A39690:196
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing…
A token for mourners, or, The advice of Christ to a distressed mother bewailing the death of her dear and only son wherein the boundaries of sorrow are duly fixed, excesses restrained, the common pleas answered, and divers rules for the support of Gods afflicted ones prescribed / by J.F.
London: printed for Robert Boulter, 1674
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.
And I cannot doubt but Abraham disciplined his family as strictly as any of you, never man received an higher encomium from God upon that account, Gen. 18. 19. I know him, that he will command his children and his household after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord. Nor can I think but he bestowed as many and as frequent prayers for his children; and particularly for his Ishmael, as any of you: We find one, and that a very pathetical one recorded, Gen. 17. 18. O that Ishmael might live before thee: and yet you know how he proved, a son that yielded him no more comfort, than Esau did to Jacob and Rebekah.
And I cannot doubt but Abraham disciplin'd his family as strictly as any of you, never man received an higher encomium from God upon that account, Gen. 18. 19. I know him, that he will command his children and his houshold after him; and they shall keep the way of the Lord. Nor can I think but he bestowed as many and as frequent prayers for his children; and particularly for his Ishmael, as any of you: We find one, and that a very pathetical one recorded, Gen. 17. 18. O that Ishmael might live before thee: and yet you know how he proved, a son that yeilded him no more comfort, than Esau did to Jacob and Rebeccah.
O how much more common is it for parents to see the vices and evils of their children, than their virtues and graces? And where one parent lives to rejoice in ⟨p. 64⟩beholding the grace of God shining forth in the life of his child; there are twenty, it may be an hundred, that live to behold, to their vexation and grief, the workings of corruption in them.
O how much more common is it for parents to see the vices and evils of their children, than their vertues and graces? And where one parent lives to rejoice in