A34689:4762
A practical commentary, or an exposition with observations, reasons, and uses upon the first…A practicall commentary, or an exposition with observations, reasons, and vses upon the first…
A practical commentary, or an exposition with observations, reasons, and uses upon the first Epistle general of John by ... John Cotton ...A practicall commentary, or an exposition with observations, reasons, and vses upon the first Epistle generall of John by ... John Cotton ...
London: printed by M.S. for Thomas Parkhurst, 1658
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Use 3. It may teach us to bemoan all those our friends that yet lye in the state of nature. Hast thou any child, or wife, or friends that lye in the state of nature, look at them as thy dead children, and dead friends; and if our friends lye dead, how bitterly do we mourn for them? Zach. 12.10. They so mourn, that they will not be comforted, Matth. 2.18. All was full of mourning, and lamentation, because all the children were dead, and have not many parents many children lying in their natural condition, and is not the spiritual death far worse then the bodily? if they be alive in grace, Blessed are the dead that dye in the Lord, Rev. 14.17. Therefore mourn not so […] for their natural death, but if they be spiritually dead, without God, without Christ, without the life of grace; why, weep then for this child and that friend that lies dead before you. It may be thy whole house is full of dead carcasses, not one child or servant alive. Oh! then weep over them, mourn for them, •e earnest to God for them, and never leave till thou hast got life propagated to them. And if thou dost th••, he […] hath given thee children will give them life, some of them at […] that promise is full, 1 John 5.16. If any man see his Brother sin a sin which is […] unto death, he shall ••k, and he shall g•ve him life. You may therefore so handle the matter, that as you have given them natural life, so you may give them spiritual life. You know what a sore and bitter cry there was in Egypt, so that they arose at midnight; why, what was the matter, there was not one house wherein one was not dead; what would they have done then, if there had been but one alive in every house? Such is the case of many families, that a man may rise up in the •••ing, and not find one alive in his family beside himself, it is a just occasion of bitter mourning, if there were but one dead, how much more then when there is hardly one alive? Therefore pray heartily for them, that their soul• may live in Gods sight. If you have the bowels of parents, be earnest with God till you have procured life for them.