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,…

Q. 8. Is not that sorrow for your dead over-much which doth deaden your Heart towards God in all Holy Duties? You were wont to pray with a lively Heart, and to hear the Word of God with warm Affections, but now you pray with a dead Heart, and hear with dull Affections. Your Love, and Desires, and Delights are become as cold in your Duties, as your Relations Corps are in the Grave: What have you done in your sorrow, taken away a lively Heart towards God, and laid a dead Child, a dead Father, or Wife in the room of it? Like the Woman in Solomon's Reign, whose Child did die in the Night, and there being another ⟨p. 130⟩Woman in the House that had a living Child, rose, and while the living Child's Mother did sleep, took her living Child out of her Bosom, and laid her dead Child in her Bosom in the room of the living Child: But these two Women contended before Solomon, one saying, The living Child is mine, but the dead Child is thine; the other also said, The dead Child is thine, but the living Child is mine, 1 Kings 3.16 to 24. Solomon commanded a Sword to be brought to divide the living Child, and to give half to the one, and half to the other. The true Mothers Bowels yearning towards her Child, said, O my Lord, give her the living Child, and by no means slay it; the other said, Let it be neither mine nor thine, but divide it; whereby the King discerned the Natural Mother, and commanded the living Child to be given to her, ver. 24, 25, 26, 27.

Q. 8. Is not that sorrow for your dead over-much which doth deaden your Heart towards God in all Holy Duties? You were wont to pray with a lively Heart, and to hear the Word of God with warm Affections, but now you pray with a dead Heart, and hear with dull Affections. Your Love, and Desires, and Delights are become as cold in your Duties, as your Relations Corps are in the Grave: What have you done in your sorrow, taken away a lively Heart towards God, and laid a dead Child, a dead Father, or Wife in the room of it? Like the Woman in Solomon's Reign, whose Child did die in the Night, and there being another ⟨p. 130⟩Woman in the House that had a living Child, rose, and while the living Child's Mother did sl•ep, took her living Child out of her Bosom, and laid her dead Child in her Bosom in the room of the living Child: But these two Women contended before Solomon, one saying, The living Child is mine, but the dead Child is thine; the other also said, The dead Child is thine, but the living Child is mine,