Mount Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…Movnt Pisgah, or, A prospect of heaven being an exposition on the fourth chapter…

Hence be we instructed, ¹If 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; uncheerful conversation alter all the words of comfort, which God sends thee by his Messengers, be so• 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, ²and 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 ⟨p. 157⟩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?

Hence be we instructed, ¹If 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 so 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,