to see one mercy left than that twenty are cut off They that know they have forfeited every mercy should be thankful that they enjoy any and patient when they loose many of their comforts Did we know God even that Soveraign Lord at whose dispose our comforts come and go who can the next moment blast all that remain and turn you into hell afterwards you would prize the mercies he yet indulges to you at an higher value Did you understand the fickle vanishing nature of the Creature what a flower what a bubble it is Oh how thankful would you be to find so many yet left in your possession Did you know the case of thousands as good yea better than you whose whole harvest of comfort in this world is but an handful to the gleanings of the comforts you still enjoy who in all their lives never were owners of such comfortable enjoyments as you now over-look surely you would not act as you do Beside What vile ingratitude is in this What! are all your remaining mercies worth nothing You have buried a child a friend Well but still you have a husband a wife other children or if not you have comfortable accommodations for your selves with health to enjoy them or if not yet you have the Ordinances of God it may be an interest in Christ and in the Covenant pardon of sin and hopes of glory What! and yet sink at this rate as if all your mercies comforts and hopes even in both worlds were buried in one grave Must Ichabod be written upon your best mercies because mortality is written upon one Fye fye What shameful ingratitude is here And really friend Such a carriage as this under the rod is no small provocation to the Lord to go on in Judgment and make a full end of all that remains so that affliction shall not rise up the second time What if God taking notice how little thou regardest the many undeserved favours thou yet possessest should say Well if thou think'st them not worth the owning neither do I think them worth the continuing Go death there 's a husband a wife other children yet left smite them all Go sickness and remove the health of his body yet left go losses and impoverish his estate yet left go reproach and blast his reputation which is yet sweet What would you think of this And yet if you be out of Christ you are in danger of a far sadder stroke than either or all yet mention'd What if God should say Prizest thou not my mercy Hast thou no value for my goodness and forbearance towards thee Is it nothing that I have spar'd thee thus long in thy sins and rebellions Well then I will stretch out my hand upon thy life cut off that thred which hath kept thee so many years from dropping into hell O think then what you have done by provoking the Lord through your vile ingratitude It s a dangerous thing to provoke God when he is already in a way of Judgement And if you be his own people and so out of the danger of this last and worst stroke yet know you have better mercies to lose than any you have yet lost Should God cloud your soul with doubts let loose Satan to buffet you remove joy and peace from your inner man How soon would you be convinced that the funeral of your dearest friend is but a trifle to this Well then Whatever God takes be still thankful for what he leaves It was the great sin of Israel in the wilderness that though God had delivered them from their cruel servitude in Egypt miraculously fed them in the desert and was leading them on to a Land flowing with milk and hony yet as soon as any want did but begin to pinch them presently all these mercies were forgotten and slighted Numb 14. 12. Would to God say they we had died in Egypt And Numb 11. 6. There is nothing at all beside this Mannah Beware of this O ye mourning and afflicted ones You see both the sin that is in it and the danger that attends it Secondly And no less sinful are our Sorrows When they so wholly ingulph our hearts that we either mind not at all or are little or nothing sensible of the publick evils and calamities which lye upon the Church and people of God Some Christians have such publick spirits that the Churches troubles swallow up their personal troubles Melanchton seemed to take little notice of the death of his child which he dearly loved being almost overwhelm'd with the miseries lying on the Church And it was a good evidence of the graciousness and publickness of Elies spirit who sitting in the gate anxiously waiting for tydings from the Army when the tydings came that Israel fled before the Philistins that his two Sons Hophni and Phineas were dead and that the Ark of God was taken just at the mention of that word The Ark of God before he heard out the whole narration his mind quickly presaging the issue he sank down and died 1 Sam. 4. 19 20. O that was the sinking the killing word had the messenger stopt at the death of his two Sons like enough he had supported that burden but the loss of the Ark was more to him than sons or daughters But how few such publick spirits appear even among Professors in this selfish generation May we not with the Apostle complain Phil. 2. 21. All seek their own and not the things that are of Christ. Few men have any great cares or designs lying beyond the bounds of their own private interests And what we say of cares is as true of sorrows if a child dye we are ready to dye too but publick calamities pierce us not How few suffer either their domestick comforts to be swallow'd up in the Churches troubles or their domestick troubles to be swallowed up by the Churches mercies Now when it is thus with us when we little regard what mercies or miseries lye upon others but are wholly intent upon our own afflictions this is a sinful sorrow and ought to be sorrowed for Thirdly Our Sorrows then become sinful and exorbitant When they divert us from or distract us in our dutys so that our intercourse with heaven is stopt and interrupted by them How long can we sit alone musing upon a dead Creature Here our thoughts easily flow but how hard to fix them upon the living God! When our hearts should be in heaven with our Christ they are in the grave with our dead May not many afflicted souls justly complain that their troubles have takenaway their Christ from them I mean as to sweet sensible communion and laid the dead child in his room Poor Creature cease to weep any longer for thy dead Relation and weep rather for thy dead heart Is this thy compliance with Gods design in afflicting thee What to grow a greater stranger to him than before Or is this the way to thy cure and comfort in affliction
A TOKEN FOR MOURNERS OR The Advice of Christ to a distressed Mother bewailing the Death of her Dear and only Son WHEREIN The Boundaries of Sorrow are duly fixed Excesses restrained the Common Pleas Answered and divers Rules for the support of Gods afflicted ones prescribed By J. F. Preacher of the Gospel of Christ at Dartmouth in Devon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Transivere patres simul hinc transibimus omnes In coelo patriam qui bene transit habet LONDON Printed for Robert Boulter at the Turks-head in Cornhill over against the Royal Exchange 1674. THE Epistle Dedicatory To his dearly beloved Brother and Sister Mr J. C. and Mrs. E. C. the Author wisheth Grace Mercy and Peace Dear Friends THE double tye of Nature and Grace beside the many endearing passages that for so many years have linked and glewed our affections so intimately cannot but beget a tender sympathy in me under all your troubles and make me say of every affliction which befalls you half mine I find it is with our affections as with the strings of Musical instruments exactly set at the same height if one be touched the other trembles though it be at some distance Our affections are one and so in a great measure have been our afflictions also You cannot forget that in the years lately past the Almighty visited my Tabernacle with the Rod and in one year cut off from it the root and the branch the tender Mother and the only Son What the effects of those strokes or rather of my own unmortified passions were I have felt and you and others have heard Surely I was as a Bullock unaccustomed to the Yoak Yea I may say with them Lam. 3. 19 20. Remembring mine affliction and my misery the wormwood and the gall my soul hath them still in remembrance and is humbled in me I dare not say that ever I felt my heart discontentedly rising and swelling against God no I could still justifie him when I most sensibly smarted by his hand if he had plunged me into a Sea of sorrow yet I could say in all that Sea of Sorrow there is not a drop of injustice But it was the over-heating and over-acting of my fond and unmortified affections and passions that made so sad impressions upon my body and cast me under those distempers which soon imbittered all my remaining comforts to me It was my earnest desire so soon as I had strength and opportunity for so great a Journey to visit you that so if the Lord had pleased I might both refresh and be refreshed by you after all my sad and disconsolate daye And you cannot imagine what content and pleasure I projected in that visit but it proved to us as all other Comforts of the same kind ordinarily do more in expectation than in fruition for how soon after our joyful meeting and embraces did the Lord overcast and darken our day by sending death into your Tabernacle to take away the desire of your eyes with a stroke to crop off that sweet and only bud from which we promised our selves so much Comfort But no more of that I fear I am gone too far already It is not my design to exasperate your troubles but to heal them and for that purpose have I sent you these papers which I hope may be of use both to you and many others in your condition since they are the after-fruits of my own troubles things that I commend not to you from another hand but which I have in some measure proved and tasted in my own tryals But I will not hold you longer here I have only a few things to desire for and from you and I have done The things I desire are First That you will not be too hasty to get off the yoak which God hath put upon your neck Remember when your child was in the Womb neither of you desired it should be delivered thence till Gods appointed time was fully come and now that you travail again with sorrow for its death O desire not to be delivered from your sorrows one moment before Gods time for your deliverance be fully come also Let patience have its perfect work that Comfort which comes in Gods way and season will stick by you and do you good indeed Secondly I desire that though you and your afflictions had a sad meeting yet you and they may have a Comfortable parting If they effect that upon your hearts which God sent them for I doubt not but you will give them a fair testimony when they go off If they obtain Gods blessing upon them in their operation surely they will have your blessing too at their valediction And what you entertained with fear you will dismiss with praise How sweet is it to hear the afflicted soul say when God is looseing his bands It 's good for me that I have been afflicted Thirdly I heartily wish that these searching afflictions may make the most satisfying discoveries that you may now see more of the evil of sin the vanity of the Creature and the fullness of Christ than ever you yet saw Afflictions are searchers and put the soul upon searching and trying its ways Lam. 3. 40. When our sin finds us out by affliction happy are we if by the light of affliction we find out sin Blessed is the man whom God chasteneth and teacheth out of his Law Psal. 94. 12. There are unseen causes many times of our troubles you have an advantage now to sift out the seeds and principles from which they spring Fourthly I wish that all the love and delight you bestowed upon your little one may now be placed to your greater advantage upon Jesus Christ and that the stream of your affection to him may be so much the stronger as there are now fewer chanels for it to be devided into If God will not have any part of your happiness to lye in children then let it wholly lye in himself If the Jealousie of the Lord hath removed that which drew away too much of your heart from him and hath spoken by this rod saying Stand aside child thou art in my way and fillest more room in thy Parents hearts than belongs to thee O then deliver up all to him and say Lord take the whole heart intirely and undividedly to thy self Henceforth let there be no parting sharing or deviding of the affections betwixt God and the Creature let all the streams meet and center in thee only Fifthly That you may be strengthned with all might in the inner man to all patience that the peace of God may keep your heart and mind Labour to bring your hearts to a meek submission to the rod of your Father We had Fathers of our flesh who corrected us and we gave them reverence shall we not much more be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live Is it comely for children to contest and strive with their Father Or is it the way to be freed from the yoak
in a civil notion So your sorrowing may sooner break your hearts than the yoak God hath laid on you Alas what is all this but as the fluttering of a bird in the net which instead of freeing doth but the more entangle it self It was therefore a wise resolve of David in this very case when the will of God was signified in the death of his child 2 Sam. 12. 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 Can I bring him back again No I can no more alter the purpose and work of God than I can change the seasons of of the year or alter the course of Sun Moon and Stars or disturb the order of day and night which are all unalterably established by a firm constitution and ordinance of heaven As these seasons cannot be changed by man so neither can this course and way of his providences be changed Job 23. 13. He is of one mind and who can turn him And what his soul desireth even that he doth Indeed whilst his pleasure and purpose are unknown to us there is room for fasting and prayer to prevent the thing we fear but when the purpose of God is manifested in the Issue and the stroke is given then it is the vainest thing in the world to fret and vex our selves as Davids servants thought he would do as soon as he should hear the child was dead but he was wiser than so his tears and cries to God before had the nature and use of means to prevent the affliction but when it was come and could not be prevented then they were of no use to no purpose in the world Wherefore should I fast q. d. To what end use or purpose will it be now Well then cast not away your strength and spirits to no advantage reserve them for future exercises and tryals Time may come that you may need all the strength you have and much more to support greater burthens than this 12. Consid. The Lord is able to restore all your lost comforts in Relations double to you if you meekly submit to him and patiently wait upon him under the rod. When Esau had lost his blessing he said Hast thou but one blessing my Father Gen. 27. 38. But your Father hath more blessings for you than one his name is The Father of mercies 2 Cor. 1. 3. He can beget and create as many mercies for you as he pleaseth Relations and the comforts of them are at his command It is but a few months or years past and these comforts whose loss you now lament were not in being nor did you know whence they should arise to you yet the Lord gave the word and commandèd them for you and if he please he can make the death of these but like a sythe to the Meadow that is mown down or a razor to the head that is shaved bare which though it lay you under the present trouble and reproach of barrenness yet doth but make way for a double increase a second spring with advantage So that as it was with the Captive Church in respect of her spiritual Children in the day of her Captivity and reproach the Lord made up all with advantage to her even to her own astonishment Isa. 49. 20. The children which thou shalt have after thou hast lost the other shall say again in thine ears the place is too straight for me give place to me that I may dwell Thus may he deal with you as to your natural children and Relations So that what the man of God said to Amaziah 2 Chron. 25. 9. may be applyed to the case in hand Amaziah said to the man of God but what shall we do for the hundred Talents And the man of God answered the Lord is able to give thee much more than this O say not what shall I do for friends and Relations Death hath rob'd me of all comfort in them Why the Lord is able to give you much more But then as ever you expect to see your future blessings multiplyed look to it and be careful that you neither dishonour God or grieve him by your unsubmissive and impatient carriage under the present Rod. God took away all Jobs children and that at one stroke and the stroke immediate and extraordinary and that when they were grown up and planted at least some of them in distinct families Yea whilst they were endearing each other by the mutual expressions of affection This must be yeilded to be an extraordinary tryal yet he meekly receives and patiently bears it from the hand of the Lord. You have heard of the patience of Job saith the Apostle Jam. 5. 11. and seen the end of the Lord. Not only the gracious end or intention of the Lord in all his afflictions but the happy end and Issue the Lord gave to all his afflictions of which you have the account Job 42. 10. The Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before The number of his children was not double to what he had as all his other comforts were but though the Lord only restored the same number to him again that he took away yet it 's like the comfort he had in these latter children was double to what he had in the former There 's nothing lost by waiting patiently and submitting willingly to the Lords dispose It is as easie with the Lord to revive as it is to remove your comforts in Relations There is a sweet expression to this purpose in Psal. 18. 28. For thou Lord wilt light my candle the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness Every comfortable enjoyment whether it be in Relations Estates Health or Friends is a candle lighted by Providence for our comfort in this world and they are but candles which will not alwaies last and those that last longest will be consumed and wasted at last but often times it falls out with them as with candles they are blown out before they are half consumed yea almost as soon as lighted up and then we are in darkness for the present It 's a dark hour with us when these comforts are put out but Davids faith did and ours may comfort us with this That he that blew out one candle can light up another Thou Lord shalt light my candle the Lord my God shall enlighten my darkness that is the Lord will renew my comforts alter the present sad estate I am in and chase away that trouble and darkness which at present lies upon me Only beware of offending him at whose beck your lights and comforts come and go Michall displeased the Lord and therefore had no child unto the day of her death 2 Sam. 6. 23. Hanah waited humbly upon the Lord for the blessing of children and the Lord remembred her he enlightened her condition with that comfort when she was as a Lamp despised There 's no comfort you have lost but God
this rod for doth not all this sorrow at parting plainly speak how much your heart was set upon how fast your heart was glewed to this earthly comfort Now you see that your affections were sunk many degrees deeper into the creature than you were aware of and what should God do in this case by you Should he suffer you to cleave to the creature more and more Should he permit it to purloin and exhaust your love and delight and steal away your heart from himself This he could not do and love you The more impatient you are under this affliction the more need you had of it And what if by this stroke the Lord will awaken your drowzy soul and recover you out of that pleasant but dangerous spiritual slumber you were fallen into whilst you had pillowed your head upon this pleasant sensible creature-enjoyment Is not this really better for you than if he should say sleep on He is joyned to Idols let him alone he is departing from me the fountain to a broken Cistern let him go Yea What if by this stroke upon one of the pleasantest things you had in this world God will discover to you more sensibly and effectually than ever the vanity both of that and all other earthly comforts so as that you shall from henceforth never let forth your heart your hope your love and delight to any of them as you did before you could talk before of the creatures vanity but I question whether ever you had so clear and convincing a sight of its vanity as you have this day And is not this a considerable mercy in your eyes Now if ever God is weaning you from all fond opinions and vain expectations from this world by this your Judgment of the creatures is rectified and your affections to all other enjoyments on earth moderated And is this nothing O doubtless it 's a greater mercy to you than to have your friend alive again And what if by this rod your wandering gadding heart shall be whipt home to God Your neglected duties revived your decayed Communion with God restored a spiritual heavenly frame of heart recovered What will you say then Surely you will bless that merciful hand which removed the obstructions and adore the divine wisdom and goodness that by such a device as this recover'd you to himself Now you can pray more constantly more spiritually more affectionately than before Oh blessed rod which buds and blossoms with such fruits as these Let this be written among your best mercies for you shall have cause to adore and bless God eternally for this beneficial affliction 17. Consid. Suffer not your selves to be transported by impatience and swallowed up of grief because God hath excercised you under a smart rod for as smarting as it is it 's comparatively a gentle stroke to what others as good as your selves have felt Your dear Relation is dead be it so here is but a single death before you but others have seen many deaths contrived into one upon their Relations to which yours is nothing Zedekiah saw his children murdred before his eyes and then had those eyes alas too late put out The worthy Author of that excellent book foremention'd tells us of a choice and godly Gentlewomanin the North of Ireland who when the Rebellion brake out there fled with three children one of them upon the brest they had not gone far before they were stript naked by the Irish who to admiration spared their lives its like concluding that cold and hunger would kill them afterwards going on at the foot of a River which runs to Locheach others met them and will have them cast into the River but this godly woman not dismai'd asked a little liberty to pray and as she lay naked on the frozen ground got resolution not to go on her own feet to so unjust a death upon which having called her and she refusing was drag'd by the heels along that rugged way to be cast in with her little ones and company But she then turned and on her knees says you should I am sure be Christians and men I see you are in taking away our miserable lives you do us a pleasure But know that as we never wronged you nor yours you must remember to dye also your selves and one day give an account of this cruelty to the Judge of heaven and earth hereupon they resolved not to murder them with their own hands but turned them all naked upon a small Island in the River without any provision there to perish The next day the two boys having crept aside found the hide of a beast which had been killed at the root of a tree which the Mother cast over them lying upon the Snow The next day a little boat goes by unto whom she calls for Gods sake to take them out but they being Irish refused they desired a little bread but they said they had none then she begs a coal of fire which she obtained and thus with some fallen chips made a little fire and the children taking a piece of the hide laid it on the coals and began to gnaw the Leather but without an extraordinary divine support what could this do Thus they lived ten days without any visible means of help having no bread but ice and snow nor drink except water The two boys being near starved she pressed them to go out of her sight not able to see their death yet God delivered them as miraculously at last as he had supported them all that while But judge whether a natural death in an ordinary way be comparable to such a tryal as this And yet thus the Lord did by this choice and eminently gracious woman And Mr. Wall in his none-but-Christ relates as sad a passage of a poor Family in Germany who were driven to that extremity in the famine that at last the Parents made a motion one to the other to sell one of the children for bread to sustain themselves and the rest but when they came to consider which child it should be their hearts so relented and yerned upon every one that they resolved rather all to dye together Yea we read in Lam. 4. 10. The hands of the pitiful women have sodden their own children But what speak I of these extremities how many parents yea some godly ones too have lived to see their children dying in prophaneness and some by the hand of Justice lamenting their Rebellions with a rope about their necks Ah Reader little dost thou know what stings there are in the afflictions of others Surely you have no reason to think the Lord hath dealt more bitterly with you than any It 's a gentle stroke a merciful dispensation if you compare it with what others have felt 18. Consid. If God be your God you have really lost nothing by the removal of any creature-comfort God is the Fountain of all true comfort creatures the very best and sweetest are but Cisterns to receive