A36322:189
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.
Q. 5. Is not that sorrow too much for your dead, which is more than you have for your sin? Is not sorrow upon the account of some present evil that is upon us, as joy is for some present good? and should not the degree of our sorrow bear some proportion to the greatness of the evil that is the cause and reason of our sorrow? ⟨p. 125⟩Is not sin against God a greater evil than any (besides sin) doth fall upon us? Is not your own dead heart, and cold affections towards God, a greater evil than the dead Corps, and cold Flesh in the Grave, which is the cause of all this sorrow? Now when your sorrow is more for the lesser evil, than it is for the greater, judge if your sorrow for the greater is not too small, and your sorrow for the lesser, over-much and excessive?
Q. 5. Is not that sorrow too much for your dead, which is more than you have for your sin? Is not sorrow upon the account of some present evil that is upon us, as joy is for some present good? and should not the degree of our sorrow bear some proportion to the greatness of the evil that is the cause and reason of our sorrow? ⟨p. 125⟩Is not sin against God a greater evil than any (besides sin) doth fall upon us? Is not your own dead heart, and cold affections towards God, a greater evil than the dead Corps, and cold Flesh in the Grave, which is the cause of all this sorrow? Now when your sorrow is more for the lesser evil, than it is for the greater, judge if your sorrow for the greater is not too small, and your sorrow for the lesser•, over-much and excessive?
Q. 6. Is not that sorrow over-much, which carries our thoughts down into the Grave, to think of their Dead Corps, but hinders them from ascending into Heaven, to meditate upon the the Eternal Ever-living God? What a shame and reproach is it to us, that a dead Wife, or a dead Child, or a dead Father or Mother, should have more of our Thoughts, than God, and Christ, and things above? and that the Bodies of our departed Relations consuming in their Graves, should have more of our thoughts, than their Souls triumphing in Heaven have? that it is so, our excessive sorrow doth testify to our faces; for we cannot say, nor do pretend to sorrow for the Soul in Heaven;