But may not that which is my Sorrow to day, be some of yours to morrow? Or within a little time will it not, must it not be done to you and yours, which at the present is done to me and mine? Are not your Relations mortal as well as ours was? And if you have not sinned so much as we, yet have not you so much Sin, as might call Death into your Houses? Will not Death shortly knock at your doors, and enquire who lives here, upon this design that there they may die? Will it not break through your strongest Gates, scale your highest Walls, climb up to your Windows, enter into your Chambers, come into your very Beds, and take the Wife out of your Bosom, and the sucking Child from the Mothers Brest? Will it not in a few Days and Nights more, tear and rend from you the desire of your Eyes, tho you would hold them fast in your Arms? Shall not the shriekings be heard in your Houses, as lately were in mine, and the doleful cry go round; while one Child begins, saying, My Mother, alas, my dear Mother is dead! and another shall echo to the voice of the former, with weeping Eyes, with wringing of Hands, and bitterness of Soul, shall say, What shall I do? what shall I do? My tender, loving Mother is dead! my Mother is dead! I could never say so before, and the first time it is said, it is a sorrowful saying. May Sin invite Death into your Families, saying, Come in thou Messenger ⟨p. 4⟩of the Lord, come in; here is one deserves to dye, and there is another, seize him, and hale him out, apprehend him, and take him away; he lives not as he should, let him die as he ought. May it shortly be said by you, my Wife is dead, my Husband is dead; and is Grace and Nature in you so equally poised, and have you such a just temperament and mixture of both, as not to sorrow less or more than you ought; that now your Relations are round about your Tables, and no ones place is empty; you might not at present hear, for time so shortly to come, what might be said concerning Sorrow for the dead, and cure your ignorance concerning them which are asleep; that you sorrow not as others which have no hope: or tho they dye, yet you sorrow not, as such do not, that have neither Faith, nor Hope, nor natural Affection.
But may not that which is my Sorrow to day, be some of yours to morrow? Or within a little time will it not, must it not be done to you and yours, which at the present is done to me and mine? Are not your Relations mortal as well as ours was? And if you have not sinned so much as we, yet have not you so much Sin, as might call Death into your Houses? Will not Death shortly knock at your doors, and enquire who lives here, upon this design that there they may die? Will it not break through your strongest Gates, scale your highest Walls, climbe up to your Windows, enter into your Chambers, come into your very Beds, and take the Wife out of your Bosome, and the sucking Child from the Mothers Brest? Will it not in a few Days and Nights more, tear and rend from you the desire of your Eyes, tho you would hold them fast in your Arms? Shall not the shriekings be heard in your Houses, as lately were in mine, and the doleful cry go round; while one Child begins, saying, My Mother, alas, my dear Mother is dead! and another shall eccho to the voice of the former, with weeping Eyes, with wringing of Hands, and bitterness of Soul, shall say, What shall I do? what shall I do? My tender, loving Mother is dead! my Mother is dead! I could never say so before, and the first time it is said, it is a sorrowful saying. May Sin invite Death into your Families, saying, Come in thou Messenger ⟨p. 4⟩of the Lord, come in; here is one deserves to dye, and there is another, seize him, and hale him out, apprehend him, and take him away; he lives not as he should, let him die as he ought. May it shortly be said by you, my Wife is dead, my Husband is dead; and is Grace and Nature in you so equally poized, and have you such a just temperament and mixture of both, as not to sorrow less or more than you ought; that now your Relations are round about your Tables, and no ones place is empty; you might not at present hear, for time so shortly to come, what might be said concerning Sorrow for the dead, and cure your ignorance concerning them which are asleep; that you sorrow not as others which have no hope: or tho they dye, yet you sorrow not, as such do not, that have neither Faith, nor Hope, nor natural Affection.
