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,…

CHAP. II. The First Doctrine, proved by Scripture Instances and Reasons.

Doct. I. THE Actings and Workings of Sorrow in the Living, for the Dead, are allowed, and lawful, and ought to be.

For he saith not, Do not sorrow at all; this defect or want of sorrow is so far from becoming Christians, that it is unworthy of a Man as a Man. How incongruous is it, for a Man to sorrow for a dead Beast, that lays not to Heart the Death of a Child, or of some nearer and greater Relation? There are too many Stoics in practice in this point, that are not so in Opinion. At the Losses of the World, sorrow fills their Hearts; you may see their Tears, you may hear their Groans, and bitter Complaints, I am undone, this Loss is my Ruin: And the sense of this, and sorrow for it shall last long, m•y •hey will not stick •o tell you, they shall never get over it, but it will break their Hearts: But these that melt like Wax for a Worldly Loss, are as hard and senseless as a Stone, not regarding the D••th of a Wife of their Bosom, of a Child of their Loins, or a Brother from the same Parents; but have a ⟨p. 11⟩secret gladness in their Hearts, when their Children die, because they have the fewer to maintain; or a weak and sickly Wife by Death is taken away, because the burden of the charge is thereby eased. Lord! what kind of Christians are these, that have not so much value for an Humane Body, nor an Immortal Soul, as for the more ignoble things of this World, without Life, or Sense, or Reason! This horrid and unnatural Sin against the Lives of their Parents, is in too many Children, who expecting the Possession of their Goods and Estates at their Death, think they live too long, long for their Decease; and though they may clothe themselves in Mourning to follow them to their Graves, yet secretly please themselves that they are gone, and their Riches come to them. Neither may any please themselves with Stoical Apathy, or want of grief and sorrow for the Death of Relations, because they were wicked and ungodly, lived and died in Sin, which should rather increase than diminish their mourning for them; for must not that Man have an Heart of Stone that is neither moved for the Death of the Body, nor for the Damnation of the Soul of any so near in relation to him? Is it nothing to such a Man that the Body is consumed in the Grave, and the Soul tormented in Hell? Is it nothing that the Body is meat for Worms, and the Soul a prey to Devils? As there is no greater alleviation of