry about them such an Hospital of Diseases We have made our Bodies Sepulchres and burying places of Wine and that may be another reason why our Children become Corpses so soon and go so early to their Graves we eat and drink destruction to our Children by our Gluttony and Drunkenness we dig their Graves as well as our own with our Teeth and by swallowing down over-much we prepare them for the devoration of the Worms and 't is not any whit probable or likely that our Children should prove sound and healthful when we distemper our Bodies and treasure up Diseases And we may consider that we do propagate Diseases many times as well as our nature and there are Diseases which our Posterity find by woful experience run in a blood And therefore it is the duty of all Parents who desire the good of their Posterity and have a regard to the welfare and happiness of their Children to be very strict and punctual in observing the Rules of temperance and sobriety and in keeping their Bodies pure and undefil'd forasmuch as by a vicious and debaucht life we store up Diseases for Posterity and transmit great evils to our Generation For 't is certain that by great excesses and impure mixtures we do corrupt our bloud and consequently must convey a taint to our Off-spring and a rotten Father seldom produces any other than a Consumptive Child and besides our Vices are as communicable to our Children as our Diseases and who knows but that God might determine to take away Davids Child for this very reason lest he should Patrissare take after his Father he being the Child of an Incontinent Father and the Issue of such unhallowed Embraces And therefore when David was devoting his Enemies he makes this one of his dreadful Curses Let the iniquity of his Father be remembred with the Lord and let not the sin of his Mother be blotted out in the 119. Ps and 14. v. And truly I fear that there are too many ungodly Fathers and Mothers in the World whose wickedness and folly is such as that their Children suffer for it deeply being cover'd with Sores and Boils and having such Diseases breaking forth as are plain marks and tokens of their Parents sins God visiting the iniquities of the Fathers upon the Children and not suffering the iniquity of the Father to be conceal'd nor the sin of the Mother to be blotted out And therefore those Parents that are conscious to themselves of any such great and foul sin as Davids was have very great reason to lament the Diseases and Death of their Children when they consider that they themselves were the great Instruments of bringing all those miseries upon their Children and that their sins have had the greatest hand in their destruction And 't is very well worth our observation that in the first Age of the World it was never seen that the Son died before the Father but the oldest always went first But then when the wickedness of men grew great and their Pride so great that they were too high for their Station and would needs be building Castles in the Air and climbing up to the Battlements of Heaven it hapned presently afterwards that Terahs Son died before his Father and there is a special note and mark set upon it as a kind of wonder in the 9. of Genesis and 28. v. And Haran died before his Father Terah in the Land of his Nativity From whence we may observe that the wickedness of a Father is enough to alter the course of nature and to shorten his Childrens days and to accelerate their Death and bring them to the dust before their time And thus I have been somewhat long on this Argument that I might represent to you the danger of a sinning Father and Mother and what a fatal mischief they do their Children by their wickedness in that they bring a Curse upon their Family and by their sin occasion the Death and ruin of an Innocent Child as is clear and manifest in this one instance of Davids Child being taken away for the sin of his Father And we may also remember what a greivous Curse God entailed upon old Eli's Family and Posterity that they should die in the Flower of their Age and be cut off in their very prime and that chiefly upon the account of old Eli. And therefore Parents had need take a care to please God and that they do commit no great offence and to keep from great transgressions that so their Children may not repent that ever they were born of them and suffer sadly for their miscarriages And indeed all Parents that desire it should be well with their Children and that they should live long and see good days are concern'd to live a pure and unspotted life to possess their Vessels in sanctification and honour not in the lust of Concupisence otherwise they may bring great miseries upon their Children and perhaps a sudden Death and if they are resolv'd to continue their debaucheries and lewd Amours they had even as good strangle their Children when they are newly born and it may be a mercy to tear them in pieces as Medea did her Brother Absyrtus rather than they should live to inherit their Phthisicks Consumptions and loathsome Diseases and to be plagu'd all their life long with the miserable effects of their Parents sins And truly all vitious and ungodly Parents have the same grounds that David had to lament over their Children when they shall see them sick of their Diseases consuming with their Lusts and expiring under the curse of their sins And therefore if Parents would but take care to live better and more vertuously possibly their Children would not prove so sickly and might live longer for 't is certain that Davids Child was sick and died so soon for the wickedness of the Father Secondly Davids great grief and mourning for his Child during the time of its sickness was very just and reasonable upon another account as being an expression of humanity and the result of a natural affection For our Religion has not like the Stoick seal'd up the fountain of tears and wip'd them away from our eyes whilst we are in this bitter Achor
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
Job and 8. v. O that I might have my request and that God would grant me the thing that I long for even that it would please God to destroy me that he would let loose his hand and cut me off and in the 3. ch and 20. v. He speaks much to the same purpose Saying Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery and life unto the bitter in soul Which long for death but it cometh not and dig for it more than for hid treasures Which rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they can find the grave and in the 7. ch 3 4 and 5. vers He declares how uneasy and restless he was through the greatness and violence of his Diseases and how severely he was handled So am I made to possess months of vanity and wearisome nights are appointed to me When I lie down I say When shall I arise and the night be gone I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust my skin is broken and become loathsome and in the 13. ch and 14. v. He professes that he had so little joy and comfort in his life that he would esteem it a mercy to die saying My Soul chuseth Death and strangling rather than life Nay he goes further and says that he was quite out of conceit with living and would not be immortal on Earth for never so much they are his own words I loath it I would not live always let me alone for my days are vanity and in the 10. ch and the 1. v. His afflictions seem to have been so great and lasting that they almost wore out his patience and he could not endure them any longer which makes him speak like a man in great extremity and a desperate condition Saying My soul is weary of my life and so David in the 6. Ps and 6. v. utters himself in the same manner Saying I am weary with my groanings And therefore David might well cease sorrowing for the loss of his Child when he consider'd the manifold Diseases that mankind is liable unto and that it often happens and that he himself had so experienc'd it that men meet with such sorrows and afflictions that make them weary of the World and exceedingly imbitter their lives and why then should he be troubled at the death of his Child and that it did not live to be in danger of enduring all the Diseases in the Bill of Mortality And how did he know but that if it had liv'd it might have prov'd of a sickly and weak Constitution and perhaps might bring those Infirmities into the World with it as were past all Cure and might be a sorrow to the Parents and a misery to their Child as long as it liv'd And besides Children run many risques and hazards whilst they are young and come oftentimes to great mischances and either they contract a lameness by a fall or lose one Eye or both by the small Pox or are drown'd or burnt or kill'd unfortunately any of which would prove matter of greater sorrow to Parents than a bare natural Death And therefore seeing God was pleased to take it away so very young and that it dropt off with its first sickness there was a great mixture of mercy in this sad Providence and little reason to be griev'd at such an early Death when it was so natural and perhaps prevented the meeting many sad mischances and a Troop of Diseases which are incident to this frail and perishing life And truly all Parents have the same reason which we suppose David had to comfort up themselves after the loss of their Children when they die very young as considering that an early death may prevent a miserable life and that it is much better to die young than to live longer and have such Diseases grow and hang upon us as shall make life a burthen to us And indeed though we are extreamly desirous of living and are sad and melancholy when we think of dying yet we may live so long as that we may have enough of it and may meet with such sore Diseases as may rob us of all pleasure and comfort in living and spoil our taking any contentment in the greatest injoyments this World does afford us we know how the case stood with Job and how that afflictions crowded in so thick upon him that as he often professes they made him even weary of his life And there is none of us that has any priviledge or exemption or greater security from Diseases than Job nor have we Bodies of Brass or Sinews of Iron more than he but we have Bodies subject to the same Infirmities and liable to be invaded by the same Diseases if God to make an experiment of our patience shall think fit to handle us as severely as he did Job and to inflict the same Diseases upon us And therefore we need not so much desire long life and length of days as commonly we do Because it may so happen that before we run out half our race or come to the middle of our Course besides the troubles that are from without we may meet with such a numerous train of bodily afflictions that may make us more covetous of death than ever we were of life and we may live to know so much sorrow and pain before we die that like Job we may be ready to curse our Birth Day and wish that we had never been born And therefore we should not be so very unwilling to depart and leave the World at any time though never so soon because we may suppose that the longer we continue in it the worse it may be for us and although we are in health at present and enjoy our selves finely yet Diseases may within a little time overtake and grow upon us which may make our life a perfect torment to us and cause us to consume our days in misery To speak compendiously all Parents and others have little reason to ingulph themselves in sorrows for the Death of their Friends and Relations and more especially if it be early and natural because when they are taken away so soon they happily miss of those sore and grievous distempers which in running out the whole stage of life do seize upon oftentimes and render this present life extreamly bitter and unacceptable And indeed what comfort is there to see our Friends often sick or roaring with the Stone or the Gout or some acute pain or to have them of an ill habit of Body or of a broken health and to be ever crazy and lingring with some fixt and incurable Disease What pleasure is it to see our Relations rotten and unsound and patcht up with Medicines and supported with the Arts of Physick and kept alive by nice and superstitious observations of diet or what delight can we take in injoying our Friends when they cannot enjoy themselves And what reason then have we to lay so much
to heart the death of our Friends and Relations and to pine away meerly for sorrow that they are gone whereas they are now freed from all the sorrow and contagion of bodily distempers and have escaped those sore burthens which we are like to feel and suffer if we stay here Methinks we should rather comfort our selves as we may well suppose David did to think that our Relations when they are dead and gone are past the shock and fury of a Disease that they have endured one brunt for all that they have charg'd that Enemy home which we so much fear and must expect every day to encounter withal so that considering how we that are left behind are to run the Gantlet through Troops of sorrow and to pass the Pikes of a thousand Diseases 't is highly unreasonable to mourn and sorrow for the dead they being past all possibility of Diseases and far removed from this Climate of Sickness and Death Sixthly Another thing which might restrain Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child might be this consideration That it was releas'd from the great pains and miseries which it lately felt and endured 'T is certain and indubitable that the Soul does not quit its Mansion of the Body without great strivings and reluctancy and though it be consider'd that the Child was but in its Infancy and newly in possession of life and that the Soul and Body had contracted but a late acquaintance and that the Friendship was very new yet where there is such a strict Conjunction as there is between the Soul and the Body though but for a moment of time the separation cannot be without great grief and sorrow where there is such a close union and intimacy there is no parting without pain and trouble and consequently though the Soul of the Child was now just enter'd into its New Tenement yet it was so firmly setled and had taken that deep rooting that it could not be remov'd or ejected out of possession without great disturbance And therefore to see a Child strugling for life and to have only breath enough to intitle it to life could not but wonderfully affect and produce great Agonies of sorrows in the hearts of the Spectators And we may observe that men have naturally that compassion as to pity even a Brute when it lies in pain and misery and look upon it as an act of mercy to dispatch it out of the way And therefore David seeing his Child in that extream anguish and distress in that sickness to Death and that there was no way to ease and relieve it could not but reflect upon it as a singular mercy of God to take away the Child and to put an end to such a painful and miserable life David could not forbear weeping and sadly lamenting over his Child when he saw it in the pangs of Death and in those frightful Convulsions which were precedaneous to its dissolution But when it pleas'd God to seal up its breath and to give it a happy Issue out of this troublesome World then David began to be better satisfied and to be somewhat comforted with the consideration that God had in mercy released his Child from that pain and misery which it lately underwent and the sight whereof would have pierc'd the hardest heart living So that all those that have the sad opportunity of standing by their Relations and Friends when they are upon their sick Beds and in the approaches of Death and there to observe what a tumult and commotion nature is in at that time and with what pain and trouble the Soul and Body take their leave one of the other must needs conclude their parting and separation to be a more dismal and amazing sight than a Divorce between the most desperate Lovers Let us but be present with our Friends in the heat and rage of their Distemper or in the ultimate efforts of life and we shall then see a tremendous and ghastly spectacle which is hardly to be related without tears and cannot be seen without horror and astonishment O the hollow sighs and the deep sobs and pierceing groans of our dying Friends which are enough to wound any heart living and to strike that dread upon us that the sound of their cries and groans shall never be forgotten and can we pretend to pity them when we see them in so much anguish and distress and in the depths of misery and shall we so contradict our pretences to sorrow and our compassion for them in the bitterness of Death as to be troubled when they are out of misery and to deplore their going to rest Shall we weep and mourn to see our Friends upon the Rack and in great torment and shall we take on the more when they are past the sense and feeling of any pain How can we reconcile this Posthumous Passion to common reason Or can we think to perswade people that we lov'd our Relations dearly when they see us grieve when they were in misery but to grieve more when they are stept into happiness In a word we may yield to the meltings of nature or the tenderness of our affections and gratify our compassions in mourning for our Friends when they are in great misery and the Agonies of Death For a compassionate grief is both natural and reasonable and if we have any spark of good nature we cannot but be mollify'd at the mournful accents of the most despicable Creature when 't is in pain and great extremities But then to mourn excessively for our Friends when they are out of pain and the bitterness of Death is past is both unreasonable and unchristian unreasonable because they have endured and pass'd the worst and are perfectly discharg'd from those troubles and sorrows which those that remain alive are subject unto and 't is unchristian because it gives occasion to people to suspect our belief of a Resurrection and a future Life and that we are not really perswaded that our Friends are removed for the better and much for their advantage And therefore the Apostle in the first to the Thessal 4. ch and 13. v. admonishes Christians not to grieve and take on for the dead as others which have no hope lest they should by that means scandalize their Religion and render their belief of a Resurrection suspected and dubitable so that we are concern'd as Christians and as we tender the reputation of our Christian Faith not to be lavish of our tears nor over profuse in our expences of sorrow for the dead lest we should be suspected of believing our Friends happier here than they will be hereafter But we should rather in a manner rejoice at the departure of those who have liv'd well and innocently and die in the Lord Forasmuch as the Apostle tells us they shall rest from their labours and have all tears wip't away from their Eyes Revel 7. 17. And we should as our Church wisely directs us in the office for the Burial of
Immoderate MOURNING FOR THE DEAD Prov'd Unreasonable and Unchristian OR Some Considerations of general use to allay our sorrow for Deceased Friends and Relations But more especially intended for Comfort to PARENTS upon the Death of their CHILDREN By JOHN OWEN Chaplain to the Right Honourable Henry Lord Grey of Ruthen 2 Cor. 6. 8. As sorrowful yet always rejoycing Detestandae sunt illae lachrymae plenae Sacrilegio Infidelitate plenissimae quae non habent modum Hieron Epist ad Paulam LONDON Printed by J. Macock for John Williams at the Crown in S t Paul's Church-Yard 1680. To the Excellent and Virtuous Lady the LADY JANE MUSTERS of the Parish of Harnsey in the County of Middlesex MADAM WHen I first heard of the Death of your Dear Child and only Son I much deplored your Loss and was greatly concern'd to think how you would bear it as considering that your affections towards him were exceeding great and surpassing the common and ordinary Love of Women and that your Heart was set so much upon him that your Life seem'd to be wrapt up in his so that he could hardly die but his Death must go near to kill you too I knew indeed your Prudence and Religion to be very great yet I much feared that upon so severe a tryal your Passion might get the start of your Reason and so far over come it as to prove a great prejudice to all wise Considerations And as I feared so I was credibly inform'd by some that were Spectators of your sorrows that you laid the Death of your Son so much to Heart and was so deeply ingulph'd in sorrows that like Rachel you refused to be comforted And the truth is you had a singular loss and therefore might very well be afforded some grains of allowance in sorrowing more than ordinary for the loss of your only Son the most intense sorrow being described and represented in Scripture by Mourning as for an only Son And therefore when I understood that you took on so heavily and continued mourning and afflicting your self at such a great rate I thought it my duty to do my best endeavours as having received so many Obligations from your Family to support part of the foundation when it was sinking with the weight of overmuch sorrow And whilst I was studying for some Counsels that might be proper for one in your case it was my misfortune to meet with the like sad Providence in the death of one of my own Children which made me more sensible of the greatness of your loss who was bereav'd of your only Child so that I had now a new work to do which was to master my own Grief and to keep those sorrows within compass which naturally arise upon the loss of our nearest and dearest Relations whereupon immediately I consulted not with flesh and blood which I knew would lean more to the side of Passion than Reason but begg'd of God that he would endue me with wisdom from above and that whilst I shewed the resentments of a man I might behave my self like a Christian and not sorrow like others without hope And being by the Divine Assistance supply'd with the Considerations in the following Discourse which wrought effectually upon me towards the mitigating of my sorrows I thought that the same remedy which I found from them might very rationally be propounded to another and probably work the same Cure upon your Ladyship which they had done upon my self And so Cicero relates of himself that being in great affliction for the loss of his Dear Daughter Tullia he was forc'd to fly to the Precepts and Arguments of some famous Philosophers for comfort and relief and to propound to himself the Examples of some Eminent Persons who had behaved themselves with great temper and moderation under the like sorrowful circumstances And notwithstanding all the wise Precepts brave Examples of others he found it so hard to be reconciled to Providence and to conquer his Grief for the loss of such an Excellent and Virtuous Daughter that he was fain to set upon writing his Book of Consolation on purpose to divert his Melancholy and to beguile the tediousness of his Sorrows And praised be God I have had the happiness to find the same benefit by Consideration which Cicero did And hope that having experimented the benefit of my own Counsels I may be better qualifi'd to win both upon your Ladyships Reason and Judgment Indeed your Ladyship has had somewhat the greater tryal as losing a Son and an only Son Quid enim utilius filio quid jucundius unico Sayes Cicero de Consolatione What is more comfortable and useful than a Son and what is more pleasant and dearer to us than an only Son And yet he tells us of Q. Fabius who lost his only Son one that was in a place of great Dignity and Honour in the Common-wealth and had got a great reputation by doing brave and excellent things and would have been more famous if he had liv'd That he was so well reconcil'd to the Death of his only Son and bore it so bravely that he stood up and made a large speech and a very trim solid and even Oration in Commendation of his Son and recited his great Vertues without lamenting his Death And he makes further mention of one Q. Martius a King who lost his only Son and Heir Apparent to the Crown and of many others as Xenophon Cassius Pericles who had the misfortune to bury and lose their Sons when they were come to be men and were persons of great worth of singular prudence and piety and of a growing fame and reputation in the World who carried it with great prudence and moderation and shewed themselves great Masters of their Passion upon these sad occasions But perhaps these Examples of a Masculine patience may seem not to suit with the softness of your Ladyships temper nor agreeable to the natural tenderness of your Sex Men being always accounted the more hardy and invulnerable and less liable to the impressions of sorrow than Women whose very constitution does give a lift and advantage to their Passions for being the weaker Vessels they cannot so well contain their resentments and support their spirits in affliction as those that are stronger And although the Poets feign that Niobe was turn'd into a Statue because of her weeping so stifly for the death and slaughter of her Children yet they make no mention of her Husband Amphion that the he was any ways concern'd at loss of them And therefore some instances of the like patience and moderation in some of your own Sex are more likely to prevail with your Ladyship and to excite you to their imitation I crave leave therefore to produce the same Examples which Seneca did to Marcia upon the very same account Now the Examples which he produces are Octavia and Livia Each of which had the misfortune to lose a Son and they were a pair of
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
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
and Valley of tears but has given us liberty to vent our sorrows and ease the inward griefs of our mind in a reasonable measure according to the proportions of humanity and so far as is consistent with and not contradictory to our Christian hope and therefore as to grieve immoderately is unlike a Christian so not to grieve at all is unlike a man so that Davids sorrowing for his Child when he saw it in pain and anguish was but a reasonable passion becoming him as a man in sympathizing with the sufferings of humane nature and much more becoming him as he stood in the relation of a Father whose Bowels if he had any must needs move and yearn over a sick and languishing Child And therefore it was no such real matter of wonder as the Spectators of Davids sorrows thought it to see him involv'd in tears and making his Bed on the ground and acting the part of a true Mourner whilst his Child was alive for he saw it restless and tumbling up and down for ease and could find none he saw it in great pain and anguish and that there was no helping of it he saw that Physicians were of no value and all they could do could do no good he saw the Child lie panting and heaving and bemoaning it self with sighs and groans that were unutterable he saw it in sore conflicts and strugling for life and in the pangs and Agonies of Death and how could a Father forbear weeping and making great Lamentations over a Child in such a deplorable and sad condition He saw also the Mother wringing of her hands and beating her Breast and with floods of tears running down her Cheeks and crying out What shall I do for my Child Lord spare my Child Lord be merciful to my Child He saw likewise the Attendants that stood about not well able to endure the room for the hollow sighs and sobs and the piercing groans of a Child that was drawing on and breathing out its last And lastly he saw the servants of his House very much clouded and hanging down and going mourning and heavily quis talia fando temperet à lachrymis Who can possibly forbear weeping almost at the rehearsal of such a large scene of sorrows How could a Father restrain his tears when he beheld his own flesh and blood and Bone of his Bone to be in such great affliction How could he endure to see his own Bowels torn from him without a deep and sorrowful resentment How could he look upon a Child an Innocent Child rowling about in so much pain and torment without being 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 heavy and sorrowful even to Death Would it not melt a heart of stone and draw tears from a marble to behold such a spectacle of pain and misery And therefore Davids taking on so heavily for his Child in the time of its sickness was very reasonable and justifiable too forasmuch as tears are the natural tribute which we pay to the sufferings of Mankind and much more do we owe them to our Friends and Relations and our dear Children and such as are part of our selves But then if David was such a man of sorrows and took on so grievously for his Child in the time of its sickness and whilst it was yet alive surely we may expect to find him in a desperate condition and ready to sink into the Grave with it when he heard of its departure Certainly he that was so much troubled to see his Child in pain must be in the greatest Agonies of sorrow when he hears it is dead He that could not endure to see it in misery how will he bear the loss of it He that was ready to kill himself with grief for his Child when he was sick surely cannot live when he is dead and gone and past all recovery This was that indeed which his Servants and all that were about him expected They supposed seeing their Master had laid the sickness of the Child so much to heart that he would be in strange confusions and refuse to be comforted when he heard of its Death But there was no such thing the Scene is much altered and chang'd and the expectation of his servants is much deceived for instead of extream mourning for the Child when it was dead he begins to revive and take heart and falls to his meat and takes those refreshments which he had lately refus'd Which action and carriage of David shew'd very strange and a wonder to his Servants in the 21. v. But he presently removes the wonder and tells them the reason why he mourn'd no longer but rather rejoyced at the news of the Childs Death And he said While the Child was yet alive I fasted and wept for I said Who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live 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 In which expressions David does signify and declare the reasons why his carriage upon the Death of his Child differ'd so much from what it was when it was sick and yet alive For I said who can tell whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the Child may live that is though the Child be desperately ill and past all hopes as to outward appearance yet who knows but God may hear my Prayers for him if they be made with true fervour and devotion with zeal and integrity Who can tell but upon my humble Petition and earnest Intercession for the Child God may spare him to me and give a further grant of his life and recal the black Sentence and Warrant for his Death if there be such a due application made to him For whilst there is life there is hopes and there is mercy always with God that he may be feared and supplicated unto and therefore it may be expedient and useful to continue my Prayers and to proceed in my penitential sorrows And thus did David argue the reasonableness of his sorrowing and humbling himself before God for the Child whilst it was yet alive And truly it would be an excellent and laudable thing in all Parents to follow this Example of David so as to betake themselves to Prayer and to use the deepest humiliation when their Relations and Children happen to be under the rod and hand of an afflicting Providence for there is no such effectual means for their recovery as a hearty and sincere Prayer For the effectual fervent Prayer of the righteous availeth much saith St. James in the 5. c. and 16. v. There is more vertue and efficacy in Prayer than we are ready to believe and they have a more soveraign power to cure all maladies than the best prescriptions This is the Panaceavera and the great Catholicon surpassing all those of humane Art and Invention which some have so vainly boasted to find out Prayer is the Universal Remedy and
should I fast Why should I trouble and grieve my self any longer But how oddly and strangely may some say doth this look in a Father to dry his Eyes and clear up his Countenance presently upon the death and loss of his Child Is not this a thing out of course and a very strange temper to sorrow so much for the Child when it was sick and to cease sorrowing when it was absolutely dead and gone Surely this giving over mourning at the death of so near and dear a Relation as a Child must needs proceed fromhard-heartedness or the want of natural affection and of common humanity But then we may observe that David both to excuse and justifie his not mourning for the Death of his Child nor taking on so grievously as he did before alledges these good and substantial reasons as first The consideration of the necessity of his own dying and secondly The impossibility of his Childs coming to life again And we may also suppose that he had some further considerations at that time which helpt to allay and silence his sorrows as namely First the consideration of the Childs dying in its Age of Innocency Secondly That it was gone out of a wicked and troublesome World Thirdly That it was freed from those pains and sicknesses and diseases which are incident to this mortal condition Fourthly That it was released from those pains and miseries which it underwent And fifthly That it was the will of God it should be so And it is but very reasonable to imagine that all these considerations though not verbally exprest might occur to Davids mind or any mans else upon the like emergency I begin with the first consideration that put a stop to Davids sorrowing for the loss of his Child and that was the necessity of his own dying Can I bring him back again I shall go to him David considered that Death was common to all and that 't is appointed for all men once to die What man is he that liveth and shall not see death in the 89. Ps and 48. v. And I know says Job that thou wilt bring me to death and to the House appointed for all the living and so David was convinced that he must as surely die as he was then alive and that life is but a short preamble to death and why then should he grieve and torment himself for the loss of his Child when nothing had hapned to that but what must also happen to himself and to all men living For he was only gone the way of all flesh and had paid that debt to Nature which every one must do at one time or other sooner or later His Child indeed was dead but that was but a common natural and unavoidable thing and the beaten road to the Grave and the usual way of going out of the World He considered wisely with himself that his Child was only gone before him and that he must prepare to follow that his death indeed was somewhat early and immature and sooner than ordinary but the Father must not stay long behind He saw that sometimes the buds and blossoms were nipt and fell to the ground and that ripe fruit would certainly drop off He observed that sometimes the Lambs went to the slaughter and that there was no escaping for the old Sheep And therefore it was in vain to be troubled at a thing which was past and gone and could not be helpt and which all must submit to young and old the Father as well as the Child And what though it was a Princely Babe and Heir to a Crown and if it had liv'd might have been valued at as great a rate as his Father worth ten thousand of the ordinary sort of people yet Death was no respecter of persons makes no distinction and takes the ignoble and noble the Prince and the Peasant and sweeps away all alike 't is not a Crown or a great Inheritance that will purchase life or deliver from Death 't is not a high descent or being of the Royal Blood that will priviledge or exempt from the Grave But David himself must surrender up and lay down his Scepter at the summons of the King of Terrours which had so lately cut off and prevented his Sons Inheriting the Fathers Glory the branch is now lopt off and ere long the root will be taken up and carried away And therefore 't is not long says David before I shall go to the same place and be laid equal with my Child in the dust He has only made the first hancel of my Tomb and taken the first possession of my Grave He has had the misfortune or rather priviledge to go before me but I am going apace to meet him He was snatcht away betimes and I only wait Gods leisure and look when my change will come and expect every day to be called away and therefore I do not think it reasonable to imbitter this short life or to make my self uneasy and uncomfortable the rest of my days by a great and violent sorrow for the loss of my Child when I know that I have not much longer to live and that the days of my Pilgrimage will shortly be at an end and that his condition will shortly be mine and we shall both meet together in the Grave and be fellow Lodgers in the Dust and sleep together in the same Chambers of Darkness and therefore says David why should I fast why should I macerate and wast my self why should I grieve and pine away why should I go and throw away my life in sorrowing for the Death of my Child when I know that all the sorrow in the World will do no good and that my Child has passed those Gates of Death which I my self must after a little while strive and struggle to get thorough and that he is now in his Grave out of which I cannot keep long and why then should I fast can I bring him back again I shall go to him but he shall not return to me But he shall not return to me That 's another Consideration which might well serve to pacify Davids sorrow and discontent at the loss of his Child namely the impossibility of its coming to life again or returning to the same condition as formerly I shall go to him but he shall not return to me Death is that which puts a perfect and absolute end to this present life and when we are committed to the Dust and laid up in the Grave there is no breaking forth no expecting our liberty or enlargement till the day of the general Resurrection We are Prisoners of hope sayes the Prophet that is though we have a Promise and assurance of our rising again and being delivered from the Grave yet still we are Prisoners till the time of our Redemption comes and consequently must remain in hold and under the strict custody and durance of the Grave Death is a total privation of life and à totali Privatione ad
tears are in vain and ineffectual and that they may be spent as well upon a dead Tree as a dead Child and recover one as soon as the other may serve to suppress all the extravagant sorrowings of all persons for their Friends and Relations and make them argue with themselves the unreasonableness of all such desperate mourning saying with David now they are dead why should we fast and take on so grievously and refuse to be comforted as Rachel because our Children or our Friends are not For to what purpose is all our weeping and mourning and casting down our selves can we bring them back again no that 's utterly impossible we shall go to them very speedily and follow them close into their Graves but there is no expecting to see them any more they shall not return to us Thirdly Another thing which might well stop Davids sorrowing for his Child might be this Consideration That his Child died in its innocent time and before it came to the Age of sinning For though it be a great happiness to have our Children live and grow up to be Men and Women to see them ripen to the perfect use of reason and to arrive at years of discretion though it be a singular comfort and honour to Parents to see their Children grow eminent for Piety and Wisdom and to become the great Lights and Ornaments of their Generation yet the great unhappiness in breeding up Children is this that Parents are not sure of their Childrens Inclinations to vertue And they are not certain though they give them the best Education in the World but that they may make an ill use of it and turn the edge of their wits against God and Vertue and only prove more ingeniously wicked and great Criticks in Debauchery For good Education does not always and infallibly make good men and though our Children are sometimes very hopeful when they are young and give great presages and specimens of virtuous dispositions yet their inclinations are as uncertain as wind and as unstable as water in that slippery Age and 't is a thousand to one but that when they come from under the Discipline of the Rod and Ferula and are left more to their own liberty and have the reins laid loose upon their Necks 't is then I say very great odds but they will prove contrary to expectation and the byass of their inclinations be turn'd a wrong way For whoever shall consider the flexibility of youth and how easily it is seduced and led aside by bad Examples and great temptations which do every where abound in the World cannot but think it a Miracle of Grace for youth to keep upright and unspotted from the World It may indeed much fortify and preserve youth against the Assaults and flatteries of Vice to be season'd with good and vertuous Principles But if they are never so carefully Educated and religiously brought up yet when they come fresh and green into the World they are ready to be bent any way and most likely to lean to the wrong side and to stand according to the bent of corrupt nature But questionless good Education will go a great way in making a good man and has a great stroke and influence upon the succeeding part of our life But yet 't is but a common supposition that that Vertue which was so secure and flourishing when it was confin'd within Walls and out of the reach of temptations may be in great hazard and danger when it comes abroad and to live in the Air and within the breath of temptations For a Cloyster may secure that Vertue which perhaps would be lost if it walkt at large and a School may send forth a good Lad which perhaps Liberty and Company may corrupt and spoil So that there is no depending upon or assurance of our Childrens Vertue whilst they are young and before they come to the Regions of Choice and make some experiment of themselves how tenacious they are of Vertue and how much they can hold out against the great and suitable temptations that are in the World and therefore we are very fond and foolish to promise to our selves great matters from our Children or to build over-much upon their future Vertue and to please our selves with thinking what rare men they will make and what great Comforts they will prove to us whereas we know not what great alterations time may produce and what years may bring forth For although we may dote upon our Children when they are young as David did upon his Darling Adonijah and applaud their Inclinations yet they may get to head and grow Masterless and disobedient and incorrigible as Adonijah was they may grow worse and worse as they grow older and as Jacob said upon another account may by their great undutifulness and ill behaviour bring down our gray hairs with sorrow to the Grave We are apt too apt indeed to mutter and repine at the Providence of God when he takes away our Children when they are young and of great hopes as we think and presume but God knows what manner of persons they might have been if they had liv'd whether they might have prov'd good or bad a joy or grief unto us What if these hopeful Children had liv'd to imbibe ill Principles to scoff at Virtue to deride the Being of a God and to make a mock of sin what if they had liv'd to be profane and irreligious and to prove such youths as we have some in these days should we then have thought their life a Blessing and not rather a Curse unto us and who knows but there was a great mixture of mercy in Gods Judgment upon David in taking away and bereaving him of his Child lest he should have prov'd one of bad inclinations as being sprung of a vitious Stock and as the vulgar Proverb says that which is bred in the bone will hardly ever out of the flesh We see how ill his other Children prov'd Tamar was defil'd and asham'd of her self Amnon was incestuous and brought a great stain upon his Family and his Dearest Absolom was both a Murderer and a Rebel and died in such a state of wickedness that David was exceedingly troubled at his going out of the World in such an impenitent condition mightily deploring his untimely Death and wishing if God had so pleas'd that he had laid down his life in exchange for his Sons speaking it with the greatest ingemination as a sign of the deepest sorrow O my Son Absolom my Son my Son would God I had died for thee O Absolom my Son my Son And if these Children of David prov'd so bad who knows but the Child that died might have prov'd as bad as any of the rest in case it had liv'd Ah Beloved we know not what manner of persons our Children will prove what their qualities and conditions may be and therefore we know not well what we do when we murmur at Gods removing them from
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
the title to and interest in them but reserves to himself a power of Revocation so as that he may demand them back at pleasure he only gives us the use and comfort of them for a time but never parts with the propriety or resigns up all his claim to them And besides we should consider that although God does put those Children into our power and under our jurisdiction which he is pleas'd to give us yet that Parents have not that absolute power over their Children that God has nor are they wholly at their disposal as to the great Issues of Life and Death which are only in Gods Hands And therefore though we may look upon our Children as our own as being flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone though we may appropriate them to our selves and reckon we have the best title to them of all our Possessions yet still God retains the supream right and has the first and oldest title to them and we are only deputed by God to be the Overseers and Guardians of our Children and therefore as God is pleased to commit our Children to our care for some time yet when he does not like they should be any longer under our tuition he does in mercy and kindness to them take them away when he sees it not good for them to continue with us he then to shew his Authority removes them from us and calls them home And therefore Parents would do well to consider that God has more right to their Children than themselves and that they are absolutely at his disposal but not at theirs that they have not that power of Life and Death over their Children which God has And therefore Parents have no reason to be in that Hurricane and storm of Passion upon the loss of their Children unless they are troubled that God should have his will more than they have theirs unless they are grieved that God should take upon him to dispose of their Children without their consent and liking which argues a great impiety of mind as if they thought that God was either unjust in taking away the Children from their right Owners or unmerciful in not sparing of their lives which was a greater comfort to them than all other enjoyments whereas it would be much better and tend to hush and silence all the sorrows of Parents for the loss of their Children to consider that they are but under-Proprietors of their Children and that they came first from God before they came to them and that as God is the donour of them so he may well be allow'd the disposal of them whether for Life or Death And besides it should be consider'd that Gods will is and ought to be supream and Master of ours and that we should patiently leave them to Gods will and pleasure when he does not think fit to leave them to ours It was an excellent saying and submissive speech of Jobs ch 1. 21. who when God was pleased to bereave him of all his Children by violent and unnatural Deaths and of all his Worldly goods too yet submitted to his great misfortunes with an invincible patience and mildness saying Naked came I out of my Mothers Womb and naked shall I return thither the Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord. Here is an Example beyond Example of Patience and quiet submission to the will of God in one of the greatest and severest trials imaginable here indeed is an Example fit for our imitation and should be drawn into practice upon the like occasion And it would highly become Parents and others and indeed is the duty of all to lay themselves at the will of God and with all humble Prostrations resign up their wills to his and to resign up their Children and Relations freely to him who first gave them freely to them And to say in like manner with Job God has indeed blessed us with Children but has not thought fit to continue them to us and though we could have been well content to have enjoy'd them if God had so pleas'd yet we are content to want them being he has thought it better both for them and for us to take them away The Lord has given and the Lord has taken away Blessed be the name of the Lord. Seneca will teach us otherwise in words to this purpose that we ought not to reckon all that we enjoy our own or to look upon our Children as a sure Inheritance and entailed upon us but consider that they are of the same uncertain hold and tenure as other outward blessings are that they are given us but for an uncertain time and that we must not promise to our selves any long or certain enjoyment of them if we are allow'd the use and benefit and comfort of our Children for a time 't is not fitting that we should mutter or think much to part with them when God demands his own and requires back what he only committed to us by way of lone but rather be in a readiness to part with our Children and all other blessings when God will not trust us with them any longer Having thus shew'd upon what considerations David might well cease sorrowing for his dead Child and which may be of excellent use and service to support and comfort others under the like losses and to prevent all excessive mourning for the Death of their Friends and Relations especially when they die young I shall now winde up the whole Discourse with a word or two First By way of Reproof Secondly By way of Exhortation First By way of Reproof to all those that are apt to quarrel with Providence and to entertain hard thoughts of God as if he were either unjust or unmerciful when he takes away their nearest and dearest Relations from them and do often in the bitterness of their Souls and the great anguish of their spirits charge God foolishly and speak unadvisedly with their lips and think they do well like Jonah to fret against the Almighty in that he deals with them after such a manner and will not suffer them to enjoy the desire of their Eyes and the joy of their Hearts so long as they wish and desire They assert with a great deal of sorrow that their Soul was wrapt up in the life of such and such a Child that it was an Absolom for its Beauty and a Solomon for its Wisdom and a Moses for its meekness and good nature that it was very pregnant and a great Wit and gave great and lively Specimens of future Vertue and Wisdom and therefore for God to deprive them of a Child that had naturally such Charms and whose vertuous temper and disposition did presage so much comfort to themselves and so great a benefit to the World must needs make deep and melancholy impressions upon their Spirits and put them into an extream Passion And thus Parents and others are apt to clamour against and censure the
dealings of an afflicting Providence when it comes home to them and touches them in part of themselves and such as they profess to love as dearly as their own Souls whereas 't is an utter fault in them thus to repine at the hand of God and they know not what Spirit they are of when they fall into such fits of Passion and paroxysms of discontent refusing like Rachel to be comforted because their Children and Relations are not and wish like Elijah in a pet that God would take away their life too for they are no better than those that are gone before them But is this like men or like Christians to be absorpt and swallowed up in a vortex of sorrow and to be carried away with such an Euroclydon and violent storm of Passion O the great folly and wickedness that is in the hearts of men thus to grumble at Providence and to be so much out of humour as to fall sick as Ahab did for very vexation that we cannot enjoy what we have a mind to and a great longing to possess So great and stupendous is our stubborness and obstinacy not to yield to Gods will nor submit to his pleasure but to take on and rave like mad people and to complain grievously like Laban that we have lost our Gods our greatest hopes and comforts when God has only taken away our Idols But we had best have a care that we be not so very impatient and outragious when God takes away our Relations from us and so cause and provoke him to write more bitter things against us and bereave us of all our Worldly Comforts and of the light of his favour and the supports of his Spirit which would be the greatest and sorest loss that can possibly befal us Secondly By way of Exhortation to Parents and all others who may be concern'd in the loss of Relations and Friends that they would endeavour to compose themselves to a quiet and humble and patient submission to the will of God in the severest of his dispensations that they would comport and demean themselves with that temper and moderation at the Death of their Friends as becomes Christians who profess a firm belief of a future Resurrection and a future life in glory and that they would banish all unkind and uncharitable thoughts of God when he is pleased to take away their Darlings and Favourites and quietly acquiesce in his Providence and endeavour to believe that what God doth is best both for themselves and their Relations saying with all humility and submission of Soul It is the Lord let him do what seemeth him good Thirdly It would be wisdom in all Parents and others to consider that their Children and Friends are mortal and of humane race and that they are born in order to die And so Seneca advises his Friend Marcia not to grieve or take on desperately for the loss of her Son but to consider that mortality was an appendage to humane Nature Et ex quo primum lucem vidit iter mortis ingressus est that he no sooner began to live but he began to die and that life is a constant journeying and properation to the Grave And 't is well worth our remembring what is reported of Anaxagoras that when he was warmly ingag'd in a Philosophical Disquisition and word was brought unto him that his Son was dead he did not seem in any disorder or to be discompos'd at the news but went on with his Discourse very smoothly and only made this reply That he knew that he was the Father of one that was mortal Anaxagorae inter familiares suos de natura rerum disserenti filii mortem nunciatam tradunt nihilque aliud ab eo responsum nisi se illum genuisse mortalem Cicero de Consola And therefore all persons to prevent the being so much troubled and startled at the Death of their Relations should often meditate on Death and be frequently possess'd with thoughts of their own and others mortality and when they live in a daily expectation of their own Death and those that belong unto them they cannot be amaz'd at the early Death of their Relations or sorely afflicted when it pleaseth God to take them away first For the looking upon the life of their Relations to be altogether as uncertain as their own must needs make their death more tolerable than when they reckon and depend upon their living quae multo antè praevisà sunt languidius incurrunt sayes Seneca When we think of a thing long before-hand it loses of its terror and we are not so much troubled at it when it actually comes So that if we did but consider that our Children and Relations are as mortal as our selves and that 't is no rarity for them to die before us we should not proceed to break our hearts with overmuch grief or to bury our selves in sorrow at the death of our Relations come it sooner or later But as Seneca observes In hoc omnes errore versamur ut non putemus ad mortem nisi senes inclinatosque jam urgere cum illò infantia statim juventa omnisque aetas ferat 't is a general error and popular to think that the Aged and the Decrepit must needs die first whereas the youngest are as liable to Death as they and are taken away every whit as soon And again in the same Consolatory Discourse Tot praeter Domum nostram ducuntur exequiae de morte non cogitamus tot acerba funera Nos togam nostrorum infantium nos militiam Paternae haereditatis successionem animo agitamus There are sayes he so many Funerals and spectacles of mortality pass by our doors every day and we do not regard them nor lay to heart this Death of others But we are thinking to make our Children fine and great and what great Heirs they will be after our decease But we think of nothing less than our Childrens dying which makes their death so very grievous and surprizing unto us Whereas by a due premeditation on death and forestalling it in our thoughts both our own death and that of our Relations would become less terrible and astonishing as being a thing which we every day expected and stood looking for Fourthly It would be very reasonable and prudential to command or check our passion in due time and not to let it spin out to too great a length For as Seneca tells Marcia that our tears cannot always flow nor our mourning last always Dolorem dies consumit quamvis contumacissimum a little time or a few days will exhaust the Fountain of our tears and drain it dry and overcome the most obstinate grief And Cicero says the same thing Quòd etiamsi nolis tempore tamen ipso extenuatur evanescit that is we must give over sorrowing at last whether we will or no and when we have wept so long that we can weep no more and therefore 't is a stark shame that our
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
believe it why do we bewail the Death of our Friends with so much bitterness and lamentation as if they were utterly lost and gone as if they were past all joys and comfort and were to perish for ever Si enim à miseriis abstrahit si in meliorem vitam inducit si neque misera ipsa est nec ullius particeps miseriae cur mala censetur sin hoc largitur ut sempiternis bonis potiamur vitamque quam mortalem habemus aeternam adipiscamur quid morte beatius esse possit that is says Cicero if we do really believe that death doth abstract and deliver us from the miseries of this World and sets us far out of harms way and that 't is an entrance and introduction to a better life then what reason have we to look upon it as such a sad and grievous thing to die But if it be further granted that Death puts us into the possession of Eternal and never-failing blessings and that it slides us from a short and fading to an Everlasting Life we are then to repute Death our best and dearest Friend in that it leads and ushers us to such Endless Happiness But if we do not believe a Resurrection why are we so rash and formal as to own an Article that we dare not rely on Ah! We little think that the greatest Atheist in the World cannot make a greater Argument against our Religion than we do our selves when we let loose the reins of our passions and refuse to be comforted for the dead and wound and pierce our hearts thorough with great and mighty sorrows thereby testifying that we little believe a Life to come or a better State than this is or that our Friends have exchang'd for the better and therefore we had best look to it and endeavour to curb and check our passions that we do not give occasion to our Enemies to blaspheme and say where is that Heaven that place of rest and blessedness which you so much talk of where is that Faith of a future Life and a judgment to come which you so zealously profess how can you perswade us that you believe what you profess seeing that upon the trial you are ready to kill your selves with very grief for the Death of your Friends and Relations and thereby give a strong suspicion that you think this World the best Paradise for your Friends to live in and the other the best only to talk of To conclude Let us endeavour to possess our hearts and minds with a firm hope and perswasion of a future State and Eternal Life and then we shall be the freer to think of our own Death and be less troubled to part with our Friends and Relations when God thinks fit to take them away Simplicius in his Comment upon Epictetus cap. 33. does rightly observe how variously we are affected at the Death of others and the Death of our own Relations 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 If we hear sayes he of the Death of anothers Wife or Children we are not much concern'd but put it off very slightly and say that their dying is no wonder at all and that there is no reason to be much troubled at it forasmuch as Death is natural and common to all But then sayes he when we happen to lose any of our own Relations we seem to have another guise opinion of Death and to change our note 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is We hear of and see the death and burial of others patiently enough and without being much troubled or inwardly concern'd but when it comes home to our selves and we lose any of our own dear Friends and Relations we are presently in a storm and rise into a supream passion and in the bitterness of our Souls cry out that we are miserable and undone and the unhappiest people in the World and that there is no loss like our loss and that none has such great afflictions as we and then there is nothing to be heard or seen but great Lamentations and Mourning and a huge Scene of sorrows In which words the Philosopher does rightly note our partiality to our selves and how that we esteem and look upon Death to be only unkind and cruel to our selves and those that belong to us and that we can hear and think kindly enough of it at a distance but when it comes nigh us and touches us in our Relations then we are all mutiny and confusion And therefore it is a great Argument of our folly and indiscretion to waver and alter so much in our opinion of Death as to entertain worse thoughts of it at one time than another For albeit the more than ordinary sympathy that is between us and our Relations may defend and justifie our sorrowing somewhat more for them than for perfect Strangers yet it is against common sense and reason that we should be so desperately disquieted at that Providence which deprives us of our Relations whereas we are so little concern'd at the common fatality of Mankind And therefore it behoves us in point of Prudence to labour to have always the same thoughts and opinions of Death and to count it no more cruel no more an Enemy when it seizeth upon our own flesh and blood than when it seizeth upon the rest of humane race And if we make no great matter of the death of others whom we see daily fall to the ground looking upon it as a natural thing for them to die so let us consider that 't is every whit as natural for our Relations to die and nothing happens to them but what is common to all flesh living And this consideration the Philosopher looks upon as very just and reasonable and prescribes it as an excellent Remedy and Antidote against all immoderate sorrowing for the loss of our dearest Friends and Relations But alas why do I urge such a poor consideration as that of Death being common to all men to asswage and mitigate our sorrows for the Dead as if any consideration in the World could do it more effectually than our Christian Hope and the belief of another and better life hereafter Some indeed may attempt and endeavour to quiet and silence their sorrows by Arguments drawn from reason and the acute sayings of Philosophers and think they may be able from meer natural courage and some bold principles to laugh at and despise Death as well as the Stoicks did in their high rants and sullen moods but no Arguments or the most stubborn Principles in the World can be of equal force with our Christian Hope for that purpose A Hope that opens to us the Casements of Heaven and represents to us in a great measure the glories of the Resurrection the exact and full knowledge whereof cannot be attain'd in this narrow state of mortality and is far transcending all humane reach and comprehension so that for me to go about to make a full and compleat description of the excellencies and perfections