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. IV. Ten Aggravations of Want of Sorrow for our Dead.

1. Want of sorrow, and sense of Gods Afflicting Hand, is not Patience but Stupidity; not Submission but Rebellion; not Heroical Fortitude of Mind, but a Sottishness of Spirit. Is that Patience, when you feel no smart or suffering? Is that Submission to his Will, when you have no feeling of his Rod? Is it patient yielding to his Hand, when you have no sense of the smart of the Rod that by his Hand is laid upon you? Submission in this case hath these Requisites in it. (1.) A desire of the continuance of the Relation, before it was taken from us. (2.) A thankfulness of Heart, if God would have continued the Relation to us. (3.) A sense of the Loss that hath befallen us. (4.) A reckoning of all the Inconveniences, and discomfort of our Lives by their removal by Death; and yet, (5.) A quieting of our Hearts under God's dealings with us in taking them away from us; because it was his Will in his Wisdom so to do unto us. But if you did not desire ⟨p. 36⟩their continuance; but rather, for Carnal, Worldly, Selfish Ends, their removal; could not have been thankful for their Life, but secretly glad of their Death, still for sinful, selfish Ends, have no sense of the Loss, nor did esteem it a Loss, but some Advantage, and please your selves with reckoning the conveniences you have by their Death; will you blind the World, or your selves, by calling your unsensibleness of Gods Hand in their Death, a submitting to the Hand and Will of God? However, take heed, that you go not about to impose upon God himself the Searcher of your Hearts, with such a blind as this is. When you have such love unto, and care of, and desire after the continuance of your Children •s Job had, and such a sense of their Death, as he, of his, and y•t carry it, as he did, we will call yours a submission, as his was,