dispersions into all the quarters and corners of the world should be revolved back again bone to bone and skin to skin and every dust to its own dust it shall clearly be expounded in the mirror of the divine understanding Acts 26.8 The Saints themselves are both Instances and Expositions of that Text. and exemplified in the counter-part thereof the bodies of the Saints then it shall no longer be thought a thing incredible that God should raise the dead All the hard places of Scripture that vex the profoundest Divines and make the Believer sigh out his How can I understand except some man should guide me shall then be expounded in the Original text of eternal verity Acts 8.31 without looking into any other Commentary and oh what joy will that be to understand the whole Bible without study 2 Peter 3.17 There shall be in the glorified understanding at the Schools say Cognitio clara lucid clara fixa contemplatio omnium naturaliter scibilium even above its primitive capacity The Soul shall be indeed at its full 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Then the meanest understanding shall be able to confute all the depths and fallacies of Jesuitical seducers whereby they have darkened the Truth and led away the willingly ignorant into their pernicious errors and doctrines of Devils In a word All the Arcana of Nature and all the Mysteries of Philosophy properly so called with all occult things under the Sun and the highest speculations of this neather Orb in the painful and knotty disquisition whereof the greatest Masters of secular learning have tired themselves almost to distraction and upon the gaining of some little supposed satisfaction wherein they have so much gloried and insulted over other men shall now be made easie and familiar to the Saints the very A B C of Heaven and only worth a cast of their eyes either as such knowledge came from God or as it leads them unto God again For the use of this last branch of the heavenly vision Vse It may serve to moderate and restrain that inordinate curiosity in our natures to be looking into dark and hidden mysteries There is a concupiscence in the understanding lusting after forbidden knowledge as there is in the will after forbidden fruit we inherit both from our first Father and Mother they affected a knowledge above the capacity of their natures they would know as God knoweth universally intuitively and at once but by such an ambition of knowing more than they ought they forfeited what they had which was sufficient to have made them happy and while they aspired to be as God which made them they became like the beasts that perish It was the presumption of the Bethshemites they would be prying into the Ark though they died for it and there is a pride and wantonness in our nature 1 Sam. 6.19 which sets us a prying into Arcana Coeli the hidden and secret councels of God Adam's Children are yet sick of his disease they would fain be as wise as God and know all things But the secret things belong unto the Lord our God but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children for ever that we may do them And in these revealed things there is matter enough to exercise our studies had we Methusalem's lease of life sealed to us In the revealed things of God there is so much yet unrevealed and therefore left unrevealed that we might search and dig into them Prov. 2 3 4. with the addition of a promise to encourage industry Then shall we know Hosea 6.3 Ars longa vita brevis Mâ—aeima pars corum quae scimus est minima pars eorum qua nescimus if we follow on to know the Lord so much I say that when we have travell'd many years in the disquisition and search thereof we may fit down and complain our lives are too short for our work and truly confess that the greatest part of what we know is nothing to what we are ignorant of Oh that upon those studies Christians would lay out their time and spirits proving what is that goood and acceptable and perfect will of God And therefore study to know it that they may do it for to such is the promise John 7.17 If any man will do his will he shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God Oh this is excellent when Christians study to know that they may do and not that they may know only and so doing they shall know and so knowing they shall do this will keep open the passage between the head and the heart That the man of God may be perfect 2 Tim. 3.17 thoroughly furnished unto all good works But in the time according to the Apostle his Caution Rom. 12.3 It is our duty to be wise to sobriety and it is our sobriety not to be wise where God would have us to be ignorant 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Of that hour knoweth no man no not the Angels of heaven behold the very Angels of God who for their knowledge are called Angels of light Mark 12.32 are yet in this point of the last day contented to be in the dark and the Evangelist hath an addition of a higher consideration neither the Son but the Father whether the sence be that the humane nature of Christ is absolutely ignorant of that day or knoweth it only by revelation from the divine nature the document is the same viz. on this side glory to be contented to know no more than God hath revealed where Scripture is silent there to be willing to be ignorant And for our encouragement and satisfaction keep this consideration alive upon your hearts we shall not alwayes be ignorant secret things shall not alwayes be secret the time is coming when Mysteries shall be Revelations when we shall be able to read that in the original which we cannot now so much as spell out in the translation nor in any measure understand with the help of all our Commentaries It was that which much comforted that precious Saint and Martyr Mr. Câ—lamy c. Mr. Christopher Love while he was prisoner in the Tower The day before he died divers of his learned godly Brethren came to take their last farewell of him as being never to see him more untill they saw him ascending to and with their common Lord and Redeemer they fell into a discourse of the joyes of Heaven a discourse sutable to that solemn parting and in that discourse meeting with some difficulty which the Scripture had not determined and so being silenced that holy man with a smiling countenance and looking upward to Heaven brake forth into these words or others like them Well said he to morrow by this time I shall fully understand this mystery and it will be no difficulty unto me It is indeed a most satisfying contemplation that the time is coming when we shall be ignorant of nothing but know
marg for Acts 13.19 read 3 19 page 145 marg for Matt. 5.27 read 5 17 page 155 marg for Psa 30 3. read 130 3. PART 3. page 2 marg for Luke 21 46 read 21 36 marg for Rev. 3 2 r. 14 4 page 8 line 16 for Mat. 24.21 read 24 51 page 29 marg for Matt. 8 10 read 18 10 page 30 marg for Joh. read 1 Joh. page 31 marg for Gen. 13 24 30. read 32 24 30 page 34 marg for Psal 48 2 read 84 2 page 38. marg for 1 King 4 25 read 4 29 page 46 marg for Maâ— read Matth. page â—â— marg for Mark 12 32 read 13 32 page 60 line 31 for Matr. 25 24 r ad 25 34 page 62 marg for Matt 18 1. read 8 11. page 79 marg for Rom. read Revel page 81 marg for Eph. 5 1. read 4 24 page 110 marg for 2 Thes 1 9. read 2 Cor. 4 4. page 125 marg for 2 Cor. read 1 Cor page 132 line 13. for Cant 6 12 read 7 12 page 135 marg for 1 Cor 9 52. read 9.25 page 150. marg for 1 Pet. 1 18. read 1.8 page 153. line 1â— for Psal 94.10 read 94.19 p. 164. l. 20. for 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 read 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In the first Epistle Dedicatory p. â— l. 6. for weak r. mean In the second Epistle Dedicatory are these 3 pages mistaken in the Title vâ—z p. 7 p. 10 p. 11. for The Epistle to the Reader read The Epistle Dedicatory And in the same Epistle page 9. l. 9. for their excess read this excess page 10. line 3. r. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 MOVNT PISGAH OR WORDS of COMFORT OVER THE Death of our Gratious Relations 1 Thes 4.18 Wherefore Comfort one another with these Words THese words what words are these Scripture words in their general Nature more particularly the Words of Comfort conteyned in this Context from v. 13. I would not have you to be ignorant Brethren c. down to my Text. For therein doth the Apostle by the dictate of the Holy Ghost lay down a model or platforme of Consolatory Arguments as so many soveraign Antidotes against immoderate sorrow for our pretious Relations which are departed And with these words the Apostle would have Christians be able to comfort themselves and one another Comfort one another with these words For the handling of the Text I will do these two things 1. I will shew you what these words are and open the sense and meaning of them as they lye in the order and method of the Context 2. I will improve them for 1. Comfort 2. Counsel For the first of these The words of Comfort laid down by the Apostle in this model 10 Words of Comfort may be reduced unto 10 Heads some of them very comprehensive and all of them like mother of Pearl dissolved exceeding Cordial and Restorative The first word of Comfort is this The first word of Comfort namely That our pretious Relations over whose departure we stand mourning and weeping are but fallen asleep I would not have you ignorant Brethren concerning them which are asleep We may say of departed Saints as our Saviour said concerning the Damsel Math. 9.24 They are not dead but sleep the same phrase he also used to his Disciples concerning Lazarus John 11.11 our Friend Lazarus sleepeth A notion which the Disciples at first understood not because their understandings were not yet inlightened they dreamed of a natural sleep saith the Text of taking Rest in sleep And yet as men in their sleep do somtimes dream true so did they in this dream of theirs speak truer than they were aware of they said Lord if he sleeps he shall do well it is true indeed the Saints of God do but sleep when they lye down in the Grave that which we call death in such is not death indeed It is but the Image of Death the shadow and metaphor of death deaths younger Brother a meer sleep and no more The Holy Ghost who best knoweth what things be hath phrased it so and that not so little as twenty times in Scripture to shew that it was not a sudden expression incautelously dropt from the Pen of any one of the Secretaries of Holy Writ but the true proper and genuine notion of death suggested to them by the infallible dictate of the Spirit of God they do but sleep and if they sleep they shall do well their sleep shall be sweet unto them as sweet as once the Prophets was Jer. 31.26 I shall not follow the Analogy that is between Death and Sleep in the latitude of it sufficient to our purpose it will be to take notice of two main properties of Death which do carry in them a lively resemblance of sleep The first is Isâ— Ligath suâ—â—â— That sleep is nothing else but the binding up of the senses for a little time a locking up of the Doores and shutting of the Windows of the body for a season that so nature may take the sweeter Rest and Repose being freed from all disturbance and distractions Sleep is but a meer Paerenthesis to the Labours and Travels of this present life Secondly Sleep is but a partial privation a privation of the Act only not of the Habit of Reason They that sleep in the Night do awake again in the Morning then there is a regress or return of the habit to its Act again The Soul returneth to the discharge of all her Offices again In the internal faculties to the act of Judging and discourse in the Intellect to recalling things for the present and recording things for future use in the memory It returns to its Empire and command in the will to its judicature in the Conscience Excusing Accusing Condemning Et sic in caeteris So likewise the soul returns again to the execution of all her functions in the external senses to seeing in the eye to hearing in the ear to tasting in the pallate as also to working in the hands to walking in the feet and so in the rest In a word the whole man is Redivivus restored again to its self as it were by a new * Providentia est continuata Creatio Creation that which lay as senseless and useless tantum non dead all the night is raised again more vive and fresh and active in the morning than it lay down at night Such a thing as this for all the world is that which we commonly call Death but with this considerable advantage that in the interim of Death the soul acts more vigorously than before as being released from the weights and intanglements of the body First It is but a longer and closer binding up of the senses Nature's long vacation The Grave is a bed wherein the body is laid to Rest with its Curtains drawn close about it that it may not be disturbed in its repose so the Holy Ghost pleaseth to phrase it Isa 57.2 He
12. Ch. 5.8 Their patient bearing of the Cross Their keeping of the word of God in the precepts of it and keeping close to it in the Truth of it Their superlative Love to Christ Math. 10.37 Their Cordial Love to the Saints 1 Jo. 3.14 Their Contempt of the World 1 Jo. 2.15 Their Love of Christs appearance 2 Tim. 4.8 In a word Their conformity to Christ their Head Rom. 8.29 These and the like Divine Vertues although not seldome more visible to a judicious stander by than to themselves and not to be weighed but with some graines of allowance in the ballance of the Sanctuary these I say may administer abundant matter of hope and rejoycing to surviving Friends that those Relations which are fallen asleep were a people whom God hath set apart for himself pretious in his sight honourable and beloved of him a people formed for himself to shew forth his praise Col s 1.13 and made meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in Light Yea even in them whose Sun goes down in the morning of their Youth A teachable Spirit Math. 13.16 Isa 28.9 71 Psal 5. Jo. 16.8 1 John 2.13 John 17.3 Pious Inclinations Sense of a lost Estate by Nature A Competent knowledge of God and of Jesus Christ in his Offices A real sense of the need and use of Christ 1 Pet. 2.7 2 Tim. 3.15 Ps 119.13 An early acquaintance with the Scriptures A good understanding of the Word Preached not without some savour of it Respects to Gods Sabbaths And in a word 1 Kings 14.13 Any good thing toward the Lord God of Israel These early Impressions I say where ever they are found though according to different ages and capacities more or less legible in them are so many hopeful Indiciums that God hath been at work upon their hearts betimes and that he doth not untimely take them away in judgment but are polished Jewels which he hath of special grace laid up and secured from the violence and prophanation of a reprobate world Nay once more Those very Babes and Sucklings whom God is pleased to remove from us very early snatched from their Mothers Breasts yea possibly who pass swiftly from the Womb of their Natural Mother unto the belly of the Earth their Original Mother even these I say they being A Covenant seed Appendices of their believing Parents Children of promise Act. 2.39 Consecrated unto God by their Baptisme or by the Tears and Prayers of their holy Parents in the want of it having a right to the mercies 1 Cor. 7.14 Rom. 9.11 Mar. 10.4 Luk. 1.44 Gal. 1.15 Renatiante quam nati Aug. priviledges of the Covenant as well as to Baptisme Among whom is dispersed God the Father's Election God the Son's purchase God the Holy Ghost's Influence and Operation Even these are not to be looked upon as a lost Generation but may in the warrantable judgment of Scripture Charity be hopefully reputed for an Holy Seed Gods adopted Children owned by Christ and in him heires co-heires of the Kingdome of Heaven by special prerogative advanced to their Inheritance as it were before their time Upon this Foundation stands our hope concerning our Godly Relations which are fallen asleep of what age or state soever we are not to mourn for them even as others which have no hope Let them mourn excessively who know not the Scriptures nor the power of God in raising the Dead who bury their Relations and their hopes together in one Grave but you that upon these Scripture evidences have good hope through grace concerning your deceased Friends that while you are mourning on Earth they are rejoycing in Heaven that whiles you are Cloathed with black they are Cloathed in white even in the long white Robes of Christs Righteousness while you are rooling your selves in the Dunghil they are sitting with Christ upon his Throne Do not I beseech you profane your Scriptural hope with an unscriptural mourning give not the world occasion to judge either your selves to live without Faith or your Relations to dye without hope but let your Christian moderation be known to all men that it may be a visible Testimony to all the world of God's grace in them and of your hopes of their glory with God Therefore comfort one another with this word also A third word of comfort followeth and that is A third word of Comfort Our gratious Relations are not alone in their Death The Captain of their Salvation did march before them through those black Regions of Death and the Grave Jesus died this is implied in the following words If we believe that Jesus died This is a third consolatory Argument and it carryeth in it strong consolation Our sweet Relations in dying run no other hazard than Abraham Isaac and Jacob did no other hazard than all the Patriarchs and Prophets and Apostles did in their generations they all died and were resolved into their first dust Yea what shall I say They run no other hazard than the Lord of all the Patriarchs Prophets and Apostles did Jesus died this is wonderful indeed the Lord of Life died The eternal Son of God was laid in the Grave If our Children die we know we begot them mortal The Son of God had no principle of mortality in him * i.e. No sin in him to deserve it nor disease to cause it and yet he died Be our Children never so precious to us they cannot be so pretious to us God forbid they should as the Lord Jesus was to His Father who testifies concerning him from Heaven with a loud voyce This is my well-beloved Son Math. 3.17 in whom my Soul is well pleased And yet God gave up this well beloved of his Soul to the death Jesus died And we indeed justly Death is but our wages wages as truly earned as ever was a penny by the poor hireling for his days labour both we and our Off-spring have forfeited our lives over and over again by continual reiterated Treasons against the supreme Majesty of Heaven and Earth yea the best blood which runs in our veins is Traytors blood by succession from our first Rebellious Parents for which God might justly have executed the sentence at first imposed even as soon as ever we draw our first breath Thou shalt dye the death Gen. 3. But He what evil had he done He was holy harmless undefiled Heb. 7.26 Isa 53.61.71 Heb. Ho hath made the iniquity of us all to meet in him separate from sinners He did no sin neither was there guile found in his mouth He fulfilled all Righteousness and yet Jesus dyed And why so Surely he was wounded for our Transgressions he was bruised for our Iniquities the Chastisement of our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed we all like Sheep have gone astray we have turned every one to his own way and the Lord hath laid upon him the Iniquity
Egyptian Paradise if these can make Moses happy they are at his service he may be where he will and do what he please oh dangerous temptation Did it not take What 's the reason Why faith here also stept in to Moses his rescue Moses by his piercing eye of faith did quickly discern a double blemish in the face of pleasure though it was never so artificially painted i. e. First They were but the pleasures of sin fit for nothing but to defile the soul and to render it unmeet for communion with God wherein consists the highest felicity of the humane or of the Angelical nature sensitive pleasures have more of dregs intellectual more of the quintessence the pleasure of the Bee is more refined than the pleasure of a Swine 2. Again another fault he finds in pleasures is their brevity as they were the pleasures of sin 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so they were but for a season as impure as they were they had no duration they perish in the using so soon doth the pleasure of an Epicure wither he eats and drinks and dieth before his morsel or his draught be swallowed The pleasure of tast is but in fine polati just when it is going off Anacreon in the midst of his cups was choaked with the husk or kernel of a grape so did Epicurus himself dye with a cup of wine at his mouth and this was the end of their summum bonum the sweetest pleasures are the shortest Moses his Spirit was to august to be filled with a little poysoned air But. 3. This offer also thus despised the Mammon of Egypt presents its self to Moses money may tempt him that is not taken with beauty What say you Moses all the treasures of Egypt attend your Highness ready to make you one of the richest Monarchs in the world for so at that time Egypt was for Jewels Gold Silver precious Stones all the peculiar treasure of Kings the most opulentous of all Kingdoms round about the very Magazine of the world Moses need never to fear being poor any more Is not this enough to make a man happy No not a Moses Insatiabilu divitiarum gurges Tacit. Germana ista bestia non curat pecunia◠a covetous Mammonist might have taken it down with a grateful swallow such an one as Felix was that infatiable gulf of riches as the Historian calls him but Moses as the Papists once said of Luther could not be caught with money The reproach of Christ was a mountain of infinitely more valuable invaluable treasure esteeming the reproach of Christ i. e. Christ in the promise or the reproach of the Church which is Christ mystical 1 Cor. 12.12 Oh saith Moses let me be counted worthy to suffer reproach for Christ and his peoples sake and I desire no more riches in the world How so Moses faith did clearly out-bid all the proffers of Egypt he looks within the vail Heb. 11.26 fixing his eye upon the recompence of neward and there he discovered such honours pleasures treasures as eye never saw 1 Cor. 2.9 ear never heard nor can enter into the heart of man in comparison whereof all the preferments delights and riches of Egypt were but as so many gilded erowns painted banquets insignificant cyphers ten thousand of which in the summa totalis make just nothing Thus Moses turns his back upon the world and all her glittering elements Valde protestot◠son monon ito setiori à Deo protesting as it were as it is said of Luther that God should not turn him off with these things he had weighed them in the ballance of faith and found them too light to make a summum bonum of there wanted something within 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Such an account doth the Apostle Paul that Evangelical Moses bring in concerning the whole visible world when it was as it were set forth to sale in all its splendour and gallantry to what Merchants would bid for it Paul would offer nothing but passeth by in an holy scorn and will not so much as cast an eye upon it Oculo irrotorto 1. Cor. 4.13 We look not at the things which are seen but at the things which are not seen How much doth the judgment of Saints differ from the judgment of the men of the world the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 things which fall under sight and sence were Paul's nothings but they are the men of the worlds only solid substances and realities è contra the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 invisible things of eternity they were in the holy Apostle his estimation the only entities and real beings but in the judgment of the men of the world they are the only chimera's and shadows which have no more being than what they have in the fancy so far were the things of the world from being able to make up an happiness for a rational Creature that the Apostle accounts them not worth a look unless it be of contempt and derision which account that ye may know did not proceed from pride and singularity but from a well-informed judgment he gives us the ground or reason of it scil the perishing nature of things visible they are 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 but for the present moment as Moses even now sum'd them up for a season and how short a season no man can tell Psal 14.1 Well hath holy David called the Atheist a fool The fool hath said in his heart there is no God And why sayes he so Because he cannot see God a fool indeed If God could be seen he were not God whatever falls under sight and sense to be sure is subject to mutation Is this a fit thing to make a beatitude of No upon this very account the wise man calls off our eyes and hearts from all sublunary fruitions as most insufficient to make up a felicity for a Creature which God hath ennobled with a rational faculty wilt thou set thine eyes upon that which is not Mark Prov. 23.9 the most proper title which the wisdom of God can give these seen things is a non-entity the world in all its ruffe and bravery is nothing else but a spectrum an apparation a meer non ens a great goodly gilded nothing and why so but upon the account of their lubricity and fickleness there is no more staying of them than of the running stream or wind or bird in the air for riches verily make themselves wings riches i.e. whatever it is which men make their confidence they make themselves wings a metaphor from a bird in the nest it is hatched naked yet feathers out of the very nature of the bird if no hand take it out of the nest yet in short time it will take wings and fly away just so it is with riches of what species soever if the plunderer or oppressours the thief fire inundations c. give them no wings they will quickly give themselves wings and take their slight
thy self that speakest to my Soul that I may say It is the voice of my Beloved c. Christians I know God may and doth oftentimes convey his comforts by the lips of his faithful Messengers and Servants Isai 40.1 Comfort ye comfort ye my people saith your God speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem c. speak to her heart as the Hebrew phraseth it I say the Prophets were but Gods mouth to deliver the message and so are the Ministers of the Gospel and other of his Saints but be sure the comforts which you administer be Gods comforts see that ye can say with the Apostle in another case 1 Cor. 11.13 That which I have received of the Lord deliver I unto you Be sure what you dispence from God be these words be sure your words of comfort be none but such as Christ himself would speak were he upon the place Do not my words do good Mic. 17. Jer. â—3 28. saith the Lord Yes they be Gods words only that can comfort fainting souls But what is the chasse to the wheat saith the Lord It is true the Devil and the World have their counterfeit Cordials their guilded Pills and Plaisters which like Quacksalvers make quick Cures but they never heal to the bottom they may for a time stupifie the sense but they do not mortifie sensuality ease the smart but not cleanse the wound Saul when the evil Spirit was upon him calls for a Fiddle and when God hath forsaken him he goes to the Witch as if because God would not answer him the Devil should Most people have learn'd a way of their own some to drink down their sorrow and sleep out the sense of those breaches which God hath made upon their Relations or in a crowd of worldly business can lose their sorrows yea many carnal Professours there are when they have disturbed their peace and wounded their Consciences can make a shift to lick themselves whole with their duties a few Pater-nosters Church-absolution a morsel of Sacramental bread and a drop of the Sacramental cup will make them as well as ever though that which stilleth conscience never killeth corruptions what a world of souls doth Satan gain by such cures Eating and drinking damnation to themselves 1 Cor. 11.30 In this affliction of the loss of dear Relations the World when she comes to visit the surviving Mourners wants not her Cordials but oh what pitiful puddle water instead of water of life doth she administer We must be contented say they there is no remedy God will have it so we cannot help it and however their friends have lived in-grace-a-God they are well we must live by the living and not by the dead and with such dirty rags as these they bind up one anothers dreadful stinking wounds or peradventure others there be that with the stout shoulder of fortune may bear their wounds without complaining some Porters can carry greater loads than others can or else on the other hand some corky spirits ye have whom much lead will not make sink in the waters of affliction But alas all these are but lying vanities and will stand men in least stead when they stand in most need of comfort Oh that men had faith to believe that all these are Physitians of no value Christs words are the only words of comfort Then shall we be ever with the Lord. So our Lord again Let not your heart be troubled John 14.1 2. ye believe in God believe also in me in my Fathers house are many mansions With thee is the fountain of life Psal 36.9 and in thy light we shall see light These these indeed are Apples of gold which when they meet with Pictures of silver Prov. 25.11 hearts truly capable of such consolation are very beautiful Comfort one another with these words Hence be we instructed 7. Branch of Information If it be the duty of Christians to administer words of comfort to Mourners then it is also the duty of Mourners to open their ears and hearts to receive those words if those Apples of Gold meet not with pictures of silver they are lost and cast away If God should send an Angel or any Messenger of peace to comfort you in your trouble what a sin would it be to make him go away ashamed with an Who hath believed our report Or Lord I have delivered thy message and all thy precious Cordials were of no value I know there be few or none of Gods Mourners that dare do this in terminis in express language but what and if a deaf ear and a dejected countenance and a dead heart unchearful conversation alter all the words of comfort which God sends thee by his Messengers be soâ— with God by interpretation May not this provoke God to afflict thee more and to increase thy sorrows until the pride of thy heart be abated May I not say unto thee as Joab to David when he grew sullen upon the death of Absalom Thou hast shamed the face of Gods Messengers â— Sâ—m 19.5 and hast declared that the consolations of God are small in thine eyes Now therefore arise and thankfully embrace their message of peace or else it may be worse unto thee than all the evil that befell thee from thy youth until now Surely it is as great an indignity to slight Gods comforts as it is to scorn Gods counsels this spurns against Gods Authority that tramples upon his compassion this man doth resist the Spirit that man doth grieve the Spirit and if thou grieve away the Comforter who shall comfort thee at length If David took the affront which Hanun put on his Messengers sent to comfort him over his Fathers death so heinously that he armeth Joab and all his men of war against him to avenge the indignity how justly may God send forth Armies of afflictions against thee for thy sullen refusal of his tender hearted consolations Surely there is more pride in such refusals than Christians are easily convinc'd of for is it not by interpretation to say my loss is not to be repaired my wound is incurable there is no balm in Gilead that can heal thy hurt Is it not as if thou shouldst say there was but one intollerable thing in the world and God must needs send that upon thee Dear Christian be afraid by thy frowardness of running the hazard of such an interpretation That Question of Eliphaz to Job Jâ—b 15.11 Are the consolations of God small with thee implieth greater unkindness in refusing divine comfort than Mourners are willing to believe God could not do thee wrong in taking away thy amiable Relation from thee it was but calling for his loan again which he lent thee and yet doth he send to comfort thee Oh how thy head and worship and say Behold the servant of the Lord be it unto me according to thy Word Poor disconsolate soul know thou that every crumb of comfort which falls from Christs mouth is