A36322:143
The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extremes, defect,…The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extreams, defect,…
The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extremes, defect, excess of sorrow for his dead to which is added, The mourners soliloquy / by Thomas Doolittle ...The mourner directory, guiding him to the middle way betwixt the two extreams, defect, excess of sorrow for his dead to which is added, The mourners soliloquy / by Thomas Doolittle ...
London: printed by J.A. for Tho. Cockeril, 1693
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.
CHAP. VIII. Contains Eight Rules concerning the degrees of Sorrow for the Dead.
First, The Rules concerning the kinds and degrees of our Sorrow for the dead, are such as these.
First, THe Rules concerning the kinds and degrees of our Sorrow for the dead, are such as these.
Rule 1. Our Sorrow is not so much for the Death of a Stranger, as for the Death of a suitable and intimate Acquaintance. At the hearing of the Death of one, whom we had no Conversation with, we might entertain some Sorrow as he was one partaker of the same Humane Nature with us; as he was one that became liable to Death by the Sin of Adam, the common Parent of us all; as Death is a penal Evil upon Mankind, as Adam's Off-spring, and which God would not remit, nor except us from, when he called Adam to an Account for the Sin he had committed; and as he had a Rational and Immortal Soul, that is passed into Eternity, tho we know not to what State in that Eternity.
Rule 2. Our sorrow is not usually so much for an intimate Acquaintance when he dies, as for the death of Relations, except there be some other Circumstances that might alter the Case. For an intimate Friend that dieth, the sweet Converse, the Affableness of his Carriage, the Comfort in his Company, the Kindnesses he hath done, might oblige me to mourn for an evil (as death is) that hath befallen him; for if it would have been matter of sorrow to me to hear he was Sick, or cast into Prison, would not the same Principle and Love bind me to sorrow, when he is lodged in the Grave: But all these and such like enumerated Circumstances there might be in a Relation; and besides these, some nearer natural Obligation, as partakers of the same Flesh and Blood, in a more immediate sense than all Mankind in Adam were; and this might add degrees of sorrow to what is the sorrow for an intimate Friend when he dieth. For being nearer by Bonds of Nature to us, the greater the sorrow when by death those Bonds are broke asunder.