Selected quad for the lemma: woman_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
woman_n	child_n	dead_a	womb_n	1,519	5	10.1213	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A39690	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.	Flavel, John, 1630?-1691.	1674 (1674)	Wing F1197; ESTC R26707	66,956	170

Lord Jesus here am I a poor guilty sinner deeply laden with sin fear and trouble upon one hand and there is a just God a severe Law and everlasting burnings on the other hand but blessed be God O blessed be God for Jesus the Mediator who interposeth betwixt me and it Thou art the only door of hope at which I can escape thy blood the only means of my pardon and salvation Thou hast said Come unto me all ye that Labor and are heavy Laden Thou hast promised that he that cometh to thee shall in no wise be cast out Blessed Jesus thy poor creature cometh to thee upon these encouragements I come O but it is with many staggerings with many doubts and fears of the Issue yet I am willing to come and make a Covenant with thee this day I take thee this day to be my Lord and submit heartily to all thy disposals Do what thou wilt with me or with mine let me be rich or poor any thing or nothing in this world I am willing to be as thou wouldst have me And I do likewise give my self to thee this day to be thine all I am all I have shall be thine thine to serve thee and thine to be disposed at thy pleasure Thou shalt henceforth be my highest Lord my chiefest good my last end Now Christian make good to Christ what thou so solemnly promisedst him He I say He hath disposed of this thy dear Relation as pleased him and is thereby trying thy uprightness in the Covenant which thou madest with him Now where is the satisfaction and content thou promisedst to take in all his disposals Where is that Covenanted submission to his Will Didst thou except this affliction that is come upon thee Didst tell him Lord I will be content thou shalt when thou pleasest take any thing I have save only this Husband this Wife or this dear child I reserve this out of the bargain I shall never endure that thou shouldst kill this comfort If so thou didst in all this but prove thy self an hypocrite If thou wast sincere in thy Covenant as Christ had no reserves on his part so thou hadst none on thine It was all without any exception thou then resignedst to him and now wilt thou go back from thy word as one that had out promised himself and repents the bargain Or at least as one that hath forgotten these solemn transactions in the dayes of thy distress Wherein hath Christ failed in one tittle that he promised thee Charge him if thou canst with the least unfaithfulness He hath been faithful to a tittle on his part O be thou so upon thine this day its put to the proof remember what thou hast promised him 8. Consid. But if thy Covenant with God will not quiet thee yet methinks Gods Covenant with thee might be presumed to do it Is thy family which was lately hopeful and flourishing a peaceful Tabernacle now broken up and scattered Thy posterity from which thou raisedst up to thy self great expectations of comfort in old age cut off So that thou art now like neither to have a name or memorial left thee in the earth Dost thou sit alone and mourn to think whitherto thy hopes and comforts are now come Dost read over these words of Job Chap. 29. 1 2 3 4 5. and comment upon them with many tears O that I were as in months past as in the day when God preserved me when his candle shined upon my head and when by his light I walked through darkness As I was in the dayes of my youth when the secret of God was upon my Tabernacle when the Almighty was yet with me when my children were about me Yet let the Covenant God hath made with thee comfort thee in this thy desolate condition You know what domestick troubles holy David met with in a sad succession not only from the death of children but which was much worse from the wicked lives of his children There was Incest Murder and Rebellion in his Family a far sorer tryal than death in their infancy could have been And yet see how sweetly he relieves himself from the Covenant of grace in 2 Sam. 23. 5. Although my house be not so with God yet he hath made with me an everlasting Covenant ordered in all things and sure for this is all my salvation and my desire although he make it not to grow I know this place principally refers to Christ who was to spring out of Davids Family according to Gods Covenant made with him in that behalf And yet I doubt not but it hath another though less principal aspect upon his own family over all the afflictions and troubles whereof the Covenant of God with him did abundantly comfort him And as it comforted him although his house did not increase and those that were left were not such as he desired So it may abundantly comfort you also whatever troubles or deaths be upon your families who have an interest in the Covenant For First If you be Gods Covenant people though he may afflict yet he will never forget you Psal. 3. 5. He is ever mindful of his Covenant You are as much upon his heart in your deepest afflictions as in the greatest flourish of your prosperity You find it hard to forget your child though it be now turned to an heap of corruption and loathsome rottenness O how doth your mind run upon it night and day your thoughts tire not upon that object Why surely its much more easie for you to forget your dear child whilst living and most endearing much more when dead and undesireable than it is for your God to forget you Isa. 49. 15. Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion upon the son of her womb Yea they may forget yet will not I forget thee Can a woman the more affectionate sex forget her sucking child her own child and not a nursing child her own child whilst it hangs on the brest and together with the milk from the breast draws love from its mothers heart Can such a thing as this be in nature Possibly it may for creature love is fickle and variable But I will not forget thee it s an everlasting Covenant Secondly As he will never forget you in your troubles so he will order all your troubles for your good It s a well ordered Covenant or a Covenant orderly disposed So that every thing shall work together for your good The Covenant so orders all your tryals ranks and disposes your various troubles so as that they shall in their orders and places sweetly co-operate and joyn their united influences to make you happy Possibly you can't see how the present affliction should be for your good you are ready to say with Jacob Gen. 42. 36. Joseph is not and Simeon is not and ye will take Benjamin away all these things are against me But could you once see how sweetly and orderly all these afflictions

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